Ask Lemmy

Having children.

So my old man was and still is extremely smart. Every night, he'd take time to teach me math and English. Thing is, I am not so smart and so have a lot of trouble following his teaching. That would make him frustrated because he couldn't figure out a way to explain the concept to me and he'd get mad.

I'm grateful now for the education he gave me, but as a little kid all I could think of was that my dad was going to be mad again because I couldn't learn well enough.

It impacted me through all my schooling. Yes I was a straight A student, but I hated studying. It was only after I started studying things I was passionate for that I got over it.

Again, I don't hold a grudge against my old man. He did the best he could and I love him for it. But I will try to find more patience with my daughter when I teach her.

Living with an abusive husband (my first stepfather).

Being super over-protective; all it did was make me fail and get into trouble a lot more in adulthood.

Having me in general.

I got snipped so no kids for me unless I somehow end up divorced/widowed and marry someone who already has kids (though most parents around my age have kids already out on their own).

I won't tell my kid not to "stoop to their level" and say to punch back when punched

Use windows

Haha. There’s that many traumatic events from my childhood, dysfunctional would be an understatement. Suffice to say I am not having children I will break the cycle.

Having kids in the first place

Reproducing in the first place. I'm not making that mistake.

Deciding to keep me at 15 & 19.

I love my life, am absolutely happy to be alive, don't get it twisted. But 2 teenagers not having an abortion is the original sin of their poor parenting choices

Honestly my mom is so weird:

Like, when I was a kid, she'll cuddle with me, encourage me to sleep in their bed, and like show affection, and she had moments when she was so wholesome and lovely. She frequently tells me how much she loves me, how smart she supposely thought of me.

But also, often times like... she can easily flip and like yell at me for small mistakes and scold me and belittle me... and I'd cry...

My brain is so fucking confused... lol... what the fuck was that?

Why was I shown love, then she flips on a different mask and becomes a different person like an hour later?

Bipolar?

Idk I have a truma bond to her, so confusing.

As for dad... idk he is just like chilling and doesn't really show either affection much but neither yells much either... like apathetic...

But anyways, if I ever have children, I'll do the affection thing, but I'll make sure I control my emotions and never show anger directed towards my children. I will never make my children feel scared like the way I felt when mom always did to me. Never again.

Hitting your kids: don't fucking do that. You might not ever see them when they reach adulthood.

Asking his 12 year old, over the protests of his wife, whether said 12 year old prefers girls with big boobs or small boobs. And pressing the issue for ten minutes after the 12 year old told him that that was an offensive and disgusting question to hear from this particular pervert and demonstrated child groomer.

Not teaching me a lot of basic shit, like how to shave, how credit/debit works, exploring food like sushi, teaching me about other countries.

I was taught a lot, especially common sense. I can troubleshoot and diagnose like a madman, even things I know very little about. But my dad wasn't a talker, so didn't get much there.

I talk to my kid about everything, we lookup what we don't know or want to know more about. I go over mistakes I made in life giving him examples of how to not make the same mistakes and save himself the time and trouble.

We call everything "experience", even bad things, and we learn from them, not unlike skill points and experience points in video games. You can learn from anything, not just good things.

I think when people think in terms of "my dad did this, I won't do that", they often miss what the real issue was. They end up being bad parents, just in a different way.

My wife and I raised three kids, and I fucked them up in my own special way. Not anything like how my parents did me.

If I were to look back over my life and offer advice, the advice I'd offer is: get some therapy. Have a disinterested, professional person to talk to every, single, damn week for the rest of your life. Being a parent will fuck you up.

And that's coming from someone who doesn't regret having kids.

When I was first thinking about having kids, I was thinking I didn't have the right personality. I spoke to my brother who had one child at the time, and he explained that when you have a kid you're so filled with love for them that nothing they do bothers you.

I had a kid. From birth to about 18 months, he screamed. He screamed for everything. He would scream for hours about anything that bothered him. My mom worked as a nurse in a hospital nursery. She cared for her kids, friends kids, family's kids. She said that in her entire life she never heard a baby scream so loud. My MIL was also a nurse and worked in maternity. Same deal. She was amazed at how loud he was.

I called my brother up to yell at him. He said I was right and he got it wrong. His first kid was easy. His second kid would get him so tight he'd have to leave the house to get away from her.

Back to my kid: Everyone asks, "oh, was it colic?" No. Not colic. The instant he started talking, he stopped screaming. The screaming was just what he did to communicate before he could talk.

I mention the story about the screaming because that was the easy part of parenting.

Don't be religious.

"No buts! Because I said so"

I explain things to my kids so they know WHY we are doing them. If they have an idea as to why we should be doing it differently, like give me 10 more minutes first, or I like it this way, then I listen, consider a compromise, if at all possible.

For example, if it's time for bed, but they're in the middle of a fortnite match, then I let them finish it. If it's time for school, and they just started a match, sorry, turn it off, you knew we had to leave soon.

I really wish that my parents had mentioned much earlier in my life that mental illness runs in the family and what the signs were so that I could have started getting treatment right away, rather than wasting years of my life confusing feelings of depression for proof that I was a terrible person. (Just to be clear, there was no malice involved; my mom just felt really self-consious about it, so she did not want to bring it up.)

if they're introverted, don't treat that as a "defect" that needs to be fixed

Having children.

None cuz I'm childfree

But they did make a lot of mistakes. The biggest was putting religion as #1 priority and kicking me out when i was 17 because they suspected i was living in sin.

Having children.

That's a mistake I'm not going to repeat.

For interacting with kids, I always try to act like I'm interested in the things they're talking about. It doesn't matter if it's their tiny life goals, or that cool rock they saw yesterday that wasn't as cool as the rock they saw last month at the museum.

Nobody was ever interested in anything I have to say, and even after being with my wife for 6 years, she's still trying to get me to talk more. Even I want to share something, my brain still says "they're not interested, don't bother" and I just keep it to myself. That's probably why I like to comment on platforms like this so much, I can speak my piece and then move on and if anyone is interested in replying, I get a (usually) nice interaction with someone for a few minutes.

My wife's dead sister used to scream at her children when they spoke because she "doesn't want to hear [their] bullshit" and whenever her youngest would start giggling at something she was talking about she would scream at her to shut up because she's annoying. The oldest was old enough to remember all of this perfectly, the youngest just has night terrors she can never remember.

My wife's living sister just ignores her 8 children when they're talking. Almost never even looks away from her phone or laptop when they talk and goes "yeah, uh-huh, mhmm, yep" and so on to make it seem like she's listening. The oldest has caught on and has started saying off the wall stuff like "my head came off at school and the teacher kicked it into the trash" and things like that to see if her mother even notices. Usually she doesn't.

It's not enough to just be technically listening. You have to show interest. It's not always easy, and when you have a lot on your plate it's even harder, but you can sit and listen to babbling for a few minutes, it won't hurt you, and you might make that kid's day.

I wouldn't hit my kids.

My parents raised my brother. My sister, and I grew up in his shadow.

Not yelling at them for every little thing. I also want to try and allow them to explore all types of interests and activities.

Lots of spanking involving hard shoes. Bonus that my sister and I had to pick the instrument of our prolonged beatings... and if we picked something 'too soft' our dad would get a much worse item. Never found out what it would be, but the extra level of terrorism was a nice touch.

Cold, distant mother who was not a victim of abuse as we were. She didn't care what he did. Your classic malignant narcissist who was expert at praising herself in just about any conversation. 'Oh you did well in that programming course you just took? My teacher told me I was the best he ever saw'. Both in reference to Visual Basic for an extra level of rank stupidity.

Both of them seemed to view their friends as commodities to be exchanged as soon as they lost their value or someone better came along. I can't remember how often I got to hear about some 'friends' who they didn't associate with who "didn't know what they were talking about" in reference to some interest of one or both. Horse riding, wine tasting, etc.

I had alcohol poisoning at 12 due to both their view we should be able to drink at dinner (absolutely fine in a vacuum) but having the kind of friends they did at the party this happened at.

My mom tried to get me to at least puff on a cigarette when I was 5... I already thought her smoking was gross so I didn't.

And my favorite was at 7 when I suffered a severe TBI that resulted in swelling on my brain and diagnosis that I needed surgery at alleviate it. My mother, a mildly famous biochemist who was conveniently anti science in most of her views, realized I need some veggie smoothies and psychic healing instead. Phew, good thing it doesn't cause problems to this day almost a half century later.

Maybe that's why I just shrugged when she died a couple weeks ago.

I've tried exceptionally hard to not be them, both in adult relationships and those with my stepdaughter and her kids. I'm not terribly close with the former by her choice (none of the family is as since she joined a VERY fundamentalist church and went all in on madness) but both of our grandkids are a nearly daily part of my life.

If my kids are not allowed to do/choose something, I tell them why.

My career is a very niche part of IT, and I like it, but I often wonder how different my life would be if I was able to actually study music and music production from the age of 16 instead of dropping out of all other forms of education. Maybe my musical endeavors today would be more than noodling for my own amusement. My parents were very supportive with most things I did, except that one time I wasn't allowed to go to the only school that interested me. I never learned why.

beating them with a belt.

throwing ALL their stuff out into the street because the kid was late one time

these seemed like mistakes to me so I didn't do them with my kid

Don't have so many kids you barely know their names, let alone needs and interests.

Don't parentify the girls, making them into mini-mothers that care for the others.

Don't instruct the boys that keeping a clean home, cooking, and hygiene is women's work and beneath them.

Don't use physical negative reinforcement (no hitting, no limiting calories).

Don't teach that reaching out for help is a moral failing.

Don't indoctrinate them into a religion.

Don't instill pride and moral superiority in being "better" and "different" than other families.

Do sit and introspect on how you're treating your kids. Challenge your preconceptions. My parents could read the above and insist they never did any of them, that they were great parents.

I'll try not to be an asshole.

As a father, I'm going to be better than mine by fucking showing up and being in my kid's life.