(TikTok screenshot)
You must log in or # to comment.
Being a parent is hard af
I understand but also not my problem? If you are too tired to deal with your children maybe keep them at home. If you are going to bring a child to a public place you got to be prepare and willing to educate them. Your children are special bundles of joy for You, and you only. People are not ok in having to deal with an unhinged savage child because parenting is hard. People take the “it takes a village” wrong. Not everyone you see is on your village.
They’re mad because you’re right and they have to deal with screaming brats all day because they chose to and you didn’t.
exactly. They are mad because it’s NOT about the kids. Kids will be kids and thats why they have PARENTS. the Parents are the fucking lazy people that are “too tired” but keep having children becuase “oh my god it takes a vilage” Fuck off go raise your child
Speaking as a parent, you are correct.
Thank you. Just adding again I’m not agains kids. Just want parents to parent more sometimes.
Doesn’t help that people judge 2 year old parents when their child is crying. Not like they could hold a debate with someone who can not comprehend the concept of self control.
No, but you can remove them from the venue if it doesn’t stop crying, unless you’re on a plane.
How do you think they’re going to learn to behave in public if they’re just cooped up 24/7? People being annoying and noisy is just a part of existing as a human being. We shouldn’t stunt the growth of entire fucking generations just because they make you uncomfortable.
How do you think they’re going to learn to behave in public if they’re just cooped up 24/7?
Thats not w what my comment said at all. Why are you arguing in bad faith?
Removing from the venue changes the setting and makes it easier to talk to the child about what they were doing, and even more likely address whatever the child had going on. Removing them from the setting temporarily makes parenting easier and benefits everyone else.
Source: am parent and was a child at one point
My parents made tons of mistakes, but the word shh being acknowledged as existing wasn’t one of them.
People love to act like children are always so difficult they cannot be reasoned with, but shushing isn’t actually trauma. And it works very often. Guess what, everywhere I go people have horribly behaved dogs while mine is an angel in comparison. Why? Because I didn’t just let them do whatever whenever. I made small corrections consistently. And my dog seems quite happy. I’m sure you’ll get all mad that I’m “comparing children and animals” but honestly you can see the same kinds of boundary testing and reactions from both so I think it’s fair.
They learn how to behave because when they behave inappropriately, they are punished. No one here is opposed to a charming little kid wandering around and doing cute shit. They are opposed to kids throwing 45 minute long temper tantrums because the italian restaurant doesn’t have chicken nuggets. You can practice this feedback cycle both at home and in public (in public, of course, remove the kid from the situation where they are annoying everyone first).
My reading speed seriosly lags behind my decision making timeeeeeeeeeeeeees
For real, clearly they never had to explain to a 4 year old why they could not run around with crayons stuffed in their nose.
Being a good one is.
I would argue that being a bad one even has its challenges.
You’ve riled the forever alone nerds.
Right. Maybe that’s why you have mad social anxiety and the like. Because your parents beat your ass for even talking when out in public.
It’s weird that it’s completely necessary for every single person to make that choice! Also, the kind of people that actually parent and don’t just unleash their loud, hyperactive child on strangers don’t get memes made about them.
Source: I was a loud, hyperactive child, but I was taught respect, consideration, and made to follow rules.
Tell me you’re not a parent without telling me you’re not a parent…
Let me know when you can participate in a genuine conversation without exclusively regurgitating tiktok phrases!
If every single one of your ancestors did something and so did everyone else’s on a planet of 8 billion, the thing is not that hard.
There is essentially universal agreement in the field of child psychology that “beating” your child is the wrong approach.
I’ve yet to meet a parent that completely ignores their child in a public venue. In many cultures children are considered to be a part of society / community and so they are given some autonomy to discover the world with their peers. Hyper individualistic Western society is really the odd one out here and Western cultures are the only ones where I’ve seen this take expressed openly. Conclude from that what you will.
A few weeks ago my wife and I were getting breakfast at a local bakery. Inside, a dad had decided that it did not matter that his small child was running around, screaming at the top of his lungs. The little gremlin started trying to steal pastries off other people’s tables and dad stiff didn’t do anything until the staff announced loudly that all unattended children would be reported to CPS.
That kid didn’t need a beating, but that dad sure did.
Agreed, that’s unacceptable.
Look, with parents you never know what they just went through. Maybe they didn’t get any sleep or whatever. A different approach would have been for someone to start playing with the kid
Although I agree with the sentiment, I would NEVER expect anybody to entertain my kids. I would just pack them up and gone home. My kids are my burden to bear.
I would NEVER expect anybody to entertain my kids.
I wouldn’t either but I’m not in this persons shoes
If you’re a parent, you are the problem. It’s not strangers’ jobs to parent your kids. If you can’t keep them from bothering other people do not take them to places with other people. It’s not socially acceptable for me to kick your kid, so don’t put me in a position where that starts seeming like a good idea.
If you can’t keep them from bothering other people do not take them to places with other people.
Kids will always bother those around them. They cry, they can’t understand or follow social cues etc. But they’re people and imo they have the right to exist in public places.
In Berlin neighbors sue schools all the time for noise pollution, for being too noisy. Like wtf
That does happen in other more child friendly cultures. Its just not a priority in Western culture. Children are very much seen as an impediment to productivity rather than an investment in the future. Its a consequence of capitalistic and individualistic ideals, for better or for worse.
I personally resonate with the song Eat Your Young by Hozier. It’s an indictment on all modern culture but I feel Western culture especially. The overall message being that (in my interpretation) when we focus on productivity instead of sustainability we sell out future generations.
Kids keeping parents from sleeping —> no bakery trip or 1 parent goes/1 parent keeps the kids at home. That‘s the appropriate response to that.
I mostly agree except for the initial phase of teaching a kid to listen and control themselves. The part of the brain that forces them to sit still and focus doesn’t really develop imo without some fear. I wouldn’t at all advocate for beating your child, but when they are young a little spank sometimes that isn’t that bad seems scary as hell to them. It’s very effective to get them to learn to listen, to stop running around, that sort of thing. After you get past that point you can talk to them, it’s much easier. Also you have to talk to them afterwards so they know you aren’t being mean, but need them to learn to control themselves and not let their emotions take over all the time. If you do it well, you won’t have to do it but a few times. Not intensity, but as little as possible, just so they know that they can’t get away with it. A kid has almost unlimited energy to fight and yell. It’s not good for you, and it’s not good for them. It’s not really normal for an animal to never have any fear. The brain isn’t supposed to work that way. Yet also it’s not good to abuse them obviously. Some people are kind of bad parents and they will use that as an excuse to avoid doing what they should for their kids, like cooking healthy food and stuff. When kids arent eating well or are trapped inside all day they also get restless. That is not the time to be spanking. The one time where spanking is appropriate is simply to make them realize that they can’t just ignore you and walk on you, and that they have to actually talk with you when you are serious. Talking is the part where they learn. They should just learn fear. This will make them depressive and lazy and resentful and psychotic.
This is an area with a ton of debate and I appreciate your insights. I was on the receiving end of corporal punishment growing up and have chosen not continue that cycle. That doesn’t mean that my child will grow up without consequences, which is I think what most posters are frustrated with here.
According to the World Health Organization:
Evidence shows corporal punishment harms children’s physical and mental health, increases behavioural problems over time, and has no positive outcomes.
All corporal punishment, however mild or light, carries an inbuilt risk of escalation. Studies suggest that parents who used corporal punishment are at heightened risk of perpetrating severe maltreatment
Corporal punishment is linked to a range of negative outcomes for children across countries and cultures, including physical and mental ill-health, impaired cognitive and socio-emotional development, poor educational outcomes, increased aggression and perpetration of violence.
There is also evidence that fear based parenting can lead to anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, and poor self-esteem and sows mistrust and emotional distance between parent and child. I can personally attest to experiencing quite a few of these in relation to corporal punishment.
Now it sounds like you are using fear judiciously and to each their own. But I am determined to find another way, while also making consequences as clear as possible. Age 1 to 3 is difficult for everyone since the child is mobile and exploratory but has very little reasoning capabilities.
I am similar, I grew up with a great deal of that and I barely ever use it for my kids. I actually have a fair bit of trauma and PTSD because my father was an alcoholic and very mean. I never use it anymore I did a little when they were toddlers to get them to do stuff like not pee in the bed, to not leave trash laying around, to not be disrespectful. I had a severe concussion when I was raising them in that phase and I couldn’t handle the yelling because it would trigger massive migraines. I understand most people who use it do ruin their kids with it, and most people who use it are really trashy parents who are arrogant and have bad morality, but really the point in trying to make is that it’s very healthy for a kid to learn how to deal with the emotion of fear and to experience it a bit. This is something the modern world doesn’t realize as much. It helps them to focus. It’s a very narrow window of course. Fear is a strong work and don’t want you to think that I mean your kid should be terrified of you, but they should learn to have respect to feel a bit of consequences to get past that basic part where their higher mind can take control. Their fear needs to be able to calm their mind. I think of it as two pillars that lean against each other creating an arch, your positive and negative emotions. That is a really complicated way of saying, the only thing spanking is good for, is to teach a kid to stop, think, and listen, anything beyond that is abuse imo. You really need to talk to them and explain, not just preach, but back and forth about why something is right or wrong. Tell them about your life and what you have to deal with. Ask them what they think. Ask them how they feel about it. Let them be honest, let them have autonomy where you can. Being safe and respectful is important but beyond that you don’t own your child and your child doesn’t need to be molded by you as a parent. They need to bloom into their own type of flower. That is what actually makes them a highly motivated person.
It works good for me because I completely support my kids autonomy. I want them to have their own style, their own desires, their own preferences, I want them to be themselves. I don’t police their sexuality or what video games or movies they can watch. What clothes they can buy. I do forbid them from some things of course. Hanging out with people who do drugs is one example. I will talk to them about these things in an adult fashion. I will challenge them and ask them questions about why they are doing something, and ask them to tell me how it makes people around them feel, how it makes them feel. It’s not that they should live their life to please other people, not at all, but to be aware of how their actions affect others. To be aware of other people’s pain and limitations. Talk is best, a respectful adult conversation as equals. A conversation as a friend.
You never want to use physical punishment anymore then you have to, because your child will come to see the world through the lens of a victim. They will never really develop an ability to take pride in themselves and stand up for themselves and to chase their own dreams. Survival becomes their only true friend when they learn to hide themselves from the world.
I’d like to thank you again for your insights. It sounds like you exercise a lot of self control and have thought about this meticulously which unfortunately many parents do not. I agree that theres value in children experiencing and understanding fear in a controlled environment.
Ultimately I do want them to experience and better understand fear though I certainly don’t want them to fear me. I’m still hoping I can impart those lessons without threatening their bodily autonomy since it is personally a hard line for me (just from personal experiences and the psychological issues it caused). But time will tell, mine have yet to enter the stage of chaos and irrationality known as toddlerhood haha.
Fair enough, you sound like a good one anyways. Best of luck
There is not a single ounce of anything scientific provable in what you are saying. You are making shit up to justify hitting your children. That’s really it.
I mostly agree except for the initial phase of teaching a kid to listen and control themselves.
When would that be? It is a learning process for children to control themselves. Some grown ups haven’t mastered it.
The part of the brain that forces them to sit still and focus doesn’t really develop imo without some fear.
This is the core piece of your little theory, right? I challenge you to give me any reputable source, be it from a psychological or pedagogical paper. Just one. To the best of my knowledge, not a single developmental theory backs this up.
I wouldn’t at all advocate for beating your child, but when they are young a little spank sometimes that isn’t that bad seems scary as hell to them.
In other words, you are advocating for beating children. You have no idea how “a little spank” feels for your child. If they are scared about it afterwards it’s a little bit hypocritical to assume that it was not “that bad”.
It’s very effective to get them to learn to listen, to stop running around, that sort of thing. After you get past that point you can talk to them, it’s much easier.
“My child was running around and wouldn’t listen, so i spanked it.” Are you sure there are no other avenues available to get your child to listen?
Also you have to talk to them afterwards so they know you aren’t being mean
You just beat a person that has no way of protectong themselves against somebody much stronger and that they rely on for savty and security. That is mean. Even if you managed to convonce yourself that it’s not. It realy is.
but need them to learn to control themselves and not let their emotions take over all the time.
THEY ARE CHILDREN! Children have to learn to controll emotions. It’s part of growing up. The way to support them is to help them undersuand their emotions and giving them tools to deal with them. Don’t expect it to work imedeatly, it’s a process. Spanking them will teach them to suppress and bottle their emotion, because the single person they rely on for safety is hitting them if they don’t. You are not teaching your children to deal with emotions in a healty manor.
Well I wrote a long response but I couldn’t post it. Maybe I can reply later when I’m not busy with work.
I think many use “beating” as a hyperbole, just like if I said my mom would kill me if I did that. I don’t mean she would literally kill me.
Before I go on, could you be more specific on what “western culture” and which “hyper individualistic western society” you are talking about?
Now I’ve traveled quite a bit all over the world. I’ve seen parents of all cultures just straight up ignoring their child’s awful behavior.
And maybe it’s just me seeing these specific tourists the most. The Chineese parents are the biggest offender that I’ve seen in my travels. Their children do whatever they want and they don’t say anything. Just an example from the top of my head, climbing on shelves in a grocery store while the parents just watched.
My mom had 4 kids. 3 of us were well behaved in public and she said “I would look at those parents with screaming kids in the store and think I am doing something right, my kids don’t do that. So God gave me Janet. I was so judgemental, then I got one who screamed in the store.”
I don’t hit my kids, I barely even yell. They’re the most well-behaved kids I know. Almost as though respecting your kids and spending time with them makes them happier? And maybe kids that feel respected act better? It’s a parenting problem. Youth are the future, we the parents decide what that future looks like.
It’s boundaries, expectations and consistancy in consequences if they break the rules.
Yes, teaching kids to behave is far more effective than beating them into compliance. Sure, they have difficulty grasping it in their early years, but with repetition it eventually sinks in like all of the other things we teach them.
ITT people taking issue with parenting methods not even being advocated for. If you take your children to public places, of course everyone knows they are children, but they still shouldn’t be pulling stuff off racks, running around screaming and licking the windows, or putting hands on other people or children.
You don’t have to yell at them or beat them or anything else, but if they can’t pull themselves together in public then work on it and consider not bringing them to such places. My mom made us all repeat the rules before we left the car (no running, no putting things in the cart without being asked, keep one hand on the cart while we are moving or something like those) and if we didn’t follow the rules we all went back to the car. Simple as that.
Edit: sometimes you gotta go do something and take the kids. If they’re acting feral at least maybe don’t be the parent who looks like they are totally cool with it and just pretend it isn’t happening?
My 11-month old is an absolute saint when we’re out and about, then a horrifying tornado of destruction when he’s at home. I suspect a lot of it is just boredom, but its hard to tell because… 11-mo olds aren’t great at verbalizing their discontent.
As he gets older and he starts losing that starstruck look of wonderment at the mall or a new restaurant or wherever, I suspect he’ll be harder to control. But he’s also incredibly clever, athletic, and curious. I don’t want to discourage any of this just to make parenting a bit easier in the short term.
Can’t fucking imagine actually hitting him. I know what that did to me after the rare few times my mom did it. I still can’t bring myself to forgive her 30 years later. And there’s no way I want my son thinking of me that way.
They’re experiencing restraint collapse.
You’re doing a great job parenting! It’s one of the most difficult jobs in the world to do well. Restraint collapse is a great indicator that you’re doing well. It’s also hell because you take everything on. Thank you for parenting well.
Lots of people have procreated that really shouldn’t have, unfortunately.
People say that having kids it’s hard. It’s not. It’s literally the easiest thing we can do. Even the most stupid people on the planet can, and do, have kids.
And everyone else is the asshole for wanting you to control your petulant, loud, germy, and annoying little bundle of joy.
Yes because the most stupid people are people. They should have kids if they want.
[Someone’s kid yells]
The internet: “You should be sterile.”
This but unironically. 😌
I don’t mind rambunctious children, as long as they aren’t hurting anyone, doing ear piercing screaming, or doing something that spreads disease. (Like putting their hands directly into ice cream topping trays instead of using the fucking scoop)
Frequently I see parents be way overly harsh with their kids where I’m at like the parent is terrified of being seen as a bad/lazy parent so they take it out on their kid by way over reacting to a kid doing something disruptive but ultimately pretty harmless.
There are occasional situations where the parent just dumbly stands there doing nothing to stop their kid doing something they really shouldn’t (like that Ice Cream Topping example… which is a thing I recently witnessed). But that’s less common than the former. Might be because I live in a rural conservative hellhole where kids are seen as their parent’s property.
My kids are respectful but they’re kids and I have an autistic 4 year old who is so cute and cuddly but he has the energy of a thousand suns, one time he was skipping around, hopping over cracks in the sidewalk and being happy and laughing loud, we go to a store and hes asking me a million questions and laughing and talking loud while being energetic and hopping. this one old Karen tells me I need to keep him quieter and calm, because he is disturbing others by laughing and being a kid. Without skipping a beat i said “well good thing hes a kid, the world belongs to the kids, not miserable Old people who are gonna die any day now” She had that look that if she were wearing a monocle it would have popped out.
I’m definitely the kind of adult who applies a disproportionately large punishment for small public disruptive behavior from kids I’m watching. It sucks because I know I’m going to far but I’m also so scared of the other adults in the room that I don’t know how else to react. It sucks.
What exactly are you afraid of them doing?
Embarrassing me, which when I say that why should I care if they embarrass me in front of other adults? So long as I’m trying to resolve the situation in a reasonable and mature way, why do I care about what other random adults are thinking.
[S] Is Lemmy better than therapy? [/S]
When I was a kid, my parents used to leave me at home with my brother and he would be abusive af. He tied me up ones with zipties. One time, I felt so scared of my brother, I had to run away from home. I’m so used to all this, every time I hear my mother’s voice, I feel terrified, its like PTSD-inducing.
Then my mother gets [suprisedpikachuface.jpg] when I have depression. What did you expect, bitch, you caused this.
Gen X, I presume?
Out of curiosity do you mean the age of the person who posted, the person in the image, or something else? I am a Gen X and my children look about the age of the person in the screenshot.
More the messaging, than the person in the picture…because yeah, they look too young to be Gen X.
I’m Gen X too, and I’m pretty sure we were the last generation where it was considered “normal” to get beaten in public for behavioral reasons.
Makes sense. Yep, I have multiple friends my age who were on the receiving end of some “tough love”.
Some of my earliest “formative memories” were of getting walloped in the middle of a grocery store aisle, for whining about cereal. My mother said, “pick which one you want”. I thought that meant I could pick something I actually wanted. Apparently not. My choices were shredded wheat or cheerios.
Everything else in that aisle was a decoy, with a spanking attached to it.
I’m confused with ages here, have we standardized this?
- Greatest Generation (born roughly 1901–1927)
- Silent Generation (1928–1945)
- Baby Boomers (1946–1964)
- Generation X (1965–1980)
- Millennials (1981–1996)
- Generation Z (1997–2012)
- Generation Alpha (born around 2013–2024)
- Generation Beta (2025–2039)
I’m annoyed by this on principle and across the board, but I do want to point out that “Greatest Generation” all the way to “Baby Boomers” makes zero sense in most of the planet. You can sooooort of get away with Millenials to Alpha because the Internet is a bad idea, and Gen X at least applies to probably most of Europe as well as the US and Canada, although it’s still weird across the board.
But everything before that? Super specifically US-only.
Who is the 50-something in this situation?
It bothers me how Generation X has been stretched out over time. It should be more people in their 60s. Coupland is 63. If you’re 55 now you were barely in high school when his book about late 20s-early 30s people came out.
Intellectually I understand why we gave up on the “Gen Y” stuff once the idea of Millenials surfaced, but I’m in that gradient where during my lifetime I went through waves of being post-Gen X, then a millenial, then all the way back to Gen X, then sorta millenial again once it became OK for millenials to have kids and jobs and be old and stuff.
Generational designators are bullshit anyway, but if you’re in that gap between X and millenials, or between millenials and Gen Z, now going through that exact process, they become annoying bullshit.
Generational demarcations are cultural, so having a hard line in between them is a bit of BS, but there were greater cultural affinity trends thanks to monoculture which has only really existed since WWII. With the way the internet is fracturing media exposure, generational cohorts may fall apart and be meaningless because there’s not one set of TV shows everyone watches together anymore, for example.
The Boomers had a ton of media from 1955-1972 to lean on for self-identification. Gen X and Millennials did the same, but Millennials and Boomers both had large-scale structural changes take place that entrenched their cohort’s cultural baseline. Gen X got screwed by the Oil Crisis, after-effects of the Boomers figuring out how to deal with Vietnam, and the economic downturn in the 70s. Boomers sucked the air out of the room and saved some of it for Millennials.
Gen X had no Moon Landing or JFK in Dallas moments that were a “where were you?” nostalgia. We didn’t get that again until 9/11, which pitches it to Millennials. Gen X had some monocultural elements, mostly phenomenal music and movies, but they weren’t as pervasive as Boomers getting TV for the first time.
I expect you might be part of the “Oregon Trail” cohort, which is the cusp between X and MIllennials - resilience of Gen X, but comfortable with dayglow colors and likely had access to an early computer in elementary school where MECC games like Oregon Trail were common. I think it’s literally people born 1979-1983. It works, though.
See, I kinda see it the other way. Generational demarcations used to be cultural and thus geographically determined back when different places had different media. Now we all have the same garbage social media, so since the 2000s it makes sense that we’re all on the same boat made of crap and hate.
For example, my parents had a moon landing, but it looked, sounded different and meant very different things. Also for example, I had no idea what Oregon Trail was or what it was about until the Internet told me it was a staple of US computer classes. If you think about it for a few seconds it may be no surprise that my equivalent was some combination of drawing dicks in LOGO, Defender of the Crown and Saboteur II.
We have local names for people born in the late 70s to mid 90s, too. After that we just use the US-designed universal names, though.
Ahhhh, OK - yes, the cultural context is also entirely country-based. All these terms are entirely US-focused. I once went to an “80’s party” that some French people put on, and it was an entirely different thing. To me, more like a late 70’s party, with the plastic and neon US cheese entirely missing.
I do agree that the washout effect is making generational cohorts obsolete in terms of media - it might just be silly trends that play into memes that have lasting power.
I was born in 96 when my mom was 19. I remember sometime in middle to early high school looking up the generation year cut offs and thinking it was wild my mom and i were considered the same generation; her being the start of the generation and me being the end.
Obviously thats no longer the case with current generation year cutoffs, but im now starting to see 96 included as the first year of gen Z which feels…wierd. I definitely dont connect with people of gen Z easily because it feels like…well…a different generation, but at the same time I feel a disconnect with other, older, millenials because they tend to remember the 90s more than myself. Im not sure about anyone else, but being born in 96 feels like being stuck between two generations that you partially relate to, but not really.
Yeah, as people insist on new names for “the youths” that they can use to write derisive articles it becomes almost impossible to match any of these arbitrary things.
By most metrics “Gen Z” is coming up on their thirties, but people still want to flag them as “the kids”, where the Gen A batch that’s still in school still aren’t the target, so you end up with this weird ongoing reclassification. It’s all kinda dumb. At the end of the day if you think about it anything since just pre-Millenials is all the same bundle of anxiety-ridden online natives that can’t afford a house. They’re all just at different stages of that process. The big cutoffs happened in the 00s with the one-two punch of the post 9/11 US imperialist nonsense and the big mortgage crisis. Everything after is just fallout.
The children
All I want is enough differentiated “adult only” spaces. I won’t say anyone how to raise their kids, just let me be in a space where that parenting is not happening.
Me watching my only heir reenact Bruegel’s Seven Vices: 🤬 (they heed me not)
Me watching the unheeded parents of another demonic recreant: 😌
“Those pesky kids need a beating” is a meme several thousands years old
Shit take
Yeah but then I see grown ass adults doing the same shit. And since they’re my age they more than likely got beat.
