2w ago

Not stealing

121 comments

I’m so feeling this this morning. I asked the 4yo if he wanted cereal or yogurt for breakfast. He screams “I’m not hungry! I want mama!”, runs to his room and slams the door. Two minutes later he comes out and punches me in the dick while I’m making lunches.
- I love hearing other parents have asshole kids, because it reminds me that I'm not alone.
  
  My kid went through the same phase all kids do of refusing to go to bed.
  So one night he's grabbing on to the baby gate at the top of the stairs like a con in a prison movie, screaming and yelling. I'm at the bottom of the stairs trying to ignore him.
  He fixed a stare directly at me, stopped screaming, and shit in his pants.
  So yeah, 100% of parents have arsehole kids.
  
  You are not; but they are not really assholes. They are optimising for some outcome that they want, with inferior tools/mechanisms. Depending on age, their brain runs on emotion most of the time, logic is a distant second place.
  In saying all of that....they can seem like assholes in the moment!!!!
- I mean, the dick punch was really unnecessary but I am glad that other families experience... Weirdness, I guess. And exclusion of a parent.
  I can't count how often I read and heard the advice to "just present your kid with two options to choose from".
  My kid, even before she became verbal, always wanted option C when presented with two options.
  "Do you want this hat or this cap?" "Neither"
  "Do you want this blue pants or these red sweatpants?" "I want... a green... dress" we don't even have a green dress.
  "Shall we go to the zoo today or do you want to go to the playground with Anna?" "I want to go on the trampoline" .
  
  The problem with parenting advice is every kid is different. This becomes clear after raised a gaggle of them. Anyone with one child that is giving advice is clueless.
  My suggestion is not to give that type of child options. Tell them what's happening. Then do it. May that not work any better and ignores why you may have started giving them choices.
  You didn't specify an age but typically choices are best for later development. Toddlers are terrorists and one should never negotiate with a terrorist.
  
  Yeah the first time I tried the two options for clothes on my then-two year old, he snatched both options out of my hands, threw them on the ground, and screamed NO CLOTHES
  
  I present two options. If my kid doesn't pick one of those two options, either by not responding or by requesting a third thing, I'm picking one of the two options for him. And I'm always picking what he's least likely to want.
  
  Bonus points for finally settling for one of the options, only to throw a tantrum afterwards, that the other option was the preferred one.
- You know, this weirdly makes the whole shit world-state seem much more natural lol
- I am cracking up at this. Please save this comment word-for-word in a journal or something. Because when he's older and truly appreciates all you've done for him you're going to find it even funnier than I did to remind him of this!
  
  when he’s older and truly appreciates all you’ve done for him
  Wishful thinking

My wife was waiting for me by the exit of Target with my infant son, and a lady rushed up with her cart, a baby in the baby holder, said, "Here, watch him!" and ran in the rest room.
I walked up, and saw my wife with another baby, and said, "We can't afford two, we'll have to return one," and she told me the story. I thought it was hilarious, and couldn't wait to meet this woman when she came out of the bathroom.
She eventually emerged, and thanked my wife for the help, and I said "You weren't worried about handing your daughter off to a stranger?" And she replied:
"No, she already had one, I knew she wasn't about to steal ANOTHER one!"

I don’t know why, but “stealing him” is such a funny way of saying that.
- How would you call dissapropriating someones children for recreational or other purposes?
  
  Kidnap?
- It's funny because children aren't people. Or something...
  
  It's just funny to use the word that means a different thing but close

My son fought me getting in the high chair in a restaurant yesterday. Wife had to hold him while I held his legs straight to get in. I feel that
- How TF are they so strong!? I also noticed a difference in physical strength between boys and girls - while expected I did not anticipate it being so much different. I really have to use a muscle on my son sometimes and he’s not even 2 yo.
  
  Same for kids and pets... They're not really strong, it's just that:
  You're trying not to hurt them or yourself, they don't really care. This really levels the playing field.
  You're trying to accomplish a goal, they're trying to do anything but that.this gives them a huge advantage.

This very much could have been my husband about a decade ago. The last tantrum my middle child ever threw, with lots of screaming and running and destroying things like a fucking tornado in the middle of a Target. Spouse carried them kicking and screaming out to the car while I finished checking out and by the time I got there they were buckled in their car seat, completely calm and composed, like a switch flipped. (As far as I know) it wasn't any sort of punishment or shining moment of parenting, the kid just decided, I'm done now.
And they haven't thrown a fit since.
- How old was your kid at the time ? You are giving us hope, we need to know!
  
  29 😅
  
  They had just turned 4. I remember being really worried because they were starting preschool soon and they were such a demon, I was certain I'd be called on the first day and told they'd been expelled. Now they're in middle school and charming as anything.

I've been reading some variation of this joke since the early 80s.
I am confident it can be found somewhere in Shakespeare's plays and perhaps on clay tablets hidden deep in the Mesopotamian valley.

There is a reason for declining child birth numbers... it has everything to do with more people knowing what they are really getting into.
- And that everyone's too damn poor. Babysitter? Not on average wages! No one wants to give up all of their time and money for kids they might not be able to provide for.
  
  There are people giving 100% of their paychecks for childcare and the spouse pays for everything else.
  That is a failure of the US and birth rates won’t improve until that changes.
  
  Being poor has very little to with having children. The poor across the world have more children than the wealthy.
- Well if there was public daycare to take the stress off of parents who couldn't deal with it then it wouldn't be as big of an issue.
- Yeah we had to raise our siblings. Ain't raising another generation without being paid for it. It's why we work in education.
- I don't need more reasons to not want children, I'm already decided, but this thread is sure reaffirming.
- I don't really follow your train of thought. People would have been just as aware (if not more, due to the prevalence of multigenerational households) of this in the past as they are now, no?
  
  In the past people didn't have access to a device with endless information about how rough it is the raise kids. Instead they had other local parents as a source, and those parents just wanted company in thier misery.

... but if you were to call the cops on me at least it would be a brief yet welcome reprieve from parenting while they come to the inevitable conclusion that he is mine and they don't want him around either

My first kid was a perfect baby, she’d sleep 10 hours straight, she was quiet and never bratty, we would take her to restaurants with all our adult friends and she was always well behaved and didn’t need a tablet and would interact with everyone. We used to silently judge leash kid’s parents with the wife.
Then we had our second, an autistic boy with the energy of a thousand suns. Now I know, the leash isnt for me, it’s for all of you! The tablet at the restaurant makes sense now, and I don’t judge parents anymore
- When me and my brother were coming up there were no tablets. The only thing to distract kids back then was McDonald's colouring books.
  Imagine my parents relief when the game boy was invented.
- We have a nephew who didn't need a leash, but he had the cutest backpack what was a monkey and the tail was a leash that he loved wearing. He just turned 19.
  His younger brother did not like the monkey, and he needed a leash. He was a runner. Still is, his mile is right around 6 minutes.
- My first kid was a perfect baby, she’d sleep 10 hours straight, she was quiet and never bratty...Then we had our second, an autistic boy with the energy of a thousand suns.
  My experience has been similar, except they absolutely rile eachother up, and when separated they're both incredible quiet and chill. One of their grandparents refuses to take my youngest overnight but begs for sleepovers regularly with my oldest. We try to make it special for my youngest by doing stuff we don't normally do on those nights (and we try to arrange outings with just the youngest too to make it as fair as we can), but it is really shocking just how quiet and reserved both are without the other to encourage them to cause chaos
  
  Luckily my first has 11 years on her brother and helps out a lot with him
- I get people giving me judgemental looks with the tablet at the dinner table when out in the wild. Im always tempted to take it off her when people look at me funny, they can see what happens.
  Low volume blippi is annoying as shit, I get it, but also so is me running past your table every 30 seconds carrying her back, or the full-blown mortal screaming if I strap her to the chair.

This thread has reminded me of why I don't want kids.

Well most of times you can differentiate frustration screaming and fear/danger screaming on toddlers
- I can't even differentiate the screams of play time from those of being brutally murdered that the kids I hear playing around my apartment complex make...
  
  The screams of playtime are usually the ones punctuated by an adult yelling at them to shut up.
  
  Same, and I have kids, so I, technically, should be able to differentiate.
  
  How many brutal murders of kids have you been ignoring?
- Tbh, definitely not with all kids. You have to specifically train them to not use "emergency" screams when they are frustrated.

So this one time I was like three and being too quiet. I don't remember this. Apparently I had climbed up the upright grand piano and gotten scared of heights. I pressed myself against the wall and was whispering "^help" over and over. Not too loud, because I was worried I'd get in trouble for climbing on the piano, but I needed help.
I was a high energy child. I learned to stop my bicycle at first by jumping off it onto grass hopefully and letting the bike crash. It must have been a nightmare for my parents to watch. So any extended silence was suspicious.

Kinda reminds me of when I was using dating apps, and women would ask how they knew I wasn't a serial killer. "If I was a serial killer, it would be pretty stupid to leave a bunch of digital records of me being the last person my victim talked to, I'd get caught immediately."

My son(11) will say, "you can't do that, I'll call the police and they will arrest you". I say, great maybe I'll get some peace and quiet. He doesn't know I won't, so it works. Lol.
- I think it's time. you gotta sacrifice the strategy because 11 is old enough to know acab
  
  He's autistic, and that concept is not something he could grasp yet.
- My 4yo always threatens "I won't invite you to my birthday party!" I always respond with "Yes, thank you, please don't." Which is confusing, because apparently it is the go-to threat in daycare to force ohther children to do something 😅. Then I am immediately invited again.
  
  I have been told I have to go to my room and stay there. I'm like, you promise? Didn't take long for that threat to stop.

200 IQ child thief

That is a pretty funny remark.

One of my worst fears as a single dad, though it's fairly uncommon here to randomly report people for kidnapping just because it's a dad with his own child. And my offspring adores me and will stop crying almost immediately when picked up so that might help people understand I'm not a baby thief lol

Can relate

Just wait until he’s 16 lol

I don't think the apple falls very far from the tree
- Found the childless one who knows better. Always at least one of you.
- Hard to tell from so little info. You can make a kid act like that by being a shitty parent, but they can also have issues unbidden that stretch you past your breaking point.
  In any case, they don't seem to have a healthy relationship.
  
  10:1 odds that neither of you currently have a toddler.
  
  My kid just had a screaming fit with big fat tears rolling down his face because he reached the bottom of the stairs. The other day, he was howling crying because I had a different colored bowl than he did. I have indeed had to carry my kid out of a public space to go calm down. I do my best to be calm and empathetic to him but emotional regulation is something they grow into.

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