[scottLobster]

As a father of 3, one thing the wife and I had to learn over the course of the first two is that the modern world holds parents to impossible standards and a "fuck off" attitude is required for much of it.

We've had pediatricians shame us for feeding our kids what they're willing to eat and not magically forcing "a more varied diet" down their throats at every meal, despite them being perfectly healthy by every objective metric. There are laws making it technically illegal for us to leave our kids unsupervised at home for any period of time in any condition, even a few minutes if one of us is running slightly late from work/appointments.

Your not-quite-2-year-old is too tall for a rear-facing car-seat? You're a bad parent, possibly a criminal and putting them at risk by flipping the seat to face forward, a responsible parent spends hundreds of dollars they don't have on several different seats to maybe find one that fits better or have their kid ride uncomfortably and arguably unsafely with their legs hyper-extended up the seatback.

Miss a flu shot because you were busy? Careful you don't come off as an antivaxxer.

And all of this and more on top of changing diapers, doctors' appointments, daycare, preschool, school, family activities and full time jobs?

Yeah, when my kids are old enough to engage with social media I will teach them how to use it responsibly, warn them about the dangers, make myself available to them if they have any problems, enforce putting the phones down at dinner and and keep a loose eye on their usage. Fortunately/unfortunately for them they have a technically sophisticated father who knows how to log web activity on the family router without their knowledge. So if anything goes sideways I'll have some hard information to look at. Most families don't have that level of technical skill.

[Wobbles42]

I was almost certainly never going to be a parent for other unrelated reasons, but you have just given me a whole other list of confirmations for that decision that I hadn't thought of before.

Thank you for that.

[scottLobster]

Well it's all more than worth it, at least for us. But that doesn't make some of the excess judgement tedious to deal with.

Kids are great at forcing you to prioritize. All of a sudden pre-ground coffee is worth it.