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Please adopt. None of us are individually all that special, you don’t need to see your bloodline continue. The interests of DNA are not our interests. If having your own DNA reproduced is more important to you than raising a child who needs a parent, you probably shouldn’t be a parent at all.

Having children.

I think when people think in terms of “my dad did this, I won’t do that”, they often miss what the real issue was. They end up being bad parents, just in a different way.

My wife and I raised three kids, and I fucked them up in my own special way. Not anything like how my parents did me.

If I were to look back over my life and offer advice, the advice I’d offer is: get some therapy. Have a disinterested, professional person to talk to every, single, damn week for the rest of your life. Being a parent will fuck you up.

And that’s coming from someone who doesn’t regret having kids.

When I was first thinking about having kids, I was thinking I didn’t have the right personality. I spoke to my brother who had one child at the time, and he explained that when you have a kid you’re so filled with love for them that nothing they do bothers you.

I had a kid. From birth to about 18 months, he screamed. He screamed for everything. He would scream for hours about anything that bothered him. My mom worked as a nurse in a hospital nursery. She cared for her kids, friends kids, family’s kids. She said that in her entire life she never heard a baby scream so loud. My MIL was also a nurse and worked in maternity. Same deal. She was amazed at how loud he was.

I called my brother up to yell at him. He said I was right and he got it wrong. His first kid was easy. His second kid would get him so tight he’d have to leave the house to get away from her.

Back to my kid: Everyone asks, “oh, was it colic?” No. Not colic. The instant he started talking, he stopped screaming. The screaming was just what he did to communicate before he could talk.

I mention the story about the screaming because that was the easy part of parenting.

I wouldn’t hit my kids. At least not until they can reasonably fight back and only if we are in a ring because they agreed to fight.

Lots of spanking involving hard shoes. Bonus that my sister and I had to pick the instrument of our prolonged beatings… and if we picked something ‘too soft’ our dad would get a much worse item. Never found out what it would be, but the extra level of terrorism was a nice touch.

Cold, distant mother who was not a victim of abuse as we were. She didn’t care what he did. Your classic malignant narcissist who was expert at praising herself in just about any conversation. ‘Oh you did well in that programming course you just took? My teacher told me I was the best he ever saw’. Both in reference to Visual Basic for an extra level of rank stupidity.

Both of them seemed to view their friends as commodities to be exchanged as soon as they lost their value or someone better came along. I can’t remember how often I got to hear about some ‘friends’ who they didn’t associate with who “didn’t know what they were talking about” in reference to some interest of one or both. Horse riding, wine tasting, etc.

I had alcohol poisoning at 12 due to both their view we should be able to drink at dinner (absolutely fine in a vacuum) but having the kind of friends they did at the party this happened at.

My mom tried to get me to at least puff on a cigarette when I was 5… I already thought her smoking was gross so I didn’t.

And my favorite was at 7 when I suffered a severe TBI that resulted in swelling on my brain and diagnosis that I needed surgery at alleviate it. My mother, a mildly famous biochemist who was conveniently anti science in most of her views, realized I need some veggie smoothies and psychic healing instead. Phew, good thing it doesn’t cause problems to this day almost a half century later.

Maybe that’s why I just shrugged when she died a couple weeks ago.

I’ve tried exceptionally hard to not be them, both in adult relationships and those with my stepdaughter and her kids. I’m not terribly close with the former by her choice (none of the family is as since she joined a VERY fundamentalist church and went all in on madness) but both of our grandkids are a nearly daily part of my life.

if they’re introverted, don’t treat that as a “defect” that needs to be fixed

“No buts! Because I said so”

I explain things to my kids so they know WHY we are doing them. If they have an idea as to why we should be doing it differently, like give me 10 more minutes first, or I like it this way, then I listen, consider a compromise, if at all possible.

For example, if it’s time for bed, but they’re in the middle of a fortnite match, then I let them finish it. If it’s time for school, and they just started a match, sorry, turn it off, you knew we had to leave soon.

beating them with a belt.

throwing ALL their stuff out into the street because the kid was late one time

these seemed like mistakes to me so I didn’t do them with my kid

Hmm… All of them?

I don’t have kids.

Ha, ha, yes, I’m very funny :P

To answer your secondary question, well, I’m not sure. I can think of infuriating things adults did when I was a kid, but it isn’t something I think a lot about day-to-day.

Things like hearing a dismissive “No one ever said life was fair”, maybe.

Not teaching me a lot of basic shit, like how to shave, how credit/debit works, exploring food like sushi, teaching me about other countries.

I was taught a lot, especially common sense. I can troubleshoot and diagnose like a madman, even things I know very little about. But my dad wasn’t a talker, so didn’t get much there.

I talk to my kid about everything, we lookup what we don’t know or want to know more about. I go over mistakes I made in life giving him examples of how to not make the same mistakes and save himself the time and trouble.

We call everything “experience”, even bad things, and we learn from them, not unlike skill points and experience points in video games. You can learn from anything, not just good things.

Yeah nah, not having kids. I do like kids, but I recognise my ability to withstand stress and sleep deprivation is pretty limited. My own parents did a number on me besides, and I’m not introducing a living thing into this world to perpetuate that trauma

I mean, the entirety of my interaction with my parents was:

Mom: Dumped me on her mom, and grandma

Dad: Left the state to chase tail

So, y’know. Short list of things not to do.

In terms of adults in general:

• If a kid is failing in school despite knowing the material, maybe something is wrong.
• Do not give an 8 year old unrestricted access to the internet when LiveLeak was a thing
• If a therapist says the kid has depression/anxiety, don’t bring them to another therapist just because one of the drugs that’s prescribed for that can cause suicidal ideation in some preteens
• If a therapist lets you stay in the room while the session is going on, the kid is 100% lying to everyone in that room, maybe even themselves
• Don’t stay in the room with the therapist
• Literally those last 3 points are what keeps therapy from working for me. I can’t trust therapists at all. DO. NOT. DO. THAT.
• If you’re religious, and your religion is anti-queer, your child can still be queer, they’ll just be miserable, and not trust you

I think that’s it, really. Aside one thing: They’re people, not property. Treat them like people, and you’ll have a lot better time with them.

Having kids.

None cuz I’m childfree

But they did make a lot of mistakes. The biggest was putting religion as #1 priority and kicking me out when i was 17 because they suspected i was living in sin.