Parenting

Out of context: Reply #11

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  • Horp7

    With your first child, you are completely inexperienced. As others have said already, this is a process that has worked successfully as a simple and basic arrangement for a long time. Don't get suckered in to too many methods, accessories and protocols that get bandied around.

    I have two kids, there are 3 years separating their births. Most of the advice we were told (via NCT and healthcare services) for the first child were already invalid by the second. We were told entirely different things second time around, by the exact same bodies that told us to do them the first time around. So we realised these are just frameworks by career people and all a baby needs is:

    Love
    Comfort
    Nourishment
    Protection
    Monitoring
    Stimulation when appropriate
    Rest at all other times

    ===

    If I had one piece of advice I wish I could tell my young self that first time around, it is that it can get very demanding, quite frustrating, and it can fray your nerves at times.

    This for me was something from a few years after the first was born, when they start to not cooperate with what you would ideally like to see happening. They can really test your patience at times and behave in a wilfully challenging way.

    KEEP YOUR COOL

    There were times when my first really pushed our buttons in a million infuriating ways, and it can be possible sometimes to want to assert your seniority and make sure it is understood that you are the boss.

    I do realise that writing this will be making some of you think "oooh we got a child torturer here" but that's your imagination and not what I am talking about. I am talking about losing your cool and getting angry when things are not going your way, and losing sense of the fact that a small child does not understand the world fully, and is curious about finding the limits in order to make better sense of that world.

    So if you lose your cool and get a bit ranty or raise your voice, it doesn't work, and it also makes you feel like a shitbag afterwards.

    My eldest, now 18, is by nature a feisty iconoclast. It's who she is. So along the way we had some clashes, battles of wills where neither would back down. Ultimately I held the ace card, but she would not give in until she saw the ace card. The ace card might be confiscations, limiting access to things, and also just me ranting and rattling as I lay down the law to tell her what's what and what a big deal I am.

    The second baby comes along and you realise that at times some of this was disproportionate and based on trying to battle against their determination to massively fuck up your day, as opposed to calmly stating things and letting them go through the process of having an emotional meltdown if that's what they need to do.

    You have to stay calm and explain things, and if they aren't ready for those explanations, then calmly step away and let them have a temper riot by themselves.

    You never need to prove you are the boss to a a young child, you need to demonstrate it with full control and calmness.

    My eldest daughter and I, on a few (quite rare) occasions would have a kind of cold war battle and it would escalate step by step "Okay well I'm doing this" ... "Well fine then this is what's going to happen as a result, Missy"... "I don't care, I'm even doing this now too"... "oh yeah? well guess what, this is happening now as well how do you like THOSE apples?"... "FINE! WATCH ME DO THIS!"... "GO AHEAD, YOU'RE CONFINED TO YOUR ROOM FOR THE NEXT TWELVE YEARS"... "REALLY? WELL I MAY AS WELL DO THIS THEN!"... "OH SURE, SURE... NOW I'M CALLING THE ADOPTION AGENCY" and so on.

    Just... don't do that. It doesn't work.

    It's hard work being a parent, and the nature of that work changes month by month.

    Take it as it comes, and aways make sure they know you love them.

    My worst memory, which still haunts me to this day, is that one time after an escalating battle of wills when my eldest absolutely demanded that she lead me step by step to the moment of me revealing my ace card; she finally understood she couldn't win, she burst into tears at everything she'd lost along the way, and asked me to give her a hug.

    I was so mad about it all that my response, and what a fucking asshole I am, what a fucking asshole, was to say "I can't hug you now because I'm so angry"

    and I left her there on her bed, sobbing, asking for a hug and not getting one.

    My wife was with her and when she came downstairs a short while later she said "Can you go and give her a hug please because she thinks you don't love her anymore"

    Christ, what a fucking asshole.

    Don't do that. It haunts the fuck out of me and it was fucking years ago.

    Horp 7Permalink
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    • Error: you need to demonstrate it with full *self* control and calmness.Horp
    • I'm off to see LCD Soundsystem with my eldest in August. She loves taking me to gigs. We are as close as close can be these days.Horp
    • The challenges we faced back in the day were based on the fact that she is EXACTLY like me. We are the same personality type. My youngest is more like their mumHorp
    • When all else fails...there is always hookers & cocaine!utopian
    • Excellent post, can totally relate.mort_
    • This is everything... “Take it as it comes, and aways make sure they know you love them.”mort_
    • That last bit wasn’t you being an asshole. It was you being a human.mort_
    • Don't be too hard on yourself. She was testing you to see where the limit was. All part of learning. I bet she got lots of hugs after that.monNom
    • "I'M CALLING THE ADOPTION AGENCY" lolpseud
    • This is sound advice (I think, since I can't relate), cheers Horp! You sound like a good parent.pseud
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