My kids puked on me two vacations in a row. I was bare chested both times. Nothing like washing hot dog puke out of your chest hair.
Thanks to one dumb kid from a first marriage, and a second / current wife who urges me to “leave it in until she screams” - I have three dumbass kids, each terrible. Want to talk about shitty planning and even worse timing...I had one starting college and another starting kindergarten on the same day. By the time my youngest graduates college, I will have had a dumbass kid in my house for 37 years. 37. Years. Kids are dumb, and I wouldn’t recomend them to anyone, ever, under any circumstance. And if you get really sick of them and list them for sale on Craigslist, only DCS trolls will respond, even if you’re willing to straight up trade them for a used futon.
Air purifying respirator, organic vapor cartridges. Works like a charm against this or any dirty diaper, diaper pail emptying, etc.
We learned this and when we were 33 we both said screw it and took the plunge. You can only be prepare yourself to be a parent AFTER you have a kid. It is a paradox.
I mean financially, professionally, and all the other crap you want to have in order before the baby gets there that isn’t directly related to childcare... all that stuff will take longer than your wife has to get preggers unless you marry some youn hottie in your fifties, but then I don’t know that that’s the ideal parenting duo. There’s always going to be one more thing you’d wished you’d done or achieved or saved. One more potential expense for which you’ll think you need to prepare. Just be resigned to the fact that you’re going to have to make the decision without being fully prepared. If you don’t, you’ve basically made the decision not to have them.
A lot of people, people I know, have waited 3, 4, or 5 (some more, some less) to have children for various reasons - some I’ve listed some I haven’t or don’t know. Others got pregnant “accidentally” at a young age. It’s worked out for both sides. We don’t want kids right now. There’s still things we want to do. Sue me.
We've got some close friends in their early 50s. Kids are gone, he's got a very successful small business, and they do whatever they want. I'd not trade my kids for anything but I'm looking forward to that stage of life too.
I don’t want to believe / assert that my having kids and being a rec league coach makes me an expert on kids - because (as both my own and the kids I coach will attest) it damned sure doesn’t - but I wholeheartedly agree with this. I want my kids to both understand and be prepared for the inevitable challenges of life, being certain that they’re going to come, whether or not I or they want them to, or not. And I really try to teach them how best to meet them, now, and while the setting is safe and the stakes are low. For me, this begins and ends with setting (and explaining, as well as a lot of discussion, debate and conversation) known and tangible standards of thought, action, relationship, responsibility, etc., and not merely just a bunch of arbitrarily framed and mostly bullshit rules - most of which even I reject. And with the setting of a standard comes the expectation that they be met. And I simply don’t see how lying about their failures in achieving it, or lowering the bar in order to help them (essentially) cheat in meeting it, will ultimately help them. Despite the fact that it may make both of us feel better (and is certainly easier) to lie to one another, I think it works to stunt their development and ultimately does more harm than good - both now, and worse, in going forward. Parenting is damned sure a lot of work, and which I am largely terrible at, often getting it more wrong than right. But I want to get it right, and try to do so. I believe (hope?) that’ll be enough.
Anyone who would urge you to have kids at a certain age, or by a certain time, are dumbasses. I wish more people were as self aware as you, and delayed it until they were better prepared for it, or just wanted it, as you are doing. I know lots and lots of parents who have kids right now, and who it seems obvious that they either didn’t fully consider it, beforehand, or who simply weren’t ready for all that it demands - and they’re largely miserable, exhausted, overwhelmed and some are flat-out resentful of it, if I were being completely honest.
Actually, an over abundance of water is actually more effective in teaching kids, particularly when also paired with a long board, a blindfold and a rag.
then next thing you know, the unexpected pregnancy, Vanderbilt diagnosis of autism spectrum at age 2, then fast forward to yesterday. Like Card said, wouldn't trade it and not sure what I would have done the last 18 years without kids.
This is pretty nice jump to an assumption that I was trying to make a counter point, rather than just trying to share my thoughts and perspective.