Posted by momentmaker 1 day ago
But a more concrete thing: While before I might have been saddened about bad things happening to kids, like any normal person would, after having kids myself I experience an stronger reaction:
I get almost physically ill when I hear about kids getting harmed.
The best ways seem to be things kids get directly, such as school lunches, better libraries, affordable child care, equipment at schools, etc. where parents don't need to be handed cash by the government.
But you're right, people get very up in arms about it (what about us?!). Society with an uneducated/un-cared for generation of kids is terrifying, though. I'm currently watching my oldest kids head into graduation with a cohort of kids who are clearly less educated than my graduating class was, and I'm dreading the knock-on effects. I feel for the kids too, but looking at this from a societal perspective: we're all going to pay the price for this. We should have invested up front.
In this case it's not possible to be certain yet, but the primary detriments to education among this cohort are probably covid lock-down and perhaps phones/social media? We got something wrong, regardless. They are less literate than previous cohorts have been for decades, apparently. Math scores are also much lower. Rates of plagiarism are so high that it's virtually impossible to address meaningfully.
All that is to say I think we should be doing a lot to ensure families and ultimately kids are able to thrive and do their best. Society ultimately profits from it, across demographics, for decades.
[99] https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/docume...
This is how Israel's war radicalized me, I stopped watching videos, but they made me depressed, burned out, angry, because everytime I watched videos, my brain started asking "what would I do if this happened to my kids, would I join Hamas? probably yes"
I got burned out from these thoughts
Easy now; there's a distinct scale to these atrocities: Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza's list of war dead, https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/oct/08...
The scale of the aftermath is what happens when an advanced democracy faces an existential threat from a terrorist-led neighbouring region, and must act to neutralise that threat for the safety of its citizens.
Same. I literally have trouble sleeping after hearing about things like this.
I’d become largely desensitised to the content, but after becoming a parent I just couldn’t deal with the CAM anymore.
I had a look at the local courts' agendas, and I was appalled by how many SA/CSAM cases there were. Probably half of them or so. Not just to children, but there's more than one case every week of that, and this is in a population of a few hundred thousand.
Still not enough reason to do all the CSAM scanning the governments want big tech to do, but it's definitely bigger than I though. (Or just easier to gather evidence on now, so that's what gets into courts...)
The BBC and UK news readers in general absolutely love stories about child abusers, so they get prominent placing (and even a live blog on the sentencing last week)
Instead I reaffirm my commitment to actual sex and emotional education, and easily accessible birth control, and access to abortion. I figure threatening to decapitate people only makes people more fucked up, not less.
I had a small mental breakdown anticipating that this was going to happen while my wife was pregnant with our first. It didn't. I ended up replacing the part of my life that was video escapism with kids and kept everything else the same. Three kids in, things are going great.
>I get almost physically ill when I hear about kids getting harmed.
Replace ill with enraged and I have had the same experience. The strong emotions were a bit of a surprise.
I had a spell of absurd anxiety. I’m not the same person in many ways. Being a dad is frekking cool and the weirdest challenge of my life.
And to your last point… I’m such a chill, no-violence dude, but once a drunk teenager walked into us and yelled at my baby. I was shocked, but 5 seconds later I only wanted to have access to a gun to shoot that teen right there and then. Yikes.
I don’t think any children should be harmed in a conflict. The knowledge of that, or of what we used to do to children in the past, are both things that can ruin a day for me.
I had less time, less energy, and my tolerance for BS plummeted accordingly.
Now, I can read the headlines, but I still can't read the articles.
There were a lot of days on which I cried more than the baby. Diagnosed with anxiety disorder, but then they said it comes with ADHD and probably has little to do with the baby.
> As many as one in 10 men will experience paternal postnatal depression or anxiety. The symptoms often look different in dads—anger or sudden outbursts
Oh well.
We were living in a 1 bedroom in the city when we had our kid, and moved to a house in a suburb when the kid was 9 months old. My wife and I both worked, but I had a longer commute and a job that frequently required later evenings. Between the job and keeping up the house, I had a few minutes in the morning, random holidays, and part of one weekend day to really spend time. I spiraled into depression and insomnia, overwhelmed by all the work required to keep up the house while also feeling like a terrible father and husband. I was withdrawn, had angry outbursts, and my daily work routine involved sitting in my car in the train station parking lot having a good cry before heading home.
Before our kid started kindergarten, we decided to sell the house and rent a place in the city. Our apartment was about a 30 minute walk from my office with my kid's school as the 1/2 way point. I was actually able to walk my kid to school every day, coach sports that started at 5pm, and have both weekend days available to go on adventures around the city.
I can relate.
Think the 9to5 culture make its even harder. It takes a village, probably 2 if you've got twins / triplets+. 9to5 is not something "long childhood" can be compatible with? https://onbeing.org/programs/alison-gopnik-the-evolutionary-...
It kept us sane. Just knowing that we would each get hours of uninterrupted sleep was great.
Life was harder. Then again nothing breaks my brain like the cry of my daughter so probably not one to one.
Our kid sleeps like crap, some nights I don’t get any full cycles (~90 minutes in adults).
I’ve no idea why we’re trying for a second, send help.
Our second born, taught me that exact same lesson, again - that no matter what, there will always be three human beings in my life for which my love is infinite, and that I would step in front of a bullet for any one of them.
Whereas before it all went down, I was pretty much all alone, now I know for sure there are 3 other human beings I will want to say goodbye to, properly, some day.
I mean, one can hope.
The second one, though, she was a scavenger. I woke up to her crunching on something. She was eating pistachios -- shell and all!
I have a 2-year old daughter so I can relate in part, she just joined a pre-school now (breaks my heart to drop her) and same as your #1 - top notch nutrition, supps, probitiocs and so-on (deeply studied & argued) and chef level taste, never had once something in her mouth that isn't vouched :p
Chose breastfeeding entirely for the first 6 months (better for their brain as per my knowledge), then introduced solids progressively, I'm super grateful to be in the AI era at the same moment I've had my daughter because it allows me to study extensively everything regarding children.
why/how is ice cubed food better than yams or whatever is for dinner
We know that food isn't equal, and we know that food can change your brain/energy level/memory... both as children and as adults which indirectly affect life outcomes.
Actually, anyone that has started eating properly (lower portions, never be full, always eating useful things) can attest that they are just overall a better person, healthier, fitter, sharper...
Some men who are fathers now had to jump in early as the older sibling due to unreliable parents. Some of those men also chose not to be fathers. Taking responsibility for others is a broad range of experiences.
For all that is said about "dysfunctional" families, sometimes adulting early leads to better outcomes because you were given more time to think.
+ Priorities shift dramatically. I see director level people running around like chickens without heads trying to fill in an excel sheet because one of the higher ups has sent down a directive; without them realizing that the time spent doing so is meaningless dribble that doesn't matter. It's like things that were not obvious time sinks are now very obvious and I'm less patient (of nonsense) because I have something more important to care about.