My foster kiddo's birthday is coming up soon, and we got a REALLY good deal on a PS4 for his birthday. I'm buying him used games to go with the console. I asked him to describe what kind of games he wanted and things he liked in games. He wants a split screen co-op FPS where he's able to hunt for rare loot. He wants a looter shooter that he can play with me. Also odd criteria, but he wants games that I'm good at because it's like "watching a ninja". He explained this, and Borderlands is the only game I can think of that has all of it. He didn't mention Borderlands by name, so it's not like I'd be saying no to anything on his list specifically. I'd settle for a co-op split screen FPS we could play, but there aren't very many of those on PS4.

Here is the issue I'm running into though. On one hand, this child is turning 9. He is just too young for Borderlands. However, this child has also witnessed multiple people die of drug overdoses, watched a million rated R movies with his mom, so censoring things feels weird. Like who am I to censor some middle school grade jokes when he's into morbid things as a result of seeing death his entire life? I'm thinking maybe we just make it a game where I have to play it with him if he wants to play? Any split screen game recommendations for us that may be more age appropriate?

How we doing folks? Hope your week went well!

Bluey S03E48 720p WEB-EN

https://mega.nz/file/IwMwkAQZ#jlxfqxhOmNsIydpzGGwUlkUHEbZ_GUQOtp6ToryxxtE

https://easyupload.io/3t120k

I’m white. My daughter is also white. She’s 3 years old, almost 4.

Up to this age, my approach to teaching her about race has been to focus exclusively on skin color. Meaning, we talk about how people can have all different colors and tones to their skin. Talking about skin color on a spectrum. But always emphasizing that people are all the same and that everyone should be treated the same.

In isolation, this all sounds lib. I of course want to get all into structural and institutional racism et al. But… she’s 3. Up until a few months ago she was still pooping and pissing in a diaper. My thinking is that emphasizing this more lib understanding of race is more age-appropriate now, and we can get into the real stuff a little later on when she has the mental and emotional maturity to handle it (that said, I have told her that the cops aren’t very nice to people who don’t look like us. Whatever, the daycare has pigs come over and talk to the kids even at her age, so fuck em I’m gonna counter that shit now).

Is this the right approach? Is there more I should be doing? If you all have any age-appropriate books on this topic you can recommend, definitely let me know.

I know this comm is a slow one, and I think that's just the nature of parenting. I did have this thought though that it could be nice to have a weekly thread for just general chatter and checking in.

We've been circling the sickness drain for what feels like more then a month now. Everyone has had norovirus at this point, this weekend was my turn apparently after dodging it for weeks.

Took today off in hopes to just mentally recover, only to have daycare call to let me know kiddo2 projectile vomited about an hour after drop off.

So now I'm hanging out with him, shelving all the things I wanted to do today for some other rare moment where I have time for myself.

I took my kid to Target the other day. As one of the last 3rd spaces available where capitalism showcases the latest and greatest, I figured I'd treat it as a learning experience for him. He really wanted a very specific skid-steer toy, so I told him he could pick out something else if we couldn't find one.

There is something very unsettling about vaguely understanding the state of the world and being a parent. First I drove him through the clothes section because he's around the age where I'd like him to start expressing his preferences on what he wants to wear. Up until now he's been told what to wear by all the gifts he gets for his birthday, and I didn't really understand that implication until just then.

And that led to the next basic conclusion - his toy preferences were also dictated by all the gifts he's received from friends, grandparents, or what he sees at school. We walked through what was clearly and distinctly the girl toys section. I'm still to shit so I felt awkward walking down the aisle but I put on a brave face and asked him if anything there interested him.

Nope he still wants the skid-steer. We pass by the car brain section and I notice more acutely now that there are 600 variants of the same plastic car with different paint colors. None of them interest him. We see the fascist puppies of paw patrol which thank god he doesn't care for either. In the construction toys section, a skid-steer catches my eye and I point it out to him. He shakes his head, no daddy that's a bulldozer. My toddler knows more about construction equipment than me. I'm proud and terrified in the same instant.

He zeroes in on an excavator. I remind him this will be the 4th variant of excavator that he owns and explain that we should donate some of his older excavators since we don't need all of them. I spend a few minutes in the aisle of target asking if he's sure that he wouldn't enjoy trying out a different toy or exploring his interests a bit, but he's set.

In the parking lot I show him how to return the cart to the cart return. I was reminded of the redditest discourse ever - cart return politics. People in those threads act like returning a cart is some mark of a morally superior person. Like it isn't the most basic bare minimum utterly insignificant expression of social responsibility. It still needs to be fucking taught to a person. Empathy is natural but it still needs to be nurtured or people will just assume whats in front of them is just how things are.

As I'm strapping my excited kid in to his car seat I keep thinking about that. He's holding his cheap plastic excavator that's maybe a third the size of him and he can't wait to get home, and what's in front of him is just how things are. I get in to the driver seat and I feel totally overwhelmed. I start tearing up. I immediately move the rear view mirror so he doesn't see his grown ass dad show a moment of weakness in a paved sea of personal chariots in front of the temple of capitalism. This way of life is built on so much suffering and it's so hollow and fake, and here I am teaching my child the prescribed ways of coping, escaping, avoiding it.

I love my kid, I've already made so many mistakes and I know I'll make more. It makes me really hopeful that he loves construction stuff so much. I feel so much shame for being a stupid lib for so much of my life, but also so much of his life. I also can't help but wonder if my parents felt the same way when I was a toddler, if this is just some repeating cycle that will continue until this decaying empire fails its last failure that finally breaks the whole system.

They could stop it all now if they wanted. They could end things from a position of relative strength. Agree that - haha ok things went a little too far there - let's end the whole exploitation and colonialism thing. Maybe start talking reparations and some prison sentences for the worst offenders. Nothing could possibly make up for all the pain and suffering done so far, but nothing will get better until it stops.

But they don't. My child will grow up immersed in this death cult machine and have to operate in its confines just like me. Me, his father, the guy he looks up to and expects to protect him. We talk about radicalizing people but I can think of nothing more radicalizing than realizing the world you are handing down to your own children is this.

We all know children should read Das Kapital in the original German when they're 12, but apart from that, what books or leftist cartoons should they be learning at different ages.

Age 4-8

Some Zapatista/Subcommandante Marcos books of fables

Age 9-13

???

Age 14-16

The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists

I have fond memories of reading them when I was younger, but as I think about introducing them to kids I have some thoughts and issues:

• The clear colonial bias - Narnia needing white British rulers to thrive.
• Colorism/Xenophobia/Racism in the Horse and His Boy and The Last Battle.

Do the benefits of a neat magical fantasy world outweigh the issues? How would you approach it?

I hope your holiday is full of love and warmth!

That's it, that's the post. My partner, her son, and her nephew have been elsewhere for Thanksgiving this weekend. Sure I could rant against Thanksgiving, but I'm just glad that everybody is actually spending time with each other for once.

I got stoned and Bluey came on, it made me really emotional. I had to put this somewhere, sent it to my partner as well. You guys should reach out to the people you love too.

I was at the library with the kiddo this weekend hunting for some stories. They're 3, for context. I'm not usually the one getting books, and it took me a little time to find books I was interest in. Found two that turned out to be fun and with some leftist points of view.

First one: "Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type" by Doreen Cronin illustrated by Betsy Lewin.

A book about cows who have a typewriter. They use that typewriter to write letters to the farmer demanding better working conditions. Its a silly book about cows on strike, light hearted but a good message about the power of collective action.

Second one: "The Rooster Who Would Not Be Quiet!" By Carmen Agra Deedy, illustrated by Eugene Yelchin.

A book about a noisy town where the people sing all day and night. After electing a new mayor, the mayor bans all forms of singing. Until a rooster arrives. Even after the mayor takes away everything the rooster has, the rooster refuses to stop singing. A fun book about speaking truth to power and refusing to be silenced in the face of powerful threats.

In a sea of identity affirming books, it was nice to find these. If you have any similar books feel free to leave them below.

Such a sweet sweet torture, I dont wanna be here but I cant learn with him in the same flat and the pictures remind me of what I'm missing but I also don't want them to stop.

its kind of cringe tbh

My child wanted to watch an animated green lantern series recently so we checked it out. Of course the main character who is the human green lantern is a fighter pilot who does a bunch of sweet fighter pilot flight maneuvers in the opening sequence. I told my child that shows like this often show the military being cool and doing cool stuff, but that in real life what fighter pilots actually do is drop bombs on children. I'm only human, I also enjoy (some) military action movies, but I know it's cotton candy brain poison too.

I hate how many children's shows have pro military pro cop propaganda. How do others talk to their kids about it to inoculate them against brainworms? I usually describe the military and the cops as being like a gang of bullies - they do things to make themselves look cool but really they just exist to hurt people and take their shit.

Well I've posted a few things about my family here, I don't really have a place to post elsewhere. My step son is special needs, and as a result has been developing at a slower pace than other children. This means that he's been pretty much completely uninterested in candy until this year. We'd go trick or treating because he enjoys walking around, but he never actually did anything with the candy. He was walking around just to say hi to the neighbors. But this year, he'll actually get to enjoy the candy collecting because he cares about it this year!

Also, an update to my mutual aid post yesterday. We got the drug tests covered for court, and realized he didn't have a Halloween costume. We went to the store and got him a costume from an anime he likes for $15. We wanted to make sure he didn't feel left out. We have two happy boys ready for Halloween this year, we really appreciate the help. He's adjusting really well so far.

This story made me cry my eyes out as a parent of a non-verbal child. A grocery store employee named Jordan decided to let an autistic child to let him help stocking the shelves, cheering him on as he did it. I know this is just an internet clip, but I saw that as my child when I heard this story. My child, getting help from someone clocked in, stocking those shelves just because he likes doing it. There's even a clip of the man giving Jack the opportunity just saying "I was just being myself" when responding to just how much people loved him for this action. You can see the moment he changes how he sees himself when he starts crying saying that all he had even done was be himself. I can only pray that my child will meet someone this kind in the grocery store when he inevitably thinks it's interesting to stack matching things in a line. Jack didn't even have to say a word and was accepted.

Just wanted to say real quick, fuuuuck Pampers and Huggies. They're decent and I've been buying them ever since trying a couple worse-than-useless cheaper brands (one was Hello Bello, idk the other) scared me back into their greedy arms, but it turns out they're almost triple the price of other decent ones

If you have an Aldi near you, I'd recommend at least comparing diaper prices online, because mine carries actual diapers that absorb piss and shit unlike the worse-than-useless ones, but they're the same price as the worse-than-useless ones

Anyone who gives my kid a mini bricks model needs to be kicked in the dick. How the hell are these things popular?

The pieces are minuscule and all 500 come together in a single bag. Then the instructions are shit so you have to sit there and try to decipher what the fuck goes where, then find the tiny little fucking piece you need which will take an eternity unless you spend 40 mins sorting them. Then when you go to put it together they’re so damn small it’s impossible not to break the model unless you are an adult in a baby body. Who the fuck designed these, Benjamin Button?

By Allah whoever designed these abominations must be put to the sword. Fuck mini bricks and anyone who buys them and ESPECIALLY fuck anyone who gives one to my kid.

If so, how / why? Do you have any regrets?

My toddler is a lovely child. I spend a lot of time with them, I lovingly refer to them as my permanent companion. I cannot step outside for a cigarette without them coming out with me. No problem, but at some point I'd like to transition them to their own bed. They sleep in ours every single night, and generally sleep much better in there and for longer.

Has anyone transitioned a kid to their own bed after a long time of co sleeping? They don't fall asleep on their own yet and I lay with them until they fall asleep, but if I try in their room it's tears until we're back in the big bed.

Yesterday was supposed to be my step kiddo's first day of school, but he got a tad sick yesterday so we decided to keep him home. We sent him in for his first day of second grade today though! He's 7 and hasn't spoken yet, but he's made so much progress the past few months. He's finally figured out how to put on his own shoes and pants, he has a tablet that he watches Sarah and Duck on 24/7 (he does not watch any other show, except Nathan for you, he loves Nathan for you every once in a while for some reason) and he's recently started playing sound clips through tapping certain parts of the play bar. When he needs a diaper change it's "Duck has a wet bottom" or when he's sad, he will get on his tablet and tap on the spot on the play bar to tell us he's sad. There are multiple small examples of this he'll do throughout the day and it's just so fucking amazing to see him learning to find ways to communicate so much better before he goes into school. He hasn't quite grasped the screen talking the school does with him, but he's started doing it through his show and I'm so happy he can finally advocate for himself to anybody that can hear. I just don't want him getting bulldozed by this worls because he's not able to scream "STOP" and doesn't understand the construction signs.

Other parents can chime in, this community is quite slow so feel free to comment any rants about your kid. But I'm curious if there are any other special needs parents here?

I know it doesn't compare to how he'll feel when he's older, but being the parent of a special needs child is isolating. While everybody else's kids are learning all these new books, maybe starting extra curriculars, I'm changing diapers, potty training and teaching him how to use a fork. There's nothing wrong with how long he needs to learn these things, but other parents just can't understand being on these topics for 7 years. It makes me feel like I'm alone, and it just spirals because it reminds me of how few people he has that can truly understand his experience. I'm only 22, although I was also non-verbal until I was 4-5, I have no experience on parenting, let alone parenting a child with special needs. I'm just scared that even with the extra experience I have being a nonverbal child, I won't be able to really understand enough to show him the love he deserves.

Maybe we'll be 20 years from now, and maybe he won't be able to tell me, but I'll just realize that I didn't have enough patience for him as a kid. There would be no way to know I'm actually apologizing to him, there would be no real way to tell if I was apologizing to him for him or just selfishly apologizing to make myself feel better. Like if I end up crying while apologizing to him, he will start crying. There is no way for me to know if I made his day better or worse by talking about it with him so I just never do. Anything I do with him is, for his sake, completely permanent. How do you guys handle this feeling?