As a dad, I think about this fact so much.
I still feel just like a kid with no clue about everything, but I still have to do stuff, because I’m responsible for my own kids now.
I feel the same way often. And the kids look up to me with the absolute confidence and trust that their dad knows what he’s doing and will know what to do when they have trouble. I know that’s how it should be so they can be children. But at the same time I know it’s just not true and I’m just winging it.
my kids have a pretty good grasp that i’m also just finding my way in the world, and that it’s okay.
i feel like, anyone who comes across as though they have it all figured out are likely just unaware that the catalyst that brings it all crashing down is never really THAT far away.
Yeah, there’s a balance of “I’m not perfect, but I will always be here to look out for you” that has to be struck. Too far one way and the moment you break, the kids are gonna be scared and confused at what’s happening. And too far the other puts the responsibility on the child to take on a parent role (and believe me when I say that fucks you up)
You need to be a little more generous to yourself, friend. Compared to a kid, you do know what you’re doing, and thankfully kid troubles are mostly not a big deal, so you probably will know what to do. From a certain point of view.
Do you think there is value in teaching kids, from a young age, that their parents are not infallible? If not, why? If so, how would you teach that to a kid in a way they would understand and incorporate?
Was out with my daughter and her friend, and we found a wallet on the ground. The friend picked it up and immediately handed it to me, and now I’m ‘what am I meant to do with it?’. But only in my head, because I’m the grown up who just can deal with everything.
Try to find an address in the wallet and mail it. Otherwise, hand it to the police.
That’s why I think people shouldn’t have kids until they have at least a couple of hundred years of life experience.
People should have 10 years of experience with having a kid before they’re allowed to have a kid
I realize that’s a joke, but we waited until our 30s to have a kid specifically so we could have life experience and more financial stability before taking on that responsibility. I think that’s the best way to do it. Being 46 with a 13-year-old is a lot easier than it would have been for me 13 years ago.
Lmao I’m a grown kid who’s helping teach my dad a lot and it’s so funny to see the back and forth, to see him excited about his work softball team or messing something up. He’s one of those “always need to look fully in control” types so it’s refreshing to see him actually be human sometimes
Oh my god this is so true.
I recently heard “Another Day in Paradise” by Phil Collins, which I hadn’t heard since the 80s when I was a kid. It immediately brought back memories of being at home and Mom playing that song a lot, with just the two of us in the house, after Dad left.
Looking back at those memories through my adult eyes (I have a nearly-photographic memory and can vividly remember even ancient memories as if I’m still there), I can see my mom’s sadness and loneliness.
And then I realize she was my age. She had a little five year old boy. She was alone, unsure what to do. Putting on a smiling face not just for me but for herself too, cleaning the house with that song blasting. Like, I can watch the memories like video and I can see the heartache I couldn’t see back then.
I just want to go back in time, wrap my arms around her, and hold her tight.
I can relate to this in a way.
My ex died last year from breast cancer. She was 33.
Our relationship came to an end 4 years before she died and 2 years before her diagnosis.
She did horrible, horrible things to me for the last 3ish years of our relationship. She’d cheat, lie, gaslight, convince me our family was going back to normal and then smack me again with something.
We were horrible for each other. I knew we would be when we were still kids. We were great friends, but our personalities weren’t right for building a life together.
She moved in with me as soon as she turned 18. She was my closest friend and my roommate. We slept in the same bed for months without touching each other, and once we did, we were inseparable for years.
I ended up developing a drug problem. She had to deal with that. She never got her license and wouldn’t help around the house. I drove her everywhere she had to go. We worked at the same place and she worked on my days off. I couldn’t move forward in any way because she refused to get her license and pull herself together. She would fake sick and I’d have to go work in her place, clocked in as her because overtime wasn’t allowed and they’d send someone else in if I didn’t. We needed the money so I did.
I resented her so much. I’d get drunk and occasionally let her know it too. “I can’t do shit because I’m responsible for everything in this house. Get your license for the love of god!” She resented me, and she let me know it.
When I finally got myself together, her resentment had already reached a boiling point. I was ready to just forget everything and focus on my family and doing the right thing. She was cheating and looking for a way out.
When I first caught her I knew I was partly to blame. I went into overdrive trying to fix things. After catching her about the 5th time, I was done trying. I left.
She lost her shit. Stalked me, threatened me, you name it. She ended up getting committed by her mom for a week stay in a hospital when I started seeing someone else. She wanted to fix it then, but it was too late. Timing and circumstances. I was in love with someone else. She got diagnosed with BPD, started getting treatment and making changes.
The last guy I caught her with ended up with her. He’s a really great guy and she was lucky to find him. He still goes out of his way to spend time with my daughter because he genuinely loves her. I’m so thankful that she found him. With BPD she really did get lucky finding the guy.
Both of us got our lives together. I don’t take the girl I’m with for granted at all. My ex got her license, a job she loved, a house, a car. Then, cancer.
It eats me alive that she had a terrible childhood where she was abused and treated like no one, then we had the misfortune of meeting each other and dragging each other down. She spent all of her life living in misery and hell, finally had two good years, suffered horribly and died.
I deserve to feel guilt. I really do. I couldn’t have known that we could do so much better if we just got away from each other. I had to experience something else to know it. I had to see her experience something else to know it.
If she had left me when her mother came to try to get her to come home when she was 18, she could have had a decent life. She could have been the person she dreamed of being and I could have been the person I dreamed of being.
Instead she sat in misery for the only shot she had, for the entirety of her one life, and I was a source of that misery.
I’m here, living a wonderful life with a great woman and beautiful family. I have everything a person could ever want.
We were both shit to each other. That girl never got a chance.
If I could go back in time, I would have walked away when our daughter was an infant.
I can’t do that. All I can do is be as kind as I can be to the people I love and do my best to never live a life like that again. Her words echo in my head though sometimes, “You made my life hell and now you’re just gonna walk away and be a goddamn prince for someone else? For someone who didn’t stay up all night making sure you didn’t fucking overdose and die? She’ll never know what a monster you truly are because I got the pleasure of being some big goddamn life lesson for you? Well horrah! Treat her good then. I hope you both die. I really do.”
It sucks we can’t be born knowing how to treat people.
The worst thing is growing up and seeing them less and less to the point where once you do end up seeing them, they look WAY older than your mental image of them. Cherish your parents while you have them
My mom will be 89 in a couple of months and it’s so hard to watch her get so frail when her mind is still so sharp. I recently started recording her stories, like how she became a Univac programmer in the 60’s. I cherish every minute because I hear the clock ticking and it’s SO loud and never goes away. I’m going to miss my mom so much. It’s like my heart’s already breaking under the weight of losing her.
When you are a grown up you don’t realize you are watching your parents die.
I definitely started to see my parents decline in my early 20s. They’re still going, but age is coming for them fast.
Even when my mother was in a hospital bed we’d brought into the house, thin like a toothpick, I was still wondering what her odds of survival were. It’s so easy to be in denial. Then one moment she just stopped breathing and that was it.
My daughter had to experience this at 13.
She and her mom didn’t get along at all, and so she’s got that to deal with. She’s a kid so she probably would have done things differently if she could have managed to actually believe it was the end. It wasn’t her fault, her mom was mean, but she still has to carry on with that thought.
Life would be great if it wasn’t for the end being so unpredictable. It really gets to you when you think about it.
I seen a picture of my mom in her 20s when I was about 25 and it just slammed me for like a month. We rarely talk and there isn’t much I can do about it and time just keeps slipping away. I look at my fiancé’s family and they’re up in the morning calling each other right away. Every morning either she calls her mom or her mom calls her. Our children sit down with her and talk to grandma. Her sister calls not long after that.
I know that we should do our best to stay close with the people we love, but personalities are what they are and my people are extreme introverts. We call each other when we need something and we never say no, but that’s about it.
I’m sorry about your mom.
When my grandfather was dying, there was a moment I will never forget. He was a very religious man and raised very religious children. I was the only atheist in the room. We had been told that it was over, there was no hope, it was the end. He had survived heart attacks and cancers, and he believed that he survived those things because god renewed him.
Any way. He was laying there on that bed, surrounded by his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
My aunt was drinking a tea. Out of nowhere he sat up in the bed, took off the oxygen mask, smiled from ear to ear, grabbed her tea and took a drink. He got up on his feet, took another drink, started to walk forward and then fell back on the bed looking like he’d just been completely defeated.
Being religious, my family interpreted this as something divine.
I seen a man who believed that god would save him jump up with a rush of faith only to be knocked down by reality. He believed with all of his heart in that moment that god had “delivered” him. All he had to do was get up and make it so.
He didn’t put the mask back on and took his last breaths shortly after that.
He was a great man, and he died surrounded by almost all of the life he created. I’m glad he got that. I hope I get something like that.
The last thing he ever said to me I couldn’t understand through the mask and I pretended to hear him because of how hard he was struggling to say it. I’ll probably be wishing I knew what that was at the end of my own life if I have time to think about it.
I hope you’re doing well. Take care bud.
It was really weird for me to have some honest talks with my parents once I was well into adulthood. It took me way too long to realize they are people with their own problems to solve and a life and preferences, a personal history and all that. It’s weird how you tend to see your parents differently from other people until they deem you old enough to open up.
My parents died when I was young. Seeing other people’s adult relationships with their parents is so foreign to me. My parents are frozen in time in my memories, and I can’t imagine what their lives were really like or what kind of People they were.
