ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

We are probably just shitty parents.

don't be so hard on yourself, if you're spending 30 min a piece w/both of them listening to them talk about their feelings and emotions. . . you're doing pretty great dude

thx

waterface otm. my sister and i had a similar dynamic, growing up. i was the younger one, but i got all the good grades and said the funny things. my sister started to feel neglected, i think. difference was, my parents never spoke to either one of us about that (or anything else that was difficult to talk about). and that was bad!

also, in a way i think it's a good sign that they're open about it (insisting we don't love her) rather than hiding those feelings. and then, you can see them being open about it and spend 30 minutes talking about it with them. i feel like that's how it's supposed to work, in a better world!

so anyway, must have been some hard conversations but i think you're all much better off for it. :)

Thanks for the kind words. We had a pretty rocky couple of years of parenting with all the COVID stuff plus a move, and I've been doing some pretty deep examination of myself and my angers and anxieties, the way I communicate with my kids, with my wife, etc. Without stereotyping too much, I think girls learn to express their emotions in much more outward and dramatic ways sometimes than boys, so I was not prepared for some of the kinds of expressions I've seen coming only from a household of boys and having only girls. Hearing stuff like "you hate me" or having your kid stubbornly sit in the closet can be really hard sometimes, no matter how many times you go through the calming down process and realize that they're just a well-placed dadjoke, a hug, and a couple of pages of a book from back to 100% normal.

Personally I just go sit in the closet myself. I bring snax and weed and it works out great

the power of a well timed joke is wild. it can break the spell and restore the good vibes

part of me wants a voice from the heavens to tell me it’s okay to stop trying with breastfeeding, but I’m going to see how it goes up until she hits six weeks and reevaluate.

― horseshoe, Monday, July 12, 2021 4:10 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lol i lasted till five weeks; babby started being extremely fussy at the boob; i freaked out that she was going to totally starve. for a while i pumped and supplemented with formula, but i hated pumping and quit around eleven weeks, i think? she's almost 6 months old now and formula seems to be treating her fine. also, we just started sleep training on Saturday and though it has been harrowing, it seems like it's working.

she is pretty awesome. in a very cute stage right now, smiling and laughing a lot. i already get choked up about how much bigger she is than she used to be. i had a bout of PPD/PPA during the first three months, but i am loving things right now.

we just started sleep training on Saturday and though it has been harrowing, it seems like it's working.

this is huge!

i remember the harrowment.

I'm getting snipped on Tuesday. every time I read about the pumping and feeding and sleep training it kinda confirms in my mind that it's the right thing to do. I'm a bit freaked out about it honestly, but the cool thing is if you tell your doc you're scared they'll give you a valium. I should've started crying in the office...probably could've gotten two

good luck to you, frogbs! lol i am pretty old for a first time parent and every so often i will hint to my husband about possibly having another baby, and he gets this look like, oh damn, can we actually survive that?

great to hear it's going well! Those first 6 months are crazy, then they're gone, then your baby gets magically replaced with an older one and this keeps happening!
I couldn't face thinking about a second babby for a really long time but it has turned out to be an excellent idea. they entertain each other!

we had the 2nd one two years after the 1st and it's incredible how much you forget. babies change so much month-to-month in that first year. tbh I kinda wanted a 3rd but we had a pregnancy scare last month where I actually went through in my head what it would all mean and I realized pretty quick that I just don't wanna do it anymore.

the truth is given the way American society is set up there's really no good time in your life to have a kid. there are even fewer good times to have a *second* kid.

I had a vasectomy immediately after our second child was born. No regrets whatsoever.

When we started getting clues that he would be seriously disabled, I think my wife had a moment of wanting to try again but fortunately that went away with the realization that having two was going to be plenty hard, and there would be no guarantee of an easier time on the third.

For us, the wee-baby stage is over - I do not miss the late-night stuff - but we've basically had 14 years of toddlerdom in some form. Our son is 10 and still not quite there on some stuff - pretty good on toilet training in the daytime but still needs a pullup at night. And he will still do shit like spill all the cereal out onto the floor for fun, or scribble on walls with a marker. Sigh. He's generally sweet and fun, though.

so glad to hear things are good horseshoe!

we’re just past 8 months and she’s still happily immobile but very fun and more and more engaged with us every day. i’m pretty sure we’re done, we are older and for a lot of reasons i tend to think one babby will be the right choice for us.

good luck to you, frogbs!

Update: ouch !!! But it was quick, 80% painless, and one of my balls feels great!

Gonna tip my kids bus drivers tomorrow morning with envelopes of singles from the bar

i think this is a good book for parents who found the first few years hard and/or wonder what life would be like if they hadn't had kids (especially dads) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48931085-a-lie-someone-told-you-about-yourself. CW for termination, NICU, developmental difficulties but it's pretty sweet in a nick hornby sense.

that sounds relevant to my interests, thanks for the rec

Trying to decide whether Die Hard is appropriate to watch with my 12 year old. It would be fun and she would like it, but it would be a big step up in terms of mature content. Of course, by the time I was ten I had seen all of the Friday the 13ths, Halloweens, Nightmare on Elm streets, etc. Not that it was good for me.

Go for it

fun parenting moment today, went over a friend of mine's and my son and his (7 and 6) played Mario Kart 8. which we bet $10 on, of course. I won but to be fair they both just tried to hit as many bananas as possible. the whole time they were just laughing and yelling at each other. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" "I SEE YOU I'M GONNA GET YOU!!" "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?!?"...etc etc. my son ain't too social at school yet so it's awesome to see him connect with another kid like that. he was talking about him the whole car ride home. here's the kicker: this friend of mine is someone I met when we were 10, in 4th grade. we used to play a bunch of Mario Kart 64!!

Xxp I saw “Edward Scissorhands” was on Disney+ and my oldest is at around the exact age I would’ve seen and been messed up by it.

Wife said NO to Die Hard. We watched Sixth Sense instead which turned out well.

Unrelated: 12 year old is turning into a teenager with the constant arguing/testing boundaries. My sanity is slipping away, it is so difficult to be a calm rational parent when someone is arguing with you about the absolute stupidest shit. "I'm going to put the dishes away dirty and we'll just wash them when we need them." "NO ARGHFFADKLAFDJLJS!!!" "But why?" "BECAUSE FJKALDFLJWOAFJLKADFS" "sssssigh..."

Let them have their own supply of dishes they can try this method with. (Probably a terrible idea for many reasons.)

shatter the dishes on the floor. then say "now you can clean these up when you want to eat. you fool! YOU FOOL!"

I recommend Spaceballs for 12 year olds

Creepshow is also good

Is there a thread for family viewing recommendations? It’s a constant struggle here with 11 and 14 year olds. Mostly because we think of good ones to watch and then immediately forget! Some winners have been the original Bill and Ted, Galaxy Quest, The Fugitive (had to get them to see it to prove my theory that Clone Wars was referencing it in the Asohka chase) and they both absolutely loved The Martian for some reason.

Original alien is good as well

And 2001

Lol at Karl

xxxp Raiders of the Lost Ark, Happy Gilmore, Hot Rod

We have a 7 and a 12 year old, so movies are tricky. Friday night is 7's movie night and we often watch something that 12 already seen and everybody goes to bed more or less on time. Saturday night is for 12 after 7 goes to sleep and we get to watch more mature stuff. This weekend we watched The Dark Crystal and Sixth Sense. During the week we watch one short cartoon before they go to sleep, if time allows. Right now we're on Owl House, which is great.

Tonight we broke the news to the kids that we are going to be moving out of state. This is the only house they've ever known. Holy shit it was rough.

my spouse showed Dark Crystal to our first kid when they were 2 and it was an immediate "what the fuck is wrong with you" response on my end. i remember sesame street segments traumatizing me at that age.

xpost wow CA that's a big one.

4 days after Christmas and I'm hoping this is peak madness. They are totally out of routine, both giddy and bored despite having new toys, and I think have had enough of each other's company...

feeling this. new toys and books have all been ignored, they just play 2K and roblox like they did before. what has it come to that a father must cajole his boys into picking up a new issue of a comic book

7yo got stacks of books, long ones... and says he's read them already! they were meant to last a few weeks at least! he needs to get out and kick a ball or something

Yeah, he wasn't wrong. It was a sad scene. He held on to the belief until 5th grade I think, which was a few years longer than I did when I was a kid. His mother and I had discussed early on whether we should let him believe in Santa. She was slightly against, but I was very in favor. Something about "kids need to believe in magic" that I'm now not sure is true. Also the awkwardness of being a kid hiding a secret from his other friends. He has always been a terrible keeper of secrets - like, known to blab about things we tell him to keep private. If we had been upfront with him at a younger age, I'm sure a significant portion of his daycare would have been questioning their belief in Santa. Again, at the time I didn't want that on my head, but at this point I couldn't care less.

― peace, man, Thursday, September 2, 2021 9:36 AM (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Follow-up on this. Around age 4 or 5, we had gone through a phase where my son read a few Norwegian troll folklore books. And for god knows what reason, my wife told him that Santa was a troll. And he apparently doubled-down on this fact throughout elementary school in arguments with other children. And when asked about it, his mother apparently reassured him about the troll falsehood. So this completely undid any benefit of letting him believe something in common with other kids. I was somehow clueless about this whole Christmas controversy for over a decade.

Found out because they had a mini-argument about it on Christmas morning.

according to clement moore he's an "elf"!

Right! A jolly old elf! I guess I could see her getting elves and trolls confused once, but over time it had to have been a purposeful choice.

hello just want to say that 6 months is a very cute age! She’s babbling and it is great!

agreed, 6 mos was awesome

I guess this is just sort of a parenting win post - I feel like I have done a lot of things wrong as a parent, but one thing I have done consistently is to emphasize that you can get better at anything with consistent practice, that you should never say "I'm bat at ___" only "I can improve at ___" etc., and that determination goes a long way.

My older one, K, was delayed physically - not severely but enough that she got physical therapy and occupational therapy. I knew from my own childhood that physical delays can really hurt self-esteem so I made an extra point of emphasizing practice with her, knowing it might take her a little more practice than some kids to get things down. Early on I saw that it was getting through to her - she would do monkey bars over and over again every day at the playground, first maybe only one or two rungs, then three, then four, eventually all the way, even if other kids might pick it up faster. I emphasized not giving up. This was something I learned myself later in life - that I could overcome a lot of what I had once thought were innate physical problems with a little extra work. For example, while I never played organized basketball, as an adult I started practicing regularly and took a course, and actually started to hold my own in pickup games.

This year (she's 9) a neighbor invited K to join a CYO basketball team, her first team sport ever (and she doesn't even have much experience in basketball). She wanted to do it, so I said ok (CYO is more competitive vs our local rec league, so I was a little nervous for her). She is tall for her age, fwiw. First couple of practices and games were tough for her - any kid with as little experience as her would be confused on the court and she tends to be even slower to process than some kids. I was concerned she would get discouraged, and I didn't want to pressure her, but I did my best to keep emphasizing the message of "Just keep practicing, you will get better, you will get used to it," etc. I told her she had to finish the season because she committed, but that after that she could decide if she wanted to continue.

Third game yesterday, and the team, advertised as being their age, looked about two grades older. In spite of this, K got her first rebound and took her first shot in game!She told me on the way home that she really loved the game and really wants to continue with CYO and doesn't want to do rec league. On top of that, the coach told me she has a great shooting touch and he has "no doubt" she will be a big contributor once she gets used to playing and the game slows down for her. I'm trying really hard to walk that line of not becoming "one of those youth sports dads" but it was the most exciting basketball game I've ever watched in my life.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, June 7, 2021 7:56 AM (seven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

The saga continues. Tryouts for the CYO thing were extra tough this year and she didn't make it -- they only have a couple spots for non-parishoners and the rest are prioritized for parishoners. Then rec league got cancelled. Then thankfully they restarted this other league and she wound up on a team after all. She loves going to practices and being on a team. She gets super anxious about games. She's had four so far this year. In one of them she actually took the ball coast to coast a couple times and took shots, which was great. At the same time, she is struggling a lot - she gets very sensory overloaded and worries a lot about not making a mistake. Today was not great for her and I know she didn't feel great about the way she played, even though her team had this dramatic improvement from last time (we are generally known as not much of a sports town and we had been losing big to other teams, but we dramatically narrowed the gap and put up a really good fight today).

She actually dribbles and shoots fine and I've seen her do pretty well in lower pressure situations (and she had the one game where she came more alive), but in the game she really kind of seizes up and seems almost like she is avoiding the ball. I'm really proud of her for sticking with it and I always tell her that, and that she just needs to stick it out and keep practicing, and at the same time inside it's bringing up all this tough stuff for me and twisting me up inside to see her struggle like I did. Maybe she's actually not even struggling as much as I did tbh, maybe I'm projecting onto her, but she did have a practice where she came home crying and said she was the worst on her team (which is not even true fwiw). I have no aspirations of raising a scholarship athlete, I just know that she will be happier with herself if she feels like she plays well and contributes to her team, and I know she has the capability to at least be a solid player on her team, because she's very solid when she doesn't seize up from the pressure and anxiety.

I guess I just need to be patient about it, not much I can do other than practice with her when she wants.

Never seen a more exciting basketball game than my own daughter's team losing only 15-8 to a team they previously lost 40-5.

guys i am so burnt out at work. how does anyone work a full time job and raise a kid? i was a miserable failure as a stay at home mom during maternity leave, and i like my job, but i just want to crawl into a loaf of bread and sleep for a week.

She's not even 1 yet, right? It's so hard. I went back part-time at about 1 year old and that was a good balance. My brain was a fuzz, I'd been promoted but could barely remember anything. I think after about 12-18 months things get a little better but it's so dependent on sleep, the nature of your job, your home situation, whether you're feeding at night etc.

Also, you weren't a failure as a SAH mom!! It's only years later I realise how lonely it was with my partner out of the house all day and I had very little energy to 'do' anything and everything was tedious anyway. It is soooo much better when they're a bit older, which seems a lifetime away.

Can you actually take a break, like even a long weekend or something when you do minimal stuff at home? Honestly the best holiday I had after I went back to work was when I had (planned, minor) surgery.