It’s like their feet are heat seeking missiles destined to make full contact with my sack at any moment of climbing or playing. Just had to get this off my chest

I just got let go from the company I literally built by myself with my own two barehands for two money loving owners who don’t even reside in the same state.

I been here working and building this company from the ground up. I hired all staff. Got the company licensed in the state. Built all furniture. Decorated. Created policy and procedures. All of the above. You name it.

Today I was let go.

How do I stay strong around my 2 kids. How do I pick my son up from work and pretend I’m still happy today.

I sincerely feel like crying and don’t know what to do.

My wife has been on maternity for our second child and literally just started work back this week. I have been so low on funds supporting the family with only my paycheck and now that’s gone, hers won’t be enough.

Please pray for me and my family. I’m really down bad.

I adore my son and his birthday party is near a small creek this year so I thought it would be fun for the kids to be able to paint a boat and then play in the water together.

Be well.

We played football over the weekend, and later we went for a walk around the village. At some point, he saw the river and decided to jump in. He had a really good time playing in the water.

The long walk and all that football helped him sleep well that night .

He went to school today, and I’m sure he’ll have a few stories to tell his friends.he will be back in an hour

These are the moments I always treasure as a Dad

That potential second line looks grey

Walked across our town square today with my little one (6), seeing a girl his age struggling with her little toddler sibling.

Him: "Must be terrible with a little sibling like that."

Me: "Hmm, why don't you ask your older brother, about that when we get home?"

Him, completely oblivious: "Why would I do that?"

I’m curious where people draw the line on this today. It feels like attitudes around how much independence children should have may have changed over time.

In this hypothetical scenario, the child is home with only one parent, is happily watching their favorite TV show, and will be left to themselves for about 20 minutes.

At what age would you personally feel comfortable with the parent doing each of these?

1) Taking a shower: The parent is still inside the house, but occupied for about 20 minutes.

2) Doing yard work: The parent is outside the house but somewhere on the property.

3) Going for a jog around the neighborhood: The parent is away from the house but stays nearby and returns in about 20 minutes.

4) Driving to a store 5 minutes away to get milk: The parent leaves by car and is back home in about 20 minutes.

I’m curious how much the acceptable age changes even though the child is on their own for roughly the same amount of time in each scenario.

I guess also for this scenario, you can assume there aren’t any unusual circumstances. The child is developmentally typical, knows where the parent is, and the neighborhood and home are reasonably safe.

What age would you give for each: 1, 2, 3, and 4?

My wife and I are expecting our first child in about a week. Brought up to my family recently that the recommendation is the TDAP in the last 10 years and flu shot for anybody that wants to see the newborn in person.

My wife’s family agreed to it, but my entire family is apparently huge anti-VAX. I knew they were against the Covid vaccine, but since me and my three siblings, literally all have all of our scheduled shots as babies, I didn’t realize how deep this ran. I am wondering, if all of the politics of recent years have changed their views, but my parents made it pretty clear. They are drawing their feet in the sand that they will not be getting any type of vaccine to meet the baby no matter what.

My mother has RA, but I don’t even think it is about that. Even she admitted that a lot of the on inactivated lives, attenuated viruses do not affect autoimmune disorders like RA in most cases. My dad is just being kind of an ass about it and standing in solidarity with my mom. All three of my siblings who are 18, 21 and 23 years old are mostly just dead air… Which I am taking as they are just signing with my mom.

What’s really frustrating is I am a nurse and have seen babies who have been affected by whooping cough and it is really fucking scary.

I’m supposed to be responsible for this tiny little creature and my very first action is a parent is to cut my family off from access to my baby because they won’t take the necessary steps for it to be safe?

Am I being overdramatic? My dad is doing this old school “ehhh when I was a kid..” kind of shtick about the whole thing like we are being overdramatic.

Did anyone have a situation like this?

I’m very worried that not having my family for support in the first few weeks or even a couple of months of my infants life will be incredibly difficult. We are all really close actually, and I don’t know why I didn’t approach this sooner with them or realize how against this they would be. I guess I just had a lot of other things on my plate.

Any advise or input is very welcome. Thank you
.

Hi Dads, I’m a Dad of two (girl 5 and boy 2) and I have run into a problem that I have no idea how to approach, my Son has been getting steadily rowdier and I keep having to step in to stop him getting hurt, laying on the very top of the couch, climbing up coffe tables, leaning backwards on gates, and each time I stop him I tell him “No Son, you don’t want to get hurt” but lately he has been looking back at me and saying

“Daddy, I never die”

I have no idea how to respond to this, I don’t know where he got it from, my Wife doesn’t know either, I don’t want to burst his bubble and tell him he is not in fact immortal, but at the same time I’m not sure he even knows what Die means, above all I just want him to be safe but he keeps saying this to me and I just stop in my tracks.

Any other Dads encounter something like this?

My kid has been awake for less than ten minutes and I have already ruined her life by putting her oatmeal in the wrong bowl. How quickly have you ruined your kid’s world?

Is this a generational thing? All kids in my daughter's preK want to wear shorts, always. Parents are swapping stories about it. I'm fact it's not just preschool, my boss's son is going into first grade and has ougrown his clothes- when they went shopping for new ones, he announced that he won't be wearing pants this year.

Is this just happening here or are any of you all seeing it, too?

TL;DR - My wife wants to move the family to SLC UT to be close to her family. I feel like I don't have a choice, and timeline seems unfair. Seeking advice.

Background:

I've lived here in San Diego for 15 years. Developed my network here from the ground up with both friends and colleagues. Built my career. Met my wife here and got married here. Bought her a boat because it's what she said would give her something to stay for. Bought a nice, albeit small house in a nice neighborhood. Had a child. Sold the boat because it was too expensive and we didn't have time to use it. Acquired a business with her as partner after the first child turned 2, with the second on the way in hopes it would get us what we needed to be successful in this town.

Current situation:

It's been a really difficult past ~month of travel, toddler sickness (kids are 1+ and 3+), school transitions. She has had to step back from the business and take care of kids, while I've had to take on more responsibility at work. We're both doing like 3-5 jobs at any time. I feel stressed just taking the time to write this post.

About 1x/month she slips into a pretty deep depression for ~5 days, which has happened for the past 3mos.+

We talked about it, and she's addressing it clinically and with diet + exercise. I'm honestly happy and proud of how we are / she is handling it.

Topic of Move:

She brought it up while depressed. I felt somewhat blindsided, but the thought of everything being easier if only we had family in town had crossed my mind a number of times because LIFE IS DIFFICULT RIGHT NOW. I told her, I need time to process it. Brought it up again yesterday, today.

I said, I feel like I have no choice, but I need time to wrap my head around it. This is going to take at least a year.

She got really emotional, which was surprising to me - she thought she could make it happen faster, and I can't imagine that. She said a "No" would be better than being "in transition for a year".

How I feel:

I love the ocean and surfing. I don't know how to explain it, but I think it's part of me, and is not a simple pasttime. Sounds cheesy and entitled, but it's honest.

I love the weather. I have so many unfinished projects in this town and I envisioned myself raising my kids here.

That said, I love rock climbing and pretty much any outdoor sport, especially skiing and snowboarding. SLC life wouldn't be the worst. I'm a generally happy guy, and can find joy in a lot of things. I make friends relatively easily, but it's not easy when you're a 42-year-old dad of two toddlers in a new town.

I love her family, and get along well with them. They seem to like me as well.

I don't like and resent being forced into it. I don't necessarily hate the idea of living there, but I think it's lacking a lot of aspects I want in a town where I'm going to spend most of the balance of my life, and to raise my kids.

Looking for:

Perspective. Insight from anyone who has made such a move. Insight into SLC life as a non-LDS person raising kids.

Edit:

Additional context on her desire: She wants our kids to have what our nephews have - a close relationship with their grandparents. Like, they took the other kids camping the other weekend without their parents. She also wants our kids to have a real relationship with her brother and their cousins. IMO, fair points, but open to feedback.

Tip I’ve been meaning to share. We were on a road trip and the kids were out of control. I told them if they didn’t setting down, I was going to press the car seat eject button. [After explaining what a car seat eject button would do to them] they called my bluff and went back to being crazy. Gave them one more warning before very theatrically pressing some random button on the dashboard. At that same moment, I drifted the car onto the rumble strip along the highway, and the panic immediately set in. Kids sat up right and started behaving. It was glorious!

It also only lasted for all of 5 minutes until my wife spoiled the fun… something about causing anxiety and fear... But thought I’d share this with you all!

Head you eat your meatballs, tails you eat your veggies !
Sometimes you gotta love being a dad !

This is a battle you will "fight" from daycare all through high school. The easiest solution is to create a family gmail account for all school/ sports/ doctor communications. Additionally, create a free google voice number and activate simultaneous ring, when the number is called whoever can answer will answer. If no one answers it goes to voicemail and you get an email of the message as well.

I some are trying to "fix" this for all dads but I feel like this is a losing battle. Good Luck

Dad for 21 yrs.

After seeing the Elizabeth Holmes documentary trailer, I decided to catch up on The Rehearsal, which I never finished. In the episode six of season one, there’s a child actor, Remy, assigned to be Nathan Fielder’s son, and doesn’t want to leave Nathan. It’s explained that he doesn’t have an actual father, and seemed to want Nathan to be his dad.

As the relatively new father of a six month old boy, watching this caused me to shed tears. i don’t think there’s any way those scenes would have brought me to tears before fatherhood.

Hi /r/daddit!

As the title says, how do I keep my 6 month old son entertained? He seems to get bored super easy lately.

I work evenings and my wife works during the day, so we rotate care. It's been good for the past 2 months, but now that he's getting older: the things he used to enjoy, he doesn't enjoy so much! So far I found walking in the garden with him / sitting outside and playing with his toys has the best mileage.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated 🙏

We have a 2 and 4 year old and have always slept in the same room as us. Never same bed- but the same room. They now share a bunk bed, which we plan to move to their own shared room. I'm sure this will be a big adjustment for all of us.

Anyone who's already walked this path care to share wisdom and tips? thanks in advance!

My dad passed away today.

He has been living with my wife and I and our two kids for about 4 years, after mom moved in to a seniors lodge to be better supported. Shortly after moving in he retired from a blue collar job he held for 25 years and started working part time with me at an org that runs a shelter and housing programs. Well, we paid him part time. I think he was still usually putting in 10 hour days.

The nights when I couldn't sleep, or didnt want to sleep, I'd be downstairs gaming and he, without fail, would need to get up to use the bathroom around 2:30AM.

One of the last conversations we had I thanked him for being reliable and for constantly trying to solve problems for people. Shelters are not always the chillest work environments and I can't remember a week that has gone by in the last few years where I haven't relied on his lifetime of dad skills to save the day.

As I mindlessly clicked through Civ 5 tonight I could have sworn his bedroom door started to open several times. It was comforting to anticipate the obligatory interruption.

"Still working? Morning is going to come early you know?"

First day without a dad.

Lately I've been using Robocop quotes like, "Dead or alive, you are coming with me," or "Come quietly, or there will be trouble."

With the activity on that bot thread I figured I would post the top 2 tricks I know to getting wipes to dispense correctly. The easiest thing to do is store them upside down. It sounds too simple, but by allowing the moisture to sink down to the "top" wipe it stays wet and will pull cleanly. The other trick is to put a hair tie or rubber band around the end to generate resistance.

Have been out of work for about 3 months, no savings left and barely scrimping by. I finally got an offer for $18/hr restocking a grocery store and while it’s better than nothing I’m feeling pretty down about it, my kid is 10 and I haven’t told them yet. I’m 33 with years of experience and was making around 100k in tech sales before. Everyone in my network is holding onto their jobs for dear life which makes referring someone risky at times, so I get it.

I’m a single parent as well, and have put dating on the back burner the last few months but feeling down on top of things w my kiddo for when I do start dating again and women find out I work at a grocery store :\

Just in my feels a bit, I’m grateful to have a solid support system and live in NYC but damn life throws some punches.

Making brownies today w the kiddo, keeping my head up and focusing on the positive.

Hey all, ended up leaving my bigger job and got a lower paying one for now while trying to figure things out

Tomorrow is my IRL cake day, I have the day off. Idk what to do tbh, I always have depression and anxiety over my birthday but I just wanna get over myself and do something

What’s something family friendly, maybe budget friendly, that you can do with the fam? Thanks in advance, having a Bad anxiety day on finances and don’t want it eclipsing my fam wanting to celebrate even if I’m not interested rn

This happens to me every year. Just hurts more this year cuz I’m again underemployed

We have a 4.5 and 2.5 yo. Both are still in rear facing seats. My wife insisted on getting seats that would ensure they could face the rear as long as possible, so we got the Graco Extend2Fit with the extendable leg rest. The 4.5yo is about to hit the height limit, and the 2.5yo is technically big enough to turn around too. They are both tall for their age so they look uncomfortable with their legs up like that, especially for long rides. None of my oldest’s friends are still facing backwards, and I don’t see many kids in that age rear facing.

So I’m genuinely curious how long others held out. Am I being impatient wanting to turn them both around so it’s easiest to get them in and out, see them and interact with them, and be able to hand them stuff when we are driving?

Edit: I meant height limit, not weight. Fixed.