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I have two small kids at home. I would electric shock mother Theresa for a few minutes in a quiet room.
by op00to 4y ago
I have two small kids at home. I would electric shock mother Theresa for a few minutes in a quiet room.
- zwieback 4y agoBeen there, now I get nostalgic when I hear crying kids.
- boringg 4y agoDo you really? I think thats a situation in which your memory is remembering things in a much better light.
- Cyph0n 4y agoSpeaking as a new parent, I think that if parents remembered every little detail, no one would ever have more than one child.
- rootusrootus 4y agoA related joke I have is that everyone talks about the terrible twos, but says nothing about threes. Because it turns out that two year old tantrums are sort of adorable, and if we told people what happens next, they would never take off the condom. And another comment I'm making recently is ... "Everyone says they want to have a baby, but nobody ever says I want to have a teenager!" It's probably for the best people don't think that far ahead. I'm growing gray hair at a prodigious rate right now, and my oldest still has six months before she's actually a teen.
- ihaveajob 4y ago> A related joke I have is that everyone talks about the terrible twos, but says nothing about threes. Because it turns out that two year old tantrums are sort of adorable, and if we told people what happens next, they would never take off the condom. Ah, the threenager!
- vlachen 4y agoThen the Fournado. After that, the Fuck-You-I'm-Five.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago> Because it turns out that two year old tantrums are sort of adorable, and if we told people what happens next, they would never take off the condom. Spoiler alert: even more tantrums, which also last longer and are trickier to defuse. Talking them out of one gets more difficult, as the kid will likely talk back, and might even catch you in the act of committing logical fallacies, because in this period of time, their 3yo brain works better than your sleep-deprived one. On the other hand, the feats of logic my kid performs to argue their case - hearing them almost makes up for all of it.
- vlachen 4y agoOurs has a rep of being a little lawyer. They can be quite persuasive. We used to say "We don't negotiate with terrorists" until that started getting screamed out at daycare, then we had to put it away.
- sam_goody 4y agoI have several teens, and have adopted several more [As in, there are over a hundred teenagers that feel comfortable in my house.] It is awesome. Teenagers are the best age group there is. I highly suggest that people take a book or two on parenting and seriously adopt what they have to say. Raise your kids from a young age on the premise that you want to have a relationship that will last till you die. (In my experience, the best book I've read is "Raise your children without raising your voice".) Set aside time and effort to make the relationship work for real. This is an investment and will not invest itself. Religion is important, family is important, cellphone use should be filtered and limited in a matter-of-fact way from when they are first getting a cellphone. [OK, phones are a big deal to get right, but this is not a blog.] The result is relationships with your own kids that have unbounded energy, talent, resources, interest, etc. - that are just going out on their own to explore the world and conquer it. Well, well, worth the investment.
- PragmaticPulp 4y agoAs a parent, hard disagree. Yes, parenting can be challenging and a lot of work at times. However, it’s silly to let the first few difficult months define decisions that impact the entire rest of your life. It’s not that we forget that the early months are difficult. It’s that we realize they’re temporary and that they’re worth enduring.
- Cyph0n 4y agoIt is indeed extremely rewarding. I still think that the fact that our memory is not perfect recall is a true blessing. It allows us to make a life changing decision once again based on incomplete information.
- Tade0 4y agoI for one have very few memories of the early months - mostly milestones really. I have several videos of things I don't remember doing or saying.
- bartvk 4y agoI once read a statistic that said: the greatest predictor of your own family size is what your friends' family size is. When I read that, I thought to myself: if I don't take others into account, what do I personally want? We now have one daughter and there's not going to be more kids.
- nytesky 4y agoWe call that momnesia, probably a result of the brain damage from lack of sleep.
- zwieback 4y agoWithout a doubt! Also my energy level is probably lower now so I'm sure it would be even harder.
- rootusrootus 4y agoReally young kids are so easy, I can understand the nostalgia. The worst they do is cry? And you have to do diapers? These are trivial things. Tweens, on the other hand... ugh, lots of fun in different ways, but lots more worry & stress too. And if I'm to believe my own mother, this does not recede when they leave home as adults, it actually gets worse.
- TeMPOraL 4y agoThis really seems to be the pattern no one talks about: no matter the age bracket, when your kids get to the next one, it gets worse.
- atq2119 4y agoLet me add a data point in the other direction. The first ~six months of my kid's life was by far the worst time for me. Yes, there were other challenges as he got older. But the sleep deprivation of that first period was awful in a way that is difficult to put into words.
- TeMPOraL 4y agoI guess we were lucky then. The first ~6 months meant interrupted sleep, but it was somehow easier to bear than e.g. the 2-3yo period, when our older daughter refused to go to sleep before 23:00 - 00:00, and would wake up on her own around 06:00 anyway. But whichever way it turns for someone, what you note is true: sleep deprivation is awful, and it's hard to describe just how much and how.
- igortg 4y agoFully agree. Sleep deprivation and the part where they get sick and aren't able to say a thing about the symptoms. Is also a period that is not very rewarding (they mostly sleep, eat and poop... although the small interactions are awesome).
- boringg 4y agoFor the first kid its the two punch combo: lack of sleep and a completely new lifestyle that you are adapting too. Most people forget that there is a massive lifestyle change that can be hard depending on the lifestage you are at before the adjustment.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 4y agoThat sounds like typical grandparents - their grandchildren are oh so cute and sweet and so well-behaved, perfect and all. They sometimes change the tune after first time they're left with their grandchildren for more than half a day, while parents are away.
- PragmaticPulp 4y agoI know you’re joking, but this kind of hyperbole is kind of out of control when discussing kids on the internet. People seem to forget that young kids sleep a lot and eventually they go to school and/or daycare.
- pnpnp 4y agoSome kids also sleep a lot, but in shorter intervals.
- op00to 4y agoIn my experience young kids stay up all night, and I work when they’re in school. I am not joking. I am on cold #3 in 3 weeks, each one introduced by our youngest and ripped through each family member one by one. Life is misery for the next month or so.
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoWe have one day a month or two where my 6 year old has a bad night, so I guess we are lucky. He hates taking pain relief medication (e.g. to get a fever down so he can go back to sleep), so it can be tough on those nights. I am at an age where it is tougher to get back to sleep also, so I might be up for 5 hours after our kid was up for 30 minutes or so.
- r3trohack3r 4y agoSerious question, do you have kids? The age from 0-4 for me has been nothing like what you describe. The first year is nothing but chronic sleep deprivation and recovery from it. The next three years they are extremely dependent. Yeah they sleep for 10-12 hours, but you’re drained by then especially if you’re working a job on top of it. You have the time to do things but not the energy. Even when they sleep you’re still trapped at home because you legally (and ethically) can’t leave the house with them alone. If you’re lucky enough to have the financial stability to afford a nanny/babysitter for date nights you have to be strategic, is that random movie really worth blowing your one night out on? Every moment that isn’t necessary for work or parenthood has to be strategically spent because moments of both high energy and free time are rare. The workload is double (maybe more) for mom given the 9months of carrying the child, having a tiny person relying on them for food supply non-stop, and the raging hormones from all that. This 4 year window resets every time you have a kid. I’m guessing you’re not a parent, but maybe you have had an entirely different experience than me. Maybe I’m doing it wrong.
- daguava 4y ago[dead]
- hinkley 4y agoIf it makes you feel better, there are some rather grumpy people who think mother Theresa was more of a sadist than a saint. Maybe she needed a shock or two.
- xupybd 4y agoI've heard much of that but I tend to disagree. I think her take on life and suffering was similar to others that have extreme hardship. Like this quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about his time in the Gulag It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. . . . That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: “Bless you, prison!” I . . . have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: “Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!” —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956, Volume 2, pp. 615-617.
- plorg 4y agoSolzhenitsyn can find the value in his suffering, but most people would not accept the argument that Stalin was good for causing it. Similarly, it can be fine for Theresa to have found value in her own suffering, but it's a wholly different question whether she allowed people under her care to suffer unnecessarily because she thought that would glorify God.
- xupybd 4y agoIf she did allow people to suffer with that purpose then yes I agree. It's my understanding that she didn't do that but did view the effects of suffering as a blessing in the same way that the above quote suggests.