I feel like everyone thinks they’re behind in life in general. It’s a really messed up mind set society puts us in.

It might feel like a big thing now but you’ll be fine. I went to get my GED once and failed the test, I thought it was the end of the world. Turns out none of it mattered and I ended up doing pretty well for myself.

A few years ago we bought a dishwasher when we were in no place to be spending money on something unnecessary, but my wife was 8 months pregnant and wanted one. We bought the cheapest one at I think Lowes, if I recall correctly it was around $100, maybe $120.

The ducking thing doesn’t have buttons, it has some stupid sensor panel, not touchscreen but is supposed to mimic it I guess. The sensors just don’t fucking work, ever. I spend 10 minutes loading the thing and 15 minutes trying to get it to start. Most of the time I have to cut the power from the breaker a few times to eventually get it to work. It’ll just change through all the settings beeping like crazy, so we have to keep it shut which means our dishes don’t dry properly. For a while I could only get it to start on the intense mode so it took 3 hours to run, now it only works on normal. It’s like I have to do a magic spell each time but the steps change weekly.

I would love to throw it out and get a new one but it technically works and it’s only 3 years old.

I just use a knife. My wife got a fancy electric can opened a few years back and loves it but I can’t stand the thing.

Nah nothing like that. I used to be an awful person, I’m still just trying to be better.

Although even at my worst I don’t think I would ever assault a child.

I had a kid who lives a block over egg my house a few years ago on Halloween. A few weeks later I saw him riding his bike and stopped him and just asked him not to do it again because it was a pain to clean properly. He apologized, thanked me for not yelling at him and then laughed when he saw my house that hasn’t been power washed in years with just a few clean spots where his eggs hit.

Now he comes over every week and plays soccer with me and my toddler and helps us with yard work in the summer.

A little bit of human decency and talking to a kid like they’re a person can go along way. Kids aren’t stupid, they just don’t know a lot of things.

I’m not sure how I feel about community service as a punishment. At the surface I think it’s a good idea, someone did something stupid so they have to go help out somewhere when they’d probably rather be doing something else, and it’s definitely a better alternative to beating your kids. I just feel like ultimately the people there should want to be there helping out, and forcing them to create a kind of divide between them and the people they’re supposed to be helping.

As a reckless teenager I had to do some court ordered community service and got to pick where I went, so I picked the shelter my mom and I were staying at thinking it’d be a breeze. On my first day there I heard some of the most vulgure things about the people staying there, I got the rundown on who everyone ordered to be there wished wasn’t alive, and how everyone generally didnt want to be there helping these people and would rather be anywhere else. I kept my head down while we were there so no one really recognized me, I honestly don’t think they saw us as people worth remembering anyway. I switched to a food bank after a few days because I couldn’t take it. It was a little better because most of the people working there were actual volunteers.

Not knocking your parenting method at all, I’m sure (I hope) your oldest isn’t spitting in a big pot of soup out of spite for being forced to be there.

Also kudos to you for not trying to scare your kids into submission. Everyone that I’ve seen try to use fear as a parenting tool has in my eyes failed and it shows through their kids, who you really can’t blame. I’m currently trying to get a neighborhood kid to stop coming around because his parents come over and scream too much, so the kid acts out, but I can’t figure out how to do that without making him feel like he’s just a bad kid who we don’t want around, it seems like he’d be a good kid with a little love in his life. He’s just a kid and the bad shit he does is entirely the parents fault.

It took 5 minutes to get my father in law to open teamviewer because he kept clicking on the first result which for some reason brought him to the teamviewer website instead of opening the fucking software he had installed already.

And you know what? I can’t blame him at all

I was gonna say I thought this had been the case forever. I don’t use this feature but I recall seeing it on pretty much every custom ROM I’ve used over the last few years.

I find that I’m pretty much useless after 4 hours. I usually do a 4 hour stretch during the day and then hop back on for another 2 hours when the kids are down and that seems to be the most productive for me.

Neat and simple. Thanks.

One of our cats is Meshe, we call her Moo. Meshe -> Mooshe -> Moo.

Bonus: we have a dog named Gismo, we call him big boobs. Don’t ask how we got there, it makes sense.

My wife said something like “the patriarchy hurts everyone, men included” and everything made a lot more sense.

I did call them out a bit. The thing that broke me was when I said something like “I provide a lot more than financial support. I cook, clean, change diapers etc…” And I saw the group split between the guys who do that stuff and those who don’t.

It made me sad, a lot of these guys are only a few years older than me and can’t really blame it on “how things used to be”. I felt like I was in the 50s or something and I needed to check if the bathrooms were segregated. I’ve never seen such ignorant toxic masculinity in real life, and I used to work in construction 10 years ago.

Someone else pointed out that they wouldn’t be able to survive off of 85% pay without finding gig/temp work. And I’ll admit, I’m in a fortunate enough position now that I didn’t put much thought into that 15% being detrimental. We’ll surely blow through most of our savings and that’ll hurt, but we’ll be alright.

With my first son I was working 2 jobs when he was born and we were already well behind on a lot of bills so the thought of leave didn’t ever begin to cross my mind. It does make me even more appreciative of the position we’re in now.

We are in a very fortunate situation. We’re not well off by any means but have saved pretty well. We paid off the car last year and started putting that extra money we were paying into a seperate account which turned into our backup account to bridge that 15% gap.

I’m also pretty close with the guy who owns the corner store around the block and can usually pickup a few night shifts a week there when I need to since it’s in a rough neighborhood and they haven’t been able to find a steady nightshift clerk for 5 years.

We’re very lucky that aspect.

That’s some assumption, I never said I agreed with them or was looking to take their advice or gain their approval. I said all of the things people are saying in here, I offended a few people who thought I was calling them bad dads which I never directly said, but that’s their short line to draw to their own conclusion.

I more so was looking for input on the concept of paternity leave from people outside my small work circle because I thought the overwhelming hate on it was wild and for a minute felt like I was some new age radical who had just discovered the concept of taking care of your family. I knew I wasn’t, but I don’t hear much about it where I’m at so I figured I’d ask the general community.

My wife’s a gig worker and does mostly weekends in summer so I usually get all of that time to be a parent on my own, and while I miss my wife a lot, I love being the sole parent. My son and I have such a different flow than him and my wife and it’s so interesting to see.

That first summer with our oldest was rough, he was only a few months old, I was working 2 jobs just so we could scrape by so he didn’t really know me yet, he screamed and screamed but eventually we got in a good groove and I found a spot on his back that if I rubbed put him right to sleep. That spot still works 3 years later

That’s what I thought. It really felt like I was in the twilight zone going through those conversations.

Oh I had never thought to not take my leave (or care for my teeth) because of what the people around me were saying. The only person whose opinion matters about this is my wife.

I’m just absolutely dumbfounded why people would be so against something that is just plain good for them and their family? I know that’s naive, I just can’t comprehend it.

Probably any other country where I could get a doctor to take a look at my heart condition without having to take out a loan against my house to pay for it.