5 ms·
Dad of 8 here. It makes life so sweet when we acknowledge the child's capacities. Notice it didn't take that much patience...it's almost just a matter of creati
by insensible 8y ago
Dad of 8 here. It makes life so sweet when we acknowledge the child's capacities. Notice it didn't take that much patience...it's almost just a matter of creatively overcoming a language barrier.
- curun1r 8y agoI'd think it would also be a great opportunity to have access to a young, malleable mind that's unencumbered by a significant body of past experience and preconceived notions. Every answer is like a pure function...it's derived from first principles rather than coming an existing corpus of 'state'. It seems like a tremendous opportunity to expand your own viewpoint with perspectives that you'd naturally ignore based on your own past experience. A good friend of mine was the grandson of a couple that ran a school for gifted children. When they retired, there was a video produced about their careers and, at one point, they were both asked what they liked best about their jobs. His grandfather answered, "Getting to speak to the children every day." His grandmother answered, "Getting to listen to the children every day. I always liked her answer better than his.
- jedberg 8y agoOut of curiosity, did you mean you have eight kids, or your kid is eight years old? Because if it's the former, I'm impressed you have even one second to be on HN!
- insensible 8y agoIt's the former!
- freedomben 8y agoIf you do have 8 kids, that's amazing. I have 5 myself and most of the time I feel more like a zookeeper/riot policeman than a dad.
- insensible 8y agoEconomies of scale. The kids work together, play together, teach each other, and parents facilitate (often leading to interesting conversations like the one in the article). It's actually probably a little easier than having 5.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoA coworker keeps telling me (I'm a parent of one, and intend to stay that way) that having a big family like his is easier, since the older kids can take care of the younger kids. Which sounds totally plausible and correct, 'cept it'll take you awhile to get up to that sort of economy of scale :P
- hycaria 8y agoHow fun that must be to take care of siblings, wow, youth enjoyed for sure.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoYes, of course, having younger siblings is exactly the same as being a full-time live-in babysitter. Did you know older siblings don't even get paid for the work they do?
- insensible 8y agoThis being Hacker News, we can talk about it in terms of graphs, right? Let's look at the sociogram when one parent is present. The transition from zero to one is of course world-changing. But at one child, 100% of the connections in the sociogram connect to a given parent: zero economy of scale. At two children they have each other, but that is only 1/3 of the children's connections when one parent is present. At three, we're up to 50% of the connections that are child-to-child. At this point the sociogram is rich enough to become interesting. Four => 60%. Eight => 77.8%.
- 8y ago
- andrei_says_ 8y agoAnd, kids are fascinating conversationalists
- nickpeterson 8y agoMy wife recently put up a small message board in our kitchen, where you can press letters into fabric to say what you want. My daughter (5 years old), suggested, "Candy inside your heart." I find the sentiment very sweet. We have not broached free monads yet.
- gowld 8y agoMonadic candy machine: https://gist.github.com/hakuch/484ea9c4e4baaf7b3ab6 https://gist.github.com/hakuch/484ea9c4e4baaf7b3ab6
- andrei_says_ 8y agoHonestly, would you need free monads if you already had (the feeling of) candy inside your heart? Maybe we need to look at our priorities.