what is a parental advice you wish you could give to your father/mother before they had you?

Just break up already. Creating a tiny extra human is not going to magically fix all of your issues.

... of course that would create a paradox in which I was never born, hence not able to give her that advice ... but seriously, the only reason I exist is because my mother didn't want my dad to leave her, which is simply a shitty reason to become pregnant.

GO TO THERAPY YOU TRAUMATIC FUCKS

Throw a couple Apple shares in a college fund for me.

Don’t.

"Don't have kids."

If you want your children to engage in a certain behavior, you have to actively model that behavior. A kid isn't going to do the thing if they never see you doing the thing, no matter how much you call them out on not doing the thing.

If you guys ever have kids, and one of them, when he's eight years old, accidentally sets fire to the living room rug... go easy on him.

Don’t wait for me to graduate high school to get divorced. Just do it.

Validate your child's feelings. Let them know that you understand that they are scared and that it is ok to be scared.

You have ADHD and your kids probably will too.

Physical punishment is traumatic, unhelpful and builds resentment.

Jumping on the "get a fucking divorce" train and adding "stop buying prepackaged overprocessed food, feed me some damn vegetables, and stop giving me so much goddamn sugar"

How about instead of cheating on my mom, teach me how to talk to girls.... and don't cheat on my mom lol

Lay off the legal and illegal drugs, seriously. No, hiding them in a drawer isn’t baby proofing.

Children’s medications aren’t scams, they have different doses for a reason (the reason is usually risk of overdose).

Yelling and beating a child isn’t discipline and the southern Baptist church is a terrible place to take kids.

I worked through a lot of this in therapy, but it still annoys me that I had better risk management in my teens than my parents did in their 30s.

I'll jump on the "just don't" train. Like serious try again some other time but just abort this one

Don’t impose your religion on your kids or you’ll just drive them away and you’ll never get to know them as adults before the cancer kills you.

Say you love me... sometimes it's hard to tell

I could write a novel here honestly but I'll keep it a bit brief:

Don't ask your toddler which parent they'll go with if you 2 get a divorce. If you don't love your partner you should get a divorce. Joint custody is a thing.

Don't "stay together for the kids" you will only cause them more mental harm in the long run.

Don't make your young children have to be the most mature person in the room. They should be allowed to be a kid.

Be at least somewhat involved in your kids lives, if you're not don't be surprised when they don't choose to involve you in their lives as they get older.

Dear future parents, don't bring me into this fucking world!!!

Don't

Don't provide your 12 year old cigarettes, weed and booze .

Don't have kids, ever.

I know you have my life mapped out, because as someone who desperately wants kids, it's impossible not to do that. But don't assume a kid is going to follow that plan. Some kids are gay. You both handled that news really, really well, but for real, why did you have to assume I was straight to begin with? I wish I could have told you when I was 14, but I had to deal with not being the thing you thought I was. As a result, I'm 32 and still don't have kids, because I got a really late start on the whole dating someone thing, and I've still never brought anyone home. It's not your fault, but next go round, try not to box your kids the way you were boxed in.

Also, Mama. Leave his ass. Do not marry him. It doesn't matter how upset Grandmama will be, she'll get over it. Just tell her you love her, and go raise that baby alone.

Be kind, be patient, and understand that getting violent and aggressive your child isn't discipline or parenting, it's just abuse.

Don't tell me to mindfuck bullies cuz they're dumb as fuck and didn't understand anything I said, but continued to beat me up!

Don't force your child to play mind games with their other parent or try forcing them to read out loud their entire text message history or explain their entire conversation they had with their other parent.

Don't force them to lie to their other parent but also try and force them to tell you every lie the other parent made.

Don't yell and scream at them or act pouty and manipulative when they say "No".

If you have a problem with your partner take it with then directly, if its not fixable then don't be together. Just please don't use your child to manipulate your partner into depression or anger and force your kid to "choose a side", it'll make them resent you both.

No form of abuse, dealt with it enough from bullies at school.

Encourage me to participate in a sport, or art, science projects or ANYTHING that will prevent me from becoming a depressed pos.

Go to therapy for your trauma instead of passing it on to me.

I wouldn't tell them anything. Any changes they made to how I was raised would fundamentally change who and where I am now. While growing up was torture in many ways, it led me here, and I'm really happy with where I am now.

Don't die.

I can't fault my mom for falling apart when my dad died but it did mess us up, she withdrew and was lost and stupid for years after, and never really got her mind all back. I was 16 and got kicked out at 17, the other kids got more years of that. But all of us are ok now, and again, I really can't blame her.

Nothing else really, she wasn't a motherly kind of mom but never felt neglected or like she was not trying her best.

no yelling

I'm going to be a challenge. Please be patient with me, and with each other.

Buy FAANG Stock. Buy Bitcoin early on. Not crazy amounts but if they had some extra money I think their lives would have been a little easier.

Mom, don't sacrifice your retirement savings to keep our lifestyle the same. It's not more important than struggling so hard in your retirement years. Your kids will get used to living with less, we'll get over any sadness we feel over it, as long as we're together.

Also, you have a bad case of sunk cost fallacy. You're going to lose the house over it.

Dad, if you run away from your kids when it gets tough, they are going to be traumatized, and it will come back to bite you when you're older. Your son especially will want nothing to do with you. Your last years will be lonely enough, don't abandon the only people who will be there for you.

Maybe the problem is you and not the other people or the place or the employer. Get therapy

When your kid is bored with its input, it's okay to take it serious and see that it gets more/better input.

"Tough it out" is not good advice, no matter in what form it comes.

Children's tears are not an act. Not if it's a girl either. Check your bias.

Just because it didn't kill you, does not mean you have to do it to your kid.

Dear mom, run! Divorce! I'd still like to be alive and stuff, but you don't deserve this and neither do we.

work smarter not harder

my dad was an immigrant (technically so was I but I was brought here at a young age) and didn't speak the language. so he did manual labor jobs for a long time until he felt confident enough to try his luck at his own business. now he works much less and makes much more.

leave the manual labor for the people who can't do anything else. if you have skills, put them to use