C/D: Friends with Babies

BAHGAWD HE IS BROKEN IN HALF

scuse me. I do not have kids and I thought this thread was a joke at first. I've joked with my busy kid having friends "you didn't consider me at all in this decision did you?" cuz uh... yeah, why would they?

I'm so lonely

luckily once they hit 4 or so they're a lot less wobbly & generally know what they can and can't do.

Wait'll they hit 14. It has opened up a whole new world of things my kid is wobbly about and doesn't know that he can and can't do.

one thing about parenthood is that in a sense it adds an extra layer of anxiety to your life that won't go away until the day you die

Every time I've felt anxious about something to do with my son I always think "I'll get used to this." And I do get used to it. And then nearly immediately find a new thing to get anxious about. I'm not sure when I will die so I can get some relief but I suspect I have a long time to go

My mom always told me having a child (me) felt like having a cake in the oven 24/7. Always baking, must remain vigilant.
She was not a baker and I don’t remember her ever making a cake EVER so I always figured this was not a favorable comparison.

tbf, children are rather like cakes. In that they can only be in a 350-degree oven for a little while without becoming unpleasantly burnt.

kids ime are far more resilient than baked goods

you can give a cake internet access without worrying about it being radicalised into a little fucker

i don't know man

https://images.forwardcdn.com/image/300x225/center/images/cropped/swastika-cake-1564160154.png

fuck

a cake can't put another cake in the oven and burn it to a crisp

parenting is the hardest thing i've ever done. i cannot really overstate how much work it is. i don't know if my experience is different from most -- both my kids have disabilities & various differences that are can be challenging sometimes because of the intensity of certain associated experiences (e.g. when my autistic son has a meltdown, which happens almost daily)) and other times because their needs are not as easily accommodated and require more time & effort (e.g. i drive an hour every morning across the city so that my son can go to a school that works for autistic kids, we see a bunch of medical and developmental specialists, we have to coordinate various services and therapies) -- but from 5am until 8pm the demands are immediate and unrelenting. there is no downtime. they require constant supervision. the emotional and physical drain on everybody is immense. the volume level is sometimes the hardest to handle above all other challenges, and it can be intense whether or not they are unhappy -- sometimes the most difficult moments to reach them are when they are ecstatic with excitement and energy, running around the house screaming and jumping. they have their own sensitivity to noise, so we own multiple pairs of noise-cancelling headphones, but i find myself wearing the headphones often.

it is immensely rewarding, too. i feel happiest when i am present emotionally with them and they see me & i see them. sustaining those moments requires a daily regimen of care and self-care, and honestly any lapse in that regimen and i can easily fall into a place of resentment and regret for having kids. the demands, responsibilities, and obligations sometimes feel like too much to handle, and i often envy those who are free from them.

i think because of that stress i value my friendships w/ other parents, but also with my childless friends. i don't want my existence and relationships to be built entirely on the premise of being a parent, so it has never bothered me when my childless friends take little interest in my kids. it is validating when they do, of course, after all i spend so much time raising these kids that it'd be weird if they didn't occassionally ask about it, but i really enjoy going out with them and feeling free from my kids and from being a parent for a few hours. i've found that to be really necessary.

Respect and strength to you, marcos.

I love ilxor threads about children

my local friends I spend time with regularly have no kids and from what I know most of them probably never will.

the couple I know locally who had a kid I am not close to so I can't really attribute the fact that I don't see them to their child

anyway children should be gestated by paid workers and raised communally

take it to the trolling thread, buddy

who's trolling

Respect and strength to you, marcos.

― Saint Buffy (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, October 10, 2019 1:35 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you too, i know we are in a similar boat!

I'll post this opinion I genuinely hold in as many threads as it's relevant

relevance is totally subjective -- you should post it in more threads

surrogacy seems like a shitty job

parenting is the hardest thing i've ever done. i cannot really overstate how much work it is. i don't know if my experience is different from most -- both my kids have disabilities

ime parenting a child with disabilities is exactly the same as parenting any other child, except more so. the challenges are all similar in kind to other parenting, but the needs are greatly enlarged and the inner resources you must bring to bear are enlarged proportionately. a lot of the time you're running on sheer will and the inability to imagine any better way forward. Many days I think of Beckett's 'I cannot continue. I shall continue'.

but this thread is supposed to be about how the table is the table has perverse friends who ruined his life by having children. we do him a disservice by derailing it.

it's "I can't go on, I'll go on".

no misquoting big boy beckett on my watch

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/957/652/398.jpeg

I've said this before but. Every human achievement that you value (every album and song and symphony, every book and painting, every movie, every protest movement and instance of social justice activism) came from someone who was once a baby and therefore must have had parents.

So if you love music (the ostensible originating reason for this site), you kinda at least have to accept the premise of babies? I think?

I don't mean that you need to enjoy specific babies or the act of holding them and changing them and stuff, but surely you can kinda see the connection between parents, babies, and the stuff you value?

(Of course, I put this forward knowing that the converse is true: villains and terrible music and bad movies ALSO come from people who were once babies, but it becomes very difficult to quantify the cost/benefit ratio. If you want to live at all in a comprehensible fashion, though, you at least have to try.)

ty. my apologies to Big Sam

Thank you for your service, jim.

"e.g. when my autistic son has a meltdown, which happens almost daily"

I spent a long time in that place and can be a very lonely and tough place to be, thank god he is much calmer now at the age of 17 because dealing with that every day can be completely exhausting.

So if you love music (the ostensible originating reason for this site), you kinda at least have to accept the premise of babies? I think?

You also have to accept the premise of foul smelling feces ... you can accept these premises but also want to avoid them as much as possible.

Surprised no one has mentioned that just accepting one's own existence requires accepting the existence of babies.

yes, but enough ppl on ilx hate themselves so ...

i am so, so delighted by a big sam reference itt

There is a certain sonic frequency above which I don't like hearing the human voice ... unless it's like, someone singing opera. Once a child's voice descends below that frequency/pitch, I am okay spending time in their presence.

otmfm, that shriek sends me running. even the gurgles of a happy baby send me running because i know that shriek is literally 2 minutes away.

yes, but enough ppl on ilx hate themselves so …

yeah p sure this was where I found out that anyone who had kids after the year 1980 is probably a sociopath

2020 Democratic presidential primary

i live in the breediest breedery in the united states, utah, and i'm surrounded by people who dedicate their entire lives to the importance of breeding and have formed a religious cult for furthering that mindset. even not in utah it's still pretty much the majoritarian default. so i for one am very grateful for (a tiny handful) of voices here that (occasionally) push back and make the ethical case for not-breeding and argue that it's good, actually, because the overwhelming current of the mainstream can make it difficult to keep upright in the eddy of not-breeding without some additional strength and support.

People understandably confuse the advocacy of not breeding with hating your nieces, nephews, godchildren.

oh god, Mormons and breeding ....I had a friend in high school (he was the oldest kid in his Mormon family) and doing the math, his mom must have been constantly pregnant/breeding for 18 straight years.

yeah. maybe. but to my way of thinking, "I don't care about your baby, and I wish you hadn't been so selfish as to effectively end our friendship for your egotistical experiment" or "anyway children should be gestated by paid workers and raised communally" are not great examples of making "the ethical case for not-breeding". They seem, I don't know, sort of shallow when considered as ethical arguments.

well yeah, they're first steps. i was referring to sic saying that having babies after 1980 is sociopathic. also this for more context and depth: https://www.comatonse.com/writings/2017_deproduction.html

Remember to take a moment to welcome ex-congressman (R) Sean Duffy's 9th child into the world.

that's not my ethical case against breeding, that's my political program. my ethical case against breeding is that it is cruel to create an alive person

I've forgiven my parents for having me, but barely

I was born before 1980, so my parents are cool

i would be down for gestation to occur completely without the requirement of a woman's body. But if they want to get paid for it, I am fine with that too.

I missed what happened in 1980 did they outlaws antibiotics or summat?

desire and raising children have been the organizational principles of civilization since time immemorial, there is no shortage of deep ideological backing for the concept of raising children. choosing not to go that way needs more of a coherent solidarity imo. perhaps less based on "having kids is awful" and more based on "the concept of family needs to expand beyond blood roles and into experiential relationships," perhaps fostered by things like silby's political program.

XP Ordinary People came out, iirc.

it takes a paid ass village

I've forgiven my parents for having me, but barely