12 ms·
Things I Learned from My 2 Year Old Baby Girl
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- JKCalhoun 4y agoSo beautiful. The best thing that happened when my daughters were born was that, as the author suggests, you get to experience the world (and life) again vicariously through their eyes. There were in fact seemingly ordinary things in the world that I had come to take for granted. My loss.
- beached_whale 4y agoThis was great to experience and a real gift with my kids. Everything is shiny, powerful, and new again. I only hope their excitement affects me more than my learned tendancy to dismiss somethings is on them. It really creeps up on one over the years, and I think I can best express it as I don’t have a favorite colour any longer.
- sbolt 4y ago> It really creeps up on one over the years, and I think I can best express it as I don’t have a favorite colour any longer. This is such a beautiful way to express it. Thanks for sharing.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoPsychedelics can do that too. Much cheaper and less commitment
- monero-xmr 4y agoChildren are the most wonderful thing. When people list a thousand reasons why they won’t have kids, I really don’t know what to say. The world has been a mess forever, we are always too busy, everything has always been too expensive. Raising children is a major lifestyle change, but it’s the most unique and rewarding one there is.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tomrod 4y agoI have kids. I've found that people listing reasons they don't want kids to be their genuine feelings on the topic. I don't judge them one iota and hope they feel the same towards people with kids. Agreed. Having kids can cause you to change, often for the better. You have the opportunity to be completely selfless.
- parthianshotgun 4y agoIt's certainly an opportunity for selflessness but I'd argue that that's quite a generous take since I can't rightly see it being truly 'selfless' as it's still _your_ genetic scion. People often do the worst things to the better part of humanity in the name of "family". I think, among other texts, this heuristic of not being overly attached to family is still relevant if we don't want to sublimate and becomes completely isolated as a species. "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;" (Matthew 10:37) Yes I know the above isn't an article from Gwern or some sort of neuvo-techo-traditionalist diatribe, or even a peer reviewed paper. My point being that this civic feeling was enough of a point of contention that the authors of the Bible thought to include it. Anyways, this wasn't meant to be an attack, more like a, what do you think?
- jhanschoo 4y agoI've had the opportunity to be that completely selfless person for someone else who's very young. Perhaps being of one's own blood can factor into making that commitment to acting selfless, but once such a commitment is made, those factors can't have any bearing on continuing to act in a selfless way without contradicting that initial commitment. Once you make that commitment you make decisions based on their needs, wants, goals, and their and your limitations, with no interest to whatever idea is tied up to being of one's blood, beyond being just another asset or limitation just like everything else that define your social place.
- luxuryballs 4y agoand this is just scratching the surface, I can’t emphasize enough how much better life is with your own children who depend on you, it almost seems stupid now that it surprised me as much as it did, it’s not just better horizontally or vertically, it’s more like an exponential fractal, better in ways you couldn’t have possibly imagined, especially once they start demonstrating how soon they will be smarter than you
- dumbereveryday 4y ago[dead]
- laborcontract 4y agoI still have a lot to worry about in this world. I'm not set. But I have a child. It's easily the hardest thing I've ever had to do and, tonight, just before putting her to sleep (and now reading your comment), I had a similar thought. The experience of raising a child is not one you plot on the scale of how we'd rate our existing lived experiences. Life becomes so much more important in a totally orthogonal way. I cannot stand the cynicism about child rearing nowadays. Our generation chooses to believe that our worries are unique (they aren't). They think they know what raising a child is like because they too were once children, or know others with children. They have no clue. Again, parenting has been f*ing hard. If I could go back to my old life in a time machine, would I? Hell no.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sublinear 4y agoThe mood of this is so happy and wholesome that I hesitate to mention what's coming next, but her focus will turn towards the people in her life and scrutinizing all the little things they do. Almost all these bullet points sound ominous when the author contrasts adult behavior with kid behavior, and she undoubtedly notices the difference too. Expect the sour behavior when routines get broken or just plain boring, unfamiliar people start coming into the picture due to school or other social needs, pets come and go, moving to a new home, etc. Lots of energy will be dedicated to curiosity, language building, and asking questions since this is all just as profound to her as seeing anything else for the first time. It shapes a personality.
- Aeolun 4y agoWell, yes, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. It struck me reading this that my 4 year old already has a lot more in common with adults than with this 2 year old. All of the consuming problems in his life consist of what toys he wants to play with, which friends he wants to see and what he wants to do, but there’s no doubt he has them. He’s not so concerned with discovering the world around any more (though still more than an adult), and he has a model for how he fits inside it. Maybe this comes from gaining a true sense of self?
- gumby 4y agoI found I learned just as much (though different things) from teenagers as well.
- watwut 4y agoI really fail to see anything omnious here. The author is not even describing particularly routine kid. The kids brain will develop in normal way and thus the things parent does will change. But really nothing suggest unusual issues.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- msla 4y ago[flagged]
- martynr 4y agoWhat is your basis for this assertion?
- gaudat 4y agoBecause it showcases a lifestyle that is almost too sweet for working parents to believe. I thought the writer has to be a full tim mom for her to spend so much time on thi kid. Turns out she is Maria from Warsaw that is also a producer at a website that "is the French salon of 21st century". Source: https://madeincosmos.net/ https://madeincosmos.net/ It is quite amazing that she managed to look after her kid while writing daily on her Substack and managing a platform. The profile picture does not smell diffusionsy to me so I hope this is something genuine.
- Tade0 4y agoIt is genuine and I can tell you how she did it, because I also have a toddler roughly this age and my SO went through multiple blogs of such, for lack of a better term, turbomamas, getting increasingly frustrated with each subsequent entry. The answer to that is alluded to in the last point - grandpa (and probably grandmas on both sides) are there to step in when she needs "me time".
- themadturk 4y agoAnd husband, too, who is mentioned on the linked page. This is called "having a family" and many parents benefit from spouses, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. Not everyone has such a family network to depend on, but it's a great source of mutual support when you do.
- CharlesW 4y ago> Because it showcases a lifestyle that is almost too sweet for working parents to believe. I initially read it as a parody of mommyblogging. This is right on the edge of being that, with writing as authentic as the hero image.
- mgaunard 4y ago[flagged]
- jedberg 4y ago> Whatever you do, do it as a ceremony. ... Yes, it takes us three times longer than it used to, but we’re not in a hurry We do this too, but we also often acknowledge, in front of the kids, that we have a lot of privilege to be able to do this. I want to make sure they know that poor people don't have the time to do what we do, because I already see signs of them asking "why don't homeless people just get jobs" and "did you know [classmate] has never been on a cruise before!!". I answer those questions too but I'm hoping to change their world view so they don't have to ask because they already know.
- cactusplant7374 4y ago> "did you know [classmate] has never been on a cruise before!!" There's a first time for everything.
- Swizec 4y ago> "why don't homeless people just get jobs" This is a fair question to ask, though. Why don’t they just get jobs? What are the structural issues in society that lead to this? Why are some people chronically homeless while the average length of homelessness (for those experiencing it) is “just” around 150 days? Why is getting a job not the solution for many? Why are there even people with jobs who are homeless? That’s a wonderful (and important) discussion to have! There are entire fields of research devoted to the question “Why don’t people just pull themselves up by their bootstraps? What is preventing that?”. It’s a great question that everyone should take time to think about imo. edit: this gets even more interesting when you expand beyond USA. Why are there homeless people in countries with full safety nets? When someone can collect unemployment or disability that is meant to cover basic needs, why are they on the streets and asking passersby for handouts?
- kimjoaoun 4y agoWhat an amazing text! It really made me realise that babies are the most perfect things in this world. It's incredible how such a small human being is capable of being a infinite fountain of happiness. I really got stuck in the beginning of the text when she say "I gave birth to the most wonderful person on this planet", because that's exactly the feeling amount of love that every parent had right in the moment that they grabbed their children for the first time, and the second, and the third and so on...
- gardenhedge 4y agoI don't hate content but is it really relevant to HN?
- mastersummoner 4y agoIf people find it interesting, then the answer is yes.
- saagarjha 4y agoLots of hackers are parents, too.
- bananamerica 4y ago> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
- seb1204 4y agoYou can choose to scroll past topics that don't jog your brain or curiosity but that of others.
- SanjayMehta 4y agoI hide the content which doesn't appeal to me.
- 4y ago
- givemeethekeys 4y agoWhat a wonderful list. Thank you! A couple of thoughts: I think grandparents love grandkids because they finally realize how precious and limited life is. So, they love now more than they've ever loved, and in return they receive love back. It's a shame more parents don't realize it until their kids are fully grown. One lesson missing: negotiate like your life depends on it. Kids, especially toddlers, are the most ruthless, sociopathic negotiators. They're infinitely attentive. They will adjust their demands in real time if they don't think they think that they're losing out. They will use every tool at their disposal.
- half0wl 4y agoThank you for sharing. This is a perspective I’ve never had, it’s going to give me a lot to think about tonight :-)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoBeautiful. Thanks for sharing.
- layer8 4y ago> a wild rat appeared Instant Pokemon Go flashback. ;)
- javiramos 4y ago“Love and attention is all you need” That sums it up
- paulryanrogers 4y agoAnd money, and time, and health, and help.
- keiferski 4y agoThe world is alive. Would you sing a song to the Moon? Read books to animals or stuffed toys? Show your tablet to an airplane so that you can watch cartoons together? My daughter does. To her there’s no difference between our rescue dog and her stuffed teddy bear. Both are alive in their own ways, both can be admired and engaged with, both of them deserve her love and attention. For a long time, I’ve had this nagging feeling that we’ve lost something really important by switching from an animist-based metaphysical view of the world (which seems to have been widespread in tribal societies) to a scientific-rationalist “individual in world” (broadly, theistic) model. In religious studies, this is called “disenchantment” and examples like the author’s suggest that this is a learned cultural phenomenon and not something inherent to how humans see the world. The interesting question is, will future technologies push us back to an animist perspective? A future full of unexplainable and incomprehensible AIs seems almost naturally animist to me.
- mvaliente2001 4y agoI think we never get over animism completely, like this old Ikea Lamp ad shows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBqhIVyfsRg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBqhIVyfsRg
- carapace 4y ago> The interesting question is, will future technologies push us back to an animist perspective? A future full of unexplainable and incomprehensible AIs seems almost naturally animist to me. I call it "the Daemon-Haunted World" after Sagan's book: > "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" is a 1995 book by the astrophysicist Carl Sagan and co-authored by Ann Druyan,[1] in which the authors aim to explain the scientific method to laypeople and to encourage people to learn critical and skeptical thinking. They explain methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science and those that can be considered pseudoscience. Sagan states that when new ideas are offered for consideration, they should be tested by means of skeptical thinking and should stand up to rigorous questioning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_haunted_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_haunted_world Just as we are about to defeat superstition once and for all, we populate the world with new "spirits" called "Siri", "Alexa", and "Cortana".
- Tade0 4y agoI have a toddler and my conclusion so far is somewhat pedestrian, but here goes: Nowadays there are many tools available enabling a person to half-ass parenthood, but they all come at a cost which becomes apparent later, the most glaring example being diet. It's important to put in as much effort as you can, but it's equally important to not pay attention to people trying to one-up you about this. > The last few months in Warsaw were very cloudy, so if one of them suddenly shines through the clouds, it’s a big occasion to celebrate. Just an hour ago I got into a heated debate about this because my friends extrapolate the climate in Warsaw to the whole country. The weather is one thing I don't miss about that place, having grown up there.
- birdyrooster 4y agoIt’s cool that the insights from a child are similar to a good acid trip.
- sakopov 4y agoI would have probably skipped this post a few years ago, but as a future dad with a baby girl on the way in a few months, I cannot wait to experience all these things. Thanks for sharing :)
- twright 4y ago1 is equivalent to a rhyming Swedish proverb: Det finns inte fel väder bara fel kläder.
- paulryanrogers 4y agoIf you're thinking of having kids keep in mind it's not for everyone. Please try babysitting young kids first, ideally overnight if you can, and with your SO. Because you may find it's not for you. Or even just that things you thought are important are actually wrong or harmful. These gushing articles can be very encouraging. Yet the experience can vary widely.
- blowski 4y agoBabysitting somebody else’s kids - even close relatives - is a long way from having your own. The relentless night after night after night and you being ultimately responsible is somehow different, both positively and negatively.
- paulryanrogers 4y agoGood point. I don't mean to say that's the only experience one should use to judge. Though it's better than nothing, especially if one was the youngest or an only child. It's also good to talk to a variety of parents. Ideally some willing to confide the less pleasant aspects. Because it can be years of painful sacrifice. And some find they cannot handle it, or wished they had made different choices.
- watwut 4y agoBabysitting is nothing like raising own kids. Babysitting a kid youndont know well is even further from raising own kid. Both its good and bad aspects are entirely different. Babysitting sux in ways being with own kid does not - being with own kid is easier and more pleasant. And conversely, own baby wakes you up and requires much more of your time on the regular basis.
- paulryanrogers 4y agoMy suggestion wasn't meant to be a perfect, all encompassing litmus test. It's one idea to prepare oneself before a major, life altering decision. Would be parents need to be well informed of what responsibilities and risks they take on before they're parents. Many don't have a concrete understanding of how difficult it can be, even for a day. And hearing only from parents who have had a lot of positive experiences and help may encourage an unrealistic outlook.
- escapedmoose 4y agoI’ve spent a lot of time with kids and I like them, but I don’t have any of my own. This piece strikes me as much less magical than most people here seem to view it. It’s just kind of a “duh, that’s how kids work.” I have to wonder if the author hadn’t spent much time with children before having her daughter? Or maybe there’s some chemical nonsense involved in the biological connection that makes all this seem profound.
- balfirevic 4y ago> This piece strikes me as much less magical than most people here seem to view it. I think a lot of it is self-selection from the commenters - negative comments on an article like this will be perceived as assholeish, so people just skip it.
- themadturk 4y agoI think these are simply observations. The writer has a young child, is amazed at the way this child has made her view life. I certainly went through it when I first had children. There's nothing wrong with a parent standing in awe of the freshness of the world through a child's eyes. If you're of a particular philosophical or observational bent it can certainly be profound as it's happening.