You live in Germany don’t you

We have friends with a similar age gap, she is I think 36 and he is 56 now. Their son is 3.5. He also has grown up kids not much younger than his wife. The kid was planned.

It’s hard and he is passing on having another child for age reasons (see below), but their son is great and none of them regret the decision. The dad’s back and knee are bad, so running after their Duracell powered son who looks like Finn from Adventure Time (that hair! Dude is set for life, he’ll make bank as a hair modell) can get difficult. But they manage and are active and a very cute and happy family. Having a kid is always hard and stressful, unless you are a tiktok influencer, then it is the easiest thing you’ve done because it comes so naturally to you /s

As for it “feeling strange”: from my own life experience, things only feel strange if you allow them to feel strange. Everything can be awkward and weird and strange and whatever, or you just decide this is your life and only you get to decide what is and what is not strange.

As for my friends, I think nothing about anything in their life feels weird. She literally lived with her now husband and his son for a while. It was fine. His kids are cool with the younger sibling. They get to choose what is normal. They chose that this is. Their family is. This is their family and their normality.

To add: Having two little kids vs one little kid is a whole different level. He has first hand experience in that, so I don’t think not wanting another kid means he regrets it. Not at all. I think he just realizes that this would be not double as hard but quadruple as hard and he won’t be able to do that. My husband is 35 and cannot imagine having a second child for similar reasons. He just doesn’t have the energy level for another small being - and it will be more than double the energy required, while he couldn’t give an extra 50% even if he wanted to.

So the question is really, how do you feel about it? Do you two have some energy left? Are you ok with taking on the majority of the physical work? Even if your partner is doing fine physically now, he might decline sooner than you think, unexpectedly.

I might add, bluntly: you have already decided that it is ok for you that the likely (if not ideal) outcome of your relationship is that your husband dies much before you. You will likely be a young widow. It might also be that he lives to 100 and you die in a freak accident after reading this. I’m not telling you anything new here. This is just to remind you of your choice and your thoughts on this when you decided to commit to each other. Because a lot of people point out that your kid might not have a dad for long. (Which, yeah, other people lose their parents at a young age too, but having it be more likely is another thing, although, does this mean sick/disabled people with a shortened life span should not have kids either, and then we are in eugenics territory or the antinatalists chime in.)

Anyway, I’ll get a lot of hate in the comments (honestly taking this question to lemmy where a lot of antinatalists are hanging out is crazy) but in my opinion - which must be totally valuable to you lol - I’d go for it. Even if it is hard and you reach your limits, this is such a short time of intense chaos in your life. And then you’ll have a kid. You’ll have experienced this crazy thing. And love and support don’t care for your age. Hugs and kisses are just as heartfelt. Your kid will be just as much of their own person, no matter what age their parents were. We all don’t have a perfect family. But as I mentioned above, normal is what you define is normal. And a perfect and ideal family is whatever you decide it is.

Thank you for reading all of this.

Congrats, you perfectly missed the point of the message you replied to.

Maybe your nephew gets the iPad all the time and that messed up his frustration tolerance. Ok. You might have a closer inside to how he is parented. When you see someone outside with a kid on an iPad you cannot know these things about them. Whatever it looks like to you, you’re judging strangers based on a one point observation.

Apfelschorle

I know this sounds very “duh” but I had an epiphany when I realized that the reason I hated advice and tips for parenting was that I didn’t see my kid as a child, I saw her as a person. And just like I would be offended if my partner took some rando’s advice on “women” to deal with me, I get subconsciously defensive when my daughter is treated like a kid that comes with a handbook. There are 5 ticks for this behavior in this age and one of them will work. Fuck that. It doesn’t and it doesn’t need to and it shouldn’t be expected to. She’s an individual, there is no manual for that.

She’s turning 4 soon btw - and I love her to bits with her chaotic insanity. I feel as if it’s not like she doesn’t fit into a box or likes to think outside the box - she just dismantles the box, it is non-existent to her. She is actually very social, popular and follows rules well in kindergarten. Despite her answer to that theory of mind question about where the doll is being “there’s multiple dolls” which spins into a Lynchian tale about parallel dolls

I mean, the dick punch was really unnecessary but I am glad that other families experience… Weirdness, I guess. And exclusion of a parent.

I can’t count how often I read and heard the advice to “just present your kid with two options to choose from”.

My kid, even before she became verbal, always wanted option C when presented with two options.

“Do you want this hat or this cap?” “Neither”

“Do you want this blue pants or these red sweatpants?” “I want… a green… dress” we don’t even have a green dress.

“Shall we go to the zoo today or do you want to go to the playground with Anna?” “I want to go on the trampoline” .

Thank you so much!! I wish I had more stuff to post but I’ll try 🫠 I think the guilt tripping is working

Thank you!

I 👏 want 👏 more 👏 girl 👏 content 👏

To be clear - I am talking about stereotypically “female” subjects, not about the gender itself, and I hope it goes without saying that I want people of all genders to be part of it. Some topics over on reddit are full of guys, NBs, and everyone else, but are what a bigoted 90s teacher would call “female” topics. I want more stuff of what that 90s teacher would call “girly” stuff.

I mean, something like a makeup community. Maybe skincare and fashion. Cleaning tips. Pre and post and peri pregnancy content. The parenting community on lemmy is super quiet. There is a sewing community but it is rather quiet too. I haven’t found a mending focused community yet. Boy there even isn’t a sailor moon community, like 😭 come on

I’m horrible in creating any content tho, so uhm, not sure I should be complaining.

It’s a show, not a movie, but I have been watching Fleabag at least 20 times on repeat within half a year (November to April). I do a lot of housework and it often plays in the background while I cook or clean. I know every line. I know every shot and smile and can basically watch it in my head.

When I was 11, I was watching the VHS tape with Pirates of the Caribbean daily for about 1.5 months.

Movies and series are just one of my favorite things in the world. I do want to make time for that. Are there more important and wholesome things to do? Absolutely. But I also feel like I should be allowed to do something not meaningful or important every now and then. I’ve been thinking about it a lot throughout my life, whether, on my deathbed, I will regret having watched so much stuff, thinking I should have spent that time differently. I don’t think I will. Because I love stories. I think it is one (possible) meaning of life, to listen to as many stories as you can. I listen to people’s stories, to things that are actually happening, and TV and movies are another medium that also tells stories. I understand that a lot of people prefer books, maybe that’s objectively the better, healthier choice, but I am fine with choosing the former. I once fancied a career in that field, but after a year I realized that it killed any joy I got out of it, and fucked up my health (99.9% of people are smokers). But at the end of the day, thinking of something from scratch and conveying this idea of events to someone else is fantastic. It is amazing. I feel like I have lived a thousand lives, and I want to live another thousand.

And I reevaluate that question and my answer to it often, on a regular basis. So far, I am very d’accord with it.

Also, just to make it clear, of course I do other stuff. I go outside with my kid every day, we play, we are being creative, I meet a lot of people and always have. I just don’t see less value in watching a movie than in woodwork, gardening, sewing. Also, to be fair, a lot of times when I watch something, it’s because I can’t do anything else, “more productive”, in that moment. I’m not gonna go turn on the sewing machine at midnight. The realistic choice is between watching tiktoks, shorts, etc, or hanging at lemmy for an hour, or watch a movie. I think watching a movie (or half) is time better spent than on social media clicking through short videos.

I’m confused, this isn’t loss