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

yeah, that's a good bit

4yo has been in a shitty mood all afternoon because we briefly visited a farm and 'the cows looked at me' and 'they were stupid to look at me' and 'the stupid cows shouldn't have looked at me'.
(Think he was a bit scared of them, he wanted to go see a tractor but he'd have had to go past a big barn of cows and they are a bit freaky tbf)

7.5 year old is really into old metal at the moment and wants to listen to Metallica and Black Sabbath whenever we ride in the car. Does NOT like Iron Maiden or Anthrax because of the "screechy" vocals, thinks Slayer is sometimes too offensive on purpose, and seems to like Mastodon but I need to play more of it.

Anyway we were at the beach the other day and he ended up building sand castles and shit with some random other kids who happened to be there and I heard him asking them "who do you like more, Tony Iommi or Randy Rhoads?" before lecturing them about how influential Black Sabbath is.

yeah, anger is often a response to some other emotion that they don't know how to deal with. I wouldn't sweat it too much, sounds like normal 4yo stuff xp

This is going to be one of the lamest things I have ever said (and there's a lot of competition for that), but what do you guys think of kids watching the Simpsons? It's probably too late now anyway, but my now 10yo started watching it obsessively during the pandemic, and I actually in retrospect feel kind of weird about it. There's such a deep level of cynicism and callousness to the show, especially in the post-prime seasons (which she loves for some reason). But, like, I watched it when I was her age or not much older, and likely a lot of worse shit too, so \o/

my parents definitely thought it was too cynical. they preferred cosby and cheers. these days when you stack it up next to something like family guy or south park or rick and morty it looks like fucking anne of green gables

It's very weird and uncomfortable to actually "get it" now about why parents didn't like it back then. I feel in a weird way like it exposes her to too much too soon, like she is getting a lot of negative and cynical messages about so many different aspects of family, education, govt, etc. and it's not like there isn't some truth in those things, it's just that she's getting the cynical version before even getting the uncynical version.

Tried with the 8 year old and she was totally bored with the Simpsons. Said it was too weird.

Yeah my younger one finds it totally uninteresting, older one has I think literally watched every single ep available, some multiple times. I guess that sort of makes it too late for her anyway.

I guess on that note, Stranger Things seem alright for a 10yo? My gut says yes, it's scary but not depraved, but I only watched half the first season and that was a while ago.

it gets steadily scarier as the seasons progress. everybody’s different. watching with them is pretty key if you’re unsure imo.

these days when you stack it up next to something like family guy or south park or rick and morty it looks like fucking anne of green gables

Speaking of kids and music, my 12 year old just clicked with the Beach Boys. I played Pet Sounds which made a big impression and then talked to her about their relationship with the Beatles and the Smile sessions. Then played Brian Wilson’s Smile which blew her away and afterwards SHE ASKED TO HEAR THE BEACH BOYS VERSION OF HEROES AND VILLAINS SO SHE COULD COMPARE THEM

PROUD DAD PROUD DAD PROUD DAD

#hero

I definitely wouldn't let a 10yo watch Stranger Things xps

There's some pretty brutal & gory deaths across the seasons

My daughter, 11, has no interest in watching Stranger Things, but a number of people in her D&D party have seen all of it(with their parents).

My daughter, 11,

The age 11, not the Stranger Things character.

lol!

My 19-year-old wrecked the car I let him drive. It was pretty clearly his fault. Thankfully, he was not hurt, and the car is salvageable. No one else was involved. I am probably going to make him pay the insurance deductible and take a remedial driving course, but am wondering if there is anything else I can do to help him understand how he's put everyone out. Oy.

Jesus, kids and cars...

My 18-year-old just got his license last fall. He was delayed slightly due to covid, but also due to a bunch of behavior stuff around age 15-16 where his mother and I were just like "you aren't ready for a learners permit yet." In retrospect, despite passing the test, he still isn't ready for a driver's license.

Anyway, he's been working hard at a shitty job since last spring. Bought himself a used pickup the day he got his license. Crashed it in March, the week of his 18th birthday. Not hurt, but damaged someone else's property and had to pay for it. Took the truck around and found that it would cost more than it's worth to have it fixed at a professional mechanic so he decides that one of his friends, who is an amateur mechanic, will help him fix it.

Without telling us, spends $1,000-ish on a BACKUP car to drive while he's "fixing up the truck." So now we have 4 cars in our household, one just taking up space in the driveway. In early June, he skids out driving too fast on a wet road and crashes the backup car. Fortunately, no one is hurt and this car remains driveable. A week or two later, he gets pulled over doing 60 in a 45 and gets a ticket, which under the terms of the provisional license means he has to go to traffic school, and the next offense will be a suspension.

Before he has a chance to go to traffic school, he goes to senior week (every graduating senior in the state ends up in Ocean City, which must be pure hell for anyone who is not a teenager). Rents a fucking MOPED and gets into an accident on THAT. Gets tickets for operating too fast for conditions and NOT WEARING A HELMET.

So he's looking at a suspension, but we're going to a hearing to try to get him out of it so he can have a car to drive to community college in about a month.

And I still have to help him get registered for community college...

sending up sanity prayers for both of you, that shit is stressful!

UUUUGH, reflexively/sympathetically saying WHAT WHERE YOU THINKING ?!? to myself in reaction to all that.

plus the fear of what could have happened to them in any of those accidents! i imagine it is hard for that not to compound your reaction

like as a parent that all would be so terrifying to me

It is terrifying, but somehow you learn to live with it.

I console myself with the thought that I did plenty of stupid shit at that age and survived. But . . . sometimes it was just out of pure dumb luck.

My daughter, 11,
The age 11, not the Stranger Things character.

― peace, man, Thursday, July 21, 2022 12:43 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Catching up on the thread and cannot stop loling irl at this

Many xps but I think with the Simpsons, at least during the classic seasons, a lot of the more cynical stuff goes right over kids' heads. Or, they get the basic vibe of why a situation is funny but not the granular details that might lead to actual cynical beliefs about society/life/whatever. otoh, it's also possible that kids are exposed to so much more now that they are more fluent in parsing the cynicism.

Cow_Art, love that post about the Beach Boys! A Beach Boys greatest hits CD of my parents' was one of the first "adult" albums I ever took an interest in as a kid myself at age 8 or 9, though it was then another 15 years before I came back around to exploring them. I am looking forward to my kids geeking out about music but also emotionally preparing myself that it may not happen to the extent of my dreams

I kind of caved on Stranger Things because she has been stuck home sick for days and because she has several friends who watch it and has this really strong "wanting to feel mature" thing lately. I try to check in with her about it since I can't watch with her. I asked her not to watch the 4th series because it's not appropriate for her age, but I guess we'll see if that stops her. I've been trying to talk about some of the scary parts with her just to see how she feels about them and how she's handling them. She does kind of like dark stories so I'm not surprised it appeals to her, plus it has a strong and somewhat introverted female lead character, which I would bet she relates to.

Seeing how much grim/dark TV our daughter can tolerate is one of my favorite things. Recently we watched Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which I love and she was really in to. I don’t think we’re ready to level up to Death Note though.

I was pretty surprised at how unperturbed they were by the Harry Potter Movies, which they started watching at like 8 and 5 respectively

my 5 year old daughter loves Spongebob and I feel that show is a little grotesque for her

Oh lord I had at least 4 different kinds of car accidents between ages 16-22, one of which was hitting a deer in the dark which is the only one that was definitively not my fault. Sorry to hear things are so rocky.

i recommend raising raffi by keith gessen.

keywords include: immigrant parents, multilingualism, russia, dealing with anger as a parent, boys, sports and parenting, pandemic, brooklyn housing, schools and daycares.

are we all having fun?

My favourite study of "how often does a family with small children get a respiratory infection?" is this one, from the USA: https://t.co/fepEzs4A6Q
Children <5y have one of 16 common respiratory viruses detected in a nasal swab 50% of the year! pic.twitter.com/xvkTPXqyQc

— Dr CJ Houldcroft 🕷️ (@DrCJ_Houldcroft) January 3, 2023

Yep, we might not have had actual life disrupting infections for 50% of last year but it certainly seemed like it. Usually impeccably timed, our 6 yo missed her one school theatre trip and one christmas cinema trip of the year.

my kids have been coughing for like 3 months straight

my kid has, too. super-hard to tell if her cough this morning was the remnant of an old infection or the beginning of a new one.

my 5 and a half year old has had a late night post-nasal drip cough for weeks. Totally find during the day, then every night hours into sleeping, she's coughing and sitting up for a bit.

hi horseshoe!

I remember our pediatrician's rule of thumb was that kids get sick 8 times a year until they're five then five times a year until they turn eight.

The first part of this was totally true but covid wrecked our data for the second part.

hi Tracer!

'Welp, enjoy working at Dollar General for the rest of your life' is a thing I say now.

Haha. I lost count of the number of times I said "Do you want to graduate from high school?" during the 2020-21 school year.

Earlier this evening, I literally found myself saying “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed…” – and even though I knew it was a cliché as I heard myself say it, it accurately expressed how I felt. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My three year old took my two volumes of Maus off the bookshelf and was, like, “what’s this about daddy”, and the best “quick change the subject” response my brain could come up with was “er, it’s a story about some mice who go on a lovely holiday together”

2-yo perfectly recreated the sloppy steaks from i think you should leave tonight

Just successfully hosted my daughter's 11th bday party with FIFTEEN 11yo girls in the house. Whew.

Here's a story that I was randomly thinking of today. I don't think I've told it here so I will tell it now.

Fact 1. When I'm in an elevator, or otherwise immobilized and idle, I have a habit of taking out my handkerchief and wiping off my glasses.

Fact 3. Some years ago, I was working in a U.S. government building with strict security.

Fact 4. At the time, my routine was to drop my daughter off at preschool before going to work. Now, when you have a kid in preschool, they sometimes need extra clothes for accidents and whatnot.

On one particular rainy morning I was made my commute as usual, got to work, and got into a crowded elevator.

As I often do in this situation, I took off my glasses, reached into my pocket, and began idly wiping my glasses with... a pair of Strawberry Shortcake panties, in size 6.

hahaha

a likely story

"...and that's why I no longer have a security clearance."

Amazing

My three year old daughter has a toy called Harry and she asked me “what’s his last name” and in a - not unusually - unthinking moment I said “Balls” and now she has a toy called Harry Balls.