[Vegenoid]

I actually think it is good for kids to have exposure to:

- entertaining themselves

- working/providing for themselves

- having to do things that they don’t want to do

- being told no, and dealing with unfulfilled desire

All with balance, I am not proposing that kids are just left to fend for themselves. Caring for your kids materially and emotionally is important, but so is living your own life and making them live theirs.

I may be having kids in the not too distant future, and when I think about how I would parent, I consider 2 families I know who I have seen raise children.

In one, the kids are often denied requests they make for objects they want to own and activities they want to do. The parents drag their kids along to things that they (the parents) want to do, rather than not doing the thing because the kids don’t want to. At family gatherings, their parents expect that they will take care of and entertain themselves, while the parents enjoy time with the other adults.

In the other family, the kids are showered with toys and attention, and their mom goes to great effort to open any door for them that they express interest in. At family gatherings, the parents are always checking on their kids, and indulge every request the kids make of them.

Which family has happier, more capable, and well-adjusted children? Which family has happier parents? The answer to both is the first family.

[closeparen]

The high-effort parents I know aren't overly concerned with that their kids want, but they constantly sacrifice their own time and sanity for what they deem to be in the child's best interests.

Kids love screens, parents love getting to do their own thing while the child is quietly occupied, but a certain type of parent feels the need to go to war over the screen time limit rather than enjoy their dinner. Neither father nor son is having a good time at soccer practice, but a kid's got to have a sport. And so on.

We're calling for something bolder here than merely the will to override a child's wishes. Parents need a permission structure to prioritize their own desires, not just the ones they have on behalf of the children.

There was a good Ezra Klein episode about this [0].

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...