Intentionally ambiguous/misleading question, intended to provoke a convo…
Sometimes I feel uncomfortable when I see parents loving their kids (infants/toddlers/ young children) so much. Like I get this sneaking suspicion that the love and affection is actually masking some deeper personal insecurity. Normally I feel this with parents in their early 30s who lavish attention and praise on their kid(s) or who act like the child is the center of the universe. Just to be clear, parents should love their kids, but sometimes the expression of it seems so selfish and narrow. Or overbearing.
Oddly I am a very emotional/sentimental guy and I like kids just fine even though I don’t have any of my own (I am in a committed relationship and I had a very good upbringing, BTW). My parents loved me (any my sibs) but I certainly don’t remember them treating us like we were little saints.
I don’t get annoyed by kids in the least, just overly-loving parents…anyone else?
I used to feel that way. Then I had a kid. Your own child really is the most beautiful, fascinating, and important thing on the planet. All those practical warnings about how to not be an adoring, doting parent suddenly become completely foreign; it’s almost impossible to self-censor. The only reasons I get anything done except kissing my daughter’s chubby little cheeks are (1) there’s also a belly to zerbert and (2) she doesn’t have time for that nonsense, she wants to CRAWL.
Seriously, in the same way that right now you know “in theory” how fascinating and lovable a child of your own can be, an actual parent only remembers “in theory” how annoying that love is to other, childless people.
You’re projecting yourself and your own experiences either onto the parent, or onto the child. Which is it?
(“Mommy seems to love [del]me[/del] the child I’m looking at, but she’s not revealing the whole truth, is she? It’s just a MASK, ISN’T IT?, MOMMY DOESN’T LOVE . . . uh, that kid over there. [cough]”)
now, if someone were to prattle on and on to me about how much they love their children, I might think they’re trying to convince themselves of something.
You are confusing “loving children” with “treating children like little saints.” You can’t love a child too much. You can spoil a child, but loving parents with perspective and decency try not to do so. Overpraising isn’t “loving too much” - it’s just garden variety bad judgment.
Having a kid changes your whole perspective, at least in my experience. Especially when they are babies/toddlers, and you realize they won’t be that way forever, you tend to make allowances that you would have never thought possible. It has also changed the way I view other parents, and I’m much more understanding of their behavior… to a point, of course.
This is my experience. When they’re babies they’re your whole world.
Then they become teenagers…
You still love them completely but the scales have fallen away from your eyes.
I’m at this period right now, and she’s very verbal… she’s very close to having actual conversations with me. But running is a hoot.
However, she isn’t permitted to run in public, like some other folks permit their kids. And she’s not permitted to wander in a restaurant, another pet peeve of mine.
I’ve tried to remember those things that annoyed me as a single person and then as a non-parent, and keep my child from doing those things. I hope other people notice, although with so many other kids behaving poorly, they probably don’t. Still, I know and I’m glad I curb my kid a bit from what’s unacceptable to me.
I love the shit out of my kid. I eat lunch with him once a week, take him to dinner on Fridays, cuddle with him at nighttime (he sleeps in my bed), help him with his homework, take him places, etc.
Deal with it.
Me: DID YOU KNOW THAT
J: - that you love me?
Me: How’d you know?
J: Cause you say it fifty billion times a day.
Me: I better make it fifty billion and one…
No. I’ve seen people hit, scold, berate, and otherwise mistreat their children in public often enough that I can’t imagine showing love would bother me in the slightest. Now if you mean spoiling a child instead of loving a child yes that would bother me a bit, but I can’t imagine being bothered by affection passing between a parent and their child.
I’ve never had a child, but my friends did, and their kids are interesting, beautiful, and creative people. Last time they were over, I drew with them, chased them around the house (alongside their father and uncle), followed one into the kitchen wearing spy socks, had birthday dinner, watched them soak each other in the hot tub while acting out the tale of the unfortunate Bob and Ellen and the sea monster… Yeah, they’re fun. I wish I saw them more often.
You parents of toddlers–and even the crawly infants–boyoboyoboy are you gonna be in DEEP TROUBLE.
Teen years? Ah, yeah, those are a genuine PITA.
But listen…just wait until you have your first GRANDCHILD.
You thought you fell in love HARD when you held your own baby? HAH! Peanuts compared to a GRANDCHILD.
And the BEST part is that you can just sit and WATCH that precious thing, and admire how she breathes, and see the world opening before her very eyes. You have the TIME to appreciate a baby.
True, but then they grow past those years and do amazing things and you love them even more.
Much as I know the evolutionary reason for it, there isn’t anything like holding your newborn baby in your arms for the first time.
