The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Mini Money Mustaches => Topic started by: Mr. Green on August 10, 2019, 09:16:41 AM
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My wife and I have FIREd and are seriously considering starting a family. We're struggling with a couple things and I'm afraid our own personal observations of one family may be unreasonably tainting our views of the toddler stage.
We live with another family (close friends) and they have an 11, 9, and 1 year old. The one year old constantly either has to be touching/playing with a parent and every time he starts to whine about something (anything) they intervene. Is this just the way it is? I feel like they could be letting him work out his frustrations so he learns to redirect himself but I'm also not well versed in the development in babies.
My wife and I have spread our FIRE wings this year and we're really appreciating the joys of freedom. We spent 3 months touring the US and we'd consider doing this again, even with a child. However, the attached at the hip nature of every second that we see displayed to us daily makes us seriously question if we want kids. I understand that kids need attention but what we see is literally one pair of hands on every second the child is awake. I guess I'm hoping our friends simply choose to parent this way and not that it's an unavoidable fact of this stage of life.
I'm turning 36 in a month and my wife 34 in January so we're starting to feel the pressure of Father Time but we've also had our eyes opened by our recent travel that this is very much something we want to do more of.
Muatachian parents, what has your experience been? Is our secondhand view of this stage typical?
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It‘s not unavoidable, but you have to live with the consequences which is crying (initially) and complaining (later). Our experience is that the younger you are, the easier you deal with this conflict. Simplified I would say, easy when your in your twenties, requires work but is somewhat manageable in your thirties, hard in your forties, impossible in your fifties, unless you pay a ton of people to take care of problems
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I tell this to anyone thinking of starting a family, not because I am a downer, but because I remember wishing someone had told me :)... babies are a pain in the ass! It's not that I didn't understand this on a basic level, because I did. And of course everyone loves all the cool and cute stuff babies do, myself included. Everyone tells you it is the greatest thing they've ever done, which is usually also true. But it is a GRIND. What I was not prepared for was the complete and absolute loss of self identity and freedom. I also moved down the ladder one rung in order of importance to my wife, which I was prepared for but felt some loneliness as a result.
I was the primary caregiver for my first born and I'm not ashamed to admit I went through a mild depressive episode around month 9 or 10. I was just mourning my past life of living for myself (and wife), coming and going as I pleased etc. I had the added stress of work, as did my wife, which you do not...huge plus (probably).
You seem to be ahead of the curve in that you've been living with children daily so have some first hand knowledge of the daily struggles. My first was easy, but more attached to us than our next two, who have always been more independent but also defiant. I don't believe in hovering over your children, but I find it to be almost universally true that parents are hyper protective of their first one. Your friends might have a particularly needy 3rd child or it is just their nature to hover and coddle. I don't have all the answers and try not to judge others parenting.
I'm also very in love with my children and wish the same for you and your family. Just start mentally preparing for a trying year or two. You may not have the same experience as me with all your free time due to FIRE so take that for what it's worth. Good luck.
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I have a 5 year old and a 2.5 year old. My husband and I both work full time.
My standard line to people who don't have kids and ask about the experience is that it's both much harder and much more rewarding than I could have understood before the kids showed up.
Um, yeah. They pretty much need you every second. And that's from birth to around 3 years old. And then it eases off a little bit, but not that much. My five year old just learned how to take a shower by himself last week. Bliss. He can entertain himself in his room without us now, and when we hang out with friends he'll play pretty nicely with the other kids while we chat with the adults. That's been true since he was around 3-ish. But the 2.5 year old is still a disaster. Peak tantrum. Needs an incredible amount of supervision.
Every judgment you ever had about somebody's parenting is going to haunt you as you become a completely different parent from how you would have thought. You suddenly acquire an enormous amount of respect for most of the parents you've been watching all this time, as you are humbled by this squirming ball of incessant need.
There's no way to entirely predict what the experience will be like, but I think for most people it's an enormous adjustment, even with typical small children (no special needs, just regular-ass insane toddlers). I get myself through the hard parts by thinking of it like boot camp or medical school or anything that comes with a period of intense work and difficulty but is inherently worthwhile even at the time, and also has a big payoff at the end--you get to have a family of your own. To me, that was a big deal. I want the experience of having my own family, watching my children grow and change and mature, getting to have that relationship and also to feel like maybe the work I'm doing will make a difference; maybe my children will grow up to be positive forces in the world in some way. The rich source of meaning that is having children of my own has been keeping me going through this. Plus I know that the toddler part doesn't last forever.
I totally understand people who decide it's not for them, though. It's really freaking hard. I read a book called Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids that I recommend to anyone who is asking these sorts of questions. It brings up a lot of points.
One last thing--if you're around folks who have small children, that's already a huge advantage. Whenever somebody I know gets pregnant I'm inclined to make an effort to jump on the support train because I understand how hard it is. Keep cultivating those parent relationships if you make the decision to dive in.
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It‘s not unavoidable, but you have to live with the consequences which is crying (initially) and complaining (later). Our experience is that the younger you are, the easier you deal with this conflict. Simplified I would say, easy when your in your twenties, requires work but is somewhat manageable in your thirties, hard in your forties, impossible in your fifties, unless you pay a ton of people to take care of problems
I imagine there's probably a difference between constantly being around a one year old that isn't mine and one that is, but I'm very much of the mind to let the child struggle (to some degree) because that is how we learn. In that respect, I have no problem with crying (fussing). If anything I get a small sense of satisfaction? from it because I know the baby is learning vs. if he's constantly redirected he can't figure out for himself cause and effect. I suppose it kinda feels like parenting-lite for us at this point. We know the difference between the different cries, and we babysit so we've changed diapers, bathed him, put him to sleep, basically all the physical aspects of having a kid, just none of the emotional weight of responsibility that comes from it being our child.
My wife and I joke about there probably not being two people on the planet more "awake" to the realities of children, prior to having them, than we are because of our close and continuing contact with a family with three kids, including one with special needs.
But we don't have other friends with very young children because of our ages and that not being typical for our peer group so this one experience is our lens to toddlerhood. I just don't know if it's a typical one or not.
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My main parenting goal is to raise independent adults. I have no problems listening to whining kids, if that is the best long term solution. If you are able to put on your socks, I will wait for you to do that, even if it takes me two hours. I am more stubborn than a 2 year old. But from age 0 to ~3 I did not have a minute where I wasn't aware of the kid. Especially age 1-2 is *hard*: they have started to move around, and they are testing limits and borders all the time. But their brains have not caught up, so there is no sense of danger. Look away for two seconds, and they are jumping off a cliff. Letting them struggle doesn't necessary mean they are learning, since there is a lot they are simply not ready to do. And again: this is from someone who values independence. I let my kids wear whatever they wanted in kindergarten from about age 3. By then, they were able to see the connection "swimming suit in winter time = cold", and able to remember that the next time and adapt. (I have a fantastic photo of the oldest ready for kindergarten in swimming suit on top of tights and a sweater, big woolen balaclava, and wool lined wellingtons. And a swim ring around the waist. All the patterns and colors did of course clash horribly. But it was quite well suited for the weather that day.)
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I think if you're doing it "right," then yeah, toddlers require you to be 100% hands on. I also think that your own child crying has a completely different effect on you than hearing someone else's child cry. It's just part of our wiring.
I am a SAHM to three children, ages 12, 10, and 7. I had my first when I was 38, and I agree that it's freaking hard. My sister just had her first at 44 (after years of trying through IVF), and my husband and I continually asked her and her husband, "Are you SURE you want to do this?" We'd talk to them on a Sunday after they'd been to brunch and a movie, after waking up at 11:00 . . . oh, the glory of that lifestyle. It is a serious dose of hard cold reality to not have your life be your own anymore. And we love our kids dearly! I homeschool, so I'm with them 24/7. I wouldn't change my decision to have children, but I also completely understand the choice not to.
I come from two narcissistic parents, and my goal has always been to break that cycle with my own kids. Choosing to have children means being there for them, like it or not. Even when you'd rather be sleeping. Even when you think your head will explode if they whine one more time. It's really no different from lots of other Mustachian endeavors in that it requires you to be extremely selective about how you spend your time and resources.
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Hmm, I'm not sure you are really phrasing this question the best way. A lot of the answer here depends on whether you see kids as "needy" - if you phrase it like this, it likely means you don't enjoy that aspect of parenting because needy has a negative connocation. Some people do enjoy those aspects and in that case, "needy" isn't really the right word to frame the question.
As an example, a newborn is incredibly needy and needs food continuously. That is very "needy" but a lot of people love that aspect of parenting. My wife loves nursing our kiddo. She doesn't feel the "uggh, gotta nurse again" feeling for the most part even though he's needy.
It is kind of like people who love doing some things that other people see as "work." It's a matter of perspective.
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I imagine there's probably a difference between constantly being around a one year old that isn't mine and one that is, but I'm very much of the mind to let the child struggle (to some degree) because that is how we learn. In that respect, I have no problem with crying (fussing).
There is a difference. There is nothing wrong with letting a kid struggle. It’s good for them and we do the same. However, in reality it‘s just a lot harder to do than one might imagine. Just like you recognize the voice of a person, you will learn to recognize the crying, complaining and whining of your child in a larger group. And you will recognize behavior in the evening that has an impact on how your kid behaves the next day, or rather misbehaves...
It‘s sill worth it though, just don‘t expect your experience to be different from everyone else’s.
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Hmm, I'm not sure you are really phrasing this question the best way. A lot of the answer here depends on whether you see kids as "needy" - if you phrase it like this, it likely means you don't enjoy that aspect of parenting because needy has a negative connocation. Some people do enjoy those aspects and in that case, "needy" isn't really the right word to frame the question.
As an example, a newborn is incredibly needy and needs food continuously. That is very "needy" but a lot of people love that aspect of parenting. My wife loves nursing our kiddo. She doesn't feel the "uggh, gotta nurse again" feeling for the most part even though he's needy.
It is kind of like people who love doing some things that other people see as "work." It's a matter of perspective.
I may not be wording the question correctly. I was having a hard time with the specificity. I definitely understand that you can't leave a 1 year old unsupervised in an unsafe environment. I guess what I'm more thinking of is whether people have solutions where a one year old can be left while you pee and there's nothing there they can hurt themselves with vs. peeing means you feel compelled to hand the child off to another adult. And with respect to struggling I was thinking along the lines of the baby is trying unsuccessfully to pull himself up or open a drawer and can't and instead of allowing him to struggle with it there is constant redirection or he'll fuss and our friends I guess don't want him to fuss? But then that means one of them is physically within 2 feet of him every waking second. I guess that's the granularity I was trying to understand better if that's typical.
I guess in my brain Im imagining that a 1 year old should be able to have an area where it can play for a couple minutes at a time (with appropriate safety measures) without an adult hovering overhead. Is that unrealistic?
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If you have a 1 year old they go to the bathroom with you. I didn’t pee alone for years:)). It only takes a instant for them to get into things. They cannot entertain themselves at that age and follow you everywhere. I had all 3 of my kids by 25 so was young enough to be up for the challenge.
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You can use a playpen but the second the child can’t see you it will start screaming.
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I guess in my brain Im imagining that a 1 year old should be able to have an area where it can play for a couple minutes at a time (with appropriate safety measures) without an adult hovering overhead. Is that unrealistic?
You could put them in a playpen with only soft toys. But otherwise: totally unrealistic.
I would let them struggle with drawers and pulling themselves up. That won't hurt them, and it might let them learn something. But I would not take my eyes of a 1 year old. Peeing and showering can be done in groups.
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I guess in my brain Im imagining that a 1 year old should be able to have an area where it can play for a couple minutes at a time (with appropriate safety measures) without an adult hovering overhead. Is that unrealistic?
In the US, my impression is, yes, that is unrealistic. In Germany, no, why should you need to supervise a one year old all the time. It has nothing to do with your child but only society’s perception on what is normal.
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Kids have been injured or killed when pulling or climbing on dressers which can fall over.
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Exactly. Many families have been killed by eating fast food, many kids by other’s driving in an SUV. It‘s a matter of what is prioritized, and the US seems to value “no risk” very high, other countries don’t. And that is the rules you have to follow.
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It is also possible that your friends are more on top of their little one simply because of your presence. People are always judging parents, and if they feel any pressure (intended or not) they may be being hyper-vigilant when you are around so that their child does not "bother" you.
FWIW - I was a stay at home parent for many years with a spouse who worked away for two weeks at a time. I was fine to leave them (at that age) in their crib or play yard thingy for a short time in order to use the bathroom or sneak a quick shower. They are almost 8 & 10 now, and seem well adjusted enough :D (I am in Canada)
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If you cannot supervise you put them in a playpen and then they are safe. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
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I guess in my brain Im imagining that a 1 year old should be able to have an area where it can play for a couple minutes at a time (with appropriate safety measures) without an adult hovering overhead. Is that unrealistic?
In the US, my impression is, yes, that is unrealistic. In Germany, no, why should you need to supervise a one year old all the time. It has nothing to do with your child but only society’s perception on what is normal.
I might agree with you at age 3-4. Maybe down to 2.5. Ours were playing by themselves at the playground across the street by that age (Norway, low traffic, knew all the neighbours). But everyone needs to look after a 1-2 year old. They are crazy.
We put a bell (nice silver bracelet) on our youngest when she was around 18 months. If you turned your back on her for a second, she was gone. She was usually stopped by a neighbour, but one time she was walked back by a stranger who politely asked if we knew who this kid belonged to. He lived across the main road, so we are really lucky she wasn't hit by a car. Another time she climbed on top of the balcony and jumped down almost 10 feet (nothing broken, no concussion). The older was not that adventure seeking, but we have reminded her a couple of times about when she decided to decorate our shiny new-to-us car with a rock. All the way around, except for the one side where I was standing.
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There is a huge difference between watching them all the time, and that really means every second, or watching them most of the time and listening or relying on neighbors for the rest, especially in a closed of area.Of course you adjust your behavior to the adventurousness of your kid.
Our kid was kid 18 months when he was carrying around IKEA plastic furniture down the staircase to rearrange our home, but he also was very careful and wouldn‘t (and still doesn’t at age six) jump from hights.
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A bedroom or playroom where you've assessed the danger works as a playpen too. I leave my kids alone while I shower etc. My third never used a playpen but he had the older ones to keep an eye on him. Now that he's two he plays alone quite often but he's not mischievous... happy to play with his cars and trucks.
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My God the judgment you get when you have kids. If I'm being honest, so many of the things I do as a parent are purely to avoid judgment by other people. In my opinion the judgment might be the worst part about having kids.
My theory is that now that having kids is optional--which it hasn't been for most of history--it has opened the door to a barrage of criticism. People who haven't "been there" don't understand how hard it is, how it's not that you're a bad parent, it's that you have a semi-feral creature running around, keeping your heart as a hostage, and it has a mind of its own and you're doing the best you can to prevent it from doing the very thing it wants more than anything, which is to kill itself in the most tragic way imaginable. Every time you turn around the thing is trying to stab itself or run in front of a moving vehicle or swallow a Tide pod. And plenty of people have an opinion about this, and very very few people offer any help with it except to watch and either silently or vocally tell you how they'd do things differently.
Can you leave a baby while you go pee? Yep! They have exer-saucers for that, and playpens, and even just their crib or high chair works in a pinch. Or they can just come in the bathroom with you and avoid a screaming meltdown and that works fine, too. Showering I could never do unless they were taking a nap...too unavailable. You can put 'em in a bumbo in the tub while you shower if you have to, but mostly I like my shower to be a relaxed experience, and that wouldn't be.
Some parents are more "hands on" than others, but some of the "hands on"-ness comes from all the judgment we feel, especially in public. It feels like nobody trusts that parents are doing their best anymore--there's always this feeling that if we were more on top of things and not "on our phones all the time" our kid wouldn't be skinning its knee or falling off the playground or running over and stealing a toy from the other kid. When the reality is that kids breaking shit and being horrible to each other is just the reality of childhood.
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I guess in my brain Im imagining that a 1 year old should be able to have an area where it can play for a couple minutes at a time (with appropriate safety measures) without an adult hovering overhead. Is that unrealistic?
In the US, my impression is, yes, that is unrealistic. In Germany, no, why should you need to supervise a one year old all the time. It has nothing to do with your child but only society’s perception on what is normal.
I used the think like you when I only had my older kid as she was a "normal" child who was relatively risk averse. At around 1 I could rely on her not to do anything crazy while a took a couple of minutes to pee. Enter kid #2 who was the polar opposite. I remember finding her one day in the kitchen - she'd climbed up on the kitchen counter and was just reaching for some knives in a butcher block on a high shelf. Another time, when she was around 2 she was playing with a bunch of balloons at a restaurant while I ate pizza with friends. All 4 of our kids were in the next room playing with the balloons left over from a wedding and we could see them. I stuffed some pizza into my face and took a swig of wine and looked over and kid #2 was gone. I went into the room and could not find her. Looked all around the room and finally found a tiny door in one corner leading to the bathroom. She was not in the bathroom but there was another tiny door that led out into a courtyard. She wasn't there either but there was a door off the courtyard that led to a busy road. I went outside and looked across the road and saw a tiny figure running towards some cows on the other side of the road.
When you have a kid like my second one you'll never again be judgmental about parents being paranoid about safety. It's not an American thing or a Germany thing - just a matter of the kind of child you have.
Englishteacheralex - yes the judgment is horrible. Everyone seems to have an opinion even though it's none of their business. However, here in Italy, it's not as bad as in other countries. People seriously love kids here and celebrate them. The worst I've had is old people on buses telling me my kid should wear socks. Outside Italy I've had things like people getting angry at my 5 year old for talking to me on a plane - yes just talking in a regular voice on a daytime flight. WTF? Whenever I leave Italy, I feel like the judgment is non stop and a lot of people hate kids, which is strange as they once were kids.
MrGreen - it seems odd to make a monumental decision like this based on how "needy" a one year old is. Babies and toddlers (and older kids) make huge demands on their parents. Your life will revolve around them and their needs. If that's not something you're prepared for them parenthood probably isn't for you.
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It depends a lot on the kid you get and to a lesser extent, how you choose to parent. From my personal experience I’d say the part of physically touching the kid all the time is unusual. My first was a needy kid who preferred me to everyone else. My husband was an acceptable second choice but no one else would do. She wanted to be near me, play in the same room as me, but didn’t need to be touching me. My second is much more independent, and while she certainly likes me, she is a busy women with things to do, and doesn’t want to cuddle as much as I would like.
As others have mentioned, you’ll learn your kid’s voice to recognize the difference between whining and true need, and adjust your behavior accordingly. But yes, the first year is incredibly tough. It is also the most rewarding thing. The highs in life are higher and the lows are lower. Make of that what you wish.
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That’s what I’m saying. Your behavior as as a parent should be driven by your kids behavior and personality, not by some generic society’s expectations. My kid is risk averse, but his six year old friend jumps from heights that I wouldn’t jump from (like two meters). And yes, kids are kids, be it food (I eat whatever is on the ground, but if there is parsley on my plate I’ll make a tantrum), or the way they talk (I still remember when my dad forced me to be silent for five minutes at the age of five).
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That’s what I’m saying. Your behavior as as a parent should be driven by your kids behavior and personality, not by some generic society’s expectations. My kid is risk averse, but his six year old friend jumps from heights that I wouldn’t jump from (like two meters). And yes, kids are kids, be it food (I eat whatever is on the ground, but if there is parsley on my plate I’ll make a tantrum), or the way they talk (I still remember when my dad forced me to be silent for five minutes at the age of five).
I think that's how parents generally parent their kids no matter where they live be it the US, Germany or anywhere else. I'm American and would have parented my two kids this way whether they'd grown up in the US or anywhere else. Not sure where in the US you lived with your children and got the impression that parents parent their kids by 'generic societal expectations' rather than common sense? Obviously, the US is a very big, diverse country. Can you elaborate?
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I didn’t live with my kids in the US, but I have friends there, and we obviously talk a lot, even when we don‘t agree on everything ... Rural Oregon, Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia if that makes a difference. I’m in the US between two and four weeks per year.
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That’s what I’m saying. Your behavior as as a parent should be driven by your kids behavior and personality, not by some generic society’s expectations. My kid is risk averse, but his six year old friend jumps from heights that I wouldn’t jump from (like two meters). And yes, kids are kids, be it food (I eat whatever is on the ground, but if there is parsley on my plate I’ll make a tantrum), or the way they talk (I still remember when my dad forced me to be silent for five minutes at the age of five).
I think that's how parents generally parent their kids no matter where they live be it the US, Germany or anywhere else. I'm American and would have parented my two kids this way whether they'd grown up in the US or anywhere else. Not sure where in the US you lived with your children and got the impression that parents parent their kids by 'generic societal expectations' rather than common sense? Obviously, the US is a very big, diverse country. Can you elaborate?
Stuff like this makes a certain impression about the US (don't know how good these sources are, but similar stories pop up every so often):
https://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/everything-kids/mom-arrested-for-leaving-8-and-9-year-olds-home-alone-for-less/
http://www.fox26houston.com/news/schools-new-policy-bans-parents-from-walking-children-to-school
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I really appreciate all the responses. My specific concern has been harder to articulate than I anticipated.
I hope I wasn't coming across as judging the way my friends parent. I think they do a phenomenal job with their kids. Though, I don't think they parent in any particular way because we might judge them. We've all lived together for 2 years and known each other for 15. Because they are such great parents (and friends), my observation of how they're raising their toddler feels a bit like "this is just how raising a toddler is." We have only one other set of friends with a toddler and we see them a few times a year.
My wife and I are just struggling through a moment when this view feels particularly distressing. We've only really begun maximizing the freedom that FIRE provides in this past year. The way in which we traveled around the US is almost the antithesis of caring for a toddler. We boonbocked, made unplanned detours, made spontaneous decisions, and really just felt completely untethered the entire time we were on the road. After spending 13 years in an unhappy career, it was everything I dreamed financial independence would be.
However, we've been on the "start a family" fence for a couple years now. There was a miscarriage a couple years ago and minor complications afterward (that don't impact future conception). So we understand that trying does not equal pregnancy now. We were basically on board with starting to try again when we got back from our trip, but suddenly being back in an environment where we're directly observing what raising a toddler looks like has us second guessing ourselves pretty hard.
So I thought, maybe it doesn't really have to look like this and it sounds like based on some of the comments here, it doesn't (with caveats). I have no problem not following societal norms. I had to take a psych profile for my old career and one of my most dominant traits was anti-socialness in that regard. As an engineer, I'm always focused on efficiency and improving how something is done so when I see my friends so completely tied to their 1 year old (one adult within 3 feet every waking second, literally) I can't help but question if it has to be that way. Which led me to asking the question here, because to me that feels like prison. I understand it's only a phase, but I think part of the doubt we're working through is whether we want to go from absolute freedom to (what feels like) absolute imprisonment, having only had a brief taste of that full freedom. Of course there's certainly the consideration that the younger we have kids, they younger we'll be when they're basically self-directing (teenagers) and then out of the house. But we're already old enough that we may not be able to do some of the things in our 50's that we can do now. So we land back on the question of, "maybe we should wait one more year?" On the other side of that coin are the increased risks associated with waiting. I have Tourettes Syndrome, which is something that has a strong chance of being passed to a child, and like many of the other risks, increases with age. Though, we're not against adopting and I don't think either of us would be absolutely destroyed if things didn't work out for us and we just ended up with no children.
It's been a lot to suddenly reconsider. Please keep the responses coming, and thank you for your input.
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I'd say it varies based on the kid. I was at a soccer game a few days ago with a 6-9 month old in a playpen while both of her parents were playing. I was making smiley faces at her, but she was basically doing great -- rolling over, chewing on her stuffed monkey, grabbing at stuff in the playpen, making faces at me. Either of my kids would've been screaming after 10 minutes of that.
I had an enlightening moment at a zoo, watching a gorilla mom and baby, which was that baby primates generally seem to like being in contact with their parents. There are tools, like slings and wraps, that you can use to keep them in contact with you (and which make it much, much easier to go about doing your own stuff) , but it's likely that a child will want lots of physical contact (and lots of attention) for a number of years. We liked reading The Scientist in the Crib for actual research-based information about child development.
The other thing to be aware of is that what's developmentally appropriate depends on your kid, not your convenience. So "teach them to endure hardship" is, I'm sorry, complete bullshit when you're talking about a 1-year old. What you're going to teach the kid is that you, and adults in general, can't be relied on to meet their needs when they do their best to communicate them to you. Seriously, read some science-based research on child development. Teach you kids to do what's hard (and what's right) by modeling that and doing it with them.
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If you value your freedom at all, think long and hard before signing up for an 18-year prison term.
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The other thing to be aware of is that what's developmentally appropriate depends on your kid, not your convenience. So "teach them to endure hardship" is, I'm sorry, complete bullshit when you're talking about a 1-year old. What you're going to teach the kid is that you, and adults in general, can't be relied on to meet their needs when they do their best to communicate them to you. Seriously, read some science-based research on child development. Teach you kids to do what's hard (and what's right) by modeling that and doing it with them.
I think maybe the interpretation of my comment on struggle is more serious than I intended. The examples I was thinking of we're things like fussing/getting upset over not being able to lift a container full of toys, or running something into a wall and being upset because the thing stopped moving. Constantly redirecting the child in those situations it's becomes hands on every 10 seconds. That's what I observe anyway. It is my hope that there's nothing wrong with allowing that kid to not be able to pick up 10 pounds worth of toys, getting frustrated, and moving on from that to the next thing. I'm sure this would involve more fussing but does not hold the parent as much of a hostage because you're not redirecting every 10 seconds. That's the kind of stuff I was thinking about.
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A few thoughts:
1) I have 2 kids, now teens. Child 1 was a runner - from age 1-2, if you set him down or he was wasn't secured by gates, baby devices, etc. - he was running away. This made places without gates a nightmare. Child 2 was a clinger - stuck to me all the time. He needed a lot of reassurance, was very hesitant/shy, is still very reserved with outsiders. They are both relatively well adjusted people. I could see you thinking the same things about my clinger you are about this family you mention. Some kids just need more physical support/touch.
2) I am mid-40's now. At least for me (who is in moderate physical shape) I felt a noticeable decline in my physical abilities and energy levels from 38-44ish. For me, it would have so much more difficult to have a baby with all the sleepless nights at 42 than at 38.
3) Along the same lines - think about the grandparent issue as well. I think people who wait to have kids overly focus on maximizing their freedom and time without their kids, without a thought on what kind of grandparent they will be. If you are 40 and have a kid, and your kid doesn't have a kid until age 40 - you will be 80 when the grandkids come. Even if your kid has a kid at 25 - you will be 65 when the grandkids start coming, in your 70's when they are rough and tumble school aged. What sort of physical endurance will you have? How involved will you be in their lives? I had my kids in my late 20's, my sister had her last kid at 41. My parents have a much different grandparent relationship with her youngest than they did with my kids - solely because they are not physically able to do the things they could do 10+ years ago.
Also - what about your parents and parents-in-laws? Do they want to see your kid(s) graduate high school? Be active with them or just be the person sitting in the chair in the corner at holidays? Maybe that is harsh, but that tends to be the reality when grandma is 87 and grandchild is 6.
I am biased towards my own experience, but my vote would be to have kids sooner rather than later if you are going to do it.
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You may never be a grandparent. I had 3 kids by 25 and at 65 am not a grandparent. I see that as a non issue.
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A few thoughts:
1) I have 2 kids, now teens. Child 1 was a runner - from age 1-2, if you set him down or he was wasn't secured by gates, baby devices, etc. - he was running away. This made places without gates a nightmare. Child 2 was a clinger - stuck to me all the time. He needed a lot of reassurance, was very hesitant/shy, is still very reserved with outsiders. They are both relatively well adjusted people. I could see you thinking the same things about my clinger you are about this family you mention. Some kids just need more physical support/touch.
2) I am mid-40's now. At least for me (who is in moderate physical shape) I felt a noticeable decline in my physical abilities and energy levels from 38-44ish. For me, it would have so much more difficult to have a baby with all the sleepless nights at 42 than at 38.
3) Along the same lines - think about the grandparent issue as well. I think people who wait to have kids overly focus on maximizing their freedom and time without their kids, without a thought on what kind of grandparent they will be. If you are 40 and have a kid, and your kid doesn't have a kid until age 40 - you will be 80 when the grandkids come. Even if your kid has a kid at 25 - you will be 65 when the grandkids start coming, in your 70's when they are rough and tumble school aged. What sort of physical endurance will you have? How involved will you be in their lives? I had my kids in my late 20's, my sister had her last kid at 41. My parents have a much different grandparent relationship with her youngest than they did with my kids - solely because they are not physically able to do the things they could do 10+ years ago.
Also - what about your parents and parents-in-laws? Do they want to see your kid(s) graduate high school? Be active with them or just be the person sitting in the chair in the corner at holidays? Maybe that is harsh, but that tends to be the reality when grandma is 87 and grandchild is 6.
I am biased towards my own experience, but my vote would be to have kids sooner rather than later if you are going to do it.
Alas, if we could only have our cake and eat it too. There are no easy answers to these questions. My wife's parents have 4 grandkids already so they're very laid back about the prospect of more grandkids. They also all had kids young. My wife's parents are only in their mid-50s now. But my poor mom. At 63, she wants a grandkid yesterday, and my only sibling has already declared adamantly that she will never have kids. I hate to think my mom might not end up with any but that is not a reason to have a child.
I haven't really thought much about when I would be a grandparent. I can hope that I'll be in great shape at that age thanks to 30-40 years of retirement but I've seen enough people age to know that it can be a crapshoot.
I try to weigh those things but it's hard to know how much you'd regret what you don't get have. Travelling around the US was just mind-blowing. I can confidently say it was the best three months of my life and I bet my wife will say the same. Would I regret not taking the chance to do it a little more thoroughly if later in life I wasn't able to travel like that? I'm pretty confident I would. But then if we wait another year or two for kids and end up not getting pregnant again how far would we chase that? Of course there's no way to know if age would be the causing factor there but there'd always be the nagging thought. Would we regret that? I honestly don't know. I'm loving freedom so immensely that it's hard to imagine feeling bad about that choice, but I also understand the draw of a family. It's nice to think about having children who would love you unconditionally and that you would share a common bond with no matter what. But neither of us desire children so much that we aren't confounded by the questions in front of us.
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All kidding aside, I think you and your wife have to answer the profound questions of do you really want children? How much do you want them? And with the realization that your priorities may change down the road. I have known perfectly happy childless people who never regretted for one second the choice that they made. I have also known people who did regret choosing not to have kids, when they could no longer have any. I have known people who changed their minds in their forties and ended up having a baby late in life. I also know people who clearly aren't that thrilled about raising kids but still intend to do it sooner rather than later because they don't want to have regrets.
It's a tough decision for sure. Best of luck to you.
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Ugh, 12 months to 24 months was difficult for me. Loved the baby stage and love 2+. But when he was 18 months old, I started looking at daycares! I wouldn't make your decision to have children based on observing this one particularly tough stage.
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That’s what I’m saying. Your behavior as as a parent should be driven by your kids behavior and personality, not by some generic society’s expectations. My kid is risk averse, but his six year old friend jumps from heights that I wouldn’t jump from (like two meters). And yes, kids are kids, be it food (I eat whatever is on the ground, but if there is parsley on my plate I’ll make a tantrum), or the way they talk (I still remember when my dad forced me to be silent for five minutes at the age of five).
I think that's how parents generally parent their kids no matter where they live be it the US, Germany or anywhere else. I'm American and would have parented my two kids this way whether they'd grown up in the US or anywhere else. Not sure where in the US you lived with your children and got the impression that parents parent their kids by 'generic societal expectations' rather than common sense? Obviously, the US is a very big, diverse country. Can you elaborate?
Stuff like this makes a certain impression about the US (don't know how good these sources are, but similar stories pop up every so often):
https://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/everything-kids/mom-arrested-for-leaving-8-and-9-year-olds-home-alone-for-less/
http://www.fox26houston.com/news/schools-new-policy-bans-parents-from-walking-children-to-school
This is the problem with foreigners judging/stereotyping the US through the media without living there. You speak English so you can read this and it's widely reported elsewhere as it confirms stereotypes. These are extreme cases in a country of 320+ million people that were heavily criticized in the media. This does not reflect how average Americans actually parent.
I could point you to similar controversies here in italy but news reports were in Italian. So the controversies were not reported outside Italy. One example is the banning of middle school kids (age 11-14) from going to school without a parent after a child in Sicily was killed on the way to school. The education minister at the time said something along the lines of "why can't the grandparents take the kids to school? Us grandparents love doing things for our grandchildren". Tons of anger and controversy about this but no reporting internationally. Also it's illegal here in italy to leave your kids at home alone until they are 14. Ridiculous IMO.
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I’m a 41 yo mom to two children aged 10 and 7. Today my DH and I will drop them off for their first week of overnight camp. It’s the first time they’ve ever been away from both of us for a whole week.
Some of the best parenting advice I got was “just when you think you can’t take a phase or stage they are in any longer it changes, and just when you think you are in a great spot with them, it changes”.
I kept working while they were toddlers because going to work was easier! That phase your friends child is in, is exhausting. You’re constantly moving. Now my kids are school aged and I’m planning to finally FIRE so I can stay home with them. I often feel sad because I realize my time with my ten year old is likely half over. I really enjoy being with them now. It does go by fast.
The biggest disadvantage I can see that you all would need to consider is that kids are limiting. Travel is not as easy. For many years you are tied to a nap schedule (my kids need their sleep or life becomes unbearable for everybody). You can’t just go sit and drink on an outdoor patio for extended periods of time. etc. I’m not going to lie, sometimes the monotony of their schedule, and their inability to be flexible has gotten to me. We are just starting to move out of this phase. We’ve taken two big trips in the last two years that were lots of fun, nobody cried, everyone enjoyed something. Prior to that we really could only manage renting a beach house for a week.
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The only young children that are not “needy” are those who have some kind of attachment disorder- like children who are neglected in an orphanage or severely autistic. This is a survival mechanism- if you don’t keep your parent close by you are gong to get eaten by a wolf or bear.
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The only young children that are not “needy” are those who have some kind of attachment disorder- like children who are neglected in an orphanage or severely autistic. This is a survival mechanism- if you don’t keep your parent close by you are gong to get eaten by a wolf or bear.
I agree - children, by definition, are "needy".
Mr Green - how about having just one child? To me that would be kind of a compromise as just having one would be less of a commitment and the difficult phase would be over more quickly. We recently sent our older one to camp for a week and just dealing with the younger one was like a holiday for us. I also have couple friends where one wanted kids and one didn't and they compromised on just having one and they are both very happy.
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After having had two of my own, I do have a newfound understanding for the "one and done" crew. Best of both worlds. Way easier and cheaper to find a babysitter...if you have nice friends/family, it's an easier "ask" to have somebody come watch the kid for free (if you have that kind of relationship).
We just had to give our firstborn a sibling...oh well they're cute when they play together.
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The other thing to be aware of is that what's developmentally appropriate depends on your kid, not your convenience. So "teach them to endure hardship" is, I'm sorry, complete bullshit when you're talking about a 1-year old. What you're going to teach the kid is that you, and adults in general, can't be relied on to meet their needs when they do their best to communicate them to you. Seriously, read some science-based research on child development. Teach you kids to do what's hard (and what's right) by modeling that and doing it with them.
I think maybe the interpretation of my comment on struggle is more serious than I intended. The examples I was thinking of we're things like fussing/getting upset over not being able to lift a container full of toys, or running something into a wall and being upset because the thing stopped moving. Constantly redirecting the child in those situations it's becomes hands on every 10 seconds. That's what I observe anyway. It is my hope that there's nothing wrong with allowing that kid to not be able to pick up 10 pounds worth of toys, getting frustrated, and moving on from that to the next thing. I'm sure this would involve more fussing but does not hold the parent as much of a hostage because you're not redirecting every 10 seconds. That's the kind of stuff I was thinking about.
This is probably still a "your kid(s) may vary" situation. In an ideal world, you might talk this situation through with a kid, i.e. "I wonder if that basket is easier to lift when it's empty .... I wonder if you can lift it when it has only one toy in it ... " etc. Because you're trying to teach them to think through possible solutions to their own problems. The, er, "problem" here is that being able to solve one's own problems is a teachable skill, but it takes a while to teach it. I always recommend How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, which is big on empowering your kid(s) to find ways to solve their own problems as much as possible, rather then preemptively stepping in.
However, with a 1-year old, the best you can probably do is teach the kid baby sign language (because one of the major frustrations of being that age is having intentions and wishes and not being able to communicate them) and hoping you have a relatively self-entertaining kid. Or hiring help. If you have a high-needs, high-energy, high-engagement child, there's no shame in hiring a college student for some number of hours/week to take the kid somewhere and play with her/him. Or finding a good preschool!
BeanCounter also has an important point, which is as much as any particular phase drives you crazy, it won't last. (Same for phases you're enjoying, of course.) If you have a neurotypical kid, it'll be just about when you come up with and execute the most brilliant parenting response that they'll move on to the next thing.
FWIW, I am in my early 50's, and have an 18 YO and a 15 YO.
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I guess in my brain Im imagining that a 1 year old should be able to have an area where it can play for a couple minutes at a time (with appropriate safety measures) without an adult hovering overhead. Is that unrealistic?
Of course you can, you said with the appropriate safety measure. When they are babies and toddlers, they can be left alone. They may fuss or cry or shriek as if they are being murder, but if you are certain they are safe, then being left along for a bit will not cause long term harm
What you described about your friends, its also very normal when they hit about 2 they go through a separation anxiety. This is a normal developmental piece where they realize that the world is a much bigger place than their immediately area and they don't want to be left alone. That doesn't mean you have to be tied at the hip. It means you have to find ways to teach your kids that its okay that you are out of the room for a bit as you will always come back. Each kid is different.
My thought on being a parent is that you have to remember that when a baby is brought into this world they know NOTHING. The don't know how to eat very well, they don't know how to sleep or sooth themselves, they can't even pass gas without help, they can't do their basic needs with out parents providing, protecting and teaching them everything. This doesn't stop as a baby.
I think maybe the interpretation of my comment on struggle is more serious than I intended. The examples I was thinking of we're things like fussing/getting upset over not being able to lift a container full of toys, or running something into a wall and being upset because the thing stopped moving. Constantly redirecting the child in those situations it's becomes hands on every 10 seconds. That's what I observe anyway. It is my hope that there's nothing wrong with allowing that kid to not be able to pick up 10 pounds worth of toys, getting frustrated, and moving on from that to the next thing. I'm sure this would involve more fussing but does not hold the parent as much of a hostage because you're not redirecting every 10 seconds. That's the kind of stuff I was thinking about.
As they become toddlers, they need to learn everything. I believe in natural consequences when possible. However, one has to remember that the toddler doesn't understand that it is a natural consequence. So just letting the toddler struggle with a 10lb box and letting him get frustrated doesn't do anything, cause he doesn't understand why he can't lift the box. He needs to be TAUGHT the natural consequence. For us, that would have meant we would have allowed our toddler to try to lift the 10lb box, when she couldn't we would then explain it's very heavy and give her some options on what she can do. It's tricky at this age, if they can't communicate very well. You can't think about it as being hostage, but you are there to redirect and teach. That can be every 10 seconds. We pretty lucky, we had early communicators and they both seemed to learn very quickly so we didn't have to tell them something so many times. We also worked hard with them to teach them the appropriate behavior which took longer but paid off. I think its really dependant on the child though.
I can tell you that each phase is different. The baby/toddler phase is all about survival, yours and theirs. Then it gets hard when you start worrying about schools and their future, then as school agers if they are making friends and learning, then as tween. OMG I don't even want to talk about that. It's different at each stage.
My observations are parents who seems to adjust better are those that understand that they no longer have the life they did pre-kids. They will no longer mourn the lost of freedom (which I did), and embrace the new life. It just a different path. They realize that the well being of children and family are more important than the individual dreams they had. They can't just try and fit in the kids into the life they had prior. They need to figure out the new life which include these being they brought into the world and are responsible for.
I will give examples of some of our biggest changes in life:
Career - We were both high flying career climbers prior to kids. I have had to turn down or even demote myself into jobs that I don't enjoy as much to be able to have the time I want with the kids. I gave up more fulfillment at work and $ to gain a more fulfilling life with my family. My spouse would travel all the time, now, he only looks at jobs that have minimal travel and flexible hours. We could have made so much more money, but the family is more important. We are lucky we can have the work life balance we want/ Not a big deal if you are retired.
Personal time - there is hardly any for ourselves. I spend my free time volunteering 2-3 times a week with my kids activities. The evenings are spent with the kids. We did find it important to reserve time for ourselves, but we had to really work at finding a kid 'free' time as a couple, we did lunches during work, and would plan a date night about once a month. We also went out with friend once a month when they were little. Now, we can do it more frequently because the kids can stay at home along. (yeah)
Activities - our leisure activities revolve around the kids. You will find you friend other parents so you can have some social time.
Travel - we changed the type of travel we do. No more can we just go anytime we want on a seat sale. We have to go during the most expensive times of the year (summer, xmas, spring break) where every where is crowded. We loved international travel before, but now it's done in much safer, cleaner kid friendly way = $$$$.
My kids are not 10 & 13, and I would go back to when they were toddlers in a moment. It felt like we would never get out of those tough times, and I know we still have many ahead, but I wouldn't trade them for anything. The days were really long but the years are certainly short.
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I can tell you a little bit about our experiences traveling with children, since this is an aspect that you may not be that familiar with compared to the daily life that you are involved in. With the caveat of course that all children are different.
We traveled extensively with our children ever since infancy with many 10+ hour flights, mostly because during those years we had several ill or dying relatives abroad.
1. Infant years: Plane and car rides are pretty easy. They basically just sleep and nurse. On the plane you can sit by the bulkhead and the baby will sleep in a bassinet. At your destination you will often have to change and nurse, and will not always be able to find private places to do so. You will also have to carry around a LOT of stuff. You will however be mostly free to visit museums and nice restaurants and such, as long as they don't forbid babies. (I did once almost get kicked out of a high tea place for nursing my baby there, even though I was wearing a cover.)
2. Toddler years: Plane and car rides will be tougher. If you thought economy seats were uncomfortable, imagine now carrying a child in your lap the whole way. Who will not want to sit still. I once spend almost the entirety of a 2 hour flight walking up and down the aisle with my son. At your destination, your child may or may not want to sit in their stroller. I never had a problem with mine, but I've seen parents pushing an empty stroller while carrying their fussy toddler on their hip. Also lots of places are not stroller friendly. Your child will be potty trained but prone to accidents, and finding a clean bathroom for them to use can be challenging. You'll continue to carry around a ton of stuff.
3. School years: No more giant diaper bag! More complaining though. Also now bound by school schedules, unless you homeschool, but you'll still have to concern yourself with making sure they are progressing academically.
4. All ages: Children get sick more easily when they are exposed to new environments and when their schedules are disrupted. Illness is one of my top concerns when we travel. Anyone who has cared for a sick child can tell you that it is miserable. You will also not have access to your familiar doctor and may have to deal with unfamiliar medical systems.
After the infant years, your activities will now be dictated by how child friendly they are. When you travel with kids you naturally want to see them enjoy themselves, so this will mean lots of parks, zoos, amusement parks, etc... Also restaurants that serve food they will be willing to eat. Your schedules will revolves around theirs, so you can basically forget night markets or spending all day exploring a new city. You really don't want to drag a tired child around with you. You'll be spending a lot more time in your hotel or vacation rental because children need more sleep than adults, so you'll probably want comfortable accommodations.
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Each child is SO different. I have 4. My first was and still is the easiest child/teenager ever. She is almost 16. If she had been an only we would have thought we were the "best" parents ever! Then the 2nd kid came hahaha...I love that kid to pieces but wow he was/is intense! Number 2 has made me a better person and I have learned a lot about myself. Then 3 and 4...all different. Different stages were/are hard. Traveling with our kids has never been hard but we go with the flow. We don't drive at night because they do better during the day etc. We adapt to their needs and we all have a great time! We always knew we wanted kids and never doubted that just how many. Really do some soul searching! I love having 4!
Many people parent very differently. Also don't ever say I would never until you have been in their shoes....
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To follow up a bit on Cloudsail: if you have kids for whom it's a good match, and you do the work early on, you can do quite a bit of traveling with little, medium-sized, and large kids. It will be different, though. Also, if your kid will tolerate it (and you can, too), I strongly suggest using wraps or baby carriers instead of strollers: it's one less bulky thing to deal with.
Small to medium-sized kids are fun to have in Southern Europe -- Spain and Italy, in particular, are really child-friendly and have low birthrates. This means that people will be friendly toward your kid (unlike in the US) and also be tolerant of kid behavior. We had our 20-month old get a tour of the espresso machine, the gelateria, and meet the owner's dog while we were finishing lunch in Italy, because the owners noticed that he was finished and getting bored. He also got passed lap-to-lap on a train in Italy, because he was tired and getting fussy.
Older kids, who can learn languages with you and help plan, can be a real blast to travel with. And they can lead you into experiences you might not've had otherwise: that same kid, age 16 or so, wanted to take a kite-boarding lesson in Sicily. He and the instructor only really had Spanish in common, and they had a blast. He was also reading Edith Hamilton's Mythology as summer reading as we were touring around a number of historical sites that featured in the book...
As always when traveling with other humans, you'll need to take their abilities and preferences into account. Also, it helps if you teach them basic manners early on -- "please" and "thank you" and reasonable table manners go a surprisingly long way. But civility is a thing we all practice, right?
Adding to @meandmyfamily: we always did our driving at night when the kids were small, because our kids HATED being in car seats for very long. We'd have dinner, put them into PJs, and drive until we couldn't drive safely, then camp. This usually put us within striking distance of wherever we were wanting to be (this was mostly for camping trips 7ish hours away from home) and we woke up in a lovely place that was very different from home. But it's part of adapting to the needs of the kids.
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As someone who chose not to have kids, here's my best advice for contemplating having them:
You're not deciding between being child-free vs having a perfect, sweet, healthy, little clone of yourselves to have precious moments with. That's just one possible future and you might not pull that straw.
Kids come in a lot of flavours, and you don't get to choose.
Every time I hear an update about SIL's daughter being hospitalized, or watching her be fed through a tube, or seeing that only her parents can understand her non-verbal communication, I am reminded that I never wanted to be a parent.
I thought I wanted kids. I spent a few years in my late 20s (thanks hormones!) thinking it would be so much fun to have a little version of myself, a talkative, creative, nerdy kid with a big vocabulary who liked to alphabetize things and who would be my best friend like I am to my mom, but that's not wanting to be a parent, that's wanting something *for me*, which is NOT what parenting is about.
Parenting isn't about what a kid brings to your life, it's the support your provide for theirs. It's not about you, it's about them, whatever their needs turn out to be.
Spend some serious time, both of you, contemplating a life with a child who has serious special needs. If that makes you say "nope", then think long and hard about choosing to become a parent.
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As someone who chose not to have kids, here's my best advice for contemplating having them:
You're not deciding between being child-free vs having a perfect, sweet, healthy, little clone of yourselves to have precious moments with. That's just one possible future and you might not pull that straw.
I'd add to that that even if your child does not have special needs, s/he will be a whole new person with their own personality and interests - not a clone of yourself to have precious moments with. That would be a bad motivation to have kids. To me that half the fun of parenting is that my kids are very different from me and from each other. It is so fun to discover new things about my kids' personalities that are completely unlike my own. Just little things like how they see the world and what they love.
Like this morning, since we're on staycation right now and went to the zoology museum yesterday, my younger daughter wanted to make a diorama with home made sea creatures. I haven't got a crafty bone in my body but spent the whole morning with the kids making this diorama. Hard to explain but it's thrilling for a parent to see their kids' really interested in something cool. If I didn't have kids I would never have gone to the zoology museum, never would have discovered with my daughter how great the sea creatures are and never would have spent a morning making a diorama of sea creatures and looking up descriptions on the internet.
Parents tend to think their kids are the most fascinating creatures ever to walk the earth (which can be irritating when you hear them drone on about their kids) but this is a wonderful thing when it happens to you. And the special needs parents I know are also completely in love with their kids although I guess it would be better to let someone with the experience of parenting a special needs kid opine on this.
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As someone who chose not to have kids, here's my best advice for contemplating having them:
You're not deciding between being child-free vs having a perfect, sweet, healthy, little clone of yourselves to have precious moments with. That's just one possible future and you might not pull that straw.
I'd add to that that even if your child does not have special needs, s/he will be a whole new person with their own personality and interests - not a clone of yourself to have precious moments with. That would be a bad motivation to have kids. To me that half the fun of parenting is that my kids are very different from me and from each other. It is so fun to discover new things about my kids' personalities that are completely unlike my own. Just little things like how they see the world and what they love.
Like this morning, since we're on staycation right now and went to the zoology museum yesterday, my younger daughter wanted to make a diorama with home made sea creatures. I haven't got a crafty bone in my body but spent the whole morning with the kids making this diorama. Hard to explain but it's thrilling for a parent to see their kids' really interested in something cool. If I didn't have kids I would never have gone to the zoology museum, never would have discovered with my daughter how great the sea creatures are and never would have spent a morning making a diorama of sea creatures and looking up descriptions on the internet.
Parents tend to think their kids are the most fascinating creatures ever to walk the earth (which can be irritating when you hear them drone on about their kids) but this is a wonderful thing when it happens to you. And the special needs parents I know are also completely in love with their kids although I guess it would be better to let someone with the experience of parenting a special needs kid opine on this.
Every parent with special needs kids I've ever worked with is madly in love with their kid. No exception, and I wasn't implying anything otherwise, nor speaking for any parents.
I was using myself as an example of someone who clearly never actually wanted to be a parent because my motivations were nonsense, hormones and nonsense.
The moment I realized that my desire for a baby came with conditions, I knew I wasn't meant to be a parent.
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I think that each parenting experience is unique and very difficult to predict how it will actually be until you are living it but I think is a terrific idea to ask all of these questions beforehand!!!
I can relate to many of the notes above but wanted to add in to consider how much support you will have either from family or friends. We have always been fiercely independent couple but having kids makes you have to surrender at times and accept the help of others (whether due to illness, exhaustion, or just needing a break!) We have never lived close to relatives and for a while did not understand how our friends were managing to find downtime away from kids- but they had nearby grandparents that were constantly being used as sitters!!!!! Honestly, I had never considered how important that could be! We still don't get as many breaks as we should but we do sometimes trade off kids with close friends to allow everybody to take a little break- is important!!
We have taken our kids all over the world and has been wonderful but not going to sugar coat- kids are hard work and as noted above they are constantly changing so just when you think you have things on an even keel it all gets thrown out the window!!!
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@Mr. Green You've heard from a lot of people who chose to be parents. I'll provide a little perspective from someone child-free.
In our late 20s, my wife and I were on the fence about having kids. But watching all of our friends have kids pushed us off the fence.
I think all of our friends are great parents. The observation I'd have is that the friends who most radically changed their lives to serve what they perceived to be the interests of their kids (or simply the social expectations of upper middle class childrearing) have been made (at least to appear) pretty unhappy and exhausted by the experience. The ones who minimized the changes to their lives - NOT moving to the "good" school district, continuing to have both spouses work, and hiring out much of the household labor - ended up most happy. To an outsider, there seems to be something of an inverse correlation between the percentage of the parenting work and/or accommodation they do and enjoying having a child.
There's a notable exception though, and that's that everyone I know who has adopted has without exception been made a better and more joyful person by the experience. Maybe it's because the hormones and idealism are taken out of it. Maybe it's because with slightly older kids the "drawing straws" nature of it that @Malkynn mentioned is minimized. I'm not sure, but in my world of observations adoption seems like a great deal.
Someone may very well come along and say that these ^ observations are wrong, based on a limited and biased sample, and generally wrongheaded because everyone loves, loves, loves their children. Fine. These are just my anecdotal observations like all the others in this thread. Perhaps there's something there that's useful.
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My son is 46 and his wife is 41. They were just discussing how happy they are not to have kids as their friends are stressed out about money and time. They on the other hand travel and do what they want. My sister also chose not to have kids and was never sorry. Actually the people I knew with no children have never been sorry. My 3 kids are grown but our lives did revolve around their needs and activities. Money was tight for many years when they were young and many plans,etc were canceled when one got sick. I love them very much and am not sorry I had them but to think that your life won’t change a lot is wishful thinking.
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A friend of mine says “One day I woke up and I had too much time, money and my body was in awesome shape. I fixed all 3 problems by having kids:))”
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Semi retired with kids aged 3 and 6.
A lot changes with kids when you FIRE, a lot of anecdotes from parents no longer apply. As a benefit of FIRE, it eliminates money stress. It also frees up massive amounts of time, parenting is easier when its all you need to do.
As for the fussiness, my wife and I discussed it. Our first born was fussy and bed time use to take an hour (or more, we would put her down, she would cry and then we would repeat the cycle). One day (around 11 months) I convinced her to try the cry it out method, 4 days later our child was happier at bedtime and went to sleep in under 5 minutes. It turns out we conditioned the child to cry at bedtime, as parents we were the cause of a lot of the fuss. We taught the child that crying was appropriate, when we rectified it the child learned a new behaviour; falling asleep without crying. For us, a parenting style change reduced fussiness and decreased our stress. How many parents do you see change their style? How many anecdotes do you read where a child goes from fussy to good because the parents changed?
That lesson was applied to a lot of other times, often the source of the problem was us, not the child. I'm saying that as parents we improved with time and as a result, our child's needs became easier to accomplish and started taking a lot less time. Its shortsighted saying that children go through phases as if its solely up to the children to change, parents also grow.
Another example is daycare. We would take our child who was 1 at the time and the caregiver could handle 4 kids that age. Logically, how is this possible if all kids need 100% of your attention? How is a daycare provider better at parenting your kid than the actual parent? A lot of it is they have developed skills and techniques to keep things running smooth. Parenting is hard, it is a skill to be learned. I picked up a lot of tricks from the pros, it turns out that as you learn more about parenting, it gets easier. We were open to changing and adapting, it helped our situation.
Today our youngest is 3. We fed her breakfast, then she played toys. Then it was lunch for everyone, followed by outside play with friends. There should be bath time at some point this evening, typically an hour, with her sister. Story time and getting ready for bed is 30 minutes. Altogether, about three hours of intense time with some check ups throughout the day. She will sleep for 10-12 hours, we'll do our own thing after she goes to bed. Notice how I said "we", that's the perk of FIRE, it only takes 1 person to accomplish any of these tasks but there's two of us to do them.
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I haven't read the whole thread, but I want to address your central point - yes, there are different ways to parent. Some parents tend toward higher intervention and others are lower intervention. No one way is "right", but the idea that you can't be out of arm's reach of a toddler is not set in stone.
I have a friend who is a VERY intensive parent, and after a weekend with her and her kid I was seriously doubting if I wanted anything to do with parenting. She barely talked to me the whole weekend, was constantly tending to the needs/desires/whims of her 2.5 year old. But I now I have a 4 year old and a 2.5 year old at least in my perception, my spouse and I tend our kids much less than she does. Which isn't to say they free range around the neighborhood, but they play independently (although this is highly kid dependent), get their own snacks within their own abilities, can wait at least a little bit for one of us to help them. That said, our 4 year old is a "spirited" child and discipline is a 24/7 affair with her - making sure that the environment can support her making good choices, and being sure that we are consistent when she doesn't. She was, in retrospect, a very fussy baby. But I was so enamored with her every move it didn't really matter much to me.
I do really believe some of this is the attitude you bring to parenting. For us parenting is a grand adventure, and we are excited to share our lives with our children. So we travel, we keep the kids up late for special occasions, we go hiking and canoeing with kids in tow. We do things to make life easier and more relaxed - the kids eat pb&j or cottage cheese and fruit for dinner more than I care to admit, we have used babysitters to make sure we have relationship time since the older one was 3 months old, and we have a cleaning person. We have changed our lives a ton (goodbye sleeping in!) and also not changed them a in important ways (our values are still the same, how we live them out varies some).
And like someone else said, no developmental phase lasts too long with kids, so good or bad, it will be different soon. The days are long but the years are short. Reminding myself of that gets me through a lot of the tough parts of parenting.
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There is some really good information here to consider. In my gut, I questioned if toddler parenting (hovering) had to be the way we are seeing it modeled. We still want a kid, and adoption is not out of the question for us. We've waited this long, so I think we're going to wait just a tiny bit longer so that we can take another cross-country journey this coming Spring. How we travel, constantly moving around, isn't really the most conducive to having an infant/early toddler. And in the event that the ACA is struck down here shortly the golden era for multi-state, long term travel with no employment may well come to an end. If something happens where we are unable to take a trip like this again (having a special needs child, physically aging poorly), we'll have fewer regrets knowing we took advantage of the opportunity when it was right in front of us.
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I think it's important to note that parents may "parent" differently when they are with other adults, particularly those that don't have children. I am much more likely to let my toddler fuss for a while in a closed off play area while I do the dishes or prepare a meal. But with other adults that I am trying to interact with, I much more likely to redirect or intervene if I know it will prevent a behavior breakdown during that time. There is much more to parenting than what you can see.
Some kids are also more demanding of their parents' attention when other people are around, for a variety of reasons, but may do fine in a different or more private setting. It's very difficult to predict how you will parent (or assess how others should parent) until you are in it.
That being said, people's personalities before having children seem (in my limited experience) to correlate with their parenting style, in a lot of cases. More so than how they intended or expected to parent.
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I found traveling with a pre-crawling infant infinitely easier than with a crawler, or the bolting toddler. Then once the youngest was about 18 months, traveling got easier again. But traveling with 5 and 8 year olds is a piece of cake. But the travel is really different with children. It is only funny once to have a toddler faceplant into a meal at a restaurant. Or try to eat dinner with a sleeping child in your lap. I felt too guilty that I was torturing them after both incidents. But you adapt - different types of sightseeing and meal times and you make it work. We stopped hiking for a long stretch because they were too heavy to carry but unable to walk that far or that fast.
We tried really hard to meet all our kids needs when they were really little before they knew they had a need and then when they could ask for something with words or needed to learn how to do things for themselves I started enlarging the boundaries. I feel like I worked damn hard at parenting for a good long time, but I am cruising now. I have these delightful teenagers that are launching into the world without any of the drama many of my cohort are experiencing.
The one thing that I am so very thankful for is that I got two and their age difference is 33 months. It was brutally difficult for the first six months of youngest - every waking moment #1 was doing stuff that could result in injury or death to #2. (Using the bouncy chair as a catapult or giving that baby swing an extra push or pouring thomas trains into the bassinet. Or even just trying to get into the basinet to cuddle.) Then when number 2 could crawl, the biting and destroying started on #1 or any toys or arrangements. But almost by magic, they started to play together. And we could trust them not to maim one other at any moment. They became the best of friends (something in the many sibling rivalry books I read must of worked). Our friends with single children couldn't have a dinner conversation without a child interupting and making demands long after mine stopped doing that. Mine would have some project or activity to get to before bed and I don't know how I taught them to just do stuff without an adult, but they did all the time for long stretches. I don't remember when we started reading the paper while they "read" their own books, we just have done that forever.
Many aspects of our lives changed to allow the kids to be at the center of it, but we managed somehow to create a family lifestyle that had room for the adults as well. I did a ton of reading and tried to always be a considered parent. I have only worked full time for a few month stretches, but have always had some sort of part time work that I did while they were at daycare or while it was crazy town in the office. We are not yet retiring and won't be early because of the choices I made not to do full time work once I had the second. However, I wouldn't trade a thing now.
My kids are thoughtful, responsible, funny and kind. They make me laugh every day. My oldest is heading off to university in 17 days but I still have 3 years before the youngest leaves the nest. The time flew by.
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We were never helicopter parents and allowed them freedom appropriate to their age. Although now society is making this hard for parents to do. If we had company we balanced our children’s needs with our adult needs. If friends had kids we might invite them all and the kids kept each other busy. Or we would put our kids to bed at 7 and have adult dinner with friends. We were strict about nap and bedtime so we didn’t have cranky kids. Little kids are physically draining and big kids emotionally draining. I loved raising my kids.
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This is timely as we're about to head off for a 4 day "cultural" trip with our kids to a hill town within Italy. We're balancing kid friendly stuff (touring the chocolate factory) with grownup friendly stuff (seeing amazing art and architecture). Amazingly enough, the older kid (11) started liking art at quite an early age - maybe 2 years' ago - so now it's just a matter of keeping the younger one entertained while touring art museums or churches. We've been surprised that both our kids have loved certain museums - for example when we went to Naples in December they both loved San Gennaro's jewels.
Frugal Lizard -kudos to you for raising kids who are best friends. Our kids are opposites but still manage to entertain each other a lot of the time. I'd characterize their relationship as "frenemies" though rather than best friends. I was raised as an only child (my sibling is much, much younger than me so I'm more like her mother) so it was important to me to have 2 close together not just so that they could play together but also so that they had that relationship.
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As many have said, kids are all different and will require different things from their parents. A 1-2 year old is still very small and while I do agree that they should be able to play on their own for a while they should also seek their parents' attention quite often. I was told that parenting is like a rubberband, neither you nor your kid should want it to snap and break and both should want to stretch that band in different directions. Some kids will have a tight rubberband and others a stretchy one. Even so, they should want to bounce back to you quite often.
I was never the parent that planned very much or kept exact nap- and bedtimes when my kids were little. I had a tiny diaper bag or just threw some stuff into my purse, the kids slept in the stroller or in a Manduca carrier on my back. My daughter was pretty calm, my son was wild but he just got to stay in the stroller more until he grew some sense (at about 2-2.5) in places where he could get lost or wreck stuff. My kids have often done things that us adult want and often they are OK with that. When we want to do something fun for all of us we adapt to the kids more but we still avoid stuff us parents hate. This summer for example we had an outing where we travelled by steam train and a trip to a combined zoo and amusement park. Next summer we may go on a trip to Uppsala and Stockholm and I assuem not everything we do will be completely kid friendly but then again, not so bad that they will start acting up or just be completely bored. My daughter has always found it easier to be "well behaved" even if you compare the kids at the same age but with some considerations of his personality we have still had the chance to do stuff and have him tag along too.
While a child's basic personality is unique I do think parenting plays in. Parents who get more involved and who are very routine based will often have kids who have problems responding to change. All kids may react to change but instilling at least some flexibility often does pay off. Sure, if your child has special needs more routine may be necessary but usually it is not necessary other than for shorter periods of time. That doesn't mean my kids do not have stability but we have built that around us parents and us being available for questions, hugs etc rather than predictability in what happens in general if you understand what I mean. Our kids are always described as stable, loving, imaginative etc at evaluations at day care and school and they can also easily adapt to more set environments like school because they don't take doing stuff exactly the same way for granted.
As for travelling, we have not travelled a lot but we do travel regularly within the country to visit family and I have friends who have travelled with kids. Many of them have been on more spontanous trips where they have done what they have wanted and adapted a "go with the flow" schedule and this has been fine with kids as without them. The only thing is that you need to remember that doing things with kids can take extra time so have as little as possible of "I must be in x town by y date". If you are FIRE, who cares if the trip is 6 or 8 weeks so then that should be OK.
So in short:
- Kids are all unique and may respond in different ways
- They take up time and energy regardless of parenting style
- You will need to adapt to them
But:
- By not taking unnecessary actions, develop unnecessary habits with kids or parents you are likely to have at least some kind of room for adjustment for your kid.
- Don't make it all about you or all about the kid/s, make it about family and compromise so all of you can have fun, even together.
And love those kids if you get them, with enough love many things will fall into place naturally, that I am convinced of.
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I have a 3 year old and an 11 month old right now. Yes, my husband and I are always in the same room as our kids. Mostly because there are 2 of them and we are still worried about big brother with baby sister.
Yes, babies are super needy. Yes, every parent gets mad at their baby because they are needy at times when parents want to rest. That’s the gig of parenting, you have to do it even when you don’t want to.
I think I know what you’re talking about with people always being within arms reach, my brother is like that with his kid. Young toddlers are crazy though and capable of big messes and accidents. Maybe your friends would rather play “tag” on who is watching the kid than have to clean up a big mess because they left the kid alone for 5 minutes.
You cannot predict or control what kind of 1-2 year old your kid will be. They will be easy in some ways and hard in others. Maybe the baby you see now is extra clingy, but is a great eater or napper? Other babies are very independent but won’t sleep through the night, for example.
If you want kids but aren’t looking forward to the toddler years, you can put them in daycare during that time. HUGE difference between being with a kid 24/7 and having 8-10 hours of a break every day (especially if you are FIRE and don’t have to work!)
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For the most part those early stages and even later in life depends largely on a roll of the dice and the personality of the child as much as anything you do as a parent. There is a chance no matter what you do especially at such a young age the child will be needy. Also all children are extremely needy if that is the right term - they are essentially helpless after all. To think that if only Friend X had applied just the right parenting a very spirited 1 year old would be an independent wonder kid is a bit naive to say the least.
Based on your responses - which of course may not include every nuance and thought and opinion you have on the matter I would probably pause before having kids.
From what I’ve read kids are a lot harder the older you are, they are also hard if you like to travel or if you are either strapped for cash or just don’t want to part with any money due to competing interests such as FIRE, it doesn’t seem like you are checking many boxes objectively speaking.
I’m a homebody and we had our first young, we also don’t have any money trouble and I really don’t care that each child will delay FIRE by 6 months to a year, my style of travel is also slow and conducive to children when I do get the urge once year or so or for small road trips. I can honestly say that even with a screaming newborn I’ve loved every moment of it but also have support and got lucky with a calm happy baby.
I have also seen babies that through no fault of the parent just a very curious and energetic child that has not slept the night in 2 years. He just requires constant stimulation but there is nothing wrong with him, in fact his constant curiosity and energy could actually be positive as time moves on.
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I currently have a 2 and 5 year old. Here's my experience.
Assuming you have a baby proofed house (no choking hazards in reach, chemicals locked, etc.), they can start playing independently sometime in the 1-2 y/o range. They can be left in a room alone in a room, as long as you can hear what they're doing.
That being said, the times the kid is willing to play independently has roughly zero correlation with when you want the kid to play independently. In fact, I strongly suspect a big negative correlation there.
Kids need a lot of attention. They also behave different and need more attention in unfamiliar situations (like when you're meeting new people for the first time).
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Each child is SO different. I have 4. My first was and still is the easiest child/teenager ever. She is almost 16. If she had been an only we would have thought we were the "best" parents ever! Then the 2nd kid came hahaha...I love that kid to pieces but wow he was/is intense! Number 2 has made me a better person and I have learned a lot about myself. Then 3 and 4...all different. Different stages were/are hard. Traveling with our kids has never been hard but we go with the flow. We don't drive at night because they do better during the day etc. We adapt to their needs and we all have a great time! We always knew we wanted kids and never doubted that just how many. Really do some soul searching! I love having 4!
Many people parent very differently. Also don't ever say I would never until you have been in their shoes....
This sounds like my DS. I was just saying to a friend today that my spirited son has taught me so much about myself, helped me grow in love, empathy, patience, compassion. Definitely made me a better person, but boy has it been a rocky journey.
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One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is that you don't get to choose when your child needs you. We have a 15 month old. He's pretty chill on the scale of babies: in bed from 6pm to 6/7am with no nighttime crying, not massively adventurous or destructive, able to play nicely by himself in the same room as us. We do organise our life around his meals and naps but everyone is happier that way, and he has a very predictable schedule.
However! Earlier today Mr SLTD was making lunch and BabySLTD was pottering happily around looking in the kitchen cupboards when he started SCREAMING. At exactly the most crucial moment of lunch prep, he had shut his finger in a cupboard door. I was called in from doing stuff upstairs to tend to the wounded martyr.
A few weeks ago, I was ill. And then suddenly so was BabySLTD, for a week of unending misery.
Sometimes we have friends over and have just sat down with tea and cake when he does a pungent, explosive poo and we have to get up and change him that very second.
In between all of these events are lovely peaceful times when everyone can get on with their own thing (in reasonable proximity) but you have no idea when the shit is going to hit the fan...as it were. You have to arrange yourself around your toddler's unexpected urgent needs.
None of these involve what I would call "fussing". I don't think BabySLTD really does fussing. He's either fine or its the apocalypse. And I say this as someone who did hardass CIO at the youngest possible age because I was so fucking tired.
Also, a huge +1 to the luck of the draw. We have to be around BabySLTD all the time (though often passive, not active) because otherwise he gets sad and anxious. My friend has to be around her toddler all the time because otherwise she would pull all the furniture over just to see what was on top of it or something crazy like that. You can never babyproof enough to make an area 100% safe for a child that wants to get into something. But our "supervision" can be just reading our book with half an eye on him to make sure he's still in the room - it's certainly not full attention every waking minute. But if he needs us, we have to put down the book THAT SECOND.
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OK, I actually take it back that BabySLTD doesn't fuss. Having spent the afternoon with him with that in the back of my mind, he definitely fusses. But I hadn't been thinking of most of it that way. Most of it is either, "I want to do this thing that I would totally be allowed to do but I need help doing it and haven't yet learned the words to ask for help, so I have to just make attention getting noises" (e.g. walk down steps, open downstairs toy trunk, open closed door) or "Muuuuuuuum, you're sooooooo mean!" (e.g. telling him not to play with the pruning saw then when he whines take it out of reach and out of sight and he gets over it, or taking him off for a nap when he doesn't want one) or "I obviously want a thing! Why don't you understand what it is? It's a thing! No, not that thing! A THING!" (and so we play the guessing game until either he gets it or I realise it's a thing he can't have). So even if I'm not hovering OVER him (which is what you seem to be describing), I'm still mentally and physically hovering AROUND him (or him around me if I try to pop out of the room - he just follows me!).
But I've been categorising all of that as either a communication attempt or him getting upset over not being allowed something or being told off. I guess if I just thought of all that as "fussing" I'd be pretty pissed off with him all the time. But I think of it as talking in a child too young to communicate his needs and wants effectively and too young to understand everything we say back to him.
I found the book "How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen and How to Listen So Little Kids Will Talk" really helpful in framing our interactions in more collaborative ways, and how to decide when is a good time to intervene. I don't really believe in "natural consequences" at his age. Like, I believe in physical reality, but consequences beyond "Mummy and Daddy get cross" seems a bit sophisticated for him (e.g. separated by too much time, like if you eat all the treats now you won't have any tomorrow) or downright dangerous, depending on the activity.
I think you would find it helpful to read some of arebelspy's posts. I think he has a journal about travelling and posts about doing it with his children. They seem like the "freest" parents on this forum, jetting off all over the world with kids in tow.
The thing I didn't internalise until I became a parent was that even when the physical load is not too bad, the mental load is constant. I've ALWAYS got half an eye on what he's doing, and when he's asleep I've got half an ear out in case he's crying. For me it's not a choice - it's hormonal and I can't switch it off even if I know perfectly well he's being cared for by someone else. It's getting better with time, though, and I assume will fade by the point that he can actually be self-sufficient. It's calmed down since I stopped breastfeeding at ten months, and I am now able to sleep through some baby noises - so Mr SLTD can get him up in the morning, for example, and I can have a lie in rather than jolting intensely awake the second I hear them.
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Amen to the mental load thing. This is why even though now my kids are mostly self-sufficient, I still feel so much lighter when they're not at home and are being cared for by someone else. This summer when they were at camp was like heaven. It's not like they really need me much when they're at home, but mentally some part of my brain is always on them when they're under my care (which during the school year is 99% of the time since we homeschool).
I'm not nearly as alert as when they were babies, but it never completely turns off.
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Mine is 14 months. I chose a pretty old-school route after being a nanny for 15 years and studying up on modern child-raising (how things have changed over the past few decades and to what effect).
I do a number of things that make it so my life doesn't revolve around my daughter. I don't entertain her during the day (she either plays or tags along with me with what I'm doing). She does independent play-time for at least an hour every day (in her crib after breakfast- we built that time up over months). I always pause before I intervene with her, to give her a chance to sort things out for herself and also to teach her delayed gratification. I make it my mission to be uber-consistent with discipline and in holding the boundaries. I try to take as good of care of myself as I do her. I keep my dreams for my own life in focus.
But, despite my approach, she still has become super needy since turning 1. It's developmental (separation anxiety, frustration from not getting what she wants, for example). I don't cater to her at all, but she still WAILS at the drop of a hat (if I put her down, if I say "no"...) which she didn't do before except at 6 months with another separation anxiety period. Teething also doesn't make things easy. So I've decided to stay the course on the big things (not entertaining, pausing, consistent discipline) but let the little things go (peeing alone).
So all that to say that yes, there are many things you can do to make life more enjoyable while raising preschoolers (seriously, that independent play time is my sanity) but even so, it's unlikely that any parent would be able to avoid night wakings from sickness, clingy kids from separation anxiety and teething, kids who refuse to eat anything but fruit, toddlers throwing a tantrum when you tell them they can't stick their head in the toilet, etc. But it does help to go into it with the awareness that ages 1-3 are particularly trying. That makes it more doable, somehow.
Also totally agree that it would have been much easier to become a mother in my 20's in terms of stamina. However, I like that my identity is more established now and I'm not figuring out who I am so much, like in my twenties. There's something nice about being settled in who I am while raising kids.
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So I've decided to stay the course on the big things (not entertaining, pausing, consistent discipline) but let the little things go (peeing alone).
One of the things which I have found interesting as a parent is the process of deciding what the big things and little things are for me. Turns out I have no desire to pee alone or go out in the evenings, but I would sell a kidney for a full night's sleep. I don't mind him having all his toys out at once all over the sitting room, but throwing things makes me furious. We try to have the minimum number of rules required to function as a family unit, but to make the rules we do have ironclad.
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OK, I actually take it back that BabySLTD doesn't fuss. Having spent the afternoon with him with that in the back of my mind, he definitely fusses. But I hadn't been thinking of most of it that way. Most of it is either, "I want to do this thing that I would totally be allowed to do but I need help doing it and haven't yet learned the words to ask for help, so I have to just make attention getting noises" (e.g. walk down steps, open downstairs toy trunk, open closed door) or "Muuuuuuuum, you're sooooooo mean!" (e.g. telling him not to play with the pruning saw then when he whines take it out of reach and out of sight and he gets over it, or taking him off for a nap when he doesn't want one) or "I obviously want a thing! Why don't you understand what it is? It's a thing! No, not that thing! A THING!" (and so we play the guessing game until either he gets it or I realise it's a thing he can't have). So even if I'm not hovering OVER him (which is what you seem to be describing), I'm still mentally and physically hovering AROUND him (or him around me if I try to pop out of the room - he just follows me!).
But I've been categorising all of that as either a communication attempt or him getting upset over not being allowed something or being told off. I guess if I just thought of all that as "fussing" I'd be pretty pissed off with him all the time. But I think of it as talking in a child too young to communicate his needs and wants effectively and too young to understand everything we say back to him.
This behavior here is really what I had in mind when I was talking about fussing, consequences (which I really should have described as cause & effect), and figuring things out. Naturally, a baby has a limited ability to understand things but I still feel inclined to treat that baby like a person in some respects. For example, if a one year old (basically walking, pulling open drawers, all that) wanted to pick up something immovable, why would I redirect it? Would I redirect an adult if they walked up to a tree and tried to pick it up and then wanted to pitch a fit about why it wouldn't move? No, you'd let that person learn that trees don't move. In the baby's case, figuring that out may involve crying but I'm okay with that if it means the child is learning that we simply can't do certain things. Perhaps my logic here is flawed and a one year old will not learn that it can't pick something up, but when I see the kinds of things our friend's son is learning, it seems reasonable to expect that he can also learn that you can't do certain things. In our friend's case, they constantly redirect the child, rather than let him struggle through the process of learning that he can't lift the 200 pound coffee table off the ground. I suppose my big beef with this is that it creates this dependency where the parent is constantly stuck right on top of the child because at that age they are always trying to do things they can't do.
So for the fussing that comes from a learning 12-18 month old not getting what it wants, is it acceptable to just let them fuss about certain things or are they not capable of moving past not getting something they want and this is just tantamount to being cruel? This is the part I would like to understand better.
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You set the boundaries as a parent. I made (make) my kids cry all the time and I only feel bad if I was unreasonably grumpy. If I always caved to their whining they would only eat cookies and ice cream, watch TV, or live at the playground full time. I have set the stage since they were old enough to understand the word "no" that when I say it, I mean it. This started as soon as they began having a little personality of their own. My wife always caves and complains that the kids don't listen to her. Her "no" is always negotiable. This leads to a chaotic day when she is alone with them. Neither of us ever hovered over our kids. We allowed them to learn a lot on their own.
I intervene in their play if they are at risk of injury to themselves or others or if they will cause damage to something that I am not willing to let them damage. 1 and 2 year olds don't share so I will occasionally try to explain sharing to them but it's mostly pointless and for show if other kids/parents are involved. I don't know why your friends stop their child from trying to pick up heavy things. I would find that entertaining. As others have mentioned, they may actually parent differently because you are there. Perhaps they feel like they are teaching the child in some way or they fear you will think their child is stupid.
I have friends who explain every little thing to their children ad nauseum and it is absolutely exhausting to be around. Every little fight or boo boo gets an entire dissertation explaining cause and effect, how actions make other people feel etc. Unbearable. I am more of a "you guys figure it out" kind of parent. By the way, I am not saying that my way of parenting is right. There is no playbook. I'm just saying you are allowed to ignore your kids for a while. They'll be fine.
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I am not a parent (by choice) because I didn't see how I could give up my life to the service of another. I really love my nieces and nephews (and most other children), but the idea of spending the first 5 years trying to keep a child alive sounded very scary to me. I've never kept a house plant alive for that long.
I also have a history of cancer in my family and did not want to pass on that genetic legacy - or die young and leave my children without a mother.
And, unfortunately, I believe life is going to get harder - not easier - in the near future with respect to the direction our political leaders are going. Do I really want to bring children into an already crowded world facing significant (probably devastating) effects from climate change?
I have not regretted my choice for a minute. If you are on the fence at all, consider the alternative of living life completely on your terms without dependents. FIRE is much easier if you don't have to guess at what a child is going to cost (and they can be expensive little critters). This isn't a choice for most people because the biological drive to have kids is strong. But you can have an amazing life without children if you choose.
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Following what Omy said, it's not just the expense of children - kids also need stability. I'd dearly love to travel the world and spend months at a time in various places once FIREd but with kids at home who are going to school we need to at least spend the school year in one place. And homeschooling definitely isn't our thing.
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OK, I actually take it back that BabySLTD doesn't fuss. Having spent the afternoon with him with that in the back of my mind, he definitely fusses. But I hadn't been thinking of most of it that way. Most of it is either, "I want to do this thing that I would totally be allowed to do but I need help doing it and haven't yet learned the words to ask for help, so I have to just make attention getting noises" (e.g. walk down steps, open downstairs toy trunk, open closed door) or "Muuuuuuuum, you're sooooooo mean!" (e.g. telling him not to play with the pruning saw then when he whines take it out of reach and out of sight and he gets over it, or taking him off for a nap when he doesn't want one) or "I obviously want a thing! Why don't you understand what it is? It's a thing! No, not that thing! A THING!" (and so we play the guessing game until either he gets it or I realise it's a thing he can't have). So even if I'm not hovering OVER him (which is what you seem to be describing), I'm still mentally and physically hovering AROUND him (or him around me if I try to pop out of the room - he just follows me!).
But I've been categorising all of that as either a communication attempt or him getting upset over not being allowed something or being told off. I guess if I just thought of all that as "fussing" I'd be pretty pissed off with him all the time. But I think of it as talking in a child too young to communicate his needs and wants effectively and too young to understand everything we say back to him.
This behavior here is really what I had in mind when I was talking about fussing, consequences (which I really should have described as cause & effect), and figuring things out. Naturally, a baby has a limited ability to understand things but I still feel inclined to treat that baby like a person in some respects. For example, if a one year old (basically walking, pulling open drawers, all that) wanted to pick up something immovable, why would I redirect it? Would I redirect an adult if they walked up to a tree and tried to pick it up and then wanted to pitch a fit about why it wouldn't move? No, you'd let that person learn that trees don't move. In the baby's case, figuring that out may involve crying but I'm okay with that if it means the child is learning that we simply can't do certain things. Perhaps my logic here is flawed and a one year old will not learn that it can't pick something up, but when I see the kinds of things our friend's son is learning, it seems reasonable to expect that he can also learn that you can't do certain things. In our friend's case, they constantly redirect the child, rather than let him struggle through the process of learning that he can't lift the 200 pound coffee table off the ground. I suppose my big beef with this is that it creates this dependency where the parent is constantly stuck right on top of the child because at that age they are always trying to do things they can't do.
So for the fussing that comes from a learning 12-18 month old not getting what it wants, is it acceptable to just let them fuss about certain things or are they not capable of moving past not getting something they want and this is just tantamount to being cruel? This is the part I would like to understand better.
I'm really struggling with this example. I can't think of anything that BabySLTD does that is analogous to this. Like, a physically impossible thing that he keeps trying to do and gets upset when he can't do it.
The closest thing is that sometimes he tugs on the childlocked cupboard doors in the kitchen (most of them are not childlocked, a few are, it's always the same ones) and seems confused about why they won't open like the other ones. I usually say to him (from wherever I am) "Those doors are locked. Why don't you try the other ones instead?" because I like to talk to him a lot about what's going on because I think it helps him learn what words mean. Sometimes he moves on straight away, sometimes he tugs a few more times.
There's fussing when he can't get something he *wants* and we take it away (physically removing it from his sight if possible, sometimes physically removing him from it if not and he's really persistent), like not allowing him to touch scissors, but this fussing when he can't achieve the impossible is...weird. It's not something he does. Can you think of any other examples? Seriously, listen to everyone in this thread telling you you're stuck on top of a toddler whether they're happy or not for their own safety.
Also, they develop so fast at this stage. The other day we were walking along and he threw his bunny out of the buggy. I bent down, picked it up, and said to him really seriously, "If you throw your bunny on the floor one more time, I am putting it away until we get to the shops." He didn't throw it again the whole trip, and I really think he understood. Understood the tone if nothing else, but made the connection between his actions and my tone and chose to act accordingly. I doubt he would have been capable of that a month or two ago. But I do think you can tell most of the time what your child can understand and what they can't, and what they're genuinely incapable of and what they're just not trying at. He's genuinely incapable of walking down a step safely by himself even holding a handrail so I'm happy for him to make "Help!" noises (and I encourage it and thank him for asking for help! I don't want him diving off face first!), but he is perfectly capable of not throwing his spoon at me when he's finished eating. However, he also now understands "Wait" (word and hand signal) so I don't have to jump up literally that second. He can't wait for long, maybe a minute if I repeat it, but it buys me some time I didn't have a few months ago.
I really recommend reading 'How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen'. It really opened my eyes to what young children are capable of, gave age-appropriate ways to treat them as a person, but also gave age-appropriate limits on what it's reasonable to expect of them. For example, there's no point giving a two year old a dissertation on cause and effect, but you can use a simple, one-sentence "If you do this, that happens" to connect the dots for them. If I'm 15 minutes late getting my son's dinner on the table, I don't tell him off for whining at me. He's hungry and doesn't have the words to tell me or the concept of the passage of time to understand why he's hungry and that dinner will be soon. I don't love the whining, but I am sympathetic to it. I get whiny when I'm hungry too, but I have grown up tools to deal with both the hunger and the hanger. He just has to wait for me to take my own sweet time.
Also, you should know that your own child's crying is plugged directly into your lizard brain. Do NOT underestimate this. It's not weakness. It's biology.
It's also OK to not love having a toddler. I hated having a baby a lot of the time. Now he's got mobile and started getting verbal he's really delightful to me and I love watching him learn and integrate into our lives like a real human. The months when the best I could hope for was him not actively crying? Not so great. But you can't give birth to a four year old, unfortunately!
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OK, I actually take it back that BabySLTD doesn't fuss. Having spent the afternoon with him with that in the back of my mind, he definitely fusses. But I hadn't been thinking of most of it that way. Most of it is either, "I want to do this thing that I would totally be allowed to do but I need help doing it and haven't yet learned the words to ask for help, so I have to just make attention getting noises" (e.g. walk down steps, open downstairs toy trunk, open closed door) or "Muuuuuuuum, you're sooooooo mean!" (e.g. telling him not to play with the pruning saw then when he whines take it out of reach and out of sight and he gets over it, or taking him off for a nap when he doesn't want one) or "I obviously want a thing! Why don't you understand what it is? It's a thing! No, not that thing! A THING!" (and so we play the guessing game until either he gets it or I realise it's a thing he can't have). So even if I'm not hovering OVER him (which is what you seem to be describing), I'm still mentally and physically hovering AROUND him (or him around me if I try to pop out of the room - he just follows me!).
But I've been categorising all of that as either a communication attempt or him getting upset over not being allowed something or being told off. I guess if I just thought of all that as "fussing" I'd be pretty pissed off with him all the time. But I think of it as talking in a child too young to communicate his needs and wants effectively and too young to understand everything we say back to him.
This behavior here is really what I had in mind when I was talking about fussing, consequences (which I really should have described as cause & effect), and figuring things out. Naturally, a baby has a limited ability to understand things but I still feel inclined to treat that baby like a person in some respects. For example, if a one year old (basically walking, pulling open drawers, all that) wanted to pick up something immovable, why would I redirect it? Would I redirect an adult if they walked up to a tree and tried to pick it up and then wanted to pitch a fit about why it wouldn't move? No, you'd let that person learn that trees don't move. In the baby's case, figuring that out may involve crying but I'm okay with that if it means the child is learning that we simply can't do certain things. Perhaps my logic here is flawed and a one year old will not learn that it can't pick something up, but when I see the kinds of things our friend's son is learning, it seems reasonable to expect that he can also learn that you can't do certain things. In our friend's case, they constantly redirect the child, rather than let him struggle through the process of learning that he can't lift the 200 pound coffee table off the ground. I suppose my big beef with this is that it creates this dependency where the parent is constantly stuck right on top of the child because at that age they are always trying to do things they can't do.
So for the fussing that comes from a learning 12-18 month old not getting what it wants, is it acceptable to just let them fuss about certain things or are they not capable of moving past not getting something they want and this is just tantamount to being cruel? This is the part I would like to understand better.
I'm really struggling with this example. I can't think of anything that BabySLTD does that is analogous to this. Like, a physically impossible thing that he keeps trying to do and gets upset when he can't do it.
The closest thing is that sometimes he tugs on the childlocked cupboard doors in the kitchen (most of them are not childlocked, a few are, it's always the same ones) and seems confused about why they won't open like the other ones. I usually say to him (from wherever I am) "Those doors are locked. Why don't you try the other ones instead?" because I like to talk to him a lot about what's going on because I think it helps him learn what words mean. Sometimes he moves on straight away, sometimes he tugs a few more times.
There's fussing when he can't get something he *wants* and we take it away (physically removing it from his sight if possible, sometimes physically removing him from it if not and he's really persistent), like not allowing him to touch scissors, but this fussing when he can't achieve the impossible is...weird. It's not something he does. Can you think of any other examples? Seriously, listen to everyone in this thread telling you you're stuck on top of a toddler whether they're happy or not for their own safety.
Also, they develop so fast at this stage. The other day we were walking along and he threw his bunny out of the buggy. I bent down, picked it up, and said to him really seriously, "If you throw your bunny on the floor one more time, I am putting it away until we get to the shops." He didn't throw it again the whole trip, and I really think he understood. Understood the tone if nothing else, but made the connection between his actions and my tone and chose to act accordingly. I doubt he would have been capable of that a month or two ago. But I do think you can tell most of the time what your child can understand and what they can't, and what they're genuinely incapable of and what they're just not trying at. He's genuinely incapable of walking down a step safely by himself even holding a handrail so I'm happy for him to make "Help!" noises (and I encourage it and thank him for asking for help! I don't want him diving off face first!), but he is perfectly capable of not throwing his spoon at me when he's finished eating. However, he also now understands "Wait" (word and hand signal) so I don't have to jump up literally that second. He can't wait for long, maybe a minute if I repeat it, but it buys me some time I didn't have a few months ago.
I really recommend reading 'How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen'. It really opened my eyes to what young children are capable of, gave age-appropriate ways to treat them as a person, but also gave age-appropriate limits on what it's reasonable to expect of them. For example, there's no point giving a two year old a dissertation on cause and effect, but you can use a simple, one-sentence "If you do this, that happens" to connect the dots for them. If I'm 15 minutes late getting my son's dinner on the table, I don't tell him off for whining at me. He's hungry and doesn't have the words to tell me or the concept of the passage of time to understand why he's hungry and that dinner will be soon. I don't love the whining, but I am sympathetic to it. I get whiny when I'm hungry too, but I have grown up tools to deal with both the hunger and the hanger. He just has to wait for me to take my own sweet time.
Also, you should know that your own child's crying is plugged directly into your lizard brain. Do NOT underestimate this. It's not weakness. It's biology.
It's also OK to not love having a toddler. I hated having a baby a lot of the time. Now he's got mobile and started getting verbal he's really delightful to me and I love watching him learn and integrate into our lives like a real human. The months when the best I could hope for was him not actively crying? Not so great. But you can't give birth to a four year old, unfortunately!
As an alternative example you can really substitute anything where a toddler is safely struggling to interact with its environment. Trying to squeeze in a space to small to fit, lift something that's too heavy, place an object inside another object that doesn't fit, open a drawer that doesn't open, ram a cart through a wall. Basically learning about physical world around them. Those actions get constant redirection and I wonder if it's necessary or if not doing so would allow the toddler to learn that the thing they're trying to do doesn't work that way.
If I were the parent and had to turn my toddlers cart around every time he ran into a wall to prevent him from crying over being frustrated that he can't run through the wall vs. letting him cry about it, then turn the cart around himself and move on, I'd spend my afternoon constantly two steps behind my kid and cart. That's the kind of thing I'm thinking of.
I have put that book on my list for our next library run.
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You're pretty much on suicide watch for a 1-2 year old; you have to have your eyes on them almost constantly to be sure they don't injure/kill themselves. And baby-proofing only takes you so far - oh, who knew my kid was going to find and then eat the huge dust bunny under the couch... and then choke on it?
But there is a difference between having your eyes on them and intervening with every little thing they do.
You will learn to distinguish their noises and cries. I have no problem with my kid making frustrated noises or crying a bit while they're figuring things out. Yes as you note this is part of learning. But sometimes what started as a little cry of frustration escalates into an out-of-control-inconsolable-wail and that's when its no longer productive to let them struggle alone.
No question, the diaper years are intense. You're smart to do more travel now, especially if you can hit some bucket list things that would be hard/less enjoyable with kids. But remember that those intense years are just a blip in the decades of life you will share with those kids. You will spend more time knowing your kids as adult humans than as needy little gremlins. :)
I have friends who do tons of travel with their little ones (and seem to enjoy it!), and more power to them, but for me travel with kids is largely stressful and energy-sapping... though they're now getting to ages where it's getting better (4.5 and 7). This one is a good example of how I *thought* I was going to be one kind of parent (one who takes her kid everywhere because the kid will adapt to MY life!) and I turned out to be a very different kind of parent (who hates traveling with little kids because it's so exhausting and they don't enjoy it and won't remember much anyway so it just ruins my experience).
Probably good to expect some of that for yourself, including the possibility that with your own actual kid you might find yourself preferring to be more hands-on than you're describing here.
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As an alternative example you can really substitute anything where a toddler is safely struggling to interact with its environment. Trying to squeeze in a space to small to fit, lift something that's too heavy, place an object inside another object that doesn't fit, open a drawer that doesn't open, ram a cart through a wall. Basically learning about physical world around them. Those actions get constant redirection and I wonder if it's necessary or if not doing so would allow the toddler to learn that the thing they're trying to do doesn't work that way.
If I were the parent and had to turn my toddlers cart around every time he ran into a wall to prevent him from crying over being frustrated that he can't run through the wall vs. letting him cry about it, then turn the cart around himself and move on, I'd spend my afternoon constantly two steps behind my kid and cart. That's the kind of thing I'm thinking of.
I have put that book on my list for our next library run.
OK, none of these things are safety issues for me. Struggling to successfully interact with their environment, I guess, but they're not going to hurt themselves.
However... EXAMPLE BINGO! Running the cart into a wall is EXACTLY what we've been dealing with lately. It's a little wooden cart that doesn't have turny wheels and isn't super lightweight like plastic (but isn't unreasonably heavy either). The problem is, he runs gleefully behind it til he hits something, then either tugs it backwards and runs over his foot or tries unsuccessfully to turn it around. I don't know why he can't do it. It's not a strength issue. He just can't click with how to drag one end sideways.
At first I thought it was a strength/dexterity issue and he found the cart really fun, so we played with it together and I turned it round for him and cheered him on as he ran and put little things in it for him to run to the other end of the room. Funtimes! Then he wanted to play with it while I was making dinner. Less fun. I turned it round a few times for him but he wouldn't be patient and wait and cried every time he hit the wall. The next day I tried to teach him how to turn it round, demonstrating and trying to practice with him. I figured if I invested an hour, he'd get many hours of hands-off playing. He didn't get it. Many tears. We took the damn thing away. He can have it back again in a month or two. It's more trouble than it's worth right now.
The question is really, how long do you want to listen to your kid cry for? How long are you willing to wait for them to learn? For sleep, I was like "He can cry for a month solid if I get to sleep afterwards". For a cart? Not worth the aggro. He's got other stuff to play with. Is it necessary? Well, apart from feeding them, clothing them, letting them sleep and making sure they don't maim or kill themselves, nothing's necessary. It's all up to you. I chose to not let him work it out with the cart, but I also chose to not keep having to help him with it.
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So for the fussing that comes from a learning 12-18 month old not getting what it wants, is it acceptable to just let them fuss about certain things or are they not capable of moving past not getting something they want and this is just tantamount to being cruel? This is the part I would like to understand better.
In addition to the "how to talk" book, other parenting books, which I like and may address the parenting style you seem to be seeking, are
"Duct Tape Parenting: A Less Is More Approach to Raising Respectful, Responsible, and Resilient Kids" by Vicki Hoefle which the author admits is a modern version of the work of Dreikurs . I reference this book and her other books often. caution-- some consider her tone a bit harsh and too direct , but it never bothered me.
The Gesell Institute Series of Child Development, originally written in the 1970s and broken down by age-- for instance, one book is titled "Your Two Year Old: Terrible or Tender". These books really helped me understand the hormonal cycles of kids and relating the physiological with the more emotional side of things. I also find these at my library.
"Honey I Wrecked the Kids" by Alyson Schafer. another modern version of work by Dreikurs. some feel this is a softer and gentler take on the subject compared to the more direct and blunt Hoefle. so same material but different presentation. I think she also had a call-in radio show on CBC.
"Children: the Challenge" by Rudolph Dreikurs originally published in the 1960s but reprinted in the 1990s and is carried at my library.
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So for the fussing that comes from a learning 12-18 month old not getting what it wants, is it acceptable to just let them fuss about certain things or are they not capable of moving past not getting something they want and this is just tantamount to being cruel? This is the part I would like to understand better.
The Gesell Institute Series of Child Development, originally written in the 1970s and broken down by age-- for instance, one book is titled "Your Two Year Old: Terrible or Tender". These books really helped me understand the hormonal cycles of kids and relating the physiological with the more emotional side of things. I also find these at my library.
A thing that changed my perspective a lot is imagining my toddler is a teenager who can't talk and has a curfew of 6pm. I'm more sympathetic to his existential crises.
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So for the fussing that comes from a learning 12-18 month old not getting what it wants, is it acceptable to just let them fuss about certain things or are they not capable of moving past not getting something they want and this is just tantamount to being cruel? This is the part I would like to understand better.
The Gesell Institute Series of Child Development, originally written in the 1970s and broken down by age-- for instance, one book is titled "Your Two Year Old: Terrible or Tender". These books really helped me understand the hormonal cycles of kids and relating the physiological with the more emotional side of things. I also find these at my library.
A thing that changed my perspective a lot is imagining my toddler is a teenager who can't talk and has a curfew of 6pm. I'm more sympathetic to his existential crises.
Bonus of this approach: it's surprisingly helpful at times when they actually ARE teenagers, but they can't manage to express themselves and they are exhausted. Sympathy (even while holding the line) is a great tool with teenagers, and everyone wants to be genuinely seen.
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OK, I actually take it back that BabySLTD doesn't fuss. Having spent the afternoon with him with that in the back of my mind, he definitely fusses. But I hadn't been thinking of most of it that way. Most of it is either, "I want to do this thing that I would totally be allowed to do but I need help doing it and haven't yet learned the words to ask for help, so I have to just make attention getting noises" (e.g. walk down steps, open downstairs toy trunk, open closed door) or "Muuuuuuuum, you're sooooooo mean!" (e.g. telling him not to play with the pruning saw then when he whines take it out of reach and out of sight and he gets over it, or taking him off for a nap when he doesn't want one) or "I obviously want a thing! Why don't you understand what it is? It's a thing! No, not that thing! A THING!" (and so we play the guessing game until either he gets it or I realise it's a thing he can't have). So even if I'm not hovering OVER him (which is what you seem to be describing), I'm still mentally and physically hovering AROUND him (or him around me if I try to pop out of the room - he just follows me!).
But I've been categorising all of that as either a communication attempt or him getting upset over not being allowed something or being told off. I guess if I just thought of all that as "fussing" I'd be pretty pissed off with him all the time. But I think of it as talking in a child too young to communicate his needs and wants effectively and too young to understand everything we say back to him.
This behavior here is really what I had in mind when I was talking about fussing, consequences (which I really should have described as cause & effect), and figuring things out. Naturally, a baby has a limited ability to understand things but I still feel inclined to treat that baby like a person in some respects. For example, if a one year old (basically walking, pulling open drawers, all that) wanted to pick up something immovable, why would I redirect it? Would I redirect an adult if they walked up to a tree and tried to pick it up and then wanted to pitch a fit about why it wouldn't move? No, you'd let that person learn that trees don't move. In the baby's case, figuring that out may involve crying but I'm okay with that if it means the child is learning that we simply can't do certain things. Perhaps my logic here is flawed and a one year old will not learn that it can't pick something up, but when I see the kinds of things our friend's son is learning, it seems reasonable to expect that he can also learn that you can't do certain things. In our friend's case, they constantly redirect the child, rather than let him struggle through the process of learning that he can't lift the 200 pound coffee table off the ground. I suppose my big beef with this is that it creates this dependency where the parent is constantly stuck right on top of the child because at that age they are always trying to do things they can't do.
So for the fussing that comes from a learning 12-18 month old not getting what it wants, is it acceptable to just let them fuss about certain things or are they not capable of moving past not getting something they want and this is just tantamount to being cruel? This is the part I would like to understand better.
I'm really struggling with this example. I can't think of anything that BabySLTD does that is analogous to this. Like, a physically impossible thing that he keeps trying to do and gets upset when he can't do it.
The closest thing is that sometimes he tugs on the childlocked cupboard doors in the kitchen (most of them are not childlocked, a few are, it's always the same ones) and seems confused about why they won't open like the other ones. I usually say to him (from wherever I am) "Those doors are locked. Why don't you try the other ones instead?" because I like to talk to him a lot about what's going on because I think it helps him learn what words mean. Sometimes he moves on straight away, sometimes he tugs a few more times.
There's fussing when he can't get something he *wants* and we take it away (physically removing it from his sight if possible, sometimes physically removing him from it if not and he's really persistent), like not allowing him to touch scissors, but this fussing when he can't achieve the impossible is...weird. It's not something he does. Can you think of any other examples? Seriously, listen to everyone in this thread telling you you're stuck on top of a toddler whether they're happy or not for their own safety.
Also, they develop so fast at this stage. The other day we were walking along and he threw his bunny out of the buggy. I bent down, picked it up, and said to him really seriously, "If you throw your bunny on the floor one more time, I am putting it away until we get to the shops." He didn't throw it again the whole trip, and I really think he understood. Understood the tone if nothing else, but made the connection between his actions and my tone and chose to act accordingly. I doubt he would have been capable of that a month or two ago. But I do think you can tell most of the time what your child can understand and what they can't, and what they're genuinely incapable of and what they're just not trying at. He's genuinely incapable of walking down a step safely by himself even holding a handrail so I'm happy for him to make "Help!" noises (and I encourage it and thank him for asking for help! I don't want him diving off face first!), but he is perfectly capable of not throwing his spoon at me when he's finished eating. However, he also now understands "Wait" (word and hand signal) so I don't have to jump up literally that second. He can't wait for long, maybe a minute if I repeat it, but it buys me some time I didn't have a few months ago.
I really recommend reading 'How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen'. It really opened my eyes to what young children are capable of, gave age-appropriate ways to treat them as a person, but also gave age-appropriate limits on what it's reasonable to expect of them. For example, there's no point giving a two year old a dissertation on cause and effect, but you can use a simple, one-sentence "If you do this, that happens" to connect the dots for them. If I'm 15 minutes late getting my son's dinner on the table, I don't tell him off for whining at me. He's hungry and doesn't have the words to tell me or the concept of the passage of time to understand why he's hungry and that dinner will be soon. I don't love the whining, but I am sympathetic to it. I get whiny when I'm hungry too, but I have grown up tools to deal with both the hunger and the hanger. He just has to wait for me to take my own sweet time.
Also, you should know that your own child's crying is plugged directly into your lizard brain. Do NOT underestimate this. It's not weakness. It's biology.
It's also OK to not love having a toddler. I hated having a baby a lot of the time. Now he's got mobile and started getting verbal he's really delightful to me and I love watching him learn and integrate into our lives like a real human. The months when the best I could hope for was him not actively crying? Not so great. But you can't give birth to a four year old, unfortunately!
As an alternative example you can really substitute anything where a toddler is safely struggling to interact with its environment. Trying to squeeze in a space to small to fit, lift something that's too heavy, place an object inside another object that doesn't fit, open a drawer that doesn't open, ram a cart through a wall. Basically learning about physical world around them. Those actions get constant redirection and I wonder if it's necessary or if not doing so would allow the toddler to learn that the thing they're trying to do doesn't work that way.
If I were the parent and had to turn my toddlers cart around every time he ran into a wall to prevent him from crying over being frustrated that he can't run through the wall vs. letting him cry about it, then turn the cart around himself and move on, I'd spend my afternoon constantly two steps behind my kid and cart. That's the kind of thing I'm thinking of.
I have put that book on my list for our next library run.
I have a few thoughts:
-It sounds like you might be interested in Janet Lansbury's parenting work. Some of the things she emphasizes are a "yes space" where kids can entertain themselves, observing rather than distracting them, and letting them communicate their needs (which sometimes means giving them a minute to be frustrated about something without fixing it). Link: https://www.janetlansbury.com/2010/04/baby-interrupted-7-ways-to-build-your-childs-focus-and-attention-span/ (https://www.janetlansbury.com/2010/04/baby-interrupted-7-ways-to-build-your-childs-focus-and-attention-span/) I find reading her articles (I follow on facebook) to make me a calmer parent, one who does take that beat before reacting.
-For me personally, the newborn-1 year time period was incredibly hard for a variety of reasons you probably don't need details about. At 14 months, however, for the first time I thought, "Oh shit. I'm going to want to go through all of that again just to have a fourteen-month-old one more time in my life." I have felt that way consistently from then until now (3yo)!
-You don't know what you're going to get. My kid turned three this summer and this week, for the first time, slept through the night more than 3 nights in a row without needing a parent. (GLORY.) It wasn't that we didn't try to sleep train, it's that when we did even the gentlest of training he would cry so hard he would vomit. A lot. We had friends who sailed through sleep training and had kids who slept through the night at 6 weeks. A lot of it just really depends on your kid.
-I was talking about wrestling with the idea of having a second child (which for us will likely involve intrusive, expensive IVF again) and going through both the getting pregnant, the staying pregnant, and that first year again. She pointed out that having a baby is signing up for a very intense three years, but you're hoping for 40+ years of joy and connection out of that. I hadn't really thought about it that way before.
I used to think that people on the fence should probably go for it, though now I feel like the first year was for us So Hard that I don't think that anymore; I am actually grateful to the struggles we had conceiving because I am constantly grateful for even the hard stuff, because we might not have gotten to experience this, and I'm constantly reminded that we chose every bit of this and worked hard to get it. Parenting has been the hardest and most exhausting thing I've ever done and also the most joyful, important, meaningful, existential thing. But for people who do want it, I think it's amazing. I wouldn't trade it for any amount of money or travel or sleeping in.
Check out Janet Lansbury and RIE, I think that could be what you're looking for in terms of what might be reasonable to hope/expect/encourage in terms of independent play and intervention.
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Ironically, my wife and I are currently experiencing a week of Parenthood. Our friends had to go out of town for a once in a lifetime opportunity and we agreed to watch the kids. So we're taking care of two school age children and a 1-year old for eight days.
We now realize that people who have kids in two different age groups that require completely different demands are superhuman. Even with my wife and I not working it is almost non-stop every moment the kids are awake and present because the different demands between the age groups typically requires and adult to be dealing with each so no one gets a break. If we had jobs, I'm not so sure that we would even exist anymore as individuals because there would be no time to do the first thing for ourselves. It's quite disturbing.
Coming from the position of FIRE and doing whatever we want when ever we want there's no way around it. The forced daily routine just....sucks. I could see where if you're already held to a routine for work that having a child routine doesn't profoundly change your life as far as freedom is concerned, but being constrained by jobs makes it a totally different ballgame. This has been an incredibly eye opening experience for us, probably not in a good way for the thought of having kids.
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My kids were 3 and 7 when I had my third and I found the spacing to be very helpful. I am glad you are having this experience because I don’t think you guys really want kids. People that usually want children have a strong desire and aren’t questioning it. What I have experienced is that when people are questioning it they usually don’t deep down want children. I think having children should not be taken lightly and are glad that you are making a thoughtful decision. My kids did the same.
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Bonus of this approach: it's surprisingly helpful at times when they actually ARE teenagers, but they can't manage to express themselves and they are exhausted. Sympathy Empathy (even while holding the line) is a great tool with teenagers human beings, and everyone wants to be genuinely seen.
love your post, but added some edits for all of us to chew on about all relationships. Let's all try to have a little more awareness and appreciation of the beautiful struggle that is life. Be kind to one another.
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I agree with @Cassie - it sounds like deep down you don't really want kids. I've always wanted kids so nothing would have made me question this. If you're questioning the life style changes that having kids would bring then it's probably not your thing.
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You could stop at one -- many people do. And two retired adults managing one small person with total flexibility about when and where the other tasks of adulting get done is not that hard to manage.
We are both pretty firmly in the one and done category if we choose to have kids. We do understand that being responsible for three children requiring two totally different sets of needs over the course of a week is not the same as having one baby and growing into the routine of parenting as the child grows. Perhaps we'll travel extensively for a year and realize it isn't for us. I don't think we want to homeschool so at the moment we just see a 5 year old needing to start school and locking us I one location and it feels like prison. Hopefully this view will moderate a bit as freedom becomes old hat.
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You could stop at one -- many people do. And two retired adults managing one small person with total flexibility about when and where the other tasks of adulting get done is not that hard to manage.
We are both pretty firmly in the one and done category if we choose to have kids. We do understand that being responsible for three children requiring two totally different sets of needs over the course of a week is not the same as having one baby and growing into the routine of parenting as the child grows. Perhaps we'll travel extensively for a year and realize it isn't for us. I don't think we want to homeschool so at the moment we just see a 5 year old needing to start school and locking us I one location and it feels like prison. Hopefully this view will moderate a bit as freedom becomes old hat.
Well, your views could also change. As recently as a couple years ago, I thought people who homeschooled were crazy :) And now I'm doing it! At first because we didn't have a better option for our oldest, but now we like it so much we are going to homeschool the second one. Granted both the kids will still go to a "school" five days a week, it's just not a traditional one and gives us a lot of flexibility for travel. Though it's true that we are now reluctant to move away from our current location until both kids are much older. Kids need stability and some place to call "home".
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When I only had one child I was very much leaning towards not having more but then I had this little longing for another one at the same time as my husband and we kind decided to see what happenend and you know, that thing that can happen if you have sex without birthcontrol happened. We now have two and I think two is much easier than one, much easier. They are four years apart and the older has always been able to amuse the younger and with time the opposite was also true. They love each other deeply, that is clear, and while they do fight, they are mostly pretty good friends. An example: With one three year old one of us had to get up every weekend morning when she woke up. Now with a three year old and a seven year old I stay in bed and tell them to have some fruit until I am ready to get up. They love being able to watch TV on their own, pick what to eat for breakfast and have some time for themselves and I get to sleep. Their dad often makes errands in the morning and leaves around the time they wake up.
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If you had stuck with one, would the 7 year old get up on their own, eat fruit and watch TV safely? Or is the interaction vital to this happening without bugging you?
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Every time I see this thread title pop up I just want to laugh - I can opine on the neediness of my children for days! :)
. . . so no one gets a break. If we had jobs, I'm not so sure that we would even exist anymore as individuals because there would be no time to do the first thing for ourselves. It's quite disturbing.
Honestly, I think the quoted is a very accurate take on parenting more than one child. We are a two job, two kid household and both DH and I struggle to maintain a sense of identity (though I do think this would be easier with just one child). The other caveat is that people who have family nearby that are able and willing to support and provide childcare also seem to maintain their lives better as well.
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If you had stuck with one, would the 7 year old get up on their own, eat fruit and watch TV safely? Or is the interaction vital to this happening without bugging you?
At seven, she would probably have gone up and been on her own for a while but for a significantly shorter time and there would be much more of "moooooooooooom!" I think. When she is alone even now she is easily bored.
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If you had stuck with one, would the 7 year old get up on their own, eat fruit and watch TV safely? Or is the interaction vital to this happening without bugging you?
Many, if not most, younger kids like company and tend to seek it out when they are alone. My kids (6 and 9) are somewhat mischievous though, particularly when they are together, so I can't fall back to sleep when I know that they are up for the day and bumming around the house alone.
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If you had stuck with one, would the 7 year old get up on their own, eat fruit and watch TV safely? Or is the interaction vital to this happening without bugging you?
Many, if not most, younger kids like company and tend to seek it out when they are alone. My kids (6 and 9) are somewhat mischievous though, particularly when they are together, so I can't fall back to sleep when I know that they are up for the day and bumming around the house alone.
Mine haven't yet done anything big but I have woken up to banana peels on the floor, very "inventive" games involving things I don't like them playing with without asking but no catastrophe. I am somewhat protected by the fact that the older likes to tell on her brother doing stuff he isn't supposed to do and that her love of getting him into trouble is still higher than her will to do stuff I don't allow.
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I wanted to circle back to this topic with some final observations now that our friends are back home and have resumed parenting duties.
I solidly believe now that some of the struggles I see them going through are entirely self-inflicted. While they were away we had to watch a 13-month old for 8 days and we were much more hands off than they were. We didn't pick the baby up every time he wanted to be held, we didn't redirect him every time he couldn't do something, etc. And it was all fine. We were still attentive but you could see just in that week that he was learning to fuss at us less and become a little more independent. Now that they are home and hovering he is back to fussing all the time about something because their reaction to that fussing has reinforced the idea that if he fusses someone else will do the thing he wants for him.
It has been great to see this change directly because it does a lot to allay my fears that this is just they way having a 1 year old is.
I very much appreciated all the input from my fellow Mustachians!
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If you had stuck with one, would the 7 year old get up on their own, eat fruit and watch TV safely? Or is the interaction vital to this happening without bugging you?
Many, if not most, younger kids like company and tend to seek it out when they are alone. My kids (6 and 9) are somewhat mischievous though, particularly when they are together, so I can't fall back to sleep when I know that they are up for the day and bumming around the house alone.
Mine haven't yet done anything big but I have woken up to banana peels on the floor, very "inventive" games involving things I don't like them playing with without asking but no catastrophe. I am somewhat protected by the fact that the older likes to tell on her brother doing stuff he isn't supposed to do and that her love of getting him into trouble is still higher than her will to do stuff I don't allow.
One time in the early hours of the morning (5ish IIRC) I was awakened by the furnace in high gear. It was still dark so not typical for the furnace to really cycle a lot- and it was early spring so it wasn't like it was -25C, just around freezing but the fan was in overdrive. Realizing the hall light was on, I got up. Son was not in his bed. And the front foyer light was on. The front door was open - wide open. Just as I was slipping into panic mode and checking for winter coat and boots, I noticed the kitchen light was on too. And the lights down to the family room and all the family room lights...and the lights to the basement and all the lights in the Lego room too. Son was about six and he was happily engrossed in Lego that he didn't notice me until I was right beside him. He had let the cat out before he got busy with Lego. He was having trouble sleeping. I went back to bed but I didn't go back to sleep because I had gotten that Mom adrenaline going thinking he had gone for a walk in the cold darkness in his pj's. Some kids do that kind of thing.
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This is an interesting post. Children can be the same and yet very different. I have a son and he is as independent as he can be. Children need constant supervision until they are over three and even then it needs to be safe (children still swallow small objects until 5 years old, including but not limited to stuffing stuff in noses and ears). As my son is 2.5 we have seen the first few stages and although it is super challenging at times it is rewarding in so many ways.
Think about not the immediate hardship of an infant but your future. Do you want a child, do you see yourself with a bigger family. If the answer is yes, its worth the hard work. If the answer is no then don't have the kid.
For what its worth we are thinking of a second child and going through this similar discussion (minus the travel and being fired).
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It's good that you are asking this. I see a lot of good advice in this thread. My wife and I have a 2.5 year old daughter, and although we both love her dearly, it is not easy some days. Kids need a lot of attention and it will soak up most of your free time. We also don't allow her any screen time so that increases the amount of time we need to play and entertain her. You always have to keep in mind, their minds are developing and when thy cry, that's their response to being frustrated. If you have family that can help out, it makes it a lot easier. If Grandma or Grampa can come over a few hours when you need a break it will make it much easier. Don't feel guilty about needing a break:)
You will mourn the freedom you had in your old life, my wife and I talk about that often. However, it's also been an amazing experience and watching them grow and experience new things is amazing. Don't let anyone push you into this, my wife and I both agree, if we chose not to have kids, life would still be good. Anything worth doing takes sacrifice.
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OK, some thoughts from (almost) the other side of things:
1. Some kids are easy, some kids are tough. You have no control over which one you get.
2. There are as many different types of parenting styles as there are kids. The key is finding the style that works with the kid you have.
3. Luckily, humans have big brains and are readily adaptable. The key is to be flexible about it, and have the humility to admit that you may not know it all and that there isn't only one "right" way. The right way is that one that results in a healthy, happy family. Period.
4. You can live whatever kind of life you want with kids, including full-time travel if you want.
5. People here are, in general, tremendously well-suited to handle parenting, if they so choose. Because they are creative and independent enough to chart a course different than most of society, and flexible and self-confident enough to change that course when needed.
6. IME, people with one special-needs child may be overprotective with their other kid(s). So that may not be an ideal example to judge from.
7. Also IME, all of the parenting styles within the realm of reason result in pretty good, normal kids. Barring abuse, the biggest issue is when there is a huge disconnect between the kid's needs and the parent's natural style, and the parent is very "respect my authori-tay" and refuses to even consider changing. So if you avoid being quite so full of yourself, your kid's most likely going to be fine.
8. Whatever you do, keep your sense of humor intact. Because it is all fundamentally absurd.
Look, I have two. The first was a giant PITA whose terrible twos went from 13 mos. to 42 mos., who couldn't tolerate being out of my sight for even a second, who was ADHD basically from birth, and who never. shut. up.* I was a pretty hands-off, no-nonsense parent, and BOY did none of that work with her; she was basically a remora. My second was a big, cute, fluffy marshmallow, who was happy to play quietly by himself from day 1 -- if I'd had him first, I'd have thought I was the best parent ever.
With my first, I worked harder than I ever had in my life to try to figure her out -- and I mean, harder than studying for the Bar exam in two different states. I spent probably what amounts to months of my life worrying about her. When she was 12, all I could think was this kid is never going to be able to move out of my house, hold a job, and function independently. And yet the older she got, the better her grades got, the more independent she became, and the happier she became as I trusted her to make her own decisions. And now here she is off at college, managing 100% of her shit on her own.
Obviously, she's not your kid, so there's no reason you should care. But I say this for one simple reason: she is what I am most proud of in my life. Not because she is perfect or wonderful, but because she is not. Because she made me stretch and learn more than anything else I had ever done in my life (again, including entire legal career). Because it was hard as shit -- and I figured it out. Yes, I screwed up -- daily, hourly -- along the way. But she and I navigated it, and I played a part in helping grow an adult, despite serious doubts that that would ever happen at several points along the way.
Part of what MMM talks about is the satisfaction of pushing yourself, of learning new things, of dealing with temporary discomfort for long-term growth. I have gotten more of that from parenting my DD than from anything else I have ever done. And that's why I wouldn't trade any of it, even if I could.
(And here I am patting myself on the back for being such an awsome parent, and now my formerly-easygoing DS is 13 and starting to act out in a completely different way, so now I get to go back to square 1 and learn an entire new set of parenting skills. Oh joy. . . .)
*Talk about showering on your own? I had to put her on the bathroom floor and play peek-a-boo around the shower wall; this is kinda mean, but sometimes I'd pop out and back on purpose to make the crying start and stop and start and stop. Made me laugh every time.
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I loved that post, thank you. I count myself lucky that ToddlerSLTD is not my friend's toddler. Not because my friend has an awful toddler (she's super cute and perky!) But because the luck of the draw meant that I got a child who cried today because some strangers looked at him, rather than the child who has to be physically dragged away from making friends with everyone on the planet.
You don't get to pick which kind of child you get, you just pray you get one you know how to handle. I can handle cripplingly shy. Boundless energy would kill me. But I'm pretty sure my friend feels the same way!
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You don't get to pick which kind of child you get, you just pray you get one you know how to handle. I can handle cripplingly shy. Boundless energy would kill me. But I'm pretty sure my friend feels the same way!
As luck would have it - I got one of each. Cripplingly shy older kid and energizer bunny extrovert younger kid.
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You don't get to pick which kind of child you get, you just pray you get one you know how to handle. I can handle cripplingly shy. Boundless energy would kill me. But I'm pretty sure my friend feels the same way!
As luck would have it - I got one of each. Cripplingly shy older kid and energizer bunny extrovert younger kid.
Don't! I'm pregnant with #2 right now! :)
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You don't get to pick which kind of child you get, you just pray you get one you know how to handle. I can handle cripplingly shy. Boundless energy would kill me. But I'm pretty sure my friend feels the same way!
As luck would have it - I got one of each. Cripplingly shy older kid and energizer bunny extrovert younger kid.
Don't! I'm pregnant with #2 right now! :)
You will handle the child you get. You learn as you go.
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I wanted to circle back to this topic with some final observations now that our friends are back home and have resumed parenting duties.
I solidly believe now that some of the struggles I see them going through are entirely self-inflicted. While they were away we had to watch a 13-month old for 8 days and we were much more hands off than they were. We didn't pick the baby up every time he wanted to be held, we didn't redirect him every time he couldn't do something, etc. And it was all fine. We were still attentive but you could see just in that week that he was learning to fuss at us less and become a little more independent. Now that they are home and hovering he is back to fussing all the time about something because their reaction to that fussing has reinforced the idea that if he fusses someone else will do the thing he wants for him.
It has been great to see this change directly because it does a lot to allay my fears that this is just they way having a 1 year old is.
I very much appreciated all the input from my fellow Mustachians!
Reaching back a few weeks to opine on this comment. I wouldn't read overly much into parenting style based on the the toddler's behavior with you. Toddlers are especially prone to fussing more at their parents than at non-parents. Parent the way that works for you, but don't judge your friends' parenting style based on a one-week sample alone.
Around 9-18 months, this happened a number of times with my older kid: she would be happy as a clam at daycare UNTIL I showed up. The moment she saw me, she would lose her shit. It didn't seem to be because she was sad to leave or had trouble with transitions--she wasn't trying to cling to anyone else there. I finally figured out it was because she had just been holding some things in all day. Her dad and I were the people with whom she could just let loose.
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As a parent of a toddler, I consider it a small personal victory if I get to take a shower every other day.
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Every child and every parent-child dyad is a totally original and distinct thing.
Don't worry about having a baby until you have a *specific* baby.
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As a parent of a toddler, I consider it a small personal victory if I get to take a shower every other day.
I don't know if you ever watched Parks and Rec - but every time I say I'm going to shower my husband still says "Treat Yo Self!". We haven't had a toddler for several years :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59lVs4dD4eM
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I may not be wording the question correctly. I was having a hard time with the specificity. I definitely understand that you can't leave a 1 year old unsupervised in an unsafe environment. I guess what I'm more thinking of is whether people have solutions where a one year old can be left while you pee and there's nothing there they can hurt themselves with vs. peeing means you feel compelled to hand the child off to another adult. And with respect to struggling I was thinking along the lines of the baby is trying unsuccessfully to pull himself up or open a drawer and can't and instead of allowing him to struggle with it there is constant redirection or he'll fuss and our friends I guess don't want him to fuss? But then that means one of them is physically within 2 feet of him every waking second. I guess that's the granularity I was trying to understand better if that's typical.
I guess in my brain Im imagining that a 1 year old should be able to have an area where it can play for a couple minutes at a time (with appropriate safety measures) without an adult hovering overhead. Is that unrealistic?
It depends on the area, and the stage the kid is at. At 1 year old some kids may be walking, even climbing, which increases the risk of falling. And they'll definitely be putting everything in their mouths, including choking hazards you're not aware are there (like that button that popped off your shirt a few months back, a random paperclip tracked from the den on somebody's shoe, etc). They also have developmental stages where there's GOOD REASON for them to want a trusted adult around all the time. Clinginess is a survival skill when they're too young to identify/run from/fight off a predator. You can't rewire hundreds of thousands of years of evolution by 'encouraging independence.'
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I may not be wording the question correctly. I was having a hard time with the specificity. I definitely understand that you can't leave a 1 year old unsupervised in an unsafe environment. I guess what I'm more thinking of is whether people have solutions where a one year old can be left while you pee and there's nothing there they can hurt themselves with vs. peeing means you feel compelled to hand the child off to another adult. And with respect to struggling I was thinking along the lines of the baby is trying unsuccessfully to pull himself up or open a drawer and can't and instead of allowing him to struggle with it there is constant redirection or he'll fuss and our friends I guess don't want him to fuss? But then that means one of them is physically within 2 feet of him every waking second. I guess that's the granularity I was trying to understand better if that's typical.
I guess in my brain Im imagining that a 1 year old should be able to have an area where it can play for a couple minutes at a time (with appropriate safety measures) without an adult hovering overhead. Is that unrealistic?
It depends on the area, and the stage the kid is at. At 1 year old some kids may be walking, even climbing, which increases the risk of falling. And they'll definitely be putting everything in their mouths, including choking hazards you're not aware are there (like that button that popped off your shirt a few months back, a random paperclip tracked from the den on somebody's shoe, etc). They also have developmental stages where there's GOOD REASON for them to want a trusted adult around all the time. Clinginess is a survival skill when they're too young to identify/run from/fight off a predator. You can't rewire hundreds of thousands of years of evolution by 'encouraging independence.'
Yeah, agreed. Bottom line, you can parent anyway you want but others may do it differently for very good reasons that really aren't anyone else's business.