Is your wife, girlfriend or partner ALWAYS exhausted???

[Sliver]

Parents that overdo it on the kids' extracurriculars make zero sense to me. I don't understand what the end goal is. And I don't think it's healthy to give up 15+ years of your own life in service of activities that are supposed to be fun. It's not modelling balance, it's not fair to yourself and you end up being a tired stressed out and boring person living for your kids to the detriment of your own life.

Better approach, imo, is to nurture activities that everyone in the family benefits from. Camping, hiking, biking, skiing, snowboarding, etc. Those are all things you can share as a family. Making your life all about running your kid around to activities and sabotaging your own weekends and evenings is absolutely senseless.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Parents that overdo it on the kids' extracurriculars make zero sense to me. I don't understand what the end goal is. And I don't think it's healthy to give up 15+ years of your own life in service of activities that are supposed to be fun. It's not modelling balance, it's not fair to yourself and you end up being a tired stressed out of boring person living for your kids to the detriment of your own life.

Better approach, imo, is to nurture activities that everyone in the family benefits from. Camping, hiking, biking, skiing, snowboarding, etc. Those are all things you can share as a family. Making your life all about running your kid around to activities and sabotaging your own weekends and evenings is absolutely senseless.

You can do a bit of both.

Before I registered my kids into any sport I asked them if they wanted to play, I didn't take it for granted.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

You can do a bit of both.

Before I registered my kids into any sport I asked them if they wanted to play, I didn't take it for granted.

Meh, I can't do both. Life is too short. I've never seen it pay off for anybody to sacrifice some prime years for fricken community sports. Giant waste to me.

If you have the jam and interest then go nuts...just saying for me and my family I'm not fkn sitting in some cold rink at 7am or on the sidelines of a soccer field in the rain for season after season, evening after evening. Absolutely fk that.

Worst spring of my parenting life was when my kid had the total misfortune of ending up on a soccer team that went to provincials. That was a GD nightmare.

Worst part was how all the parents wanted to be friends. Just total annoying losers that I couldn't stand. And they'd get all worked up about the games, the coaching, the refs' calls...it was absurd. I couldn't have cared less. It was all meaningless and such a waste of time (from my perspective, that is). I get way more value spending that time with actual friends versus a motley crew of randos I accidentally got stuck with.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Meh, I can't do both. Life is too short. I've never seen it pay off for anybody to sacrifice some prime years for fricken community sports. Giant waste to me.

If you have the jam and interest then go nuts...just saying for me and my family I'm not fkn sitting in some cold rink at 7am or on the sidelines of a soccer field in the rain for season after season, evening after evening. Absolutely fk that.

Worst spring of my parenting life was when my kid had the total misfortune of ending up on a soccer team that went to provincials. That was a GD nightmare.

Worst part was how all the parents wanted to be friends. Just total annoying losers that I couldn't stand. And they'd get all worked up about the games, the coaching, the refs' calls...it was absurd. I couldn't have cared less. It was all meaningless and such a waste of time (from my perspective, that is). I get way more value spending that time with actual friends versus a motley crew of randos I accidentally got stuck with.

A great tagline for CP itself

[Doctorfever]

To each their own I guess.
I grew up playing lots of sports and really, really enjoyed it. Made lots of lifelong friends along the way. I never force my kids to do any extracurricular activities, other than if they start something they have to finish it. I guess I do make them all do “something”, but haven’t have to make them do it for many years, since they have all found things they enjoy and are good at as well.

They only get to be young once.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Treating kids like your instagram pet or your camper van project deserves more ridicule than not living up to a random karen influencer's unrealistic standards based on her own specific worldview that likely isn't backed by scientific literature.

It's like nobody learned anything from Ian Malcolm.

Your little apex predator doesn't want to be kept in a paddock and fed it grass-fed kosher meat at timed intervals. It wants to roam free and f #### up. Maybe it comes back with a bum leg once in a while but that's part of life.

People trying to control all variables of nature are idiots. Kids have impeccable plumbing and growing bodies. If they can't indulge in unhealthy things when their bodies can handle it, they'll never be able to cause as we know you cant do it later. And a life where we actively avoid all fun things from age 0 isn't any kind of life.

Maybe what we need to work on more is not being so terrified of disapproval.

[Doctorfever]

Who is Ian Malcolm.

If you want your kids to really roam free, raise them in the country.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

Who is Ian Malcolm.

The foremost chaotician of our time.

NSFW!

[Cecil Terwilliger]

My girl sleeps all the goddamn time, like upwards of 12 hours a day, and then somehow gets energy at like 2am and decides to rummage around the house loud as ####. It isn’t like she works either and has no kids to look after. I go to work all day while she stays home and does nothing but eat and sleep. She only sits with me when she wants attention. Then goes back to ignoring me and doing her own thing as if I don’t even exist.

If she weren’t so damn cute I’d put her out on the street. And I could too because she’s technically my property.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

My girl sleeps all the goddamn time, like upwards of 12 hours a day, and then somehow gets energy at like 2am and decides to rummage around the house loud as ####. It isn’t like she works either and has no kids to look after. I go to work all day while she stays home and does nothing but eat and sleep. She only sits with me when she wants attention. Then goes back to ignoring me and doing her own thing as if I don’t even exist.

If she weren’t so damn cute I’d put her out on the street. And I could too because she’s technically my property.

I was like your girl sounds like a cat. Then I realized that was the joke.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by GGG

I was like your girl sounds like a cat. Then I realized that was the joke.

Narrator: She wasn’t a cat.

[Geraldsh]

We had a very simple division of labour in our house; she did everything inside the house and I did everything outside which included a large garden. Typical relaxation for her was a couple cigarettes and a glass of wine while nursing.

The kids are fine, as soon as they got big enough I put them to work in the garden- quality time with dad. The only structured activity was army cadets where they learned leadership and straight shooting.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

If you want your kids to really roam free, raise them in the country.

What?

I've raised mine in City, well 5 1/2 years in a town, but we let those ####ers run free.

We gave them easy identifiable landmarks for the roaming area, but within that they were free to travel

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Meh, I can't do both. Life is too short. I've never seen it pay off for anybody to sacrifice some prime years for fricken community sports. Giant waste to me.

If you have the jam and interest then go nuts...just saying for me and my family I'm not fkn sitting in some cold rink at 7am or on the sidelines of a soccer field in the rain for season after season, evening after evening. Absolutely fk that.

Worst spring of my parenting life was when my kid had the total misfortune of ending up on a soccer team that went to provincials. That was a GD nightmare.

Worst part was how all the parents wanted to be friends. Just total annoying losers that I couldn't stand. And they'd get all worked up about the games, the coaching, the refs' calls...it was absurd. I couldn't have cared less. It was all meaningless and such a waste of time (from my perspective, that is). I get way more value spending that time with actual friends versus a motley crew of randos I accidentally got stuck with.

Some of this is on you for putting you kids in a ####ty sport like Soccer.....

I had no problem ignoring the parents I disliked.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Some of this is on you for putting you kids in a ####ty sport like Soccer.....

I had no problem ignoring the parents I disliked.

Some girl he had a crush on was into soccer, which is the only reason he joined. It was just shtty luck his team ended up being super good.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Some girl he had a crush on was into soccer, which is the only reason he joined. It was just shtty luck his team ended up being super good.

You could have just bought him a Swank and avoided the whole thing.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by fotze2

You could have just bought him a Swank and avoided the whole thing.

Swank. Wow, that's a classic.

[The Hendog]

I think about this topic all the time and two thoughts that I always come back to are the following:

1. Wife always complains about being tired like many here and for all the reasons already discussed but what frustrates me is that she often does nothing about it. When I am tired I usually don't complain but try to go bed early or go for a walk and try and reset solve my being tired issue - try to set myself up for success. Where she just seems to complain, does not go to bed early, knows she has an iron deficiency does nothing about it, still stays up late on her phone even though she knows she shouldn't etc. So are you really tired or are you just saying that so I should leave you "alone"? It would be nice to see some action to address being so tired all the time.

2. Cell phones and addiction - wife is on her phone all the time and to be fair so am I but I think I am more aware when I need to stop or take a break where she does not. Problem I have with her and her phone addiction issue is that she does so many productive things on her phone (work, groceries, kids stuff) vs I do a lot less productive things on my phone so it is hard to discuss her phone addiction when I think she needs a break or we need to talk and please put the phone down but I look like the jerk if she is doing something productive on her phone vs playing candy crush. Cell phones are so amazing for so many things but also so evil it sucks and not sure what the solution is.

[Kybosh]

My wife is also glued to her phone a lot. I don't tell her how to live her life, but I've found myself naturally gravitating to going offline more and more. For example, I've made a soft commitment to myself to choose to pick up a book when I feel the urge to mindlessly scroll my phone.

[jroc]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Some girl he had a crush on was into soccer, which is the only reason he joined. It was just shtty luck his team ended up being super good.

Maybe you should've volunteered to coach? Tanking is a thing in youth soccer, right?