this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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parenting

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How's the family?

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[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Swim lessons 4 days a week. It’s great in that it’s through the city so it’s very cheap… but getting kids to swim lessons every day after work means we get home, eat something, then go right to bed. Not really how I was hoping to spend the summer, but at least the kids really love getting in the pool. And a couple times we went for frozen yogurt after, and those have been some really nice times with them.

[–] RedWizard@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago

Wow 4 times a week? My kid would explode! She does one day a week and she's literally buzzing all day that day lol. It really does feel that way sometimes, right? Get home, eat, sleep, rinse, repeat! Swimming is such a necessary life skill though, so worth it.

[–] RedWizard@hexbear.net 9 points 1 week ago
[–] RedWizard@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

4th of July is coming up and our oldest is probably old enough to internalize some ideas about the holiday. Neither me or my wife are ever excited by the holiday.

How do you talk about 4th of July with your kids?

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 3 points 3 days ago

Mine are too young. Right now I’m trying to make it just about the fireworks, kinda treating it like “firework day” because firework shows are genuinely fun. Honestly I feel like if neither you or your wife are patriotic the other 364 days, kids won’t really care about celebrating America. My parents are very conservative but weirdly not patriotic at all, so for us the 4th never felt like a big deal.

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago

Canada Day is coming up too. We're going to wear Orange (the indigenous visibility color idk) and be honest about the history in a way that isn't too heavy but not really sure what that looks like in practice

[–] SoyViking@hexbear.net 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

My 14 year looks forwards to being conscripted for a year in the army when she turns 18. She'll volunteer if she doesn't get drafted. She is otherwise of sound mind, intelligent and has good politics. She just doesn't seem to be able to make the connection between being in the army and being a tool of the racist ghouls that she hates. She thinks it is just a big summer camp where you get to larp doing action bullshit.

To be fair, they're not sending conscripts to do war crimes abroad, not yet at least, but I'm my opinion, the way things are today, the best thing you can do to preserve your body and your soul is to stay as far away as you can from being an armed goon for the regime.

I feel very alone with this opinion. I seem to be the only one in the family who actually takes the stated goas of the military even remotely serious. Everybody else seems to think it is all about building character and learning discipline and making friendships and that kind of bullshit.

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago

I'm so sorry about this. At least, on the bright side, you have about 4 years to convince her otherwise if world events don't do that for her already.

[–] tombruzzo@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago

Your country must have a list of war crimes they've done somewhere, just like all countries do. That might convince her

[–] waitaminute@midwest.social 2 points 1 week ago

I wanted this too for a short period in High school and phased out of it by the time I graduated. I feel like I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my life and that was an easy answer.

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I've made a grave error in judgement that's going to require time and effort to remedy.

My toddler is addicted to PlayStation.

Caveat: We do plenty of stuff outside and crafts and whatnot it's not like it's their only form of entertainment.

It's the first thing he asks to do after waking up to the point where they now know they have to do something else first and will ask if it's game time the entire time. They've been playing Spiderman 2 and when we imagination play outside or with toys it's almost always Spiderman related.

In fact, they've started referring to things in real life as missions. We saw two puppies playing while on a walk and they stopped and said "dad let's do the watching dogs mission"

We're working on it. Limiting the time while not making other activities seem like punishments.

Gamer parents are a curse

[–] tombruzzo@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I need to keep this in mind as I try to show my kids games more. They like playing but can't figure out things like joysticks yet

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago

my little one isn't even 4 and can play spiderman 2 on their own without help. They learn fast when they're interested

[–] waitaminute@midwest.social 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Describing things happening as missions is super cute though.

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago

INCREDIBLY cute

[–] waitaminute@midwest.social 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

7 weeks of solo parenting starts today. We had fish sticks and watermelon for dinner just cause we can. My kid has adopted a dead butterfly, the whole walk home he said “mama, thank you for bringing the butterfly home” as I carried that, my kid, the dogs leash and a filled poop bag back home on our walk.

[–] CleverOleg@hexbear.net 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

While it may be a bit more stressful doing it solo, I also suspect it will lead to some really great memories (like the one you shared)

[–] waitaminute@midwest.social 2 points 3 days ago

Yeah, I agree. Also it has really pushed me to do more instead of less so far.

[–] acabjones@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 6 days ago

Godspeed. I get nervous contemplating just a weekend of solo parenting. But it pretty much always ends up fun and special ❤️