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comment by Isherwood
Isherwood  ·  2416 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: August 16, 2017

You and thenewgreen are breaking my heart.

Children are becoming very real shadows on my horizon and, while they were off in the distance, I feared them being born with genetic defects or dying from something outside of my control.

While those things are still scary they don't inspire the deep gut fear that comes from the thought of disappointing my potential offspring. I don't even have them and it makes me sad.

Sorry man.





user-inactivated  ·  2416 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Just remember we live in arguably one of the best times ever to be alive. Crime is very low, most health problems have a solution, child labour is non-existent and there are amazing things happening in all facets of technology and work and engineering.

Its easy to see the world as shit because shit sells ad copy. But we humans just sent a rocket to a space station and landed the booster back for reuse. We are using AIDS to, if not cure at least fight, leukemia. Heart disease, cancer etc are now on the run. The biggest mass murders of humanity? Polio, measles, smallpox? They are now epidemics if 100 people contact the disease. The kids born today are going to look at the early 2000's the same way we look at the early 1900's when nobody had electricity or running water and infant mortality was in the order of 40%.

Things get better.

kleinbl00  ·  2416 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I didn't want kids for the longest time. After all, I was a complete fuckup. My parents, who have three bachelor's degrees, a Master's and a Ph.D between them, really fucked things up. I had met many a broken human whose catastrophes were clearly caused by their upbringing.

But the thing is? Common sense goes a long goddamn way. Golden Rule takes you the rest of the way. And the little ones start out from a baseline of loving you unconditionally. Early on, whatever you do it must be right because you're doing it.

I've had a crisis of faith because the kid is so easy. This says one of two things:

(1) I was a truly horrible kid, well beyond the abilities of my parents to deal with me

(2) They were truly colossal fuckups, the depths of their incompetence previously unguessed by me

So either I hate myself more, or I hate my parents more. But my kid? She's got no hate for anyone, least of all me.

Yours won't either. They'll think you're the greatest daddy that ever lived, until you're older, and then they'll probably take things on balance.