[adverbly]

It's not the actual sleep.

It's that parenting is exhausting.

I could do physical labor for hours. Code straight for hours.

But when I have to look after the 2 kids for 3 hours solo I'm totally exhausted. And I don't mean sit them in front of a TV - but actually try and feed them, change diapers, clean up after their messes, keep them entertained...

Weekends are suddenly way more exhausting than weekdays.

And then that compounds over weeks.

It's totally exhausting. The modern model is totally unsustainable/not scalable, but I'm not sure what the alternative should be.

[cullumsmith]

Maybe counterintuitive, but I've found that having more kids actually makes some things easier.

With 4+ children, the kids almost never come to us for entertainment. They form their own little society and find tons of ways to play and interact with each other. The little ones are just as likely to ask one of their older siblings to read them a story as they are to ask a parent, for example.

Sure, things like laundry and meals always have toil that increases with family size, but kids can start helping with such things after age 7 or so.

[rayiner]

Yes. My boys keep each other occupied at home and don’t ask to play with us at all.

[yapyap]

Isn’t that just parentifying one or more of your children and passing it off as a solution because it’s easier for you?

[cullumsmith]

The phenomenon of 1.2 children per family living a living a childhood of endless leisure until being thrust into the world of adult responsibility at age 18 was totally unknown to humanity until about 5 minutes ago.

Sometimes a kid has to wash dishes. Other times he has to read his kid brother a bedtime story. I promise, they'll survive. They might even be better off as adults, being well-accustomed to small acts of charity and self-denial.

[j45]

Not always, Children always wanting an adult to run a circus for them also doesn't let them discover creativity through bordeom.

ids who are of a similar age can be guided to have activities they enjoy playing togeter.

Parentification is having to be responsible for the feelings and actions of an adult.

[mothballed]

Yes that is how families functions, older take care of the younger to balance the load. The parent isnt a slave, everyone helps out once they're able.

[anon7000]

I was part of a verrry large family and wasn’t parentified, though it absolutely does happen.

I mean I didn’t want to play with mom, I wanted to run around in the cornfield with my brothers and play capture the flag or something. And having a chore schedule isn’t parentification.

The closest would be the oldest watching the youngers while mom & dad go on a date, but I mean we just put a movie on and there are pretty clear expectations around everything. No different than hiring a local teenager (who you know through a local family) to do brief childcare.

Parentification in my mind has to cross a line where one kid is kind of forced to always have to be responsible for raising the other kid. Like if your parents are really deadbeat and one kid actually takes responsibility.

A lot of people don't really get big families, which makes sense. You just have a different definition of “normal” for certain things because big families just HAVE to operate differently in a lot of ways, and a lot of norms we expect are products of living a specific way in your formative years. That’s just different, not necessarily bad

[tekla]

You mean a completely normal thing that 99% of the world does?

I took care of my sister when I was 7 and she was 3 because both parents worked all day.

[MagicMoonlight]

They used to dig coal, playing with their brother isn’t a hardship.

[tayo42]

Great, so 5 more years of exhaustion lol

[j45]

Nothing gets easier in life, you just get better.

[pizzafeelsright]

You got two 'village' responses which I fully disagree with because a dozen reasons. The village is not going to help you change diapers, feed the children, or do anything except have the children play together.

I do not find parenting that difficult because I parent differently.

The alternative: Teach them to entertain themselves. They clean up their own messes. I have the kiddos do tasks with me. Babies are easy enough, toddlers need limited stuff to do as it is all about novelty. Kids 5+ can learn to entertain themselves with their talents, siblings, neighbors.

[conception]

Historically, the village 100% changed diaper, feed your children, nursed and generally helped out. Aunts, cousins, parents, friends all pitched in in the community to care for children.

[garciansmith]

Historically, what you speak of is an idealized and generalized image. What village are you talking about? Where? When? What was the socioeconomic status of the family? Etc.

In reality it would vary whole lot, not just in terms of time and place in a general sense, but also for individual families. If you had many relatives nearby, perhaps, but in some cases you might not, or you might actually have to be taking care of not just your children but also your parents-in-law who are disabled and your aunt who is mentally unstable partially due to her own husband and children dying in the famine a couple years back.

And maybe you are also poor so you need to work land that isn't even your own, in addition to your own (maybe rented) plot, and you are socially shunned on top of that and your neighbors sure as hell aren't going to help out with your own children. But at least you only have two kids now since two died and you managed to give another away to live his whole life in a monastery.

[wordpad]

I think kids and their free labor were the biggest wealth generating asset for the poor and as such wouldn't be given away except in the most extreme circumstances.

[watwut]

People make up history out of romanticized ideas of it all too much. Aunts, friends, cousins and parents had all own children and housework to care for. And the young couple was expected to provide more then they took in terms of help.

[pizzafeelsright]

I have been to many places, in different cultures, and countries. Outside of blood relationships and church, I have not seen a villager change a diaper for another without compensation.

[bobmcnamara]

It's not free labor, it's a community effort, and the compensation goes both ways in a village!

Our friends would be at our place a couple days a week and at my parent's friend's place a couple days a week.

Sure if you're not pulling your share some other compensation would be expected.

[dangus]

You weren’t alive before industrial society.

[HaZeust]

Generally speaking, we're not supposed to devolve.

[Spooky23]

I think it’s worth considering that these things are not binary and we’re all different in goals and approaches.

Personally, we ended up living where my wife grew up and about an half hour from my fold, and were really social in the community. For my kids, that meant lots of cousins for the kids and a pretty rich social life for us. Lots of little league and community events. Folks didn’t change the diapers, but they had our backs in a thousand ways.

My sister and her husband live in a mega city a few hundred miles away. They are doing great, but they are doing it on their own. I think it’s harder on their kids in some ways, but they are doing fine.

IMO, “the village” is a better way to live and brings a lot to the table. But there’s no one answer.

[WithinReason]

The village didn't have diapers, before diapers children were toilet trained at 6 months

[lotsofpulp]

> The village is not going to help you change diapers, feed the children, or do anything except have the children play together.

The (literal) village did all of these things for my grandparents when they were raising my parents. Everyone’s kids were almost everyone else’s kids, fed by whoever, whenever. Few, if any vehicles to worry about, so lots of groups of kids wandering about after the initial toddler stage.

[j45]

Some villages absolutely help change diapers in 2026.

It's not in the cards for everyone.

[bethekidyouwant]

I’m not even sure the premise is correct, what other complaint is socially acceptable wrt kids than “im tired” its just what one says when parenting is feeling like a drag. Honesty when the kids are laughing and everything is going smoothly, no one is “tired”

[rayiner]

I think older people who have more patience are supposed to help. We moved to America when we were young so my mom had raise my brother and I by herself, which was very hard coming from somewhere people live in multi-generational households. She had very little patience for it. But she and my dad have way more patience for my kids. My mom lived with us for a year and then my wife’s mom lived with us for a year while our youngest was 2-3. Then we moved 10 minutes from my parents. My middle child kept getting ear infections so he went to my parents’ house every day for two years. These days my boys (4 and 7) go to my parents’ house every weekend.

I don’t think younger people are wired to be taking care of babies full time. I’d imagine in nature they’d be out hunting or gathering and our attention spans are wired for doing that.

[camgunz]

I super agree; my partner and I talk all the time about how like, kids really benefit from having all kinds of different caregivers. Mostly from a place of "did we make a mistake"--we moved to the Netherlands away from our parents/etc. and, while we can compensate with day care and such, it's really not the same for all kinds of obvious reasons. We did have kids later: I was 39 and 41 when they were born, so that kind of helps. But, it's hard to not also feel it's the worst of both worlds: I have neither the energy of a late-20s father, nor the patience of a mid-50s grandfather.

For us (my partner and I) these discussions dovetail into discussions about community. Like, so much about modern, suburban, nuclear family stuff is really isolating for everyone involved. We don't know exactly where to go from here, but looking at the declining fertility rate, it does seem unsustainable.

[rayiner]

I suspect western societies are cooked unfortunately. It is unsustainable, you’re right.

[glitchc]

I feel your pain. Parenting is exhausting, especially the first two years or so. Hang in there, it gets a lot better. Lowering standards also helps (Does the house really need to be that clean? Does the toddler need a bath every day?)

[gsinclair]

Our doctor told us not to give the baby/toddler a bath every day. Didn’t need to tell me twice.

(Every second day is fine, and better for their skin.)

[abirch]

We’d bath twice a week or with a blowout. Our kids are still alive

[j45]

The strange thing is the infant years seem tiring in a different and more tolerable way than when they are interactive and running all over the place.

The babies being potatoes phase if visiting my life again would benefit from transferable skills that you simply don't have as the first time parent.

[jml78]

Look, I can’t tell you what will work for you. My wife and I just made the kids adapt to our lives. We keep doing the same shit we always did. Concerts, they go with us. Breweries, they go. Don’t get It twisted, they were expected to behave. Kids pick up fast. Now my 17 year old and I love going to shows together. We are legit besties.

We just integrated the kids into our existing lives.

[casey2]

Totally the opposite. Doing even just 3 hours of constant physical labor over a few weeks and my joints are aching, lost mobility in my right foot. Looking after kids is qualitatively easier.

Another part is that most modern parents are subject to predatory lending on a scale that would previously be unfathomable.

[pfannkuchen]

Even the ones who manage to understand and avoid the predatory lending are still subject to competing with everyone else's speculated future earnings. Mortgages in their modern form should absolutely be made illegal as they bid up land prices to the detriment of almost everybody.

[lotsofpulp]

>but I'm not sure what the alternative should be.

A village where trusted neighbors and family members and a chain of kids in increasing ages can help look after each other.

[mschuster91]

Unfortunately, can't have that in a society that requires workers be mobile to chase wherever the next gig job appears. Can't form trust bonds with neighbors when you gotta move every few years.

[binary132]

I mean, we COULD just yield our kids to be raised by the state in pens by minimum-wage strangers and/or robots, I guess…

[remexre]

I can't tell if you're hyperbolizing the idea of community, or describing schooling.

[binary132]

No need to apply critical or creative thought when the downvote button is right there. Go on, just give it a click and carry on with your day so we don’t have to think about the bad things.

[6AA4FD]

We been doin that

[piker]

Sounds like they're young. It gets way easier, and much more fun. Hang in there.

[temp0826]

"It takes a village"

[gchamonlive]

> The modern model is totally unsustainable/not scalable, but I'm not sure what the alternative should be.

It's by design. Kids don't produce capital for the elites. We peasants aren't supposed to have kids, just waste away grinding so that those in power can accumulate more power, because they can pay others and have as many kids as they want, but we from the middle class will struggle with one or two. It's a form of indirect classist populational control enforced by purchase power.

[doix]

> Kids don't produce capital for the elites.

Kids eventually grow up and "start producing capital". It's definitely beneficial for the "elite" in the long term for people to have kids.

[gchamonlive]

Maternity leave is 4 months where I live, with many women afraid to express their desire to have kids in their jobs fearing they would be fired. Daycare is prohibitively expensive. A good education too.

Sure they grow up to join the workforce eventually, but 16-18 years doesn't show up in the quarterly reports, so the elites don't like it. I could be wrong, most likely am, but that's what I see and that's what these hostile practices represent.

[denkmoon]

Have you ever seen an "elite" think beyond the edge of the quarter? Lords of the Ashes all.

[mschuster91]

> It's definitely beneficial for the "elite" in the long term for people to have kids.

Why? The elites bank on AI and robots doing everything in the future. The plebs have no place in the visions of Musk, Thiel, Altman and the rest of the wankers.

[throwawaypath]

>Kids eventually grow up and "start producing capital".

They can grow up in third-world countries where elites don't have to spend a dime. Then they lobby to import them by the millions to "start producing capital".