Stupid (in your opinion) mistakes people make

[even_sven]

@puddleglum

Waiting too long to get married. If you don’t start looking until your 30 then if it takes you two years to find the right person, two years to date enough to know they are the right one, one year to plan a wedding. Being a newlywed is stressful enough without kids so you wait two years and then your 37. Every year after 30 makes it harder to conceive and after 40 birth defects become more likely. So there is a three year window to have as many kids as you want to have. If anything takes longer than you planned then it may never happened. I feel so sorry so people who miss out on life’s greatest joy, because they didn’t get serious about it and stayed with the wrong guy too long, or didn’t start seriously dating until they had a succesful career.

Sounds like bullshit to me. What is this theoretical person made of that is so stressed out by marriage that it takes them two years to recover? Spun sugar? Styrofoam?

My peer group is around 30, and we are marrying off and babying up remarkably quickly. If you are at that age and at a point where you feel like you are ready to have a family, usually you have enough judgement that you don’t have to spend years on end “getting to know someone” before settling down. Likewise, you’ve probably had enough “me” time that having children shortly after marriage isn’t a big deal. Long engagements and fancy weddings (and heck, regular engagements and regular weddings- lots of my friends are waiting to get pregnant before formalizing with a wedding) are completely optional.

Find a good partner, figure out what you guys want together, make it happen. It doesn’t always work like clockwork, but for a person in the realm of normal in terms of social skills, it certainly doesn’t have to take five years.

[scootergirl]

Not wearing a DOT helmet on a scooter or motorcycle and expecting your brain to be neatly intact after getting in a bad accident. It doesn’t even have to be a bad one to really injure your head. I just came back from Idaho last weekend – ID does not have a helmet law. The weather was perfect for riding and there were many motorcyclist out and about; most without helmets. It doesn’t take for a law to be inforced for me to be smart enough to realize that I value the contents in there, not to mention that the wind pounding on my face and ears does not appeal to me whatsoever.

The OP said: “Feel free to be mean, judgemental, and an all-round horrible person. That’s what we’re here for.”

Ok then…WTF are you thinking you dumbasses? Put a helmet on and protect your head for god’s sake!

[Dangerosa]

I’m pretty intolerant of financial stupidity. Mainly of the “I have money, I must spend it” without thought of saving for a rainy day or paying down debt instead of blowing it on something.

[Sahirrnee]

Smoking
Tanning

Counting on money before it’s in their hand.
Letting one person control the finances in a marriage.

I knew a guy that started a new job and they paid through direct deposit
He wrote out a bunch of checks the day before pay day and paid some outstanding tickets and traffic fines.
I told him to wait and make sure everything was okay.

Payroll screwed up, he didn’t get paid on time, the checks bounced and between the overdraft fees and the bad check fees he was screwed.
Writing bad checks to the MVA and to the court doesn’t go over so well either.
I could tell you horror stories of couples where one person trusts the other to handle the finances.
One woman didn’t know there was a problem until she found out their house was in foreclosure.
A guy I know came home to find out he was being evicted and his utilities were being turned off. Instead of paying the bills, his gf had been stashing the money and then left him to go live with her lover.
I know women who have never written a check or paid a bill in their lives. When their husbands died they were helpless.

[puddleglum]

@Broomstick

1. Your timeline only applies to women, men have a much larger window in which to become parents.
2. No, dear, every year after 25 it becomes harder for a woman to conceive although the real drop off doesn’t occur until after 30.
3. No, dear, the risk of birth defects goes up sharply for a woman after 35, not 40. Even so, the vast majority of kids born to mothers past the age of 35 are perfectly normal.
4. Not everyone view kid’s as the pre-eminent goal in life and there are many of us childless couples who are quite happy that way.

Biologically, women are best suited to childbearing in their 20’s. However, most children are born either before or after that decade of their mother’s life.

1. This is true but it is not as long as people think, older men’s children are more likely to have birth defects and health problems. Older fathers also have less energy to give to raising kids which can be very tiring.
   2+3. Sweetheart, pedantry is very unbecoming.
2. People who have had kids have experienced life both with kids and without, so we are better able to compare the two experiences. If you want to go without children, go for it. I was quite happy before I discovered sex but it doesn’t mean the celibate aren’t missing out on a good thing.

[kiz]

@Anaamika

Oftentimes they do it because they screwed up and had kids! and can’t afford to move the kids.

Or they’re like some of my now-married friends who did that very moving-around thing when they were younger and, for whatever reason(s), don’t want to go through the whole rigamarole again.

[Broomstick]

@puddleglum

1. This is true but it is not as long as people think, older men’s children are more likely to have birth defects and health problems. Older fathers also have less energy to give to raising kids which can be very tiring.

And some fathers die unexpectedly, or even before their kids are born. Life isn’t safe and there is never a perfect moment to have children. It all has risk. Your santimoninous preaching about when people should or shouldn’t have kids, on top of your unwanted pity of those who don’t have children, is what leads to my sarcastic “pendantry”.

4. People who have had kids have experienced life both with kids and without, so we are better able to compare the two experiences. If you want to go without children, go for it.

How dismissive you are. You are assuming everyone who has kids finds it on balance a happy experience. How wrong you are. Yes, usually it all works out but I’ve known a significant number of people for whom having offspring was a horrific thing for them in the end. You are telling people not to have children past an abritrary age because something bad might happen, even though the odds are against it, yet promote reproduction of one’s genes as an unmitigated good. And yet you see nothing contradictory in your position.

Some people don’t reproduce because they can’t. Others consciously choose not to, yet you automatically assuming all of those people are making a bad or pitiful choice. How arrogant of you.

Frankly, I find the attitude “I am the measure of all things and if your choices don’t match mine you’re a loser” to be adolescent in nature regardless of the age of the thinker.

I was quite happy before I discovered sex but it doesn’t mean the celibate aren’t missing out on a good thing.

Again, you’re assuming your choice is best. It isn’t best for everyone. It’s actually pretty sad if you think there is nothing more important than having children, or having sex, and those without are to be pitied because nothing can make up for the lack, or be more important to an individual.

[bump]

I think the vast majority of the mistakes like this that people make boil down to them essentially living in the moment, and not stopping to really think about what the consequences of their actions will be.

I mean, how do you actually think out “I make 25k a year as a waiter, and I want that car that has a $600/month payment. That’ll work out just fine.”

or “I don’t have a condom, and I don’t know this girl. But sleeping with her sounds like a good idea.”

or “I should take on $150,000 in student loan debt for a MFA in English from a ridiculously expensive private school. I’m sure to get a job with that MFA that’ll allow me to pay that off without too much hardship.”

People don’t think that stuff through, or else they’d come to the conclusions that these things are a bad idea. That’s not to say that most people really think much of anything through; the vast majority of dumb things I see people do are a matter of not really thinking, and just doing whatever seems right at that particular moment.

[puddleglum]

@Broomstick

And some fathers die unexpectedly, or even before their kids are born. Life isn’t safe and there is never a perfect moment to have children. It all has risk. Your santimoninous preaching about when people should or shouldn’t have kids, on top of your unwanted pity of those who don’t have children, is what leads to my sarcastic “pendantry”.
How dismissive you are. You are assuming everyone who has kids finds it on balance a happy experience. How wrong you are. Yes, usually it all works out but I’ve known a significant number of people for whom having offspring was a horrific thing for them in the end. You are telling people not to have children past an abritrary age because something bad might happen, even though the odds are against it, yet promote reproduction of one’s genes as an unmitigated good. And yet you see nothing contradictory in your position.

Some people don’t reproduce because they can’t. Others consciously choose not to, yet you automatically assuming all of those people are making a bad or pitiful choice. How arrogant of you.

Frankly, I find the attitude “I am the measure of all things and if your choices don’t match mine you’re a loser” to be adolescent in nature regardless of the age of the thinker.
Again, you’re assuming your choice is best. It isn’t best for everyone. It’s actually pretty sad if you think there is nothing more important than having children, or having sex, and those without are to be pitied because nothing can make up for the lack, or be more important to an individual.

First you say that it is unlikely that children born to older people will have birth defects, that is true but the increase in odds is significantly more than most people think. Fertility affects of age are much pronounced.
Then you say that some people might not like children. The vast majority of parents are happy with their decision. A survey of parents found that 91% would have kids again vs 7% who would not. In the same survey only 24% of childless people over 40 would do the same thing again.
For some people childlessness is a good decision but very few compared to those who want children and for those people it is better to start earlier than later.

[KarlGrenze]

@bump

or “I should take on $150,000 in student loan debt for a MFA in English from a ridiculously expensive private school. I’m sure to get a job with that MFA that’ll allow me to pay that off without too much hardship.”

Huh?

A lot of graduate degrees do not require loans (or not too many), and most offer tuition assistanships/waivers. This counts for both humanities and sciences. If you’re paying full price for your graduate degree, something’s off/you’re on the minority.

Undergraduate studies and professional schools (in the US, medicine, law, and veterinary medicine, for example) are the reason many have high student loans.

[Broomstick]

@puddleglum

First you say that it is unlikely that children born to older people will have birth defects, that is true but the increase in odds is significantly more than most people think. Fertility affects of age are much pronounced.

True. However, as multiple people have stated having a child too young or when you can’t handle it is a mistake. I’d much rather people wait, despite some additional kinds of risks, than pop out kids in their teens.

Also, while I wouldn’t wish a birth defect on anyone most of them aren’t the end of the world. Less than perfect people aren’t the end of the world. Heck, I married someone with a major birth defect, oddly enough, he’s had a long and (mostly) happy life.

Oh horrors - someone is “too old” they shouldn’t have children, even though children are the best thing in life, sucks to be them, oh, the poor pitiful things, they can’t possibly be happy… give me a break. Worse yet, people who look down their noses at me because I didn’t reproduce, oh, poor thing she must be soooo unhappy… Way to reduce me to nothing more than a walking womb. Seriously, nothing else a person does in life could possibly be worth anything other than producing a child? What planet do these people live on?

Then you say that some people might not like children.

Ah, yes, the undying notion that people who don’t have kids don’t like children… I’m sorry it’s beyond the comprehension of so many that a person can like children and still not having children of his/her own, and still be happy.

The vast majority of parents are happy with their decision. A survey of parents found that 91% would have kids again vs 7% who would not. In the same survey only 24% of childless people over 40 would do the same thing again.

That’s because your childless group includes those who are involuntarily childless and might want to be in the “have children group”. Of course they’d like to have done it the other way. Come back when you have stats on people who are childless by actual choice.

For some people childlessness is a good decision but very few compared to those who want children and for those people it is better to start earlier than later.

Absolutely no one has said anything to contradict that if you plan to have children then biologically it’s better to have them early (although not too early) than late. If biological factors were the only consideration then maybe you’d have a stronger argument but there are a LOT of other factors involved in having kids.

But, whatever - you’re so firmly convinced that your road is the only one leading to happiness I doubt I will ever convince you that people without children are not to be pitied and that one can be happy with biologically reproducing.

[Kaio]

@puddleglum

4. People who have had kids have experienced life both with kids and without, so we are better able to compare the two experiences. If you want to go without children, go for it. I was quite happy before I discovered sex but it doesn’t mean the celibate aren’t missing out on a good thing.

Wow. Just wow.

I’m an aunt, “sweetheart.” I have also experienced life with and without kids. I am STILL eternally grateful I can hand them back to their mom when they get whiny, and would not in ANY way want to have them around 24-7, or bend my life so that they are the center of it. I’ve got too much of my own shit to do, which, FOR ME, is much more important. I resent the implication that my only value as a person is as a [del]breeding factory[/del] mother.

Your personal experience, ambitions, desires, and opinions are NOT UNIVERSAL, “sweetheart,” and it is bloody arrogant – and, dare I say, unbecoming – to assume that they are.

Name-calling is pretty petty too.

[thenonepercent]

Having children is the most selfish act imaginable. Hey, let’s create from whole cloth something who is going to suffer through a life full of hardship during the human race’s last downward spiral. Let’s expose another being to injury, pain, suffering, emotional trauma, and the ennui of day to day living, just to validate ourselves and find some sort of personal actualization.

Having kids is the greatest thing for YOU, but the kid? Man, people do a lot more suffering in life than they find joy, and this rock is overpopulated as it is. Thanks for creating another draw on this planet’s resources, jerk. Now the rest of us, those who were here first, have to deal with another drain on the planet.

Don’t give me that malarky about the good parts of life outweighing the bad, because that’s just your cognitive bias shining through. Life sucks. Even good lives have more bad than good. I’m not advocating suicide, but my advice to anyone not yet born is don’t bother, life is a crappy place to be.

Who do you think you are, conceiving people who never asked to be born? What gives you the right to subject an innocent soul to decades of awkwardness, rejection, pain, and regret? Let them dwell forever in the peace of nonexistence rather than pulling them forth as a testament to your virility and/or motherhood, you selfish harlots.

Happy Mother’s Day from the voluntary human extinction project. Do the right thing and abort that poor fetus before it can know the suffering of this damned earth.

[nearwildheaven]

People who do things to themselves to sabotage their lives, and then expect everyone to be there for them to pick up the pieces when everything collapses.

[MrStrangeloop]

Believing that humans in general are rational.
Believing that other peoples’ erroneous opinions can be corrected using logic and reason.

[panache45]

@Septima

No need to be snarky with me. Gay marriage is legal where I live, as it should be everywhere. Your choice to live in a place where you are made to be second class is your own damn business.

So instead of relocating here to take care of my parents, we should have said “Sorry, we can’t get married there.”

Snarky, indeed.

[Septima]

No, but you should own that living where you do was indeed a choice you made, even if it sucks (and it does. My heart goes out to you for the horrible situation you find yourself in.). So when I talk about marriage, I am not the one excluding you, your chosen peers and countrymen are. When I say “marriage”, that includes gay couples.

BTW, I don’t think we’re really disagreeing here. You got your feelings hurt because you are discriminated against, and I indadvertedly pushed that button. I’m sorry about that. Really.

On the other hand, I take exception to being called a homophobe, so when you implied that I was excluding gay couples and calling you relationship less that other relationships, that hurt me too. I actually did the legwork to help make Norway better. I marched in the marches, both pride and protest, as a straight ally, I donated money and time, and most importantly, I voted for parties and people who finally got the law governing marriage written gender-neutral. And I cried like a baby as a guest at my first same-sex wedding.
So when you started slinging accusations around, well, that wasn’t nice.

[Beastly_Rotter]

@thenonepercent

Having children is the most selfish act imaginable. Hey, let’s create from whole cloth something who is going to suffer through a life full of hardship during the human race’s last downward spiral. Let’s expose another being to injury, pain, suffering, emotional trauma, and the ennui of day to day living, just to validate ourselves and find some sort of personal actualization.

Don’t forget the constant beatings.

[Sally_Mander]

@AngelSoft

Using payday loans or check cashing loans.

I used to work with a woman who (I think) used payday loans. (I know nothing about them) She claimed she had a “service” that paid her on Wednesdays, instead on Fridays, when the rest of us got paid. It wasn’t a one-time thing; it was an on-going service. How did this work? They paid her, against her expected paycheck, and then her paycheck was deposited to them?

She did grudgingly admit that they charged her a very small fee for this service, but that it was worth it to get paid two days earlier. Another co-worker told me it was probably more like 12-15%, which just boggles my mind. I can’t even imagine paying that much to get paid two days earlier.

[panache45]

@Septima

On the other hand, I take exception to being called a homophobe, so when you implied that I was excluding gay couples and calling you relationship less that other relationships, that hurt me too. I actually did the legwork to help make Norway better. I marched in the marches, both pride and protest, as a straight ally, I donated money and time, and most importantly, I voted for parties and people who finally got the law governing marriage written gender-neutral. And I cried like a baby as a guest at my first same-sex wedding.
So when you started slinging accusations around, well, that wasn’t nice.

WTF??? I never called you a homophobe, or even suggested it, and I never slung accusations around. I was simply pointing out that my partner and I may be an exception to your get-married-before-living-together statement. It had absolutely nothing to do with you, personally. I do applaud your political and social support, but there’s something else going on here that I don’t understand. Really, my initial comment had nothing to do with you personally, and I really can’t understand how you’re taking it that way.

So if you continue to take every single word of mine personally, including words that aren’t even mine, go ahead. I’m through here.