Every Wednesday I take my daughter to scouts. After scouts we take an unnecessarily long way home, playing music we like at each other and chatting. It’s a highlight of my week too.
My youngest and I have been on our own since she was 8 months old. She’s now 11. She has two older siblings and 4 nieces and nephews. She went to spend last summer with her sister and family and asked to stay through the next summer. That was July 16th 2023. Hardest decision I’ve made yet. But I couldn’t find a reason to say no that wasn’t selfish or self serving. She needed this time. Her mother hasn’t been in her life and her 27 year old sister is the “mother figure” she clung to.
She will be home in a few weeks.
It’s the moments like these I miss the most. Watching them in real-time discover themselves.
Anyway, y’all just take every fucking chance you get to sit still in moments like these. Enjoy them.
Fun to joke about but activities with my teens are still my highlights. They don’t have to be the stereotype.
The real problem is their increasing absences, their approaching independence. It’s really frustrating fostering their independence, pulling back from taking care of them, dreading their impending “graduation” into adulthood.
On the other hand at my performance review, my manager spent most of the time encouraging to get back into dating now that kids are gradually leaving, trying to give me tips and encouragement, so I got that going for me
I’ve got a pretty wide spread on my kids (step & bio). One in college, 3 teens and a ten year old.
Every phase has its ups and downs. Some days I wish the teenagers wanted to involve us more, and other days I wish the ten year old would just give me some space! 😂
Yooo… ever since having my first child, my daughter, it feels like time is fkin flying. Every single day at work I’m thinking to myself… I want to be home with my family, I need to find a way out of wage slavery.
As a childless Millennial, nothing sounds weirder to me than to hear someone speak like a Zoomer and mention having a child in the same sentence. In my eyes, y’all are still teenagers.
Adulting is hard 😑 didn’t exactly help I emigrated to my spouse’s home country, we had our child, I (finally) got my career properly going, and we bought a house, all in a span of two years. But, even without all that, adulting would be a lot. Up until I started actually feeling like an adult, I wanna say somewhere in my 30s, it usually seemed like adults had their shit together. Either life used to be somewhat easier, or part of adulting is getting really good at pretending you have your shit together…
After my son was born I would get up in the morning, usually before he and wife were awake, go to work. When I got home from work I would be lucky to see him for an hour before my wife put him to bed. Hardly ever saw him.
Then the pandemic happened, he just turned two at the time. I was then told to work from home. It was brilliant. I got to spend so much time with my son. I still work from home now but he’s at school these days.
The pandemic was not kind to a lot of people but for me personally I have great memories because of it.
Damn, this is about the same scenario with me. But after being laid off in my last role, which was remote, I got stuck into a role where I have to be on-site. I’m still applying to remote roles, I can’t settle for on-site work especially when 90% of my work can all be done through PC/Internet access.
Similar for me. I got let go from a good job right before the pandemic. Got some unemployment, then it kept getting extended because of the pandemic.
Got to spend everyday with my boy, and used the time to start my own business and things have never been better. It starts ripping by fast, though.
I always think, there was a time when my dad lifted me up and neither of us knew it was for the last time.
Sometimes I don’t want to do kid stuff, don’t have the energy or whatever. I try to picture myself 80 years old, gone back in time for one day with my young family, always give me the energy to keep it up.
Yeah that’s exactly it. Sometimes I don’t want to do family stuff. My wife plans things like going to the beach which I really don’t like but I keep thinking about the memories both me and my son will get. My dad hardly did anything with me, I want to make sure I’m giving my son good memories.
How about waking up early on a rainy Monday for a conference call? But then the whole week is rescued by the coworker in India talk about the heat and lack of rain, and how late it is after the end of their workday
My little one and I had a secret thrill together. He had a very early commitment on Saturday, so we’d go to Friendlys after. It was still pretty early so families would be there eating breakfast, while we were “those” people with an ice cream Sundae. All those kids would be so jealous thinking my little one got to have ice cream for breakfast, and I always got glares from exasperated parents. Little did they know we’d been up for hours, already had a good breakfast while it was still dark, and had already spent more time doing stuff together than many of them would the entire rest of the day
I bet if you make a list of positive things about yourself, and undoubtedly there are many of them, fears you have overcome, goals you’ve reached, things you can be proud of that come naturally to you. Reach back to your childhood, perhaps, to your natural state, before the world ground you down.
Read the list to yourself two or three times every day. I promise you, it will light a spark of positivity that will burn for hours afterward. You’ll feel your mind resolving thoughts more positively. Negative thinking will become less instinctive. Intrusive thoughts will fade.
For me the hardest part was shaking this idea my parents had engrained in me, that the consequence of hard work is being tired and even complaining. That’s not true. The consequence of hard work is momentum. Hard work gets easier the more you do it.
You can either suffer the discomfort of hard work or the discomfort of regret, so it’s worth it to make friends with doing things you don’t want to do, because as far as I can tell it never stops.
I have a 4 year old son and I absolutely love taking him to have some ice cream (he loves Yogurtland). The excitement and smile on his face when he gets a treat he likes is the thing I will think about most when I’m on my death bed. It wasn’t the new car or the promotion that will cross my mind, it will be about spending time with him and doing things which make him the most happy.
This kind of thing is seriously the best that life gets. Being able to recognize those moments and appreciate them is one of the best skills somebody can obtain. Mindfulness meditation and stoic philosophy have helped me immensely in being able to appreciate these types of situations for the real value that they have.
As a father of a toddler, I try to appreciate every day and not take these types of moments for granted.
I’m very mindful of the fact that this time I’m living in right now is the period of my life that I’ll revisit in my memories on repeat when I’m an old man.
I do this with my daughter while waiting for her therapy appointment. We sit in the park across the street and eat a happy meal while chatting. I don’t know if it’s the therapy or the time together but she’s so much more balanced since we started this I’m good paying for the therapy even if it’s our conversations that are making that difference.
It’s one of the highlights of my week, and I’m about to leave the office to go grab her for it.
This is absolutely beautiful and it’s making me cry. Therapy is so important and so is time with you, just enjoying each other’s company, being relaxed. Precious moments.
My ancestors had a phrase that has become the popularized saying “today is a good day to die”
Hokahey
Crazyhorse being the badass he was, would yell it when charging into battle.
It’s not really meant as “time to die” but more of I am ready! I am brave. I am strong. I love my family and they love me. If today is the day, so be it. I am ready for judgement!
The Lakota were the badasses that forced the US Army to surrender. The Dakota areas would be a much different place if they had the numbers to stop people from using the Oregon Trail.
So the Klingons using that phrase has always been a lovely thing
I spent my childhood sitting in the back of a car whilst my mum and her best mate would moan about men every night, or following them around to see if they were in the pub getting pissed so she could go and throw drinks at him.
One day we came home as we were being burgled, probably my people my step dad knew.
I would have taken ballet and ice cream, even as a dude.
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