'I'm done making my kid's childhood magical'

This makes no sense. Most people want grandchildren and they want to live a few years while those kids are here.

 

If only our recesses had been as cool as this one was....

 

Alma?

 

This rings very true and goes for all ages, especially the very young.

How many times have you seen kids surrounded by all kinds of fancy, expensive toys, when you watched and suddenly realize that they're just has happy, or happier, to play with a cardboard box or pots and pans and a spoon with which to bang them?

The article is just making the point that parents -- good parents, anyway -- shouldn't feel a need to "prove" anything, either to their kids, or to the Joneses. They don't have to.

I believe kids know when they're loved and cared for, and it doesn't take much, materially speaking, to let them know that.

Doesn't mean you can't ever put together an especially special birthday event that you're sure your kid will love. But it doesn't have to be done in order to prove anything, except that you really want to do it for them. It's shouldn't be a burden, an imposition or a stressor.

 

The grandparent dynamic fascinates me... I know so many people, friends and family, where the grandparents are the primary source of day care. My cousin dumps all five of his kids off at my aunt and uncle's five times a week.

One of my son's friends had his grandparents staying with him last week so his parents could go to Club Med. I'm sure that kid enjoyed his Spring Break. Yeah, my parents took off for the beach and left me with these old people...

 

This shit never has anything to do with kids. It's all about parents.

Take any 6-year-old T-ball team. Give them the choice between a free coke or snow-cone after the game and a trophy or T-shirt that says Bumblefuck City League Champions. They'll take the free coke or snow cone. Parents? They'll take the damn T-shirts and order some of their own.

Parents today suck in large quantities.

 

This has been happening forever and a day. When I was 7 my grandma came to watch us while my parents went to Germany on a business trip.

Grandparents love it. Grandkids love it.

 

I'm sure some do. I get the sense some of the grandparents are torn between wanting to spend time with their grandkids and being unpaid childcare.

 

A friend of mine has been married for about 10 years and has no plans on having kids. Having about six various step-parents as she was growing up might have had something to do with it.

 

Grandparents do not want to be taken for granted nor taken advantage of.

That means ASK them politely and respectfully and with plenty of notice if they can care for the grandkids. It does not mean assuming they'll joyfully do it at a moment's notice, and especially if the parents put the onus on the child ("Amanda says she's dying to spend the evening with her grandparents!"), as my brother and sister-in-law did time and again when wanting to go out for the evening and leaving my dad to take care of my niece.

 

We're the opposite. My mom is always volunteering to watch them.

 

Not enough, evidently, since they're still having kids.