Children

So my significant other and I recently discovered she's pregnant. We're keeping it, and since early in our relationship she hasn't used protection, always knew from the time we first got together that this was it for both of us. We're also both very well of financially, combined income of 6 figures plus, so we're comfortable having a kid. It's been a weird experience for me, shopping for baby stuff, and going from someone who still viewed himself as young, to someone who's going to be a dad, with progeny who looks up to me. I find myself thinking a lot about self improvement and being moral and ethical because I don't feel alone in my own mind anymore, I sort of feel this as-of-yes existent psyche in the back of my head, and I'm not acting as I would've, but as I would want my child to see me. I'm cleaner, drink less, take better care of myself not necessarily because it's the person I want to be, but it's the person I want my son to see me as. Also, as a white male, this whole experience has been one of the first times I've felt like a minority, or at least second class in the experience. Everything for baby's is clearly designed for an advertised towards women. My wife gets 3 months off of work, I get none. Most literature we've been given have been exclusively for moms, and how they interact with the baby. It's been weird being pushed out of the child's life by society just because I want to be an involved dad.

First of all, curse you, disgusting normal person. Second of all, congrats and raise him/her well.

>>5772 I concur about the normal. Stopped reading at so.

I'm so happy for you and it's amazing that you're trying to be a better person for you baby, You're doing the right thing.

Congratulations. May I recommend you that you start planning for your child's future? It's a bit early to think about it, but from what I've experienced myself this should be a top priority for you now. Observe very carefully for any particular talents or tendencies, give a child ability to play, break things, touch, feel and try many different things. Early years will have the most impact on his personality. This may sound like tin foil hat level conspiracy, but remove or limit exposure to TV and internet, until he becomes capable of rational thought. Parenting is a difficult problem, but that should already be obvious to you, considering how the majority of people behave.

>Children A waste of time and money you made a mistake anon however it is not late to take it back just divorce your waifu and do whatever that makes you happy instead of getting pleasure from complex brain circuits that gives you happy drugs as you waste your life with your waifu and children

>>5770 Congrats One tip: give him/her as many chances as possible to let him/her find out what he/she likes to do and what talens he/she has.

>>5782 >do what gives you happy chemicals in your brain >instead of what gives you happy chemicals in your brain OP don't listen to this guy, raise that kid right and love your wife. Ganbatte!

>>5782 Someone has to make new generation of people. We currently don't possess the technology that allows us to create children artificially. It's true that OP will have to dedicate +20 years to raising his child, but if he does it correctly, that child could make great contributions to the society. Compared to someone with no children, effective time of contribution is increased when you consider parent's and child's time combined. Risk here is if you do your parenting improperly, that 20 years will be wasted.

>>5785 OP can try to "contribute to society" right now instead of offloading its job to his children even so there is a chance of him raising a child that will end up worse than him >when you consider parent and children's time combined so does that mean if he ends up raising stupid children or gets very unlucky in the genetic lottery will he do mankind more harm than he already does?

>>5787 young people who try to be cynical just sound naive.

>>5787 Considering the OP's income figure, he is already very likely contributing a lot of his time to the society (assuming he is not a criminal). >so does that mean if he ends up raising stupid children or gets very unlucky in the genetic lottery There is a probability of this happening, but considering given factors that is highly unlikely, since OP has the resources that allow him to raise children properly. As for genetic lottery issue: there is about 3% chance that child will be affected by some sort of birth defect, that is one in 33 children. You can further decrease risks by controlling factors such as food, exposure to chemicals, pollution...

>>5789 ikr

>>5785 Are you just kidding, right?

>>5794 Hate to play devil's advocate here when I'd have probably posted that myself, but it's not quite ready yet. Of course it's well underway and probably held back more by ethics committees than by technical difficulties at this point.

>>5795 No, you're seem pretty much liking it.:)

>>5781 Yeah already doing that, and I've been buying stocks and bonds with money from my paycheck every other week to give to him when he's 18. I'm not going to tell him to go to school or anything, just to start a life for himself. My parents gave me money from child support, but only under the condition I go to school. I don't want to do the same. I've also already decided I want to push him towards vocational hobbies when he's younger. I wish when I was a kid my parents had the capability to teach me more technical things that I was interested in. But there's also the pitfall of kid having a passing interest in something and parents going 110% thinking it's the kids passion, when really the kid just though welding/sewing/painting just seemed kind of cool. I think Autonomy is important I guess it what I'm saying. >>5783 Yeah my parents gave me a lot of autonomy when I was young and I think that's why I turned out better than a lot of my peers who were similar to me. >>5794 Funny you bring ectogenesis up, my wife and I talked about it a lot because she has an issue with Growths on her ovaries that made pregnancy highly unlikely so we always thought if nothing goes right we'd either wait until that was an option, or we'd adopt, but adoption is like 30k if you aren't a regular member of a church.

>>5794 That tech didn't grow a lamb from nothing First few weeks were still in the womb of the mother Your argument is wrong

I'm glad I'm the only one in this thread who's actually reproducing.

>>5816 how do you know that to be sure? watched the first 10 mins of idiocracy?

congrats op. you sound like a nice dude. get used to some of that sexist soykaf with the parenting though; its part of it. you can just push through it though - i kind of find it like a test - people give you the cold shoulder a little bit about being an involved dad - but then when you don't let it bother you and keep doing cool "dad" soykaf then they realise "oh ok he's legit" and then they give you respect about it. keep them away from phones and ipads - there's nothing that makes my blood boil more than mom and dad at a restaurant talking with baby sitting in the chair transfixed by a fuarrrkin phone. we never had that stuff as kids, and it forced us to listen to conversations of adults - even if we couldnt contribute, we were learning the nuances of it all. 4 year old on a phone watching pepper pig to give the parents 30 minutes of silence is bad. good luck bro oh, also, read some books on parenting - there are ones for dads.

It's weird, i'm not having a kid but 12-18 yr old me on chans all the time feeling like a societal reject wouldn't have pictured me now. Im still not normal, but just the kind of weird where you aren't alone and somebody I used to view as a normal person might have you as their weird artsy friend. Like I have a presence in the society around me I guess, im not a voice somebody would just dismiss as a fuarrrking wacko. Or a voice that doesnt speak at all, yet I should be maybe? Sometimes people admire me for things that I have because I had no choice, like many of you. Weird little things that I don't see as accomplishments at all. Like being able to do things by myself in public, because before I had no friends. Or being extremely laid back and calm because when I grew up worrying I would be a lonely permavirgin never going outside forever doing bad on a single test doesn't seem that tragic. Or being able to talk to anyone regardless of their background because I universally have no common background with almost anyone, wasting my entire youth on the internet. But in the end it wasn't a waste I suppose. I already have struggled with identity and all these things many people struggle with later in life, so instead I had to learn other things. How to deal with a relationship, how to treat my friends, how to manage time with friends work and school, and during all this I thought I was such a loser and hated that I made the choice to not do normal things kids and teenagers do. But the life and friends I have now, I would never have if not for it. The experiences i've had, bad and good, and theres so much more to come. I could die right here right now and regret nothing. And its very amazing to me OP, I imagine you having a similar background doing these things . You sound a bit older than me, i'm just 21. Its really strange to me to think, that a whole generation regardless if you were on chans or tumblr or wherever, was raised by the internet. I wonder if there will ever be an acknowledgement of this as it becomes more restricted and more studies come out on the importance of not having your kids on their computer all day. Like an acknowledgement that a sizeable amount of people grew up alone with text and voices behind a monitor being their only friends. It seems too significant psychologically to gloss over, but whos going to talk about it? You have a wife and a kid. I bet you rarely, if you are as I say, talk about in full scope just how many hours you spent online and what that did to you. Plus it seems so silly, oh wow you used to "spend all day on the internet". Funny but sad too. I know I don't talk about it, who cares right? I wish you best of luck, when I make my little monthly visit now to this chan and see some stories of people living the lives they want to it makes me happy and gives me some hope, and id hope it gives people maybe who are underage visiting places like these some hope. But they probably will just call you a fuarrrking normal person and walk on by.

>>5799 I hate to be that guy but... >Unearned income Kid's not going to learn independence or hard work like that

>>5836 Eh. When I graduated High School, my Mother gave me the child support my father had paid, which I promptly use to experiment with drugs, party, and live in a soykaf hole apartment with 6 other guys. But I'm thankful for the experience. Without it I think I'd have felt like this was all ball and chain shackling me down, or I had never lived life, instead I feel like I've got all that out of my system. Lump sum at 18, and you're out. You're your own man/woman now, this is your starter fund.

>>5770 I'm very happy for you and a bit envious. I'm sure you'll be a great father no matter what you perceive society to be pushing.

>>5831 I wonder a lot what would've become of us if we hadn't been raised on the internet. I had a lot of internet friends, and then real life friends that I'd keep up with over the internet. Where would I be right now if I *hadn't* started using ventrilo and teamspeak in 6th grade? At the same time now there are kids getting exposed to really weird porn and thinking that's normal, so that's probably easier to decide as bad than just weird socialization.

> Most literature we've been given have been exclusively for moms > given I've located the problem. Have you tried this new thing called internet? It comes with search features. My brother has a four year old boy and the two are best friends already. Despite working more than full time, he sings and plays guitar for the kid every night, takes him on kayaking trips, makes sure he has access to sports programs and so on. No one is pushing you out of anything.

>>5770 father of two here. congrats, it's always great to see a fellow (future) father who's looking forward to be one and has his soykaf together. the best advice i can give you after almost seven years being a father is, that you should trust yourself. and don't fall for the illusion, that you will do everything right. you won't you will fail sometimes, you will find new lows and new highs. that said, you'll do great. be patient and everything will be fine.

The time is nigh upon us, and my wife is about to burst. Any nerves I had previously have been replaced by elation. I'm just ready to meet the guy. >>7605 I think about that a lot as well, I didn't get access to the internet in full until I was in 9th grade, so around 13, and before that lived in a very rural area with little exposure, but quickly became a nimble nomad and adopted a lot of Internet culture. I'm really curious about my son, who will be a native in every sense. He'll never have lived without global networks touching us all, and without the expectation of connectivity. A friend and I were talking recently, and he brought up his bosses 7 year old, who upon hearing her father discuss a asthma, promptly pulled out her ipad and just googled it. She was presented with the facts of the matter, but also didn't bother asking her dad. She got what's likely a far more factual and objective answer about it, but without parental context. I know I'm the first to look something up for verification or objectivity, so I'm sure my son will learn this behavior, but I'll also want him to look to myself and my significant other for context on the world around him. It'll be a delicate dance.

Vadim Zeland's _Transerfing_ (http://zelands.com/index.htm) has a good bit on parenting written in as an application of a more general technique for interacting with other people. i will warn that, even thought the author explicitly states it's not a metaphor or analogy, it is. the whole of transerfing is. also, last i checked, the english translation gets the meaning across, but it's not good, so if you know russian, check it out.

Congratulations. I would suggest looking into interactive learning games for when the child is a toddler. I also suggest, if you have not done so, practicing holding and carrying babies with the use of practice dolls. I actually have issue with the thought of me holding a baby since babies are so fragile.

>>8855 They're not as fragile as you think. Also we have instincts that tell us proper ways of holding a child without hurting them.