Child Rearing Thread

[Zelig]

Could you consider donating to let others have your biological child?

Where do I sign up for this? I'm doing a disservice to the world by not spreading my genetic material far and wide, but have better stuff to do with my time than spend it with children.

 

[Takhisis]

That goes hand-in-hand with your usertitle to such a ridiculous degree that I can't help but picture Sheldon Cooper when I read it, Zelig.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Message received. My input is not welcome in this thread.

You are mistaken. My post happened to follow yours in sequence. Correlation does not equal causation. Had I been addressing your post I would have mentioned cats and cat moms.

 

[timtofly]

Gotta say bull to that. While there certainly are parent-specific issues that can only be mastered on the job, not everyone is "clueless" about raising a child until they've done so.

Many of the responsibilities generally subsumed under the term "parenting" can be, and usually are, learned without actually having any progeny of your own. Having nieces, nephews, younger siblings, younger cousins, or friends (platonic or romantic) with children can (not necessarily will) provide a solid set of the tools need to rear a child.

Unless all of that qualifies as "actually raising a child" in your eyes.

I would say that any human who takes responsibility in the upbringing of another human would be qualified as a "parent" whether or not they are younger than or older than. I will be blunt and say that some humans are still being "reared" even if they are old and have offspring themselves. Being a parent is a learning experience just like growing up is. Having children is part of the growing up process. But honestly, I doubt any one can truly say they have arrived, myself included after being on both sides of the relationship.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Gotta say bull to that. While there certainly are parent-specific issues that can only be mastered on the job, not everyone is "clueless" about raising a child until they've done so.

Many of the responsibilities generally subsumed under the term "parenting" can be, and usually are, learned without actually having any progeny of your own. Having nieces, nephews, younger siblings, younger cousins, or friends (platonic or romantic) with children can (not necessarily will) provide a solid set of the tools need to rear a child.

Unless all of that qualifies as "actually raising a child" in your eyes.

If you read my post, it say "clueless about parenting". Parenting is not an intellectual exercise even though it is important to use your brain while doing so. Parenting is a visceral heart wrenching experience that engages one's whole being. Prior to raising our two children both my wife and I were involved with other people's children for a decade. I taught elementary school and she was the director of an infant through kindergarten child care center. In addition we had our nieces too. Being a parent is not at all the same as time and effort with other people's children.

It is similar to the situation faced by anthropologists when the spend time with an unknown primitive culture. If they observe and take notes and live along side the people they are studying, they will have a pretty good idea of what life in the village is like. But they will not know what it is like to be a member of village. For that they have to put aside their note pads and immerse themselves into the village life and live as member. They have to lose all objectivity. Parenting is like that. Until you immerse yourself in the reality of living the life of a parent, you are on the outside looking in and taking notes.

Your experiences will be helpful when you do become a parent, but they are nowhere near the same.

 

[MilesGregarius]

Not to turn this into a semantic spitting contest, but "parenting" does not equal "being a parent." Similarly "raising a child" is the very definition of "parenting" regardless of whether the one doing the parenting is, in fact, the child's parent.

I don't argue that being a parent is qualitatively different from raising another person's child, but to call non-parents "clueless" is pushing it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You are mistaken. My post happened to follow yours in sequence. Correlation does not equal causation. Had I been addressing your post I would have mentioned cats and cat moms.

Uh-huh. What a shame I missed the original post before it was edited.


Out of curiosity, what's your take on the myriad books about how to raise children? Do you feel that unless the authors are also parents, that their books are worthless? When you were a teacher did you consider non-teachers' opinions about teaching to be "clueless"?

I can't think of a single reason why anyone's views on parenting would be 100% clueless. After all, all of us had parents or guardians of some sort. At various stages of our lives we have differing opinions of how good a job was done raising us.

Here's a specific example. My parents were both heavy smokers. Since I really had little option but to sit there and breathe in the toxic air around me and this resulted in life-long health problems, I'd say they made a monumentally bad parenting decision. Now since I've never had human children, is it "clueless" of me to hold the opinion that smoking in the presence of children is no better than child abuse and should be illegal?

 

[illram]

I would not bother reading a book about parenting by a non-parent, no. I would absolutely consider clinical studies by non-parent scientists on certain things about child development, since those are objectively measurable. Or a pediatrician who was not a parent, for example. But even then, there would be a huge gap in their ability impart wisdom on how to "implement the data" so to speak to other parents.

If you read my post, it say "clueless about parenting". Parenting is not an intellectual exercise even though it is important to use your brain while doing so. Parenting is a visceral heart wrenching experience that engages one's whole being. Prior to raising our two children both my wife and I were involved with other people's children for a decade. I taught elementary school and she was the director of an infant through kindergarten child care center. In addition we had our nieces too. Being a parent is not at all the same as time and effort with other people's children.

It is similar to the situation faced by anthropologists when the spend time with an unknown primitive culture. If they observe and take notes and live along side the people they are studying, they will have a pretty good idea of what life in the village is like. But they will not know what it is like to be a member of village. For that they have to put aside their note pads and immerse themselves into the village life and live as member. They have to lose all objectivity. Parenting is like that. Until you immerse yourself in the reality of living the life of a parent, you are on the outside looking in and taking notes.

Your experiences will be helpful when you do become a parent, but they are nowhere near the same.

This is spot on.

 

[MobBoss]

I've raised 3 girls to adulthood.

Books cant tell you how to be a parent. They can give you some practical things to do and apply (like any 'how to' book would), but a book cant cover everything about kids that will happen. Only experience will do that. Children are chaos. They are also very different one from another. What works for one will not for another, and that can often be extremely puzzling.

One thing I will tell you is having kids will change you. It's entirely up to you to choose whether that change is a positive thing or a negative thing.

 

[raen]

@MobBoss: Spot on, I add that if you are positive about it you change for the better!

 

[Yeekim]

I have a six-year old son.
I also helped to raise the son of my wife, who is grownup now.

It is a taxing experience, but certainly worth it.

 

[bathsheba666]

I'll be blunt: until you actually raise a child, you will be clueless about parenting.

Not so much. The theory is quite clear. But then we come to the practice.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.
But....(leave you to fill in the rest)

The intensity of it is quite refreshing/bracing/scary/debilitating..

Exactly. Raising a child really is one of those "learn as you go" things in life.

I'm tempted to respond: then how is that different from any other thing in life...
But true of course, and mistakes are a big part of learning.

 

[Commodore]

I'm tempted to respond: then how is that different from any other thing in life...
But true of course, and mistakes are a big part of learning.

You could make that point, and it's not that far off from the truth. However, I think the difference between "learn as you go" experiences and other experiences is that there are some things in life you can train for and be proficient at it. There are some things in life though, like raising a child, that you can't really prepare for ahead of time since every child born will be unique and many of the general theories for raising a child may not hold true at all for your particular child. Therefore, competency at raising that particular child is something you can only learn through trial and error.

 

[warpus]

I'm not a parent, mainly because it's an incredibly huge investment of time, effort, and money. I only became financially independent about 10 years ago - and to throw all that away would take a lot of convincing.. at least for now.

One day I probably wouldn't mind going through the experience of parenthood - but it's such a life altering decision that I will not go into it without some serious contemplation. If it ever happens - all my financial priorities would have to change with it. It seems that it would take a lot to convince me to repurpose my life to accommodate children - but one day I can see a pretty lady trying to convince me to do such a thing - and perhaps even succeeding. And I know that I don't have all life to make this choice - but for now I'm happy being an uncle who isn't thinking about having kids at all.

 

[Farm Boy]

Not to turn this into a semantic spitting contest, but "parenting" does not equal "being a parent." Similarly "raising a child" is the very definition of "parenting" regardless of whether the one doing the parenting is, in fact, the child's parent.

I don't argue that being a parent is qualitatively different from raising another person's child, but to call non-parents "clueless" is pushing it.

The semantics here are fuzzy, and I'm not sure what to mean by this. I can tell you as an adoptive father when you get questions about your child's "real parents" you seethe at the insult. The one doing the parenting is the real parent despite who provided the genes. That isn't to subtract from importance of biological mothers and biological fathers, particularly ones that remain a force for good in their biological offspring's lives to whatever degree of involvement they can handle. But yeesh, I don't get up in the middle of the night and love my toddler through and through because I'm a "fake father" instead of the real one.

 

[downtown]

If you read my post, it say "clueless about parenting". Parenting is not an intellectual exercise even though it is important to use your brain while doing so. Parenting is a visceral heart wrenching experience that engages one's whole being. Prior to raising our two children both my wife and I were involved with other people's children for a decade. I taught elementary school and she was the director of an infant through kindergarten child care center. In addition we had our nieces too. Being a parent is not at all the same as time and effort with other people's children.

It is similar to the situation faced by anthropologists when the spend time with an unknown primitive culture. If they observe and take notes and live along side the people they are studying, they will have a pretty good idea of what life in the village is like. But they will not know what it is like to be a member of village. For that they have to put aside their note pads and immerse themselves into the village life and live as member. They have to lose all objectivity. Parenting is like that. Until you immerse yourself in the reality of living the life of a parent, you are on the outside looking in and taking notes.

Your experiences will be helpful when you do become a parent, but they are nowhere near the same.

This seems like a really smart way of describing it. I agree.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

I'll be blunt: until you actually raise a child, you will be clueless about parenting.

No one has said otherwise. It kind of smells like a straw man... Either you're a parent or you're not. If you are one, your judgement is clouded by your emotions for your child, I imagine. The decision still has to be made while you're not a parent, whether to become one or not. Most people will afterwards regard the decision to have child as a good one.

 

[Zelig]

http://healthland.time.com/2011/03/04/why-having-kids-is-foolish/

Researchers have known for some time that parents with minors who live at home report feeling calm significantly less often than than people who don’t live with young children. Parents are also angrier and more depressed than nonparents — and each additional child makes them even angrier. Couples who choose not to have kids also have better, more satisfying marriages than couples who have kids.

To be sure, all such evidence will never outweigh the desire to procreate, which is one of the most powerfully encoded urges built into our DNA. But a new paper shows that parents fool themselves into believing that having kids is more rewarding than it actually is.

They were also significantly more likely to believe that spending time with kids is more rewarding than other activities, even though researchers have found that when you measure how rewarding parents found any given day spent with their children, they rated that day worse than they had expected to.

Of course parents should be commended for one little thing they do: maintain the existence of humanity.

 

[Farm Boy]

It's where a lot of the heavy lifting of progress comes from too. And of course heavy lifting often feels exhausting and monotonous. But there isn't any "fooling myself" about how rewarding it is. Work is rewarding. Work which helps people is more rewarding than work which only helps myself. It's just less fun. I suppose if fun and self-improvement are the key measures of reward for somebody's life, then having kids might be a poor life choice.

 

[illram]

http://healthland.time.com/2011/03/04/why-having-kids-is-foolish/

I bet those scientists don't have kids!