isaacparents

[isaacparents]

Don’t want to “ruin mom’s tits”. Men back then were Not into lactation.

I imagine that becoming a parent was a wildly different thing in like the 70s before giving a shit was invented. Everyone just supposed that everyone's gonna do it and you just have your first at 21 after getting married at 19, let them little shits loose outside all day while your husband is at work at the Forever Chemical Pollutant Factory and you're sitting at home drunk as hell breastfeeding the baby. Your eldest Little Ronny Douglas runs in at 9 pm like "hey ma I was crawling through the ditches at the abandoned mine field three towns over and I caught this frog and my friend Donny caught tetanus" and you're just like "yeah whatever that's nice dear" and tap the ashes from your cigarette on the bald spot on top his head. You don't know why that's there but it's been there a while and you've been using it as an ashtray for a few years and it seems fine.

[isaacparents]

Parenting small children is physically tiring, and relentless, but actually pretty easy. You just keep them alive, give them playspace, wash them once in a while, and hug them as much as they want. It's why preschool teachers can have the intellect of a peanut and still do good work.

Parenting young adults is hard. Heart wrenching. You have to watch this dumbass you've been raising for years go out and start making their own decisions and fail. And you can't rescue them! You have to let them fall on their faces and figure out how to get back up again! It's like when a baby is learning to walk, but the stakes are so much higher.

But you also still have to support them. They're not quite ready to face the world without support. If you let go too soon, they might irreparably damage their lives, or not have enough resources to thrive and reach their full potential. Any assistance provided has to have clear and enforced boundaries. Every graduation to a new level of autonomy+responsibility feels like a step into the abyss, and it's only by a miracle that they don't fall in.

[isaacparents]

Yup, if they’re leaking it’s probably time to go up a size.

Mine threw up down my cleavage constantly, but that was probably partly a skill issue on my part.

Second time in a row she’s suddenly peed on me & the nursing pillow at the 3rd feed of the day, but I have learned my lesson and will not immediately unlatch her & change her, because that precipitates half an hour of inconsolable screaming 🙃

Something about my diaper technique on the second feed is clearly betraying me!

[isaacparents]

🪶💧19 Quail Chicks Drinking on a Hot Day💧🪶

[isaacparents]

📷 Mandy Davies

"Western Grebe dads share in the carrying and feeding category on a quiet and peaceful morning on the lake.

Sacramento, CA"

[isaacparents]

Quality trolling

[isaacparents]

[isaacparents]

How do you do so much with three children? I have one (admittedly very, very young) child and I feel like I'm caring for him actively at all times and scrambling to do anything else. What is your secret??

There are a few!

Some are my deepest secrets, so please be kind, okay?

1. You're in the trenches - don't judge yourself right now. Caring for your first very young kid is a massive expansion of capacity/capability and represents a learning curve in which you are scrambling to level up while the game constantly changes parameters. It's tiring. However, you ARE levelling up - and as you do so, your kid will be levelling up too. You can and will be clever and energetic again. I wanted you to know this. The secret: you have to level up fast and hard when your first kid is very young.

2. I do a lot of things, but you don't always know the quality to which I do them! While people on the internet DEFINITELY expect EVERYTHING that YOU do must be of the ABSOLUTE HIGHEST STANDARD, most people on the internet are very unclear about the standards to which they hold themselves! I recently finished a quilt for a child - it is a delightful quilt that makes the child happy, but no two edges are square! I'm a poor-quality quilter. Sure, I am a working parent who finished a quilt - but it doesn't mean it's a show-quality quilt. The Secret: most people don’t share the quality of their endeavours - anyone can appear to do a lot of things if they do them all badly! - so don't judge yourself by standards of people who aren’t sharing theirs. The converse of this is: If you are overwhelmed, you can usually drop quantity or quality.

3. Okay, so some things are stacked against me: my spouse is disabled, I don’t live on the same continent as my birth family, my in-laws are in their 80s, and I never have any bloody money. But i do have a decent serious day job and some support networks. I can often ask local people for in-person help that I need, like walking my kids to school, and I have just enough money to pay for things that help me, like #4. Secret: money and friendship can tape over a lot of small cracks that would otherwise lead to big cracks. Most people NEVER admit to having EITHER… but most parents have one or the other.

4. We do have various avenues of help, ranging from paid childcare to flexible working, and even paying professionals for things around the home and garden, even if I can technically do a lot of things myself. Even though I'm strong and skilled and physically able, I don't spend all my days chopping wood and carrying water. I own a robot vacuum and an air fryer. The secret: Where possible, we spend money to buy free time.

5. People who are legitimately entitled to my attention never feel they get quite enough of it. Probably the only ones who do are Dr Glass (for whom I stay up late every night so he feels he gets time with me; see 6) and Mouse (for whom I get up early, ditto.) my older children would definitely love it if I spent more time attentively lying on the floor playing Playmobil with them. Work would quite like me to consistently Exceed Expectations. EVERYONE IN THE FUCKING WORLD WISHES I WAS MORE RESPONSIVE TO MESSAGES (take a number! No, literally, please take a number.) secret: I am definitely not doing everything. and everyone I have ever interacted with would probably prefer if I gave more attention to their priorities.

6. I am not sleeping much at the moment. I sleep about 6 hours a night. Secret: I sleep less than is recommended for health, let alone happiness. That's not good.

7. Threaded through all of this is prioritisation. I certainly sacrifice sleep for “writing.” However, I also don’t do low-priority things AT ALL. I don’t sit down to watch television. I don’t play video games or mobile apps. I don’t wander around in circles. I don’t scroll Instagram or Reddit, and I am not reading books that don’t interest me. I’m usually multitasking, and am usually either doing high-priority tasks or things that are HEALING AND FUN (drawing horsies.) where possible, i offload and delegate, and where not possible, I apologise. Sometimes people kindly recommend me books, films, music, etc - it will literally be a case of, "I can pencil in listening to that on Wednesday." Secret: I don’t do a lot of lowkey “decompression” activities / hobbies. On the one hand, I free up a lot of time by not going on Reddit. On the other, people decompress to relieve pressure, which is a luxury I don't have.

8. I quite likely have crippling ADHD, but I’m also quite high-capacity, so I just run permanently in a really high gear with little downtime or rest as my operational state. Secret: my shoulders are broad, but most people would probably prefer to drop hobbies/standards.

9. Secret: Multiple children can be easier to care for than just one. Just one child wants all your attention. Multiple children play together or can be led through activities. I often offer to have my neighbour kids over because this makes all the children happier and easier to care for (and I receive the reciprocal favour.) note this when you need to take your kid to the park (awful by yourself, lovely with a friend.)

10. Secret: bigger kids honestly do better with certain impressive-sounding activities. It sounds impossible to make jam with three kids, but it’s literally easier than watching TV with them. Making jam is an activity where every child can be given an important task. Mouse (2) washed cherry-plums for a full half-hour. Bug (5) could have pitted cherries all day (the best way to pit large volumes of things like cherry-plums is to squeeze them in your hand and pull out the stone with your fingers.) Bear (8) could sort bad cherry-plums with reasonably good judgment, and could be trusted to stir hot jam, watch the numbers on the scale, and other literate tasks. This is (emotionally, mentally, spiritually) much easier to project manage, even in a cramped little kitchen like ours, than trying to find a television show they all like. Any household task that can include a Kid Job module is gold dust in terms of childcare/entertainment. You can also invent them if you don’t have any. It’s super hard to keep Mouse out of the kitchen when I’m in it, so Mouse does a lot of small invented jobs, like “washing things that don’t need washing” or “chopping cucumber with a butter knife.” Stuff like “doing crafts” or “having an allotment” or “camping” or “visiting attractions” ditto - crafts, travel, and gardening may sound impressive, but are all things that have lots of little tasks that can really absorb kids. Secret 10b: there will be some activities with your kids, especially as they get older, that you quite like doing. Your kid may never exactly become a HELP, and it’s not likely that all of your interests will mesh, but it does count as quality time + hobby time for you.

11. There’s a saying, “With your first kid, you need lots of help. With your second kid, you get by okay. But with your third kid, you help others.” It does get easier with time. But parenting requires skills. It makes a material difference that I’ve already experienced (and learned from) a lot of specific challenges. It would be upsetting if I hadn’t! You would EXPECT someone in their late 30s with 8 years of parenting experience to have some apparently-successful coping mechanisms and a few success markers. The alternative would be unspeakably depressing. We should EXPECT some things to stack, some powers to develop, some skills to grow, and our own characters to deepen, strengthen and evolve. The secret: skills take time to learn, but they do accumulate, and it should be noticeable when someone has spent time collecting them. Parenting may never get easier - life may never get easier - but ideally we will be developing our own character alongside these challenges, and facing them with ever-more maturity! We aren’t done growing yet either.

12. The secret: My kids are pretty easy. I've been lucky. I wouldn't have had any past the first if it had been miserable.

There are a lot of secrets. People don't talk about them. I hope that hearing about my secrets is something of a help, and helps you feel better about yourself. I think you're at a very hard point, and that it will probably be better. You're being very brave, and doing very well. You'll get somewhere good soon.

[isaacparents]

Here is a happy child....

[isaacparents]

Me to the baby: “You have two bits of state now! Quiet, crying, laughing, or squealing delightedly. Before you only had one bit. Your information entropy is going up! Do you know what entropy is? That’s ok, nobody else does either.”

[isaacparents]

okay here's some actual life advice for new parents

go to the library.

those toddler reading times are actually community-building events where you can meet fellow new parents with children the same age as your kid. you know how it's hard to socialize with all your friends, especially if they don't have young children? well here's a group of people that are far more likely to understand your situation and have free time that isn't after 9 pm on a school night. plus your kids can learn how to socialize with their own peer group. AND it's free

do NOT show up and scroll thru ur phone the entire time, the library isnt daycare, you need to be present too

[isaacparents]

[isaacparents]

Your Friend's Mom - Gator Days

[isaacparents]

Just for the record, this is absolutely what it emotionally feels like to be a new mother. Postpartum hormones and a low-key psychosis are normal (Can be high key psychosis if you’re unlucky)

I Gave Birth to a Shounen Protagonist so I Trained Myself to Avoid Death

[isaacparents]

God, I had a similar experience with a snake and my toddler. And you have to understand, I knew that there was a snake was under the play structure and I knew what kind of snake it was and that it wasn’t a dangerous. I still almost did something crazy when the biggest snake that you’ll ever see this far north popped its head out a couple feet from my son.

One of my favorite stories to tell about myself from when I was a kid is the story how my grandma’s “Catching Fairies” game was banned because of me

So when I was really little my grandma had this game she made up, she’d give me and all my cousins jars and containers and tell us that in her garden there were fairies but they were smart and tricky so they disguised themselves as caterpillars and butterflies and as grasshoppers and worms.

Whoever caught the most ‘Fairies’ won but we had to set them all free because they tended to the garden

One summer day my brothers were at the age they were dreading ‘girly’ stuff so I was playing alone

At this point I had met all the fairies in the garden and I was getting bored without any competition and with finding the same old fairies

But then just as I was begrudgingly heading back to my grandma with the same fairies as usual I found a new fairy!

I thought she was so beautiful! She was resting on the sparkly thread in the leaves and her black body gleamed in the sunlight, she had long legs and a cool red spot on her back

Excited I coaxed her onto my hand and was so giddy I found a new one! I rushed back to the farm house to show my Grandma and Dad, gently carrying my new friend.

But when my Dad and Grandma turned around to see what fairy I caught I saw the color drain from their faces and both of them freeze, I could tell something was wrong but didn’t understand

My dad congratulated me and asked me if he could see the pretty fairy, I let him but felt a little nervous seeing how terrified he looked as she moved into his hands from mine.

Slowly he walked back towards the door, my grandma clutching my shoulders then my dad LAUNCHED the fairy back into the garden which I thought was rather rude

Then we had a nice long talk about Black Widow spiders

[isaacparents]

Oh man, we didn’t see Oppenheimer in theaters because the baby was very small but maybe we could have pulled it off.

[isaacparents]

Amen to that little dude