I'm just spouting here. Today I feel old, yet I'm mid 40s. My eldest daughter today is 18. We had a family party for her yesterday and it was lovely.

It's so crazy where the years go. As I sit here, the 3.5 year old plays Duplo by the sofa on a lazy Sunday, the two other late teenagers upstairs and still not out of bed, I wonder what happens when they all leave and the house becomes peaceful.

I have a long time to go with the youngest having arrived while I'm in the later years for having a child, he will practically grow up a single sibling. Holidays are certainly going to get cheaper in the long term.

I think my son is the cutest six-month-old that has ever lived, but damn, this month has been so hard.

We all had COVID in the beginning of March, so my wife and I burned a bunch of sick days while being very ill, exhausted, and awake all night with a screaming baby. Screaming.

He got better for about 2 days and then immediately got a nasty cold which he kindly passed to us. More sick days, more screaming, less sleep than we got with COVID.

The cold turned into an ear infection after two weeks of horrible congestion, so his doctor put him on Amoxicillin. Except the Amoxicillin didn't work on the ear infection after 9 days of treatment. Oh, and he started having bloody diarrhea.

We went to the doctor immediately and they said, "Oh, yeah, that's definitely blood and that's not great. We're going to try a different antibiotic now and send his stool to get tested."

Then, my washing machine, which was full of diarrhea pajamas, broke down. After several hours of tear down, I was able to drain it and replace the drain pump.

Washing machine was working great, except the gasket/seal on the door is old and didn't go back on properly during the repair. Water on the floor (minor leak, no big) and now have to deal with replacing that.

Meanwhile, the kid still doesn't sleep at night and seems to communicate mainly through crying, whining, and grunting. The fact that he isn't babbling, squealing, or mimicking us is honestly a little stressful. He's six months old and I'm seeing him "become conscious" in a lot of really amazing ways. His laugh is absolutely incredible, he plays with toys in what seems like a pretty advanced way, he is crushing his physical and cognitive milestones way ahead of schedule, but he has a handful of social milestones he hasn't hit yet. My wife has autism in her family and I have ADHD, so any developmental delays are obviously pretty concerning to me. He is making eye contact and laughing though, so I guess that's good.

I really shouldn't complain. I'm a teacher and we just had a week off. Most people don't get that. But I'm so exhausted and work tomorrow just sounds daunting. We can't send the kiddo to daycare with bloody diarrhea and I seriously cannot take any more sick days this year. I guess one silver lining is that my mother-in-law came up from out of state when my wife told her she was losing her sanity over all of this. So, we do have a couple days of childcare covered this week.

Tl;Dr: Month from hell.

Edit: I'll add a positive. He was super funny and full of laughs today and yesterday during the day time (night time still isn't fun). He also seemed to get a little scared during the eclipse today during totality, and I think that's adorable in a way. He did a pouty whine and only stopped when I put him closer to me and let him see my face.

Anyone else want to share some war stories?

Last night my daughter's toddler bed fell apart and I had to fix it. Some screws had come loose so it was an easy fix. Brought my toolbox into their (her and her twin brother's) room around bed time, fixed the bed, then began the usual bedtime routine. My wife and I left the room and that was that.

Except I left my toolbox in there because I'm forgetful. And you'd think the pokey screwdrivers, gardening shears, and other dangerous tools in there would've been a problem, but nope. My kids weren't interested in that stuff. They pulled out my chalk line and unspooled it. Fortunately it had been heavily used in a project recently, so there wasn't much chalk in it. But they really seemed to like the small, mostly-empty tube of thermal paste I keep in there for computer projects.

If anyone has used thermal paste, you know how incredibly messy it is. It's this thick, dark paste that gets everywhere if you're not careful. And it's the kind of thing where even just a little bit of it can make a big mess. It was all over the walls and all over them. Fortunately they were kind enough to put the cap back on the tube when they were done (bless them).

We tried to use wipes, but to no avail. So the first thing we did this morning was give them a bath and used a wash cloth to clean it all off. I also did some quick googling to see if thermal paste was toxic (it isn't), but 90% of the answers online were jokes about it improving your body temperature and allowing you to overclock yourself. Fucking hilarious stuff, but maybe not so much when you're making sure your kids are alright. They should be fine though.

Anyway, how're ya'lls days going so far?

The title says it all, really.

Today there was a story about the Flordia Department of Education rejecting a record number of books for containing Critical Race Theory. But when I read the article it said that it was rejecting these books for other things - for Common Core and for a thing called Social-Emotional Learning, or SEL.

SEL is not a term I'm familiar with, so I looked it up. There's an organization that advocates for it called CASEL who has a more in-depth writeup, but to put things as simply as possible, it's the idea that lesson plans should include material to improve a person's social and emotional growth and is largely concerned with students' mental health. I couldn't understand why anyone would have a problem with this kind of thing; kids today are put through a lot of stressful situations and it looks like mental health for children has been an issue that has exploded over the past few years. So I found and read an article about why it's controversial and I'm practically in tears over here.

Right now we are living in a world where children are tortured so much that they attempt to kill themselves and there are grown adults - legitimate parents of their own children - who are fighting against the people who are trying to help them. And all of the answers to why they are doing this are just absolutely insane to me. Some of them don't want their children to realize they were racist. Some of them don't want to ever discover the concept of sexuality or gender identity for fear that their child might not be straight cis baby factories. But overall, it seems like they oppose it because it threatens their control over their children, as if they were puppets to command.

I already knew how fucked up they were when they were trying to pass that Don't Say Gay bill, but this is just absolutely next level insanity. I'm sure they don't realize that the concept of SEL exists largely because there are so many children in the world who have had to deal with parents who think and act like these people do.

Utah Parents Unite, an activist group that says it’s fighting indoctrination and mask mandates in schools, urged its members to lobby against a bill to expand suicide prevention programs to elementary schools, where, the group said, “suicides are not happening.” (National data obtained by NBC News show that the number of children ages 6-12 who visited children’s hospitals for suicidal thoughts or self-harm has more than doubled since 2016.)

ARGH!

okay tildes here to tell suspended to leave their kid alone about discord on the school computer. that was easy advice to give! But how about a real challenge in what-should-i-do-about-the-boy? hold onto your HATS bc I've got a TOUGHIE~!

see I was tutoring this 13yo last year. He was super isolated and he still is. He deals with a range of insecurity and frustration. He leaps to conclusions and struggles with anger at the people around him, especially his mother. I used to spend time with him daily, but then I moved towns and now our contact is limited to chat and video call. We talk throughout the week but we always video call on wednesdays. His mother asked me if we could switch days, because she wants him to go to after school sessions with a math teacher who has noticed his grades falling. When I talked to him about the possibility of swapping so he could attend the afterschool, he told me that he didn't want go to sessions for dumb kids. I said I was flexible regardless so he can't use the time I reserve for him as an excuse not to go -- but I worry that his perception that the sessions are for dumb kids reflects a stigma that will prevent him from asking for help when he needs it.

How do I push back on the idea that getting extra help with school could imply that he is somehow inexcusably deficient? I sense that most of his other teachers are setting the bar even lower for him than they did last year; his take-home assignments are uniformly inane, and he knows it. How would you communicate around why it is important to try and to practice trying when so much of what is expected of him is transparently pointless? My friendship with him has become important, I think, but I worry a lot that I have no chance to guide him toward a better life and this episode has been a keen example.

This will probably make some people uncomfortable and even angry, but it needs to be said.

Adoption isn't happily ever after.

The media loves to portray it that way, especially for foster kids. Everyone loves the fairly tale story about the poor abused kids that get rescued by the selfless hero foster parents who then adopt them and everything is all good after that. I mean, the kids now have loving parents and a stable home. That's all they need right?

People love a happy ending. But fairy tales aren’t real and life isn’t that simple. Adoption is messy, and I don't mean the legal process, I mean the actual adoption itself. Adoptive parents aren't selfless heroes, they are regular flawed people just like everyone else, they just happened to choose to adopt.

These kids have been through bad things that are beyond the imagination of most people who don't have experience with the kids themselves. I hear it all the time. People say "They just need a good loving home". Loving and stable homes are great, but they don't make those bad things go away. Even if the adoptive parents were perfect (which they definitely aren't) these kids will be dealing with their trauma for the rest of their lives.

And for these kids trauma isn't simple like so many people assume it is. It isn't just bad dreams and sadness. It's rage. It’s frequent meltdowns over the smallest things. Sometimes it’s hurting pets, or even other kids. Sometimes it's trying to burn the house down. Other times it’s stealing from kids at school. Sometimes it’s grade schoolers finding ways to look at porn. Sometimes it’s trying to molest other kids. This doesn’t describe all kids from foster care. It’s not meant to scare you. It’s meant to show you that there’s more than what you see on the outside.

For these kids meltdowns have a completely different meaning than for most other kids. A meltdown isn't crying and getting angry for 10 or 15 minutes. It can be hours. Hours of true screaming. Hours of punching doors and walls. Or punching us. Or hurting themselves. Total non-compliance. It's a total inability for them to calm down at all. Sometimes we have to physically restrain them for safety reasons. Usually, they have to physically exhaust themselves before they finally begin to come down.

And it's not their fault.

And we parents aren't perfect either. Sometimes we scream back at them. Sometimes we escalate the meltdown even more. Sometimes we restrain when it's not necessary. Sometimes we just layer on consequence after consequence, not because it's helping, but because we are mad and caught in a power struggle.

We take them to doctor appointments. We adjust meds. We get to counseling every week. We literally pull them out of public school because they can't function there. We are usually exhausted. We are often hopeless. We fear they will never have a normal childhood. We fear that they won't have a good life as adults.

We can never replace their birth parents. They will always miss them, no matter how bad the abuse was. They will mourn what could have been. They will mourn what should have been.

They point that hurt and anger at their adoptive parents. They say they hate us. They say they will kill us.

We aren't a fairy tale family. We aren't some success story about the power of love.

We were the safest option in a bad situation.

We will always love them as our kids. We will always strive to be there for them, to support them, to give them what they need to have whatever healing is possible.

For them though this will never be as good as having birth parents that were safe and loving in the first place. This will never compare with what should have been.

I really don’t have much to say, that’s 100% an honest question about something I truly fail to understand. I’m not opposed to having children if it seems right for some reason, but this is not a dream or project of mine. When I ask people about it, I get vague answers or stuff I cannot relate to at all. And some people seem to want to get married and have children just because they think they’re supposed to.

I’m really not in a position to judge, but I will probably politely ask further questions for my own education.

If that’s a sensitive topic for you and you don’t wish to indulge my curiosity, maybe this post is not for you! Everything surrounding parenthood tends to generate gratuitous animosity, so please be patient with my earnest ignorance.

If I see myself in someone's child here then I'm deleting this thread, no questions asked /s

You should probably say/indicate your and your children's age and sex (can be plural, obviously.)

You can follow the Q&A format below but you don't have to.

A few questions that come to (my very uninitiated) mind are:

How much time do you spend on them?

If you aren't their biological parent:

(i.e you're @aphoenix not hetero and a parent didn't want to go through fkin birthing people an adoptive parent, for example)

• Where did you (uhh) find them?
• If it was an orphanage, what was it like there? (Can you even find children elsewhere if they don't have parents?)
• How many children were there to choose from?
• What led you to choose the child you picked in specific instead of someone else? (Dear God, is this an ethical question to ask?)

How do you parent them?

• Do you follow what they're doing on the Internet or how much they use it? How much?

• Do you encourage them to have a good diet? How much?

• Do you encourage them to do more chores? How much?

• When you do this, how cooperative are they? If they aren't, what do you do to convince them?

How do you and your partner split the time spent taking care of them?

What was the most unexpected thing about parenting to you?

More personal questions below. (You can avoid these, I probably would too tbh)

If you had a particular preference/expectation for what you wanted/expected your child to be and got something else, what did you do?

How did birth(-ing?) go? What was it like?

What was being/seeing your partner be pregnant like?

Is there anything you regret doing when parenting them?

Why did you have them?

Note: I didn't want to clutter up the title, but "parents" in the title and below applies to anyone who raised you, whatever their role or relation.

As we grow up, our view of those who raised us changes. Some of their "unfair" rules might make more sense in hindsight, for example. I'm curious for answers to the following questions:

• What were your parents wrong about?

This is something that they legitimately missed the mark on, for any reason. You might have realized it at the time, or have come to realize it in hindsight. Either way, you can definitively say it was the wrong call now.

• What were they right about?

There's probably a lot they did right, but in particular I'm interested in stuff that either seemed wrong to you as a child but you've now come to realize was the right call, or right stuff that you now realize is far more important than you did at the time.

Also, with any discussion of parenting it's important to remember that everyone's experiences are difficult and that some responses might open up about some difficult things. Please remember to be kind and empathetic in your responses!

Dear almost all other parents with kids between the ages of 2 and 5 years old,

I appreciate all you're doing. You are taking an active role in raising your children, and I applaud you for that... it's hard to do nowadays.

But this is a rant that I won't say to your face because I largely believe in parental autonomy. You need to hear it though. It's important, because many of your good intentions are crippling your child's development., and my own kid's. If at the end of this rant, you agree with it and aren't horrified or offended, PM me cause we could be best friends.

So let's start with the basics: If you take your young child to a children's play area, stop with the hovering. If your child can walk for more than 5 steps without falling on their face, give them some space (like more than 15 feet). Even if they get hurt, that is a teachable moment. If nobody is going to the hospital, don't worry about intervening. Sure they might get some scrapes and bruises, a couple of hard falls....but they will learn and they will grow. Shielding them from everything teaches them nothing. Hovering over your children also scares other children that are not yours, and discourages social interaction. I know this, because I am a very tall man who easily and accidentally terrifies anybody more than a foot shorter than me. It took me a few months to learn this lesson.

Next, let's talk about sharing. I know everyone wants to instill in their child that it is important to share. It's generally a good principal. But sharing is a two-way street, and every time you intervene whenever there is the slightest possibility of conflict, you're teaching your kid that 'sharing means to give whatever someone else wants to them no matter what' and you're teaching my kid 'you can totally take what other people want with 0 consequences.' My child can utterly dominate children twice as old because of this. I do my best to prevent that from getting instilled, but it's a long uphill battle when myself and my spouse are the only two teaching that lesson.

Children need to be able to have conflict with their peers. They need space from adults, and learn to interact with others their age. Yes there will be conflict, pain, and suffering. But there will also be joy, reconciliation, and fun. It's part of learning to be a human with empathy. My child learns far more about socializing in 5 minutes of interaction with your kid than 5 hours of interaction with me.

Next up: Potty training. My kid potty trained at 2 years old. They showed signs of being ready at 18 months, but couldn't quite verbalize well enough at that point. By 2 years, they were completely potty trained during the day. Took a while before being able to get through the night without accidents (tiny bladders have trouble going 8+ hours without peeing), but during the waking day 0 accidents for months on end. I see many of your 4+ year olds still wearing diapers and shitting themselves in the aisles in the grocery store, and it's one of the most depressing things ever. If your kid isn't potty trained by 3, it's your failing, not theirs.

I know my spouse and I are not the best parents (our stance on screen time is very controversial), but I also can blatantly see when development issues are forming as a result of hovering parents, both in my child and yours. Do these things, and everything will be better for everyone.

Signed,

A parent who is judging you harshly.

I'm curious to know what you think your own parents (or the people who raised you) did right. What actions, mindsets, or philosophies did they operate by that had a positive effect on you? What techniques of theirs would you use with your own children? What important lessons did they teach you?