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NEVERENDING ♾️ The NEVERENDING Raising Children Thread

MacheteJames said:
Nope. This is the byproduct of living in a low-trust society. I'm not running a limo service for someone else's kid, though. If they can't make their own way over, my kid isn't playing with them.
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Timely:

“For a whole host of reasons — parental fear, overzealous child welfare departments, car-centric city planning — kids generally have a lot less freedom and independence than their parents did. ”

The Internet Is a Wasteland, So Give Kids Better Places to Go
 
MacheteJames said:
Nope. This is the byproduct of living in a low-trust society. I'm not running a limo service for someone else's kid, though. If they can't make their own way over, my kid isn't playing with them.
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We've had a few parents texting that their kid would like to come over and play. It feels like the parent just wants a babysitter. Its typically been from parents who we don't know super well yet. My parents had a very strict you're not allowed to ask to go to someone's house, you have to be invited.
 
JNA said:
Way back in the day before Boy Scout popcorn, I remember selling Christmas present wrapping paper.
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Popcorn was okay, but just okay. It was a much harder sell than GS cookies. Number one, they weren't GS cookies. Number two, they were ordered and delivered later; there was no instant gratification.
 
Doohickie said:
Popcorn was okay, but just okay. It was a much harder sell than GS cookies. Number one, they weren't GS cookies. Number two, they were ordered and delivered later; there was no instant gratification.
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I remember selling boxes of Girl Scout cookies door-to-door. I went by myself or with another scout. My dad traveled, and my mom had three younger kids to watch and she stayed at home.
 
kms said:
I remember selling boxes of Girl Scout cookies door-to-door. I went by myself or with another scout. My dad traveled, and my mom had three younger kids to watch and she stayed at home.
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My sons did the same with the popcorn, but it's harder to sell when they only had an order sheet and no merchandise.
 
My house is one of the hangout houses for my youngest’s friend group. We live in a one mile square town with one school. The kids ride bikes and walk to each others houses, meet up at the park, and go to the beach in summer. Sometimes the other parents and I will drop off or pick up a kid if the weather is bad or it’s dark out.

For fundraising, I don’t participate. I look at the supposed goal and write a check based on what I think the school’s expected share is going to be. Throughout elementary school we’ve always made a standard offer of $500 to the teacher for anything extra they need for the classroom. Most have taken advantage of this.
 
fringe said:
3 yr old grandson has begun saying "f*ckit!".

He has been advised to tone it down a bit.
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My 4 yr old granddaughter calls me "pops". A bit ago, she questioned something that I told her by responding "what the hell pops?". I was impressed by the proper use but I took the opportunity to suggest alternative ways to say it. I have since realized that she picked it up from me because she suggest alternatives to me when I say it.
 
Has this ever happed ?

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The ex was notorious for mis-placing stuff - landline cordless handsets in the pre-cellphone days causing us to search frantically for wherever she last left it as the phone rings, later her cellphone, but also her car keys, her purse, her coat/hat/boots/gloves, tools she may have been working with, especially gardening tools, etc. Her expectation was that everyone would stop whatever they were doing to help her find what she wanted. It was ... annoying.

+++
Yesterday, she had a falling out with our son over our child's chosen personal pronouns (they/their). Mom refuses to accept these and the predictable result is a foreclosure of our son's and child's relationship with their mother. Somehow, I'm sure to be blamed ... :scratchinghead:
 
Another milestone unlocked - my youngest got his own cellphone yesterday.

This is a little earlier than his brother got his last year but this one is starting high school marching band this summer (he’s a freshman this fall) so we decided it was time.

Gen Z for the win! 🔥
 
mendelman said:
Another milestone unlocked - my youngest got his own cellphone yesterday.

This is a little earlier than his brother got his last year but this one is starting high school marching band this summer (he’s a freshman this fall) so we decided it was time.

Gen Z for the win! 🔥
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Bought my kid the dumbest flip phone I could find (he starts 8th grade next year but with biking to/from school and practices it's time). He's gonna learn to T9 like his forebears.
 
Faust_Motel said:
Bought my kid the dumbest flip phone I could find (he starts 8th grade next year but with biking to/from school and practices it's time). He's gonna learn to T9 like his forebears.
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Mine is 14 and finishes 8th grade this spring. So parity is important since his older brother got a smartphone about this time last year.
 
mendelman said:
Another milestone unlocked - my youngest got his own cellphone yesterday.

This is a little earlier than his brother got his last year but this one is starting high school marching band this summer (he’s a freshman this fall) so we decided it was time.

Gen Z for the win! 🔥
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My 2nd grader has been begging for one since Christmas. About a third of her class already has one. I told her she'd be lucky to get one by high school.
 
Does it matter if a parent witnesses a freshman baseball coach use the shit word in front of his players before the start of the game, and then less than five minutes later as the players take the field, say out loud to the players, presumably because the players were swearing back and forth to each other, “Hey, no swearing!” That is, does it matter in the sense of being a role model? I mean, it’s hypocritical. Does it matter to the school? That is, does it matter to the school in the sense that something like that should matter? I’m not prudish, I know that’s how teenagers talk and that’s how 30-something bro-coaches talk, I’m not that naive. But the game was at a public facility, shouldn’t the adults display higher levels of decorum? A better attitude? Show some class? Represent?
 
Wannaplan? said:
Does it matter if a parent witnesses a freshman baseball coach use the shit word in front of his players before the start of the game, and then less than five minutes later as the players take the field, say out loud to the players, presumably because the players were swearing back and forth to each other, “Hey, no swearing!” That is, does it matter in the sense of being a role model? I mean, it’s hypocritical. Does it matter to the school? That is, does it matter to the school in the sense that something like that should matter? I’m not prudish, I know that’s how teenagers talk and that’s how 30-something bro-coaches talk, I’m not that naive. But the game was at a public facility, shouldn’t the adults display higher levels of decorum? A better attitude? Show some class? Represent?
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He may have been coming at it from the angle of "no swearing because it might get you in trouble with the umps."
 
SlaveToTheGrind said:
Anybody have a child that cannot clean their room? Literally cannot see the floor? Asking for a friend.
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They're not kids anymore, but both my 18 and 20 year old daughters have notoriously messy rooms. Although both will also randomly clean their entire room every couple of months. Sort of like they enjoy sleepy in chaos, but then feel the need to bring order every once in awhile.
 
btrage said:
They're not kids anymore, but both my 18 and 20 year old daughters have notoriously messy rooms. Although both will also randomly clean their entire room every couple of months. Sort of like they enjoy sleepy in chaos, but then feel the need to bring order every once in awhile.
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Ditto with my oldest.
 
Whose Yur Planner said:
That was me growing up. My folks got on me constantly about it. Unfortunately, that messiness extended into my adulthood.
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Me too. I'm better now, but it drives my wife crazy. Our daughter has inherited by messiness. My stepdaughter had an almost OCD level of neatness so its been quite a change.

My parents generally got to the point where I could be messy provided it was sanitary and contained to my room. I had to keep common areas clean. I also had to organize my room monthly.
 
bureaucrat#3 said:
Me too. I'm better now, but it drives my wife crazy. Our daughter has inherited by messiness. My stepdaughter had an almost OCD level of neatness so its been quite a change.

My parents generally got to the point where I could be messy provided it was sanitary and contained to my room. I had to keep common areas clean. I also had to organize my room monthly.
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That was fair. Some people are neat and tidy, some aren't. Most people are somewhere between. I have gotten tidier as I've gotten older.
 
Whose Yur Planner said:
That was fair. Some people are neat and tidy, some aren't. Most people are somewhere between. I have gotten tidier as I've gotten older.
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I love design and build, whether home or garden. Wife can be sloppy with execution of design, with little patience for layout. In housekeeping she is great at decorating and has "tidy-itis". I am very tidy with kitchen work, wife is very good at routine householding. One daughter said she did not know that kitchen appliances got dirty till she left home. Other daughter has tidy complex too.
 
bureaucrat#3 said:
Me too. I'm better now, but it drives my wife crazy. Our daughter has inherited by messiness. My stepdaughter had an almost OCD level of neatness so its been quite a change.

My parents generally got to the point where I could be messy provided it was sanitary and contained to my room. I had to keep common areas clean. I also had to organize my room monthly.
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This is the approach we take with the 12 year old. My oldest is very neat and organized and the 12 year old’s messiness deeply offends her and she will clean out her sister’s room on a regular basis.
 
kjel said:
This is the approach we take with the 12 year old. My oldest is very neat and organized and the 12 year old’s messiness deeply offends her and she will clean out her sister’s room on a regular basis.
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My son's autism counselor said that he is borderline hoarder personality - which I have personally observed over his 27 years. The counselor said the worst thing I could do would be to clean up after him, which would only be enabling him. They are working on taking small steps to keep the current mess from overwhelming him.

His mom wants to know why I don't just put my foot down and order him to clean up.

Dont Think It Works Like That Schitts Creek GIF by CBC
 
Gedunker said:
My son's autism counselor said that he is borderline hoarder personality - which I have personally observed over his 27 years. The counselor said the worst thing I could do would be to clean up after him, which would only be enabling him. They are working on taking small steps to keep the current mess from overwhelming him.

His mom wants to know why I don't just put my foot down and order him to clean up.

Dont Think It Works Like That Schitts Creek GIF by CBC
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We're keeping an eye on this with our oldest. He's almost 17 but we see the tendencies.

Godspeed on this continued journey.
 
Today is my youngest kid's last day of high school. She was one of the top students in her graduating class, over a 4.0 GPA, took 5 AP classes, was on the executive board of student council, etc. etc. She is the exact opposite of me in high school in nearly every way lol. She truly made the most of her four years. Can't wait to enjoy the summer before she heads off to college.
 
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