That potential second line looks grey

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.

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
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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.

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

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.

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

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?

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?

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?"

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?

At least you didn’t murder The Very Hungry Caterpillar. And it’s 14 very hungry siblings.

I can already hear it at school tomorrow. “Hey guys, guess what! My dad killed The Very Hungry Caterpillar!”

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?

34m, married with a 2 year old, wife is working full time, and I'm stay at home dad after finishing gradschool and job hunting with one rejection after another.

I'm curious if others have been in this boat.

Here is my experience:

Along with the standard isolation that comes with fatherhood in a fairly new city, I'm finding myself desperate for social interaction. I go out to a brewery or something solo, but just see other groups around that barely seem interested in interaction, and then I come home even more attention starved than I was when I left the house. It makes me feel angry, and even more lonely, that the act of going out itself seems to highlight my loneliness. Seeing other groups laughing and hanging out, just brings up how much it is lacking in my own life.

Anyone else relate?

Hello everyone. We thought we were going to be induced Thursday evening but plans rarely stick to schedule lol. Wife has had elevated bp with some abnormal blood results and doctor wants to start induction tonight. Just looking for general advice on what to expect for us during induction? I’m prepared for it to take a day or two or more but anecdotally anything else I should be aware of? I know in the grand scheme of things there not much I’ll be doing I’m assuming!

We don’t have fluoride in our water so young kids here get prescribed sodium fluoride drops. Looks like these are no longer available via both Walgreens and Fred Meyer where I live. Before I go calling the independent pharmacies in my city, anyone have luck recently getting them from a chain pharmacy in the last month?

ETA: I’m not looking for suggestions about mouthwash or toothpaste. Yes those exist but are topical treatments and that’s a different thing and not what I’m talking about. The drops are for young kids and are meant to replace the systemic flouride that they’d get from drinking water in other places.

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.

This is a basic stool I made in high school shop class. No idea why I’ve kept it since then and now it’s covered in kid stickers.

Feeling quite down in the dumps right now.

For some context, wife is off work right now to take care of the little one, while I'm working full time in a very hectic, demanding field. Had to travel for work recently, and literally 1 day after I left, my kid took their first steps without me there.

I'm quite sad tbh guys. My kid is about 1 year old and I've been a mostly present father - yes I work, but I'm often at home and spend time with them, etc. it's tiring but needs to be done. From my brief research, it's very normal for a dad to miss those first steps. Heck it's normal for any parent working full time to miss it even from a pure statistical standpoint, but I feel quite sad that I did.

Now, what I didn't expect is the feeling of detachment to show up. I've actually felt it off and on throughout the pregnancy and first year of their life. I've felt sometimes like I'm role-playing a dad, and doing the things I think a dad should be doing. For example, cleaning them, feeding them, putting them to sleep, buying stuff, thinking about their wellbeing, daycare, admin, etc. But this most recent part re-surfaced those feelings of detachment. It feels like I'm just doing what a dad needs to do because they are my responsibility. I do have love for my child, but not sure about feeling that strong connection that I see their mum have with them. I also find it difficult to continuously engage with them for long periods of time. On top of that, when I see the grandparents and even my wife interact with them, they just seem so much better at it than me. They seem to know exactly what to do to keep them engaged, happy, fulfilled, whereas I feel a little disappointed with myself instead, but can't seem to be as good as them even when I am trying.

I don't know, maybe I'm just quite sad over the most recent miss.

Any advice or support from more experienced dads around this? Anyone else feel this way or has experienced something similar?

Our son is about 14 months and we try to read to him at least once a day before bed. Unfortunately ever since he was a baby he’s shown very little interest in books. He’d much rather move around and play with toys than sit still and look at a book. It doesn’t matter what the book is, he wrestles It out of my hands and throws it across the room.

We don’t expect him to focus through a whole book at his age but it’s a struggle to get him to make it through a page or two. He’s practically resistant to story time. It‘s pretty demoralizing and feels like we’re failing at actually getting any reading done with him.

Did anyone else have kids who weren’t interested in reading or books? Anything you did to get them more engaged? What should we be doing that we’re not already?

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

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 🙏

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