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Sure, I don’t mind you asking. I wrote it for a few reasons. One, to be funny… clearly the commenter was not thinking about something like driving when they ma

Sure, I don’t mind you asking. I wrote it for a few reasons. One, to be funny… clearly the commenter was not thinking about something like driving when they made the comment, so I thought it was kinda funny to shift the perspective to think about something where it is clearly a bad idea to just let a kid try something they think they can do. Secondly, it was a bit from exasperation from comments I see about the ‘right’ ways to raise kids without thinking about/understanding the limitations that actual parents are under when trying to raise kids. I have two young kids (6 and 3), and in my experience, parenting is so much more about circumstances than parenting advice ever seems to acknowledge. For example, let’s take this advice. Whether I can just let my kids try something that I think they aren’t yet capable of doing is entirely dependent on the circumstances. Is it safe to let them try? Can I afford to spend the money it takes to let them try the thing? Do I have the time to clean up the mess that will happen if they fail? Is it legal to let them try? Will it prevent them from being able to do another thing that I think they are more likely to be able to do? Basically, my response to advice like this is usually an exasperated, “yeah, no shit I’d love to do that if I can, but so many things stop me from always doing it.” Maybe that is harsh, but it is the gut reaction to this sort of advice as a parent of young children. And I know I was guilty of this before I had kids. I had so many ideas about how I would raise my kids and do all of these things, but I learned quickly that you don’t have as much control as you would like to imagine as a parent. Before you have kids, you imagine you drive their growth like you drive a sports car, with precision and the ability to choose the exact path you take. In reality, it is more like sailing a giant sailboat in a storm, doing your best to keep the ship pointed in the generally correct direction without taking on too much water.

gregoryl 5y ago
You've constructed a strawman. It clearly wasn't "let them try anything, with complete disregard for the cost, consequences etc". Try to read it with the best possible interpretation and reply to that.
- zenithd 5y ago
postingposts 5y ago
I appreciate your response! I wish you had written this comment instead of the other one or at least explained why. I think the internet at large encourages people to be snooty/witty/sarcastic in order to be the “winner” of the conversation. HN is a little smaller, smarter, and nicer. I hope that as a community we can stay that way despite being on the internet. I also totally get where you’re coming from. There are so many people who have great ideas on how to tell you what to do and no willingness to discuss how it works in practice. That said, we are the ones who have to reach inside ourselves and instead of responding with something that wins you more internet points, it can be more beneficial instead to attempt being fair, insightful, and kind. That can be itself a simple benefit to reality. And then maybe one day we won’t have advice given without context or insult with the same. Be well.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  I mean, I wrote the first comment while I was waiting for my daughter to finish pooping, so I only had a few minutes. I thought my joke/comment conveyed enough info to get some of my point across. I didn’t have time at the moment to write out the longer one. I am not sure why you think the comment was so antagonistic towards the person I responded to; it was a light hearted joke pointing out a flaw in their suggestion, it wasn’t a personal attack or anything.
  - dag11 5y ago
    Your driving comment made me giggle and then I continued scrolling on. I think it was lighthearted and fine as it was, just my input.
  - nuclearnice1 5y ago
    FWIW, it didn’t come off as a personal attack to me. On the other hand, it did seem to oversimplify and intentionally misinterpret the comment for the purpose of a shallow gag or unimportant edge case. It would be great if HN was a place for deeper commentary. There are other places on the Internet for the caliber of commentary that fits in the duration of a session of potty training. It would probably be better if we worked to maintain some of what made HN different: substantial comments based around ideas without sarcasm or insults. Just one poster’s opinion…
darkerside 5y ago
As a fellow parent of multiple small children, your driving example struck me as odd, too. I think any time you are making a joke that riffs on your own frustration at the expense of somebody else's aspirations to be better, it's likely to fall flat. Maybe just to me and that one other poster. I don't think the advice is to truly let kids do whatever they want with no input. It's to seriously entertain it when a child wants to try something new, even if your first instinct is to think they are too young. You can still say no, but it should be for the reasons you followed up with, not because "they're not ready".
- cortesoft 5y ago
  My response was under the assumption that when parents don't let their kids try something, it is almost always because the parent thinks it is too dangerous for them. By saying we should let them try stuff parents don't think they are ready for, it sounded to me like they were saying "ignore the danger" or that the danger is not as great as parents think. If they weren't saying that, then the comment seemed meaningless to me... basically the equivalent of saying, "make sure your kids eat the proper amount of food". It is a tautology, without any prescriptive advice. I doubt many parents are just stopping their kids from trying things simply because they don't think they will succeed... it is always because non succeeding would have some negative consequence that is not worth the risk (e.g. the kid could get badly hurt, create a huge mess, destroy valuable property, etc).
  - darkerside 5y ago
    I think there are certainly times where there is a negative consequence, and you should rationally say no. I disagree that it is always trivially easy to recognize and classify the situation, and for most parents, being unsure translates to No. Parent poster is encouraging people to do the work in those situations and decide whether there really is a negative consequence that isn't worth bearing, and encouraging them to raise their level of unacceptable risk. I think you're engaging in black and white thinking by saying things are either dangerous or not. There's an in between.

gregoryl 5y ago

You've constructed a strawman. It clearly wasn't "let them try anything, with complete disregard for the cost, consequences etc". Try to read it with the best possible interpretation and reply to that.

zenithd 5y ago

postingposts 5y ago

I appreciate your response! I wish you had written this comment instead of the other one or at least explained why. I think the internet at large encourages people to be snooty/witty/sarcastic in order to be the “winner” of the conversation. HN is a little smaller, smarter, and nicer. I hope that as a community we can stay that way despite being on the internet. I also totally get where you’re coming from. There are so many people who have great ideas on how to tell you what to do and no willingness to discuss how it works in practice. That said, we are the ones who have to reach inside ourselves and instead of responding with something that wins you more internet points, it can be more beneficial instead to attempt being fair, insightful, and kind. That can be itself a simple benefit to reality. And then maybe one day we won’t have advice given without context or insult with the same. Be well.

cortesoft 5y ago
I mean, I wrote the first comment while I was waiting for my daughter to finish pooping, so I only had a few minutes. I thought my joke/comment conveyed enough info to get some of my point across. I didn’t have time at the moment to write out the longer one. I am not sure why you think the comment was so antagonistic towards the person I responded to; it was a light hearted joke pointing out a flaw in their suggestion, it wasn’t a personal attack or anything.
- dag11 5y ago
  Your driving comment made me giggle and then I continued scrolling on. I think it was lighthearted and fine as it was, just my input.
- nuclearnice1 5y ago
  FWIW, it didn’t come off as a personal attack to me. On the other hand, it did seem to oversimplify and intentionally misinterpret the comment for the purpose of a shallow gag or unimportant edge case. It would be great if HN was a place for deeper commentary. There are other places on the Internet for the caliber of commentary that fits in the duration of a session of potty training. It would probably be better if we worked to maintain some of what made HN different: substantial comments based around ideas without sarcasm or insults. Just one poster’s opinion…

darkerside 5y ago

As a fellow parent of multiple small children, your driving example struck me as odd, too. I think any time you are making a joke that riffs on your own frustration at the expense of somebody else's aspirations to be better, it's likely to fall flat. Maybe just to me and that one other poster. I don't think the advice is to truly let kids do whatever they want with no input. It's to seriously entertain it when a child wants to try something new, even if your first instinct is to think they are too young. You can still say no, but it should be for the reasons you followed up with, not because "they're not ready".

cortesoft 5y ago
My response was under the assumption that when parents don't let their kids try something, it is almost always because the parent thinks it is too dangerous for them. By saying we should let them try stuff parents don't think they are ready for, it sounded to me like they were saying "ignore the danger" or that the danger is not as great as parents think. If they weren't saying that, then the comment seemed meaningless to me... basically the equivalent of saying, "make sure your kids eat the proper amount of food". It is a tautology, without any prescriptive advice. I doubt many parents are just stopping their kids from trying things simply because they don't think they will succeed... it is always because non succeeding would have some negative consequence that is not worth the risk (e.g. the kid could get badly hurt, create a huge mess, destroy valuable property, etc).
- darkerside 5y ago
  I think there are certainly times where there is a negative consequence, and you should rationally say no. I disagree that it is always trivially easy to recognize and classify the situation, and for most parents, being unsure translates to No. Parent poster is encouraging people to do the work in those situations and decide whether there really is a negative consequence that isn't worth bearing, and encouraging them to raise their level of unacceptable risk. I think you're engaging in black and white thinking by saying things are either dangerous or not. There's an in between.