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I'll probably get downvoted, but I strongly disagree with this mindset. Raising kids is not a fun hobby or a side project that will fit into a neat little drawe

I'll probably get downvoted, but I strongly disagree with this mindset. Raising kids is not a fun hobby or a side project that will fit into a neat little drawer in your life. You have an obligation to do the best that you can. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it's stressful. Like it or not, that's what you signed up for. So step up. Like anything else in life, you can do a good job or a bad job at being a parent. If you're prioritizing your own convenience or ego or career over the wellbeing of your child, then you're a bad parent. Don't rationalize it with clichés like "love is all that matters" or search for online echo chambers of fellow shitty parents who will soothe your cognitive dissonance while your kid suffers. Make whatever sacrifices you need to, put the time in, and do better.

thejackgoode 6y ago
> You have an obligation to do the best that you can This reads like an expectation mindset that with high probability will end up hurting you, your kid and your relationship. Somewhere here belongs the put-oxygen-mask-on-yourself-first metaphor
- twiddling 6y ago
  As someone with older children, I can attest. Also the attitude can lead to a lot of tension with your co-parent.
ramblerman 6y ago
> Don't rationalize it with clichés like "love is all that matters" Counter data point. My wife is Argentinian. I'd say the values you see in her family primarily is "love does come first" and strict boundaries on kids. E.g. the adults are talking, go away. When I compare that to my own nieces and nephews, they have little boundaries, are quite lethargic and can be quite arrogant. Yet their parents would all describe themselves by your standards. We also tend to put our elderly in homes, an idea that is abhorrant to my wife. So I guess what I'm trying to say is ideals are nice. But it's purely theory, mostly to serve your own sensibilities.
- NovaJehovah 6y ago
  I'm not trying to say there's one right way to do things. But there are a lot of plainly wrong ways. If your parenting philosophy is not based on any research or learning about what's best for your child, but instead on what's easiest and most convenient for you, then you're probably doing it wrong. That doesn't mean you can't set boundaries for kids who are old enough to understand them. I think the way we discard our elderly is closely tied to our self-absorbed approach to parenting. If you don't put in the time and are unwilling to make sacrifices for your kids, you shouldn't expect them to be there for you when you need it.
  - bihla 6y ago
    So much of the "research" is not research at all. It's no surprise to see anti-vaccine sentiment run strong among Grace Manning-Devlin types.
    - NovaJehovah 6y ago
      It's true. Yet another hard thing about being a parent is that there is a lot of crappy "research" and advice to wade through (including most of the research claiming to support your view, btw). But there's some solid stuff out there too--pretending there isn't because you might reach conclusions that conflict with a self-serving parenting philosophy is just another excuse.
      - ak217 6y ago
        Your advice in this thread falls into that category. You take some sort of puritanical ideal of hard work and sacrifice, then apply it to build a... distorted idea of what parenting is and to abstractly shame people who don't fit it, then ignore all requests for references to any research at all done on this, then repeat this over and over with everyone who's trying to figure out what you mean. From what I know, your ideas have no basis in reality. You're only adding noise for parents-to-be to sift through and worry about. Just raise your kids with love and patience, don't listen to armchair child psychiatrists.
bihla 6y ago
It's possible you're coming from a very different background than me... I can understand your point of view if your context is being raised under real impoverished conditions; I agree a parent should do anything they can to meet a necessary level of stability for the child. But this comment makes me think of what is more likely familiar to members of this forum, where parents use their children to serve their own ego, trying to do everything to yield the best "Success" for their child where success is defined by the parent. For so many of us (professionals in the tech industry), the "wellbeing of your child" is not really a question--we know we'll be able to provide food, shelter, etc. People will say they do other things for the "wellbeing" but what they really mean is living out their own failed life goals by putting that baggage on their kid. So yeah, you got downvoted. It's possible you meant to make a more sympathetic point, but my first impression is that the comment espouses an actively harmful idea about the relation between parent and a child.
- NovaJehovah 6y ago
  > the "wellbeing of your child" is not really a question Mental health, substance abuse, and suicide statistics, including among the middle and upper classes, would seem to strongly indicate otherwise. > It's possible you meant to make a more sympathetic point, but my first impression is that the comment espouses an actively harmful idea about the relation between parent and a child. So "try hard, make sacrifices, and do your best" is now considered problematic? The relativism in this mindset is absurd. Nobody here would claim that there's no right or wrong way to design a distributed system, or that there are no right or wrong ideas about religion, but we have to pretend it's the case with parenting so we don't hurt anyone's feelings?
  - bihla 6y ago
    Children are not clay to be molded, and they are not computer systems to be planned and carried out. They are individuals. And there are no clear solutions to mental health, substance abuse, or suicide--but there are clear non-solutions like helicopter parenting. EDIT: And best-efforts at laying out everything for your kid are more than potentially-wasted energy. It's smothering, controlling behavior of someone who should have the right to live and make their own choices and mistakes.
u678u 6y ago
> Like anything else in life, you can do a good job or a bad job at being a parent. If you're prioritizing your own convenience or ego or career over the wellbeing of your child, then you're a bad parent. Sounds like you have no clue. Try looking after 3 babies then come back an talk to us.
- NovaJehovah 6y ago
  Sounds like you're making excuses instead of stepping up and taking responsibility for the choices you made.
  - heleninboodler 6y ago
    This is a pretty terrible accusation for someone who you know nothing about. Why would you take the argument here?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - NovaJehovah 6y ago
      Sorry. In retrospect, I shouldn't have engaged. Too late to delete now...
      - throwaway_prnts 6y ago
        I don't have any opinion on sleep training, but you've been downvoted a lot here and I would just like to make an observation that I don't think has been stated explicitly so far. IMO, you are coming across as someone who views themselves as morally superior and so feels entitled to try to control others via shaming them. This is probably not who you are in real life. But IMO this is the major reason why you have been so consistently downvoted in this thread, it is not mere disagreement on the sleep issue. Even if the evidence is easy to Google, linking to it and basing your argument on that would have gone a lot farther. If you are sincere about taking the hard road (which I have no reason to doubt), I would do some self reflection about why your communication style has not been effective here.
heleninboodler 6y ago
> You have an obligation to do the best that you can. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it's stressful. Like it or not, that's what you signed up for. So step up. I'm not downvoting you but I strongly disagree. You have an obligation to do an adequate job of this. I think it's also important not to become a slave to the idea that you must always do more because it's "supposed to be hard." Doing a great job of raising kids doesn't have to be a grueling slog, and I suspect that people who think it does aren't doing as good a job as they think they are.
- NovaJehovah 6y ago
  Who said it has to be a grueling slog? I said do your best, not wear a crown of thorns. I don't think it necessarily has to be hard, but people often make it harder than it needs to be because they're unwilling to make personal sacrifices. I just don't think we should give people participation trophies. If you're not doing a good job and you know it, you should face reality and fix it, not be told "there's no right or wrong way".
  - heleninboodler 6y ago
    > Who said it has to be a grueling slog? I said do your best, not wear a crown of thorns. > I don't think it necessarily has to be hard That's not necessarily coming through in your message, for what it's worth.
    - NovaJehovah 6y ago
      I just think that if it is hard, it's up to the parents to deal with, one way or another. They should either suck it up and slog through or change something in their lives so they can handle things better and it's not so hard anymore. I just hope they won't do something that they know is worse for the kid because it's easier for them. In my opinion, sleep training generally falls in this category. People do it because they're exasperated and neither parent is willing to do something hard--like live with sleep deprivation or put a career on hold. They generally don't do it because they genuinely believe it's best for the baby, though they will try to come up with rationalizations to that effect after the fact.
dantillberg 6y ago
Yes, I downvoted your comment. I don't doubt your intentions are admirable, but please don't shame strangers. GP is trying to survive in the world in which they find themselves. Will sniping some guilt at them summon up some hidden parenting strength?
lhorie 6y ago
> You have an obligation to do the best that you can The problem I have with this attitude is the pronoun. If you have some standards, great but please try to keep them to yourself. There's a lot of toxic "you should do this, you should be like that" type of talk in parenting circles, a lot of which is frankly condescending and non-actionable and add a lot of unnecessary stress, especially for insecure people. People like to armchair-coach about what a parent ought to be doing, while completely ignoring that the parent's emotional well-being is a pretty big component in a healthy relationship w/ their kids. This is exactly why others are saying to ignore unsolicited advice: because a lot of it isn't actually advice.
- NovaJehovah 6y ago
  Feel free to change every "you should" to "one should" in your head. I understand that this is a sensitive subject, but there are people reading this thread who are about to become parents, and they need to know the truth.
  - lhorie 6y ago
    > one should No offense, but that's still kinda condescending. I have 2 kids myself but I don't go around preaching. Stuff like post partum depression, pre-existing chronic conditions, overbearing grandparents, domestic abuse, etc are all real things and you and I are neither psychologists, pediatricians, nor social workers so best to leave the advice giving to licensed professionals.
    - NovaJehovah 6y ago
      Your point seems to be that parenting is hard so we can never publicly criticize any common parenting practices because it might hurt some parents' feeling. I disagree. If I'm doing something harmful to my child, I want to know about it. The "licensed professionals" I've talked with about this, like my kid's pediatrician, gave me terrible advice and were either ignorant of the research that's been done, or grossly distorted it to fit their bias.

thejackgoode 6y ago

> You have an obligation to do the best that you can This reads like an expectation mindset that with high probability will end up hurting you, your kid and your relationship. Somewhere here belongs the put-oxygen-mask-on-yourself-first metaphor

twiddling 6y ago
As someone with older children, I can attest. Also the attitude can lead to a lot of tension with your co-parent.

ramblerman 6y ago

> Don't rationalize it with clichés like "love is all that matters" Counter data point. My wife is Argentinian. I'd say the values you see in her family primarily is "love does come first" and strict boundaries on kids. E.g. the adults are talking, go away. When I compare that to my own nieces and nephews, they have little boundaries, are quite lethargic and can be quite arrogant. Yet their parents would all describe themselves by your standards. We also tend to put our elderly in homes, an idea that is abhorrant to my wife. So I guess what I'm trying to say is ideals are nice. But it's purely theory, mostly to serve your own sensibilities.

NovaJehovah 6y ago
I'm not trying to say there's one right way to do things. But there are a lot of plainly wrong ways. If your parenting philosophy is not based on any research or learning about what's best for your child, but instead on what's easiest and most convenient for you, then you're probably doing it wrong. That doesn't mean you can't set boundaries for kids who are old enough to understand them. I think the way we discard our elderly is closely tied to our self-absorbed approach to parenting. If you don't put in the time and are unwilling to make sacrifices for your kids, you shouldn't expect them to be there for you when you need it.
- bihla 6y ago
  So much of the "research" is not research at all. It's no surprise to see anti-vaccine sentiment run strong among Grace Manning-Devlin types.
  - NovaJehovah 6y ago
    It's true. Yet another hard thing about being a parent is that there is a lot of crappy "research" and advice to wade through (including most of the research claiming to support your view, btw). But there's some solid stuff out there too--pretending there isn't because you might reach conclusions that conflict with a self-serving parenting philosophy is just another excuse.
    - ak217 6y ago
      Your advice in this thread falls into that category. You take some sort of puritanical ideal of hard work and sacrifice, then apply it to build a... distorted idea of what parenting is and to abstractly shame people who don't fit it, then ignore all requests for references to any research at all done on this, then repeat this over and over with everyone who's trying to figure out what you mean. From what I know, your ideas have no basis in reality. You're only adding noise for parents-to-be to sift through and worry about. Just raise your kids with love and patience, don't listen to armchair child psychiatrists.

bihla 6y ago

It's possible you're coming from a very different background than me... I can understand your point of view if your context is being raised under real impoverished conditions; I agree a parent should do anything they can to meet a necessary level of stability for the child. But this comment makes me think of what is more likely familiar to members of this forum, where parents use their children to serve their own ego, trying to do everything to yield the best "Success" for their child where success is defined by the parent. For so many of us (professionals in the tech industry), the "wellbeing of your child" is not really a question--we know we'll be able to provide food, shelter, etc. People will say they do other things for the "wellbeing" but what they really mean is living out their own failed life goals by putting that baggage on their kid. So yeah, you got downvoted. It's possible you meant to make a more sympathetic point, but my first impression is that the comment espouses an actively harmful idea about the relation between parent and a child.

NovaJehovah 6y ago
> the "wellbeing of your child" is not really a question Mental health, substance abuse, and suicide statistics, including among the middle and upper classes, would seem to strongly indicate otherwise. > It's possible you meant to make a more sympathetic point, but my first impression is that the comment espouses an actively harmful idea about the relation between parent and a child. So "try hard, make sacrifices, and do your best" is now considered problematic? The relativism in this mindset is absurd. Nobody here would claim that there's no right or wrong way to design a distributed system, or that there are no right or wrong ideas about religion, but we have to pretend it's the case with parenting so we don't hurt anyone's feelings?
- bihla 6y ago
  Children are not clay to be molded, and they are not computer systems to be planned and carried out. They are individuals. And there are no clear solutions to mental health, substance abuse, or suicide--but there are clear non-solutions like helicopter parenting. EDIT: And best-efforts at laying out everything for your kid are more than potentially-wasted energy. It's smothering, controlling behavior of someone who should have the right to live and make their own choices and mistakes.

u678u 6y ago

> Like anything else in life, you can do a good job or a bad job at being a parent. If you're prioritizing your own convenience or ego or career over the wellbeing of your child, then you're a bad parent. Sounds like you have no clue. Try looking after 3 babies then come back an talk to us.

NovaJehovah 6y ago
Sounds like you're making excuses instead of stepping up and taking responsibility for the choices you made.
- heleninboodler 6y ago
  This is a pretty terrible accusation for someone who you know nothing about. Why would you take the argument here?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - NovaJehovah 6y ago
    Sorry. In retrospect, I shouldn't have engaged. Too late to delete now...
    - throwaway_prnts 6y ago
      I don't have any opinion on sleep training, but you've been downvoted a lot here and I would just like to make an observation that I don't think has been stated explicitly so far. IMO, you are coming across as someone who views themselves as morally superior and so feels entitled to try to control others via shaming them. This is probably not who you are in real life. But IMO this is the major reason why you have been so consistently downvoted in this thread, it is not mere disagreement on the sleep issue. Even if the evidence is easy to Google, linking to it and basing your argument on that would have gone a lot farther. If you are sincere about taking the hard road (which I have no reason to doubt), I would do some self reflection about why your communication style has not been effective here.

heleninboodler 6y ago

> You have an obligation to do the best that you can. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it's stressful. Like it or not, that's what you signed up for. So step up. I'm not downvoting you but I strongly disagree. You have an obligation to do an adequate job of this. I think it's also important not to become a slave to the idea that you must always do more because it's "supposed to be hard." Doing a great job of raising kids doesn't have to be a grueling slog, and I suspect that people who think it does aren't doing as good a job as they think they are.

NovaJehovah 6y ago
Who said it has to be a grueling slog? I said do your best, not wear a crown of thorns. I don't think it necessarily has to be hard, but people often make it harder than it needs to be because they're unwilling to make personal sacrifices. I just don't think we should give people participation trophies. If you're not doing a good job and you know it, you should face reality and fix it, not be told "there's no right or wrong way".
- heleninboodler 6y ago
  > Who said it has to be a grueling slog? I said do your best, not wear a crown of thorns. > I don't think it necessarily has to be hard That's not necessarily coming through in your message, for what it's worth.
  - NovaJehovah 6y ago
    I just think that if it is hard, it's up to the parents to deal with, one way or another. They should either suck it up and slog through or change something in their lives so they can handle things better and it's not so hard anymore. I just hope they won't do something that they know is worse for the kid because it's easier for them. In my opinion, sleep training generally falls in this category. People do it because they're exasperated and neither parent is willing to do something hard--like live with sleep deprivation or put a career on hold. They generally don't do it because they genuinely believe it's best for the baby, though they will try to come up with rationalizations to that effect after the fact.

dantillberg 6y ago

Yes, I downvoted your comment. I don't doubt your intentions are admirable, but please don't shame strangers. GP is trying to survive in the world in which they find themselves. Will sniping some guilt at them summon up some hidden parenting strength?

lhorie 6y ago

> You have an obligation to do the best that you can The problem I have with this attitude is the pronoun. If you have some standards, great but please try to keep them to yourself. There's a lot of toxic "you should do this, you should be like that" type of talk in parenting circles, a lot of which is frankly condescending and non-actionable and add a lot of unnecessary stress, especially for insecure people. People like to armchair-coach about what a parent ought to be doing, while completely ignoring that the parent's emotional well-being is a pretty big component in a healthy relationship w/ their kids. This is exactly why others are saying to ignore unsolicited advice: because a lot of it isn't actually advice.

NovaJehovah 6y ago
Feel free to change every "you should" to "one should" in your head. I understand that this is a sensitive subject, but there are people reading this thread who are about to become parents, and they need to know the truth.
- lhorie 6y ago
  > one should No offense, but that's still kinda condescending. I have 2 kids myself but I don't go around preaching. Stuff like post partum depression, pre-existing chronic conditions, overbearing grandparents, domestic abuse, etc are all real things and you and I are neither psychologists, pediatricians, nor social workers so best to leave the advice giving to licensed professionals.
  - NovaJehovah 6y ago
    Your point seems to be that parenting is hard so we can never publicly criticize any common parenting practices because it might hurt some parents' feeling. I disagree. If I'm doing something harmful to my child, I want to know about it. The "licensed professionals" I've talked with about this, like my kid's pediatrician, gave me terrible advice and were either ignorant of the research that's been done, or grossly distorted it to fit their bias.