Posts by wirednomad42

Kevin Bailey2 said:I was out pushing him in the stroller the other day.
He looked so sharp and clean. Honestly, every second lady on the sidewalk stopped to hover by the stroller just to tell me how gorgeous he was.

At one point, he caught me eating a Hershey bar and started begging for some.
My first thought was, "Okay, I'll give him tiny little bites so he doesn't choke."
Yeah, right.
That wasn't happening. He wanted the whole damn bar.

So, I gave him the whole thing.

Five minutes later, everything was a total disaster thanks to that chocolate.
Him, the stroller, the whole nine yards. Absolute mess.

I panicked for a split second and thought:
"Oh god, what are people going to think if they see him now?"

Then I paused for a second—maybe two—and thought:
"Wait. Who gives a damn what anyone thinks? The kid enjoyed his chocolate, so everyone can just shove it."

What I'm getting at is that some parents are way too obsessed with stupid social norms and all the nonsense people drill into their heads. They end up stressing their kids out, and it’s pathetic.

The easiest way to wreck a kid is to nag them incessantly about every little thing.
Whether it's stuff like:
"You aren't behaving properly."
Or:
"You're so perfect, you're so beautiful, you're the best."
Or even:
"Give me a kiss, give me a kiss, give me a kiss!"

Forcing anything is pointless.

I don't get some of these women.
Why all the stress over the most trivial things?

For heaven's sake, just let the kid be a kid. What else does he need?
Is that really too much to ask?

But no. Now the "don't overwhelm the child" philosophers will probably come for me.
It reminds me of those moms who spend hours reading books like "How to Be the Perfect Parent" while their kids just sit in the corner playing by themselves.

honestly, seeing a kid covered in chocolate is one of my favorite sights on earth 😍
right up there with a toddler actually taking a nap 😍

Andrew Cox7 said:I'm with you on this one.
We need to make it crystal clear that being a parent is a massive, lifelong commitment. It’s way more than just bringing a new life into the world.

That’s exactly my point—that's why I'm constantly spiraling about whether I'll actually pull this off.

I'm looking at her right now. Just sleeping. She's the most beautiful thing ever—honestly, nothing in the entire universe compares to my daughter.
How am I supposed to ignore that weight of responsibility? How can I *not* want to build her some kind of damn empire just so she has something to play with? 😁

Side note—what am I doing to her little psyche by telling her she's gorgeous about 800 times a day? 😍

Jerry Martinez5 said:

What a disaster. Total mess. I guess we’re just dealing with pure chaos now. Maybe that's just how it goes. Typical. kaže:
Cool. 😁
I guess I'll just go ahead and start posting like that right now! 👍
So, where am I even supposed to start? 🤔

Dammit. 🤷

What exactly am I looking for? I guess that’s the question.
What am I actually into? I guess that’s the question.
If the world actually operated the way I wanted it to, I’d behave differently... maybe.

I guess I’ll just leave it at that. 🙂

and then what once I answer those—just pretend it's actually happening? 🙂

slywolf45 said:Hmm... why such a sweeping generalization?
Are you simply refusing to acknowledge the possibility that some people actually had decent parents?🤷

Nobody ever came along and told me they had perfect parents—you know, folks with zero flaws.🤷

And honestly, it goes deeper than that—I just refuse to fall into the same toxic patterns my parents used, or even their parents before them.

Lawrence Cook79, this post deserves a solid 10/10!🙏

Jerry Martinez5 said:The misunderstanding comes from parents wanting what they *think* is best for the child. For them, not necessarily for the kid alone.

For example, parents might work themselves to death to "provide everything," while the kid ends up miserable because there's zero time spent together.

I suppose the core issue is that nobody views the child as an individual with their own unique desires and feelings. They assume a young child knows nothing and that they hold all the answers. So, they suffocate them from day one, convinced it's actually love. They don't ask questions; they don't listen. Maybe a dad suffered because his own father never took him to MLB games, so now he drags his son along even though the kid couldn't care less about baseball. And the dad feels proud of being a "good father" simply because, unlike his old man, he isn't out causing trouble. 🤷

Secondly, parents act based on their own limited experiences—what they saw in their own families or from their friends. Basically, their perspective is pretty narrow. Even when they mean well, they're stuck.

In short, there's no magic formula. I guess the best way to raise a happy, confident kid is to just be that kind of person yourself.

cool 😁
guess I'm starting my transformation right now! 👍
anyway... where do I even start? 🤔

Jessica Chavez4 said:Maybe dial it back just a notch.

How, though? 😕

Jessica Chavez4 said:Look, you don't necessarily have to quit your job, but you could always jump over to a government agency. 😬

Just kidding. But honestly, you tend to swing from one extreme to the other, don't you think? 🤷

My whole life. Everything. Always.

btw—Jerry Martinez5 started a thread where people talk about how they've either left their parents behind or are planning to—just cutting ties because things are so rough. And those parents... I bet they actually think they're doing what's best, that they love their kids and provide everything. Honestly, I just don't get where or why that massive disconnect happens 😕 —that was the point of the thread, not a lecture about me and my car. I really don't care to talk about myself or my ride, actually 😢

Jerry Martinez5 said:What do you mean by "obligated"? (helping them reach their peak potential) I guess you're only as obligated as you are aware of what they can actually do and how much opportunity you can provide. I don't really think every parent is "obligated" to make that happen. Honestly, that kind of support is mostly reserved for wealthy, well-educated parents; once they hit their limit, they just pay for private tutors or extra coaching.

Or are you assuming the kid's talent will stay within the limits of your own abilities? 😁

A kid isn't a carbon copy of you. They’ll probably outpace you at some point, maybe even before they finish elementary school. Once that happens, you won't be able to help them "reach their potential" anymore. And if you're living in some small rural town while the kid has massive ambitions... well, things get complicated.

I mean—am I obligated to give everything I have just so she can have it all—her own room, an education if she wants it, food on the table as long as she's killing it in school, healthy meals every single day...
Am I obligated to be "on" for her 24/7, or can I actually take a breather and read a book when I feel like it—even if she’s currently demanding I play with her? 😁
Here’s the reality: she’s two. She’s at daycare all day while I’m working. It's not like I'm sitting around doing nothing or coasting through some easy government job—I'm out there grinding. 😁
We get maybe two hours together a day, tops. In those two hours, she expects me to play, bathe her, dress her, make dinner... and she's exhausted. So am I. But then she starts screaming because things aren't going her way, and honestly, that drains me even more. I find myself counting down the minutes until she finally goes to sleep just so I can have some peace.
So I'm wondering—is it okay to live like this? It's not her fault I'm pulling ten-hour shifts and feeling wiped out. Part of me thinks I should've managed my time and money better so I could work less and actually have some patience left over for her. 😢
But how? If I quit my job to stay home, sure, I might be in a better mood, but then what? How do we pay the bills? 😁
I just feel guilty—like I failed at organizing my life properly. 🤷

Basically—am I allowed to have a life that doesn't revolve entirely around her? Am I allowed to demand some "me time" and occasionally act a little irresponsible or immature? 😁

Richard Morris43 said:wirednomad42, you didn't just launch a project here, you gave birth to a whole living thing.
I mean, looking at this entire thread, everyone seems way too obsessed with "stuff" and material things.
Look, I get it—money matters, getting that degree, climbing the corporate ladder...
But if you hyper-focus on all that from day one, you might just end up creating some depressed little careerist who lives for the grind.

Forget about the Ivy League degrees and the real estate portfolios for a second; right now, she just needs affection and a mom who’s actually present.
And you can't be "parenting" every single second of the day, you know? A kid isn't some tiny little robot we can just program and fine-tune to perfection.
They need to actually be kids, period. We were all kids once, our parents made plenty of mistakes along the way, and somehow we all turned out mostly alright.

Mostly fine, yeah. But can you do it without making mistakes? Why not?

Sometimes you just have to pick the lesser of two evils. 🤷
Look, a teenager probably hasn't a clue what they want before heading off to college—so parents just push them into *anything* just to get them enrolled and out of high school. Let's be real here—how many people actually take a gap year and then come back to actually finish a degree?
To me, it feels better to force a direction than to just throw up your hands and give up entirely 🤷
I mean, if they enroll in something, they can always switch majors later—or decide to become a garbage man—but at least the kid got a shot. They were encouraged. Someone cared.
Or am I totally off base? 😁

hollowtrucker77 said:Either I came off completely wrong, or you just didn't quite catch my drift.
🙂
In your last post, you were obsessing over every single tiny detail of a child's life, and honestly, it just sounded a bit much.
Parents who act like that treat their kids like remote-controlled toys, using them as a way to live out their own unfulfilled lives through proxy.
If you go down that road, the kid won't just fail to become a manager; they'll struggle to function as anything more than a barista or a delivery driver.
(and I'm talking about raw capability here, not just career titles)
So, no, you aren't going to "develop" the child.
What you do is provide the framework, offer encouragement, give them praise, and occasionally give them a little nudge when needed.
You have to accept that everyone has their own natural inclinations and limitations, and your job is simply to help them reach their own ceiling so they can grow into a self-aware, responsible adult.

Am I making more sense now?

so my question is—am I actually obligated to help my kid reach their full potential and become a functional, responsible adult?
(thanks for the input, 😁 )

hollowtrucker77 said:Giving a kid the space to play and exercise their imagination is obviously a good thing.

But leaving a child completely unsupervised is straight-up neglect.

As for food, you should be serving everything from hearty stews to beans—whatever keeps them healthy and gives them a decent variety of flavors and textures to get used to.

🙂

Obligated??
That really depends on how someone defines that word.
For one person, it’s a genuine desire; for another, it’s just a chore they're too lazy to do.
If it's something you actually want to do, it doesn't feel like work, and you'll actually find joy in it.

of course you are. but if you don't have the heart for it—if it feels like a total drag—then why on earth did you have a kid in the first place? 😕
either you've got "bad" parents who stifle everything, or they just don't give enough attention. personally, I've dealt with the latter, so that's really what I'm getting at—if having a kid feels more like a burden than a joy, what's the point? 😕
and fine, sure, vent once in a while. whatever. but I know so many people living with their in-laws, renting apartments, having zero patience or energy for kids, yet somehow they go out and have two more. 😕
I don't get it. 🤷

hiddenmarlin14 said:Then you have that moment where your kid looks at you and says, "Forget the sandbox and the plastic shovel," because suddenly they’re obsessed with learning the guitar—something totally random. Or maybe you’ve built this successful company, and while the kid actually has the chops to run the whole show, they couldn't care less about the bottom line. They just want to head off to art school instead.

I once knew this guy whose dad was a high-powered attorney. Naturally, the son was expected to follow in those footsteps and grind through law school. Then one day, he just hit his breaking point, dropped everything, and decided to become a sanitation worker. It wasn't even that he couldn't find better work; he just did it purely to spite his old man. I don't know all the specifics, unfortunately.

Or take my friend. She finished her degree in musicology and got her Master’s in instrumental studies, but she doesn't push it on anyone. Yet, her three-year-old is already enrolled in weekly violin lessons. Who knows? Maybe the kid will end up wanting to be an architect one day. 🤷

no, it's not about being a manager. 😉

Look, I can just let the kid loose in the backyard to play while I catch up on some reading in the other room. Just toss her out there with a bucket and a shovel—let her figure out the fun on her own.
Or, I could actually go out there and show her the ropes—teach her how to build stuff in the sand or what kind of treasures we can stash in that bucket.
Once I’m done reading, I could just rinse off some canned beans for a quick lunch. Or, if I'm feeling ambitious, I could whip up a proper beef and veggie stew. 🤷
Am I not obligated to give it my all?

hollowtrucker77 said:wirednomad42, let me put this in perspective—it’s not up to your parents to build you a factory and hand you the manager title on a silver platter... their job is just to give you the tools and actually teach you how to use them.
Instead of hovering over kids like a helicopter parent 24/7—which is just exhausting—it’s way better to let them mess up once in a while. They need responsibilities, some actual skin in the game, and enough breathing room to actually think for themselves.
Too much hovering and micromanaging just breeds helplessness—not to mention a total lack of confidence. It usually ends in one of two ways: pure rebellion or that "dog off the leash" effect—where someone just charges blindly into disaster without a single thought for the consequences.

It's not like I suggested building her some massive factory—or offered to hand her the keys to the CEO office—or anything. 🙂
I knew I’d worded that poorly—and honestly, I totally saw this coming from you. 😠 )
I’m thinking the exact same thing—but I can't help wondering who actually takes the fall if that kid doesn't end up as some big-shot executive you're talking about. Is it on the parents to mold them, or should they just set the boundaries and let the kid figure out their own life within that space?
When I say "basics," I mean the essentials—housing, food, clothes, and school supplies. That’s it.

Morgan Cooper34 said:I’m with you on this one. There has to be a line where parental responsibility for our lives ends and our own personal accountability begins.

👍
So, maybe right around the start of puberty? 🤔

Jason Harris5 said:From where I'm sitting...

I think I'll be most successful if one day, when they're grown, they come knocking on my door and tell me off because I didn't do this or that... but without all the heavy drama or constant finger-pointing... just saying... "look, you weren't quite there..." while still acknowledging that despite my flaws, I helped shape who they are today.

The second they actually have the guts to "question" my authority or my choices, that's my signal that I did something right... that I taught them how to think for themselves and stand their ground.

cool 👍

Maybe I’m just a total control freak—honestly, I hate leaving anything to chance. I feel responsible for everything from what my daughter eats today to what she wears tomorrow, but it goes deeper than that; I feel accountable for her happiness and her health, too. It’s my job to guide her toward whatever path she chooses—sports, hobbies, you name it—and to make sure she stays active, eats right, and keeps a positive mindset. Plus, I feel this massive pressure to leave her some real estate in her inheritance. Am I overthinking this?
And look, if she ends up unhappy, what am I supposed to blame? Some random outside factors that happened regardless of my efforts? Shouldn't I have kept all that under wraps? I mean, she didn't exactly ask to be born into this mess 🤷
If I can't hand her a perfect head start in life, was I even supposed to bring her here in the first place? 😕

Take my parents, for example—they think their duty is basically just feeding us (whatever that looks like, really 🙄), dressing us, and getting us through high school. After that, they say their responsibility to us is done. I just don't get it 🤷—what's the point then? Why have us at all?
I remember Legion had a thread once about why people even have kids. Personally, I don't know why I wanted one; I guess it's just some primal, biological, chemical urge. But we actually have brains, dammit—(and we can always just use protection 😉)—so we can actually stop and think about the whole concept: what are we going to do with these kids, what can we actually provide, and do we even have the time, the willpower, the health, or the cash to pull it off? I can't stomach the idea of just having kids "just because." Everything needs a reason 😁

I mean, think about it—we bring them into the world, then we struggle with breastfeeding, we spend a year totally isolated from society, and suddenly there's no money left for dinners out, clothes, or even a salon trip. We end up killing ourselves working jobs we hate just to pay off mortgages and stuff like that 🙄
And all of that trickles down to the kids. They grow up and become adults, carrying all this frustration and various traumas or shortcomings. Then they have kids of their own. And the cycle repeats. Where does it all lead? Is that getting too deep for a Tuesday? ☕

So... am I making any sense now? 😍

Quincy:

I don't even know where to start with this—just total nonsense. Honestly, I’m exhausted just reading it. (No content provided to rewrite.) wirednomad42, please—just take my sincere apologies if I offended you.

Sounds terrible—and I'm definitely feeling it. 😳
Just apologize tomorrow—it’s not like anyone’s actually listening anyway. 🙂 😁
Quincy:

I guess I'm just here to watch the circus—honestly, it’s getting exhausting. kaže: So he watches over him, only to hand him off to someone else to deal with later? Great plan—really top-tier logic there. 😁

😁

electricdriver93 actually has a point—for once. 👍
Parenting—what a joke.
If you aren't actually raising them—then you're just a parent who doesn't give a damn.
If you're raising kids—you’re always pushing too hard—it’s just how it goes.
No matter how you slice it—you just didn't nail this one.

I just want to be a decent parent—you know, give them everything they actually need without overdoing it and turning them into spoiled brats. And if I mess up—because let’s face it, I will—I just want to make sure it isn't some life-altering catastrophe that nukes their self-esteem. Is that really too much to ask? 🤷
Look, maybe I'm just having a midlife identity crisis—who knows? Just tell me... how do you guys handle it? Raising them up... yeah, good luck with that. My own kids!

Edward Murphy4 said:Here’s my simplest piece of advice: just let your kid be who they actually are. Most parents walk around with these little—or sometimes huge—expectations and this mental image of how their "precious" child should live or act... then they subtly (if not outright aggressively) push them toward that specific mold, basically suffocating any hint of a real personality.
The result? The kid never gets a chance to actually develop into themselves.

Honestly, I’ve read some truly idiotic examples of just how far human stupidity can go—it’s actually mind-blowing. I even know about a case lately where a mom was forcing her left-handed kid to write with their right hand!🙏 Unbelievable.🙄 Because, you know, clearly that’ll just make life so much easier for them!🙏
And all this character reshaping and whatever else they do? They do it under the guise of "doing what's best" for the kids.☕

Well, my folks let me develop on my own—so naturally, I didn't exactly "develop" into anything at all.🤣

hollowtrucker77 said:Honestly, the best way to handle this is to just stop stressing over whether you’re going to mess things up for your kid or not; instead, just focus on being the kind of person you’d actually want to be if it were your own child in front of you.

Look, I wouldn't be hanging out with—let alone living with—someone else's kid.😕
Do you even have kids of your own?
Because let's be real—there's always going to be a gap somewhere... if you're glued to the kid, you aren't working enough and money gets tight—so they miss out on stuff. If you work too much, you aren't there physically, so they miss out on *you*. If you're too soft, they lack discipline; if you're too strict, they lose their sense of freedom...
I could never wrap my head around treating a kid like "someone else's." I don't really get what you're getting at here.😕

Look, we’ve all had crappy parents. Everyone missed the mark on something—it's a given—but at the same time, they were doing their absolute best for us, even if we spent our whole childhood feeling totally neglected or misunderstood... 😵
So, who's actually the crazy one here??? 🤷
I also notice this toxic cycle just keeps repeating from one generation to the next. Honestly, my biggest fear is screwing up my own kid—making them some anxious mess who’s constantly starving for attention 😢
How do I actually pull this off? Please hit me with your tips, tricks, or whatever life lessons you've learned 😁

neongardener2 said:Did you even read my actual post before you quoted it?
I have zero interest in commenting on that kind of nonsense, so I don't know why they aren't washing machines🤣, and honestly, I don't care. Maybe they see themselves as appliances in the mirror and just lack the drive to become what they already are🤣

🤔

Yeah, fair point... I guess you're right, I'm the one asking these stupid questions ☕

neongardener2 said:Look, I don't really have any hard evidence to throw around here, just my own experiences and some stuff I've heard from people—assuming they're actually worth listening to, I guess. But honestly, my own lived experience is enough for me.

I mean, I know someone, but whatever, it doesn't really matter since I don't have any proof anyway. I’m not trying to convince anyone or claim I'm 100% sure about what I'm saying, and I definitely don't have the energy to get into an argument with anyone. It’s just my own thoughts and what I believe, you know? Since I can't prove anything, I'm not out here preaching to the choir or trying to force anyone's hand. If you want to believe it, go for it. You probably won't lose anything by just visualizing what you want to happen and keeping things positive, I guess.

cool ☕
so why then don't those guys in the psych ward—the ones who swear they're washing machines—actually manage to spin white laundry at 190 degrees?
do you think they actually doubt they're appliances or something?