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7 votes
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After men in Spain got paternity leave, they wanted fewer kids
17 votes -
Making playgrounds a little more dangerous
12 votes -
It’s time to stop referring to maternity leave as “generous”
10 votes -
Secrets of a Maya supermom: What parenting books don't tell you
7 votes -
What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right
66 votes -
What number of kids makes parents happiest?
7 votes -
World health officials take a hard line on screen time for kids. Will busy parents comply?
8 votes -
The first ever World Health Organisation (WHO) physical activity guidelines for under-fives, recommend no screen time for one-year-olds and no more than an hour for two- to-four-year-olds.
An article on a parenting website: Guidance recommends no screen time for under-twos An article in Time magazine: World Health Organization Issues First-Ever Screen Time Guidelines for Young Kids....
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An article on a parenting website: Guidance recommends no screen time for under-twos
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An article in Time magazine: World Health Organization Issues First-Ever Screen Time Guidelines for Young Kids. Here's What to Know
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The WHO's press release: To grow up healthy, children need to sit less and play more
26 votes -
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The cost of having children - women lose earnings for five years after childbirth
12 votes -
Tickling
19 votes -
How parents are robbing their children of adulthood
18 votes -
Groomed by a grandfather: A mother discovers that her children have been sexually abused by a close relative for years.
3 votes -
How Inuit parents teach kids to control their anger
17 votes -
Trying to figure out my personal craziness
I hope this is the appropriate Tilde for this. If no one has any input it will still have helped me to type this out. TL;DR In over my head with marriage, foster care, family, and work. My wife...
I hope this is the appropriate Tilde for this. If no one has any input it will still have helped me to type this out.
TL;DR In over my head with marriage, foster care, family, and work.
My wife and I became foster parents about 1.5 years ago with the intention to not adopt, but to care for children 3 and under while bio parents worked to regain custody or other permanent placements were arranged. Our first placement was two girls (7 mo and 2.5 yrs) despite wanting to do just one kid at a time (especially to start). We had them for 6 weeks and mom got them back. We had another placement (8 mo boy) for about another 6 weeks. There was a considerable lull and we were getting frustrated about not getting any new placements when the girls from our first placement were placed into custody again. So we were able to take them in again (now about 1.2 and 3.5 yrs). FF to now and we've had them for about 6 months.
We never really intended to have more than one child and for quite this long and we're struggling. My wife has always had a little less ability to weather stressful situations like this and these last 2-3 weeks I'm carrying a lot of weight. In the meantime, bio mom has gotten pregnant and there's not another hearing regarding custody for another 9 months. We fully expect that she will not be able to take them back at that time (or really realistically ever). What should probably happen would be that the county could place the kids into permanent custody (basically getting them adopted). However, from what we've heard from other foster families, temporary custody could drag on for years.
So, our main dilemma is this. We are not equipped (as a couple) to care for these kids for years. With the likely prospect of no change in custody in the near future, it feels like the best thing for these kids would be to get them into the care of someone looking to do this long-term, perhaps to eventually adopt. That being said, we absolutely love them and it feels like some kind of betrayal to force them to make yet another transition. On the other hand, with our limitations, it seems like that is inevitable anyway. Do we try to make that happen sooner?
Some other data points:
Our fostering license expires in October (about a month after the hearing is scheduled) and we don't intend to continue fostering (at least for a while, and definitely not with our current agency).
We don't have many family members close by to give us a hand with the kids, making us feel isolated and making it hard to get breaks from the kids. Our agency has not been very helpful with lining up respite care, but we're trying to be more aggressive about that now.
I've got things pretty well lined up to retire in about 5 years. My company is also just now kicking off a major project of a similar time frame and I'm in a good position to really make a mark before moving on. It will probably require some serious time commitments and effort to do it the way I want to.Thanks for listening.
12 votes -
When a Newton family welcomed a baby who is deaf, twenty neighbors learned sign language
10 votes -
How to grant your child an inner life
8 votes -
Let children get bored again
23 votes -
In the era of spellcheck and auto-correct, does it matter that my son can’t spell?
10 votes -
Father-daughter relationships strengthened with these three connectors
5 votes -
The relentlessness of modern parenting
12 votes -
The invisible experiences of first-time Gen-X mothers
4 votes -
Every city should have a toy library
11 votes -
Family matters: Why a 27-year-old Canadian woman chose to be single and pregnant
5 votes -
Modern STEM toys don't do a good job of educating because they're just toys, not tools
11 votes -
Why parenting is both the toughest and most rewarding gig
7 votes -
Mum's voice makes better smoke alarm for children
3 votes -
Baby box safety doubts raised by experts
5 votes -
Why aren't most women represented in the last names of their children?
14 votes -
'We need to know the sex. If it’s a girl we are going to terminate it'
25 votes -
When a DNA test reveals your daughter is not your biological child
11 votes -
Seeing Grease with my son opened my eyes to how problematic it is
32 votes -
How well-intentioned White families can perpetuate racism
20 votes -
Parents: have your kids been affected by age-inappropriate content?
I was having a conversation with one of my coworkers who mentioned that her child showed a fascination with scary, Halloween-type stuff starting around age 6. She and her husband had a hard time...
I was having a conversation with one of my coworkers who mentioned that her child showed a fascination with scary, Halloween-type stuff starting around age 6. She and her husband had a hard time with whether they should let him enjoy it or limit it. They weren't sure whether to let him read scary books or watch spooky stuff on YouTube, particularly because it's the type of content that can very easily be age-inappropriate--especially for a 6 year old. Nevertheless, it was relatively easy for them to keep it to stuff like Jack-o-Lanterns and black cats since he was so young.
The boy is now older but has retained his interest, and the parents are still struggling with decisions about allowable content, especially because he is starting to age into books and movies that deal with much darker stuff, particularly ideas about death/violence.
I'm not a parent, but I am a teacher, and I have to admit that I'm uncomfortable with some of the stuff my students are exposed to. Over the years I've heard students as young as twelve discuss horror movies like the Saw series or The Human Centipede. I've had middle school students bring books like Gone Girl and 50 Shades of Gray to class. On one hand, I think kids are resilient, and I think a lot of the more difficult or disturbing stuff doesn't quite land for them because they don't really have a context into which to put it yet. I also believe that fictional media is a mostly safe way for us to explore troubling or disturbing ideas.
On the other hand, I think the internet has caused our children to grow up a lot faster than they used to, as they are exposed to mature content (whether intentionally or accidentally) from a very early age. When I was growing up the worst I could do was check out a slightly-risqué book from the school library and hope my parents never found it in my backpack. Now kids are watching violent (often real-world) and pornographic content starting as young as elementary school. Nothing can make your heart sink quite like sixth graders talking excitedly over lunch about a video of a real person getting crushed to death.
What I genuinely don't know is if this has any negative developmental effect. Am I just clutching my pearls here? I'd love to hear some parents talk about how they've handled the decision of what's right for their kids and whether they've had fallout from their kids consuming content that's not appropriate for them.
26 votes -
Edmonton daycare asks parents to bring helmets for the playground
6 votes -
Let's stop pretending working mothers are getting a fair go
8 votes -
Why I let my daughter wear makeup to school
13 votes -
The mismatch between the school day and the work day creates a child-care crisis between 3 and 5 p.m. that has parents scrambling for options
16 votes -
To raise confident, independent kids, some parents are trying to 'let grow'
15 votes -
"How to raise a human" NPR series
7 votes -
Child care is broken. Silicon Valley thinks it can fix that, too
5 votes -
The memoir by Steve Jobs' daughter makes clear he was a truly rotten person whose bad behavior was repeatedly enabled by those around him
17 votes -
What I think the anti-bullying books get wrong
8 votes -
Three's a crowd: Millennials are shifting Australia's family values
12 votes -
What style of parent are you? It affects how much your children remember.
10 votes -
My son, Osama: The al-Qaida leader’s mother speaks for the first time
11 votes -
Letters to the editor in response to "Motherhood in the Age of Fear"
7 votes -
Motherhood in the age of fear
11 votes -
The 'great divide' in women's friendships
8 votes -
The everyday sexism I face as a stay-at-home dad
26 votes