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I do think, though, if you're planning on having more than one kid, you should try to have what you plan to have (keyword: plan) as quickly as possible so they're close in age. There's no guarantee that siblings will even like each other, of course, but virtually no chance of a close peer relationship if they're more than 5 years apart. Plus once you're set up for and used to dealing with one baby having a second or third isn't 2X and 3X the difficulty. I know it's the dreaded pet analogy, but it's a bit like how owning two dogs isn't twice as hard as owning one. I do love how with most normal/decent parents that have more than one kid, the first kid will have a baby book where every page is filled out, everything is perfectly documented. The second onward it's like the first 3 pages and then ....  My wife's, the second-born in her family, is like that, as is my younger brother's.
Imagined fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Sep 10, 2021 |
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Sep 10, 2021 19:29
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| # ? May 27, 2024 11:00 |
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Yeah, my siblings and I are fairly close in age (1978, 1980, 1982) and there are almost no pictures of my youngest sister as a baby. While she was tiny, my brother and I were toddlers going through severe health crises one after the other and what with that, and cameras being way more scarce then, there's almost nothing.
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Sep 10, 2021 19:31
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It should be obvious, but comparing siblings has probably wrecked more families than Fox News. I was forever being compared unfavourably to my flawless older sister, who was apparently kinder, more obedient, more loving and agreeable, you name it. I wasn't a BAD kid, just different, and it's almost like my parents went "OK this is what a daughter should be" and then gave me poo poo for being myself and not following the template. Strangely, my personality is much more like my eldest brother's, except he didn't get poo poo for being that way.
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Sep 10, 2021 20:14
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The stark differences in siblings, often almost the exact same age, with the same genetic makeup, same socio-economic background, same schools, same neighborhood, same parents obviously... almost every variable the same... as a parent, it makes me wonder what difference I make at all. I'm tempted to think kids are going to be who they're going to be and all you can really do as a parent is give them a nudge here or there, love them and try not to gently caress them up. My dad and his sister, for example. If you made a list of 50 traits of a human being and assigned each one a scale of 1-10, they would be polar opposites on 45 of them, despite being 2 years apart and having all the things in common that I just mentioned. He's a liberal, she's a chud, he moved to San Francisco, she literally never moved out of mom's house, he's an agnostic, she's an evangelical, he reads voraciously, she actually admits reading 'bores her to tears', etc. Same parents, same background, same schools, same everything.
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Sep 10, 2021 20:25
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Just being siblings doesn't mean they get all the same genes though; I've seen marked differences in terms of intelligence, sensitivity, athletic or artistic ability etc. among full siblings close in age.
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Sep 10, 2021 20:57
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Yes of course, siblings can have a varying degree of genetics in common. I read some article once that quoted a study saying the only aspect of your child's fundamental personality you can really affect as a parent is how well they respond to criticism. I don't know about that, but I know a lot of personality must be set really early on. Watching my nieces and nephew, they were all totally different from the first moments they started to express personality, as babies. We can't take credit for my oldest niece's sweetness and kindness any more than we can for my little nephew's determination. I expect a parent can suppress or encourage personality traits to be expressed, and cause trauma that obviously affects expression, but I think a lot of who we are is there from the beginning.
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Sep 10, 2021 21:03
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Imagined posted:I do think, though, if you're planning on having more than one kid, you should try to have what you plan to have (keyword: plan) as quickly as possible so they're close in age. There's no guarantee that siblings will even like each other, of course, but virtually no chance of a close peer relationship if they're more than 5 years apart. That explains why my siblings all got along (relatively) well with each other and left me in the lurch to fend for myself 
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Sep 10, 2021 21:22
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Eh, there's fourteen years between me and my youngest sister, we get along great and always have.
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Sep 10, 2021 22:09
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Imagined posted:I do think, though, if you're planning on having more than one kid, you should try to have what you plan to have (keyword: plan) as quickly as possible so they're close in age. There's no guarantee that siblings will even like each other, of course, but virtually no chance of a close peer relationship if they're more than 5 years apart. There's 7 years between me and my brother and we didn't learn to like each other until we were both grown adults. We never had any common interests and he frankly got away with murder compared to me and he didn't understand why I was so frustrated with everything he did to me being brushed off with "You're older than him, you have to be the mature one." I have an admittedly short fuse sometimes but I just yell, I don't hit, and he learned very quickly as a child that as long as he made me yell at him (thus alerting my parents there was a problem), I'd be the one who got in trouble, not him, regardless of what he did. Breaking my things, stealing them, hitting me, or just generally harassing me? My parents would always say he just wanted my attention and for me to play with him. He also sometimes refused to do his chores, attempting to force me to do them for him. My parents didn't care how chores were divided up as long as they got done before they got home from work. My brother knew I'd be the one held primarily responsible if something wasn't done so he would refuse to do his share, I guess figuring I'd do them to avoid getting in trouble. Jokes on him though - I'm stubborn and spiteful and willing to accept my parents being angry at both of us as long as he got in trouble too. Thank god he grew out of all that poo poo in his teens or I'd probably still hate him. In retrospect though, this is really more on my parents for not taking my issues with him seriously and never disciplining him, rather than on the age gap.
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Sep 10, 2021 22:28
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Rat Patrol posted:My mother is real good at reverse engineering very good reasons for why she made the choices she made. I hadn’t ever thought of it like that and reading this really helped me today. I’m in the process of going from low contact to extremely low contact with my parents and I needed to see that. Thank you.
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Sep 10, 2021 23:02
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I got halfway through writing my 'my sister is ten years older than me' story before realizing it both had no point but also was one of those 'wow when I wrote it down on paper that's kind of hosed up' moments Anyway yeah technically having a sibling but effectively being an only child is very weird
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Sep 10, 2021 23:12
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I've got a fairly big age gap with my youngest brother and didn't spend a lot of time together with him growing up, but we get along well, mostly bonding over video games and bitching about our mum.
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Sep 11, 2021 05:36
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My parents used corporal punishment, at the time it was just an acceptable parenting practice. To their credit they stopped once there was actual evidence that it was harmful to a kid's development. That said my dad used to have a really bad temper and didn't deal with stress well, leading to him just bottling it up until he just exploded out of nowhere. He's since gotten that under control, and has chilled out in a massive way, unfortunately it's to the point where he takes a lot of poo poo from people that he really shouldn't put up with. Still a massive improvement over him just flying off the handle out of nowhere every few weeks.
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Sep 11, 2021 08:53
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Lieutenant Dan posted:I don't know why I typed all that, I guess I'm hoping someone else commiserates. That was hosed up, you didn't deserve that, and there's probably some legal liability that the authority figures of your childhood skated on. Whoever you are now, being that is an accomplishment and you should be proud for having survived that bullshit. teen witch posted:I just creeped on IG now and she looks to be so happy with her kid, living the life she wants to. I do hope that is so true for her, she so sorely deserves it. Reach out. Tell her you're a living witness to what she endured and that you're proud of her for raising a family. The validation could well be gold for her, despite the risks of reminding her of past traumas. In the balance, validate and communicate. Katamari Democracy posted:Im on my phone so sorry i cant post much. But i was beaten as a kid and its one of the reasons why I stutter still in my early 30s. I had a stutter into my 20s because my mother would talk over me. I was trained to start talking and then stop. A friend of mine noticed that after spending an afternoon with both of us, and I was able to whip the stutter in a few weeks of knowing why I was doing it. HopperUK posted:quoted a study saying the only aspect of your child's fundamental personality you can really affect as a parent is how well they respond to criticism. I'd extend that to saying that the parents teach the child how to respond to an authority figure when they're an adult. I caught some hands as a kid, and had my mother's hands raised against me as a threat regularly. Any time I had conflict with a boss or a supervisor I was mentally cringing away from being hit. If I hadn't had standing up for myself beaten out of me, I'd have had a much more productive and lucrative working life,
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Sep 11, 2021 11:39
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It was the mid-90's, so I'm pretty sure people knew better then.
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A lot of my mum's volatility and self-medication with alcohol when I was a kid started to make a lot more sense when I got a diagnosis of a raging case of ADHD and realised that she's definitely where I get it from. She doesn't want to go to the doctor about it and I suppose that's fair enough, since it's no longer tearing her apart like it did. Someday I'd like to get some therapy to untangle some of this stuff. I know the chaotic nature of my childhood has left me sharply conflict-averse. And whenever I hear her raise her voice it makes my stomach sink, though she's almost never speaking sharply to anyone except the dog, these days. I love her dearly and have no desire to make her feel bad but I could use some help. Oh well! Perhaps when some money falls out of the sky for me.
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Sep 11, 2021 12:10
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Zoesdare posted:I hadn’t ever thought of it like that and reading this really helped me today. I’m in the process of going from low contact to extremely low contact with my parents and I needed to see that. I'm glad. Good luck with minimizing contact, I hope they don't give you too hard a time.
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Sep 11, 2021 14:47
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Drimble Wedge posted:It should be obvious, but comparing siblings has probably wrecked more families than Fox News. I was forever being compared unfavourably to my flawless older sister, who was apparently kinder, more obedient, more loving and agreeable, you name it. I wasn't a BAD kid, just different, and it's almost like my parents went "OK this is what a daughter should be" and then gave me poo poo for being myself and not following the template. Strangely, my personality is much more like my eldest brother's, except he didn't get poo poo for being that way. that was my older sister too but weirdly somehow my parents have always found a way to complain about her anyway, which is part of the reason I got tired of dealing with them imagine having the perfect daughter and still finding fault with her kids and complaining about her occasionally needing some emotional support
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Sep 11, 2021 15:04
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In GBS, not too many years ago, lots of goons were happy to defend spanking and slapping children. Mostly from the "small children can't be reasoned with like adults, and needs to learn to associate bad behavior with pain.
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Sep 13, 2021 13:08
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axolotl farmer posted:In GBS, not too many years ago, lots of goons were happy to defend spanking and slapping children. at some point goons transitioned from making excises for their parents garbage behaviors into being parents themselves and no longer being able to justify beatings
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Sep 13, 2021 13:18
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Rutibex posted:at some point goons transitioned from making excises for their parents garbage behaviors into being parents themselves and no longer being able to justify beatings The SA best known by others is from an SA long ago. It might be for the best
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Sep 13, 2021 14:21
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Sep 15, 2021 21:54
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That sucks, don't let her in the delivery room this time.
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Sep 15, 2021 22:05
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That baby’s a time traveler!
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Sep 15, 2021 22:05
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Sad for this lady who has to deal with her insane mom but that is also extremely funny.
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Sep 15, 2021 22:34
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She's even wrong about what those names mean! Amia is a variant of Amy, derived from Old French amée ("beloved," not "love"); Mirabelle is from Latin mirabilis ("amazing, wonderful, miraculous" - nothing about beauty). Also I think Amia and Mirabelle are kind of basic, but I admit this is a subjective thing, please don't get mad at me E: Definitely go with Aubrey, it's a nice name
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Sep 15, 2021 22:34
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They should use “The lady who tried to have Mom arrested” as the kid’s middle name.
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Sep 15, 2021 22:56
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Blue Moonlight posted:They should use “The lady who tried to have Mom arrested” as the kid’s middle name.
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Sep 16, 2021 00:18
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Aubrey is a beautiful name.
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Sep 16, 2021 00:19
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Aubrey is "Drake's" first name.
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Sep 16, 2021 00:21
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The duck that makes Devil Dogs?
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Sep 16, 2021 13:22
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Imagined posted:I do think, though, if you're planning on having more than one kid, you should try to have what you plan to have (keyword: plan) as quickly as possible so they're close in age. There's no guarantee that siblings will even like each other, of course, but virtually no chance of a close peer relationship if they're more than 5 years apart. Plus once you're set up for and used to dealing with one baby having a second or third isn't 2X and 3X the difficulty. I know it's the dreaded pet analogy, but it's a bit like how owning two dogs isn't twice as hard as owning one. I'll say that my little brother and I (6 years apart) are closer now than when we were in school, but we're very different people, and it's almost like having two only children. We definitely had the "I hated him in high school but we reconciled as adults" timeline of events. I remember one time my mom hitting me; (I have to re-write this constantly, because even now my default perspective was "I was being a lovely 20something") she and I were having an argument, one of those screaming yelling ones, and she backed me up against the stairs and slapped me in the face so hard she broke my glasses. I remember distinctly that I didn't have insurance at the time and couldn't afford a new pair so we glued them back together; at several public events she had me take them off because they were "embarrassing". Jesus, that's the first time I've thought about that in... years. Maybe over a decade.
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Sep 18, 2021 18:56
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Neito posted:I remember one time my mom hitting me; (I have to re-write this constantly, because even now my default perspective was "I was being a lovely 20something") she and I were having an argument, one of those screaming yelling ones, and she backed me up against the stairs and slapped me in the face so hard she broke my glasses. I remember distinctly that I didn't have insurance at the time and couldn't afford a new pair so we glued them back together; at several public events she had me take them off because they were "embarrassing". 
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Sep 18, 2021 19:02
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ohnobugs posted:Aubrey is a beautiful name. Aubrey "Arrestor" Smith hardcore
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Sep 21, 2021 13:12
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looks like I'm having the talk with my parents tonight 
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Sep 21, 2021 13:17
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glasses chat! i needed eye glasses my whole life. i always had to sit at the front of the classroom or i could not see the board. i never got any glasses when i was growing up because my parents basically ignored me unless i caused trouble. when i was older i never got any glasses because i never once had a good job with insurance or benefits and i just couldn't afford it. eventually i got tired of lovely low paid work and decided to take out student loans and get a degree. after 5 years (sitting at the front of the class the whole time, so i could see the board) i graduated with an honors degree in history and a masters degree in library science. my parents (who are both millionaires, but never helped with my education or anything else a single cent) paid to get me glasses as my graduation gift. when i put on the glasses for the first time and saw the world i was missing for the last 30 years, that was the moment i was done with my parents
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Sep 21, 2021 13:24
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Rutibex posted:glasses chat! Wow, how generous of them to spring for the glasses for a child they neglected  Seriously, if I’d had the money I’d have crushed the things on principle and gone to get my own just out of spite, but you know, needing them and stuff…
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Sep 21, 2021 13:54
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My parents believed me about not being able to see (probably because I can't see two feet in front of my face without them) but weirdly, they never believed me about my teeth? I struggled for years with eating certain foods (usually meat) and complained it was too tough and unpleasant to chew and my parents would be furious with me, saying I was just being a picky eater and I just wanted to live off mac n cheese and chicken nuggets or something. They didn't believe me until my dentist made it clear I needed braces and when they took me to the orthodontist, like the first thing he ever said was "oh my god, I'm guessing you can barely eat meat like that, huh?" Turns out my canines sat so incorrectly in my mouth that they were totally unusable and I genuinely couldn't tear anything but the tenderest of briskets or meat that was already ground up. Once the braces had pulled them back into their rightful place, I could happily rip a steak to pieces and all my complaints stopped. My parents now tell this as a funny anecdote about how I was such a picky eater in general that they didn't realize there was a real problem, rather than what I remember, which was sitting in front of a cold plate of food I couldn't chew for hours because I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I finished my meal. I don't have nearly as many problems with my parents as most people in this thread but god, even decent parents really love writing off their kids' complaints as them just being contrary brats instead of actually listening to what they're saying.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:55
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CuwiKhons posted:My parents now tell this as a funny anecdote about how I was such a picky eater in general that they didn't realize there was a real problem, rather than what I remember, which was sitting in front of a cold plate of food I couldn't chew for hours because I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I finished my meal. had a situation like this once, but it was tomato soup (I just didn't like it). after I sat there for a while mom just dumped it on my head
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Sep 21, 2021 14:01
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Ghostnuke posted:looks like I'm having the talk with my parents tonight Must be weird having to explain to your parents where babies come from
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Sep 21, 2021 14:10
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| # ? May 27, 2024 11:00 |
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My father didn't believe me that I might need glasses until I was a senior in high school and literally couldn't read the board anymore. I'd had good vision for a long time, but spending all of puberty with your face in front of a computer screen will do that, I guess. He caved and took me to the appointment and insisted on being present for the exam. After I utterly tanked the thing and then we finished the endless "1...or 2" with the lenses and we found out how much correction my eyes needed, the doctor left and he was like, "Well poo poo, your eyes really do suck don't they?" Thanks, rear end in a top hat. I'd only been saying that for like two years. This is the same genius who, when I broke my arm skiing, told me to quit embarrassing him and get up; when I said, "I broke my arm," he said I was exaggerating, there's no way I could know that (even though I'd just broken my other arm not even a year ago...ironically I broke this arm because of that first break, I was wearing protective padding on both arms since the asymmetry bothered me, so when I fell it snapped at the edge of the pad which had provided a rigid pivot point, and I'd also pulled in that other arm to protect it and landed on just one instead of spreading out the force). He ripped off my glove to "look at it" and I blacked out briefly. (x-ray of my hosed up arm spoilered for the squeamish)  The damage may have been readily apparent at a glance as my wrist and hand no longer aligned with the rest of the limb. Even then, he tried insisting I "suck it up" and get to the bottom of the mountain because having to get the ski patrol would be embarrassing. Isn't toxic masculinity and narcissism wonderful?
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Sep 21, 2021 16:29
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