Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with parenthood

Baby Daughter Daddy

jasondigitized — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:33:10 -0800

Help me with gender disappointment. My wife and I just had an ultrasound and found out our baby will be a girl. I was hoping for a boy because I never knew / met my father. My dad was a completely absent f*ck-up. I was hoping to somehow fill that void by giving my son what I never had and teaching him the things I had to learn on my own. I know I will be overjoyed when my daughter is born, but right now, I am feeling quite sad. What is a good way to look at this, and what can I look forward to with having a girl

How can I prepare myself for being a daddy?

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 12:04:55 -0800

I don't feel ready to have kids, ever. How can I shorten that to around 2-3 years? I'm 30. My girlfriend is 32. We'll probably be getting married in the next year or so (we talk about it, I just haven't proposed yet) and after that it's just a matter of time before she'll want to have kids. She has said she does not want them now (so no immediate pressure), but she does want them eventually (although possibly we might adopt).

I don't feel ready to have kids, at all. The thing is, I do want to have them eventually, so rather than putting this off until I feel ready I want to become the sort of person who is ready to have children.

So, I have 2-3 years. What are some things I can do to prepare myself for having kids, emotionally, mentally, economically, and physically? Will I ever feel ready? Or just scared as hell by the whole idea?

Thanks.

I looked through the past questions, and most of them ask "How do you know when it is the right time to have a child?" I want to know how to feel like I'm ready to have one.

Can it be that it was all so simple then?

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 09:51:46 -0800

I am 28. I have a wife and an 11 year old daughter. I am going through a minor, yet stubborn crisis. Can you help? I am going through a small crisis, and as far as I can tell, it has two interdependent sides. I’ll do my best to briefly explain them.

On the one side, I feel my life isn’t moving forward-that it’s over before it began. I managed to get an English degree with high honors from a respectable liberal arts college. While I was there, I got a job at a small internet company that paid well and allowed me to work from home. As you can imagine this was a great commodity for me, considering how hectic my life was. But, unfortunately, working from home, and for such a small company, has basically zeroed my professional contacts. On top of this, my job is chronically understaffed, so I am forced to do many different jobs, but in the time I have spent there (5-6 years), I haven’t mastered anything well enough to really sell myself to another job. For example, I am ok at web design, but not great. I am a good writer, but not great. I understand computer programming, but am unable to do it myself. So basically, I have been formed for this job, and can’t see a way to branch out. My daughter is now old enough and my life stable enough, combined with the fact that I don’t see this job going anywhere, I want to branch out, but I can’t see how. No contacts. No great accomplishments. No friends. I’ve applied to jobs, etc. But I just don’t know where to put my efforts. It doesn’t help that I get paid relatively well right now and nothing else seems to offer enough money.

This brings me to the other side of my crisis. Since I am not moving forward and have been spinning my wheels in place for two years, I am getting more and more nostalgic. Wanting to go back to a time when I felt that my life had prospects. The past is overrated, as we all know. But I find myself thinking regularly of people I haven’t spoken to in 10 years, wondering how they are doing. Listening to music I listened to when I was 16 or 17. I get sort of depressed because I remember how open my life felt. I even tried to contact someone from years ago on a pay phone one night, but the number I found was no longer in service.

I feel like I am caught between an undoable future and an unreachable past. I feel confident that if I can get my life going, the pathetic nostalgia will pass. I haven’t even made a new friend in like 4 years. And lost many of the friends I made from before that due to my life just being so drastically different than theirs or me being a dick, etc. I have trouble relating to people my age. And people with children as old as mine are all 40. I drop my daughter off at school and the parents all feel closer to my parents’ age than mine.

As for positives, I know my family is doing well. I have managed to get my daughter into a wonderful middle school. My wife is in college. I have stellar credit, and I feel pretty good about myself when I get out of bed. We are happy and safe. But I feel very stuck. I have a lot of interest and natural talent when it comes to identity and brand design, but I just don’t know how to leverage that into a job. Should I go back to school? I am scared that after years and years, I will have to get an entry level job which won’t even pay me enough to support my life.

I just feel real confused. What should I do? If for any reason you want to reach me directly, contact me at 36chambersofconfusion@gmail.com.

Alternatives to Dora The Explorer?

adamt — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 04:18:01 -0800

My daughter is mad for Dora The Explorer. I think it's a good enough program for her if she's going to be watching TV; we get involved and she doesn't just vegetate in front of it. That said, the repetition is doing our heads in. What are some alternative programs that she might get as much out of but will give her Mum and me a little variety?

Should we send our daughter to Catholic school?

jasonspaceman — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 11:04:06 -0800

My wife and I are Buddhist. We have a four year old daughter who we would like to see get a great education. In our area/county, some of the better (academics, arts, and athletics) schools are Catholic schools. Would it be a good idea to send my daughter to a Catholic school? We are concerned about quite a few things. One being our daughter. We would like for her to be able to make a choice about following, or not following, whatever type of religion she chooses. We'd also like for her to get the best possible education we can afford. Yet at the same time, I do not want her to be confused as to why her parents are different than what she is being taught in school even though my wife and I will do our best to show her that there can be more than one noble path.

Also, is it ok to ask the principle, without coming across as being disrespectful, the following questions:
If we do not attend church, or any other church for that matter, would they accept her?
Would they be respectful of our choice of Buddhism as a belief?

Does anyone have experience in this dilemma we are facing? Or would anyone who attended or teaches at a Catholic school consider this a viable choice of education for our daughter.

The question of a second child

zek — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:42:44 -0800

Those with two or more kids: if you had to do it all over again, would you do so, or not? Not counting outside factors like the state of the world and so forth. Our details, if it matters: Virtually all of our friends who had kids have had a second one. It seems like even the ones who had a rough time say they're glad they had kid #2. I don't know if that's diplomacy or delusion talking, or if more kids really is better.

Our only child is a 3-year old boy. I think we've done an outstanding job with him... people always rave about how polite, well-behaved, and smart he is. So I think we would probably succeed as parents if we had another one. Believe me we're concerned about overpopulation, peak oil, Malthusian scenarios, and/or where the U.S. economy might be heading, but considering how well we've done so far with our first kid and considering our education (my wife has a liberal arts/philosophy/physics background and I have a physics background) I think our family stands a slightly better than zero chance of making a positive contribution at some level of society.

For me the real question is whether the day-to-day reality of having a second kid is just a little harder than our 1-child family, or a lot harder, and if you've found it better or worse than you were expecting.

Long lost father is trying to contact me.

KevinSkomsvold — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 02:33:56 -0800

My father who I never knew, is trying to contact me. Should I bother? Long story short: I've grown up since 1963 not knowing where my father is. He abandoned our family. This last week, I had a relative contact me out of the blue saying she is my half-sister. She has been afraid to approach me, even via email, because she fears once I find out where my real father is, I'll try and hurt him. Nothing could be further from the truth. Anyway, she sent me a long email describing my father and she went into great detail describing a life my brother and I should have had. Basically, my father was an awesome guy - just with a different family. This email left me speechless. It described a father who is much like me, I think. Just thinking about this email is freaking me out. It's like someone describing the life you could have had.

I've harbored a shitload of baggage over the years because of my self-perceived rootlessness. Anger, depression, you name it. Therapy helped and I've come to a certain peace with that. This just throws a huge wrench in those gears.

Should I even bother pursuing this? Let sleeping dogs lie? I'd be interested in hearing any similar stories and any advice you might have for handling a situation like this. This is all new territory for me.

As a man, is there any way I can use my health insurance to pay for birth control pills?

tweebiscuit — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 12:28:18 -0800

I'm about to start my first salaried job, and will therefore have health insurance. My girlfriend has none. We'd like a method of birth control that's safer and more effective than condoms, but neither of us can afford birth control pills out of pocket. As a man, is there any way I can use my health insurance to pay for birth control pills? If not, what are my other options? Again, this is the first health insurance plan I've had since I was covered by my parents, and I haven't gotten the paperwork yet, so I'm not sure exactly what the terms are -- but in general, is this something that's doable? Alternatively, what are my other options, short of a vasectomy? It galls me that, in this situation, it seems that my ability to take responsibility for our reproductive safety is limited. (Apart from condom use, which in my mind is not a long-term solution.)

Regimented vs. On Demand

sic — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 02:56:51 -0800

I'm looking for opinions and experiences on breast feeding. My wife is days away from giving birth to our first baby (a girl!) and we are looking for opinions on how to breast feed her. As most parents probably know, there are two schools of thought: regimented breast feeding (letting baby cry and only feeding her at certain times) and on-demand breast feeding (giving baby milk whenever she seems to ask for it). We are really interested in hearing about all of your experiences. Any long term issues? Also, when do bottles come into play?

She wants kids, I'm not so sure...

mookieproof — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 20:40:23 -0800

I'm a straight male in a committed relationship that is washing up against the rocks of parenthood; ie she wants children and I'm not so sure. I am a depressive only child who feels that I *could* be good with kids, but maybe not so much when it's a constant never-turn-off reality. Please bless me with your wisdom.