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Nester

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Well there’s going to be a last time to every single thing in your life, nothing lasts forever. Not much use dwelling on those things, just try to enjoy and participate in your kids life as much as you can.
Right, it’s just a great lesson in not taking the little things for granted, turns out they becoming big things when looking back.
 
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Captain Suave

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
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The one that always got me was "There will be a day you'll pick your kid up and hold them, put them down, and never pick them up again. It may happen without you even realizing it."

I use my daughter as a weightlifting program. I guess I'll have to start steroids if she gets too heavy for me to pick up.
 
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Prodigal

Shitlord, Offender of the Universe
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I use my daughter as a weightlifting program. I guess I'll have to start steroids if she gets too heavy for me to pick up.

My son (22) can pick me up now. He does still hit me up to play though - video games, he cuts me some slack since my FPS skills aren’t hitting on much now at 53.
 
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fred sanford

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My son (22) can pick me up now. He does still hit me up to play though - video games, he cuts me some slack since my FPS skills aren’t hitting on much now at 53.
I bought my kids a Nintendo Switch last week since they're getting to a good age for it. My 10 year old who's played Mario Kart 8 a few times at friends houses, decided to challenge his old man. Little did he know I was the Mario Kart champ back in the day. He played me in two grand prix and I got first in all 8 races. He was shocked that I knew umpteen ways to boost speed, take shortcuts, and block everything including red/blue shells. :)
 
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Conefed

Blackwing Lair Raider
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Child is crying to themselves as they shower before bed

There's an old lady who minds him sometime
With the world going crazy, she has been one of the few sane safe places

I messaged as it got late if I needed to pick them up, I was working but may take a break whenever

She said things were well, that they were almost asleep and just to come by after work

After pickup, child had another story. When I had messaged, for hours the kid sat with devices confiscated and old lady refusing he do anything other than lay on the couch to sleep. Berating him and insulting our lifestyle.

He had looked forward to drawing animations while she read, the thing she said she does well into the night.

He took it personal
 

GuardianX

Perpetually Pessimistic
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A week with my parents in their remote home...I dunno, I just feel so done with my dad but for the sake of my mom I don't wanna leave them out of things.

Everything is a fight or a "Challenge" talking about the most mundane shit. When he's around that is..the entire time we are there he finds reasons to not be around. I made the trip for my kids to see my parents not for me, so I don't care..but my kids spent more time around other people than they did my Dad for the entire trip. He does things like stack wood for hours using my youngest brother (who has autism), then a nap for an hour or so, or going off to a "Community" project he's been working on for a couple weeks (trip being planned for about 3-6 months).

He is disrespectful to EVERYONE, my grandma (Dad's mom) was there and my Dad was talking shit to her about her about everything. Not just comical ribbing but snide comments, shit that would have sent me to the ER if I did it to my mother. He made a comment about how my brothers wife lost weight and how if he wasn't a married man...

This isn't a new change for him in terms of attitude towards me or others, when my youngest was born, he heard one of my projects that he helped on had issues and was demo'd so when he arrived he told me "I'm just dropping off [Younger brother] I have a flight back." which was amazing to deal with..an angry / depressed grandma, an autistic 30 year old, 2 of my kids, a new-born and a fresh out of surgery wife.

I dunno, he made a comment about never leaving his remote area and dying up there. Part of me feels obliged to allow him this fate with my family free from his audience.

For the sake of brevity I'm leaving out a ton of the interactions that happened in the week.
 
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Larnix

Blackwing Lair Raider
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Is this the shitty parents thread now!? You basically described my dad, along with challenging everything I said add in very controlling and nothing ever being good enough.

He passed away from cancer 5 years before I had my 1st. I'm actually happy ( relieved? ) That I don't have to navigate that relationship with children in tow.

I have no advice to be honest but as long as your kids seem to enjoy themselves, just blow him off.
 
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moonarchia

The Scientific Shitlord
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A week with my parents in their remote home...I dunno, I just feel so done with my dad but for the sake of my mom I don't wanna leave them out of things.

Everything is a fight or a "Challenge" talking about the most mundane shit. When he's around that is..the entire time we are there he finds reasons to not be around. I made the trip for my kids to see my parents not for me, so I don't care..but my kids spent more time around other people than they did my Dad for the entire trip. He does things like stack wood for hours using my youngest brother (who has autism), then a nap for an hour or so, or going off to a "Community" project he's been working on for a couple weeks (trip being planned for about 3-6 months).

He is disrespectful to EVERYONE, my grandma (Dad's mom) was there and my Dad was talking shit to her about her about everything. Not just comical ribbing but snide comments, shit that would have sent me to the ER if I did it to my mother. He made a comment about how my brothers wife lost weight and how if he wasn't a married man...

This isn't a new change for him in terms of attitude towards me or others, when my youngest was born, he heard one of my projects that he helped on had issues and was demo'd so when he arrived he told me "I'm just dropping off [Younger brother] I have a flight back." which was amazing to deal with..an angry / depressed grandma, an autistic 30 year old, 2 of my kids, a new-born and a fresh out of surgery wife.

I dunno, he made a comment about never leaving his remote area and dying up there. Part of me feels obliged to allow him this fate with my family free from his audience.

For the sake of brevity I'm leaving out a ton of the interactions that happened in the week.
Not going to do a deep dive, but having been recently betrayed (discarded) by my mom I can relate. My dad is one of the nicest people in the world, but my mom has always been a nasty piece of work. This time she aimed that at me, and now I won't be talking to or seeing her ever again. Need to see if dad can handle that or if I am going to have to cut ties there as well. Shit fucking sucks.
 
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GuardianX

Perpetually Pessimistic
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I hear ya both. It's a shitty place to be on multiple fronts. For my own part I find it hard to not sound like a whiny bitch while also rationally thinking through the issues because I recognize that I am here, I am alive, my parents weren't so shit that I am dead and gone.

I guess the silver lining is that I see what he did in the past and continues to do now and I actively work to keep the good parts in my parenting style and find ways around the bad.
 
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ToeMissile

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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I hear ya both. It's a shitty place to be on multiple fronts. For my own part I find it hard to not sound like a whiny bitch while also rationally thinking through the issues because I recognize that I am here, I am alive, my parents weren't so shit that I am dead and gone.

I guess the silver lining is that I see what he did in the past and continues to do now and I actively work to keep the good parts in my parenting style and find ways around the bad.
Hardest part of parenting IMO, passing on the good and filtering out the bad.
 
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lurkingdirk

AssHat Taint
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So let me spin this a different way.

My father was an asshole while I was growing up. No relationship. He was just angry all the time. However, sometime in his 50s he had a massive life change. He turned into the kind of person I aspire to be. He was so kind and caring while my mother had cancer. He was a beautiful man with his grandchildren. All his anger was somehow dealt with. It was such a massive turn around it took me nearly a decade to adjust to this new person - because that's what he was. A totally new, caring, loving person. Sometimes things get better with age.
 
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Hateyou

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Same happened with my grandpa. One of his sons, my uncle, moved across the country to get away from him. He used to hit me and my cousin for laughing too much, yell at us all the time for stupid shit like talking too much or chewing with mouth open. Was just always grouchy and angry. As he got older he changed a lot and got nice, never yelled or grumped about anything, got a sense of humor about everything. I remember my uncle commenting that he was unrecognizable from his first ~60 years of life.
 

Conefed

Blackwing Lair Raider
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Is this some sort of allegory or did this actually happen to your kid?
oh it happened/

We've given distance. The old lady is friends with my mother so she has tried to coerced us back into a relationship. But this is 2023, burn all the bridges
 

Springbok

Karen
<Gold Donor>
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So let me spin this a different way.

My father was an asshole while I was growing up. No relationship. He was just angry all the time. However, sometime in his 50s he had a massive life change. He turned into the kind of person I aspire to be. He was so kind and caring while my mother had cancer. He was a beautiful man with his grandchildren. All his anger was somehow dealt with. It was such a massive turn around it took me nearly a decade to adjust to this new person - because that's what he was. A totally new, caring, loving person. Sometimes things get better with age.
Describes my old man pretty well up until cancer took him. I am remiss I didn’t have more time to know dad 2.0, but I think there’s a good lesson in there.
 
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Rod-138

Trakanon Raider
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Hey sorry kind of wrong thread kind of right thread, but any of you experience a wife / mom going from full time to stay at home to run the house?

we have 2 kids and I’m starting to make some cheese, but it would definitely put a little more stress on me to deliver. Financially now, we’re in a good place, but if she quits we’re only in an ok place.

She would be able to focus on the 2 boys, 6/7, but I’ve heard and seen some mixed results from this. You get to come home to a house that is less chaotic potentially, but it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Anyone have 2 cents ?
 

Hateyou

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Guessing it just takes the right woman. Some can stay home and just do nothing and make a big mess. Others you can come home to a spotless house and dinner. I’ve heard stories from both sides.
 
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Oblio

Utah
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Hey sorry kind of wrong thread kind of right thread, but any of you experience a wife / mom going from full time to stay at home to run the house?

we have 2 kids and I’m starting to make some cheese, but it would definitely put a little more stress on me to deliver. Financially now, we’re in a good place, but if she quits we’re only in an ok place.

She would be able to focus on the 2 boys, 6/7, but I’ve heard and seen some mixed results from this. You get to come home to a house that is less chaotic potentially, but it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Anyone have 2 cents ?
Can she work part time while the kids are in school? Assuming they are in school 30 hours a week, she could work work 20ish and still have some down time while they are gone and be able to keep up on everything else.