Raising children and daycare

[Detroitdad]

Originally Posted by Burning Bright

It's just a weird world we live in when people try to rationalize not raising their own children. If you're gonna stick your offspring in kiddie jail (daycare) at least be honest about it and admit that your kids aren't as high a priority to you as a bigger paycheck.

All these lame excuses don't hold much substance.

A bit of hyperbolic overstatement don't you think. I sent my daughter to daycare and she enjoyed it. They engaged her in ways that a single parent in the home cannot always do. We were lucky to have a quality daycare option.
My young son is at home with his mother, and while that is good in many ways there are some losses as well.
Maybe our experience is not statistically significant, but you'll never convince me that high quality care by another for your child is per se detrimental, nor do I believe that day care delivered by a mother (or any other parent) is per se more developmentally appropriate or enjoyable for a child.

[Burning Bright]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I thought this here was a sweet little vingette:



However, it spoke volumes about how little quality time you spend with your kids, that you would pat yourself on the back at such a quaint accomplishment. This is like some ward basketball player crowing about how he touched the rim. I'd annihilate you in this endeaver. My kids are so much better off for spending so much quality time with a father of divderse interests and learning who is unfazed at sharing the burden of raising them. You pat yoruself on the back for spending half a day with a toddler when what you really believe is that you're doing your wife a huge favor because normally this isn't in a guy's scope of work. I know what you are.

Oh gosh, you don't know my 14 month old. He's a very whiny child when healthy (but getting better) but when he's sick, he's Bealzubub. Mother Theresa doesn't have anything on me. If she spent the Saturday with my sick toddler, she would have started smoking crack by noon. I could probably quit trying right now and still achieve exhaltation just based on my watching him for the day when he's sick.

If you had spent the day with my sick son, you probably would have instantly converted to homosexuality. Your testicles would have shriveled up like tiny raisons and then gone to hide behind your kidneys just so you would never even think about breeding again.

However, I love the little despot and he's getting more pleasant with every month that goes by.

People that don't spend a lot of time with their kids try to make their conscience feel better by saying they spend "quality" time with their kids. "Junior may be in daycare from 6:30 am until 7 pm, but the 15 minutes I spend reading a bedtime story to him sure is quality."

I got news for you, I spend quantity time with my kids, quality time and a whole boatload of non-quality time. I piss quality and fart excellence!

[Burning Bright]

Originally Posted by Detroitdad

A bit of hyperbolic overstatement don't you think. I sent my daughter to daycare and she enjoyed it. They engaged her in ways that a single parent in the home cannot always do. We were lucky to have a quality daycare option.
My young son is at home with his mother, and while that is good in many ways there are some losses as well.
Maybe our experience is not statistically significant, but you'll never convince me that high quality care by another for your child is per se detrimental, nor do I believe that day care delivered by a mother (or any other parent) is per se more developmentally appropriate or enjoyable for a child.

It's good to know that the hired help making minimum wage watching 10 kids at a time can engage your progeny better than a parent watching a single child.

Are you trying to make a point or something?

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Burning Bright

Oh gosh, you don't know my 14 month old. He's a very whiny child when healthy (but getting better) but when he's sick, he's Bealzubub. Mother Theresa doesn't have anything on me. If she spent the Saturday with my sick toddler, she would have started smoking crack by noon. I could probably quit trying right now and still achieve exhaltation just based on my watching him for the day when he's sick.

If you had spent the day with my sick son, you probably would have instantly converted to homosexuality. Your testicles would have shriveled up like tiny raisons and then gone to hide behind your kidneys just so you would never even think about breeding again.

However, I love the little despot and he's getting more pleasant with every month that goes by.

People that don't spend a lot of time with their kids try to make their conscience feel better by saying they spend "quality" time with their kids. "Junior may be in daycare from 6:30 am until 7 pm, but the 15 minutes I spend reading a bedtime story to him sure is quality."

I got news for you, I spend quantity time with my kids, quality time and a whole boatload of non-quality time. I piss quality and fart excellence!

No. I bet I spend more time and more quality time than you. To pretend all time spent with kids is of equal value is the cop out. For example, If you have a television set and park your kids in front of it to give yourself or your spouse some peace or so you can watch your own shows on your second TV you are creating the same bad environment as the worst kind of day care. What's imporatant is the gross amount of quality interaction with adults who say intelligent things to them and do enriching activities with them. It IS important to ensure quality time.

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by Burning Bright

Oh gosh, you don't know my 14 month old. He's a very whiny child when healthy (but getting better) but when he's sick, he's Bealzubub. Mother Theresa doesn't have anything on me. If she spent the Saturday with my sick toddler, she would have started smoking crack by noon. I could probably quit trying right now and still achieve exhaltation just based on my watching him for the day when he's sick.

If you had spent the day with my sick son, you probably would have instantly converted to homosexuality. Your testicles would have shriveled up like tiny raisons and then gone to hide behind your kidneys just so you would never even think about breeding again.

However, I love the little despot and he's getting more pleasant with every month that goes by.

People that don't spend a lot of time with their kids try to make their conscience feel better by saying they spend "quality" time with their kids. "Junior may be in daycare from 6:30 am until 7 pm, but the 15 minutes I spend reading a bedtime story to him sure is quality."

I got news for you, I spend quantity time with my kids, quality time and a whole boatload of non-quality time. I piss quality and fart excellence!

Don't let Seattle get to you. He just thinks he's more enlightened since he traded the shackles of religion for the restraints of secularism.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Burning Bright

It's good to know that the hired help making minimum wage watching 10 kids at a time can engage your progeny better than a parent watching a single child.

Ratio of 10:1 is a gross violation of state law where I come from. How many kids does your wife watch at once, sport? You don't practice birth control do you?

[Burning Bright]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Ratio of 10:1 is a gross violation of state law where I come from. How many kids does your wife watch at once, sport? You don't practice birth control do you?

Oh, sure. Go ahead and trust the GOVERNMENT to decide what's good for your kids. The government can't even tie their own shoelaces and you're gonna let them advise you on acceptable child rearing standards? That's a good one.

I've got two children. I would have liked a bigger family but you play the cards you're dealt.

[Burning Bright]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

No. I bet I spend more time and more quality time than you. To pretend all time spent with kids is of equal value is the cop out. For example, If you have a television set and park your kids in front of it to give yourself or your spouse some peace or so you can watch your own shows on your second TV you are creating the same bad environment as the worst kind of day care. What's imporatant is the gross amount of quality interaction with adults who say intelligent things to them and do enriching activities with them. It IS important to ensure quality time.

When my first one was one year old we decided to toss the tv. We canceled our cable and since then we've had no tv reception. I think the majority of TV is crap and I don't want it in our house.

We do have dvd players so we can control and monitor what comes into our house. There are good shows and dvds and this way we can pick and choose.

My 14 month old doesn't watch dvds. My five year old probably averages an hour a day.

If your point is that daycare is better than parking your kid in front of the TV all day, I'd probably agree with you. But that's like saying herpes is better than AIDS. They both suck.

However, if you're a good parent, you raise your own kids and either eleminate or strictly control tv/dvds.

I never said all time spent with kids is of equal value. I'm just saying that if you spend any amount of time with your kids, you're gonna spend lots of quality and non-quality time with your kids. If someone says they only spend quality time with their kids, they must not be around them very much.

As far as amount of time you spend with your kids, unless you work from home or are disabled with no job and just hang out at home, there's no way you spend more time with your kids than I do. Unless you meet one of those criteria (or something very similar), it's just not physically possible.

If you do meet one of those criteria, then why are you messing around with daycare? Assuming your spouse hasn't died or nothing tragic has happened.

[creekster]

I wish the two of you would take this little spat to boardmail so the rest of us wouldn't have to skim this pile of self-congratulatory hoo-ha. There is no magic bullet in parenting. The more you do it the more you realize how little you know about it. If all you have done so far is spend 5 years with two kids, then I find your certainty in prescription laughable. I guarantee that 20 years from now you will have softened your views, at least as far as telling everyone else how to do it. THis goes for both of you.

Clearly you are both Very Special Parents. Congratulations.

[SteelBlue]

Originally Posted by creekster

Clearly you are both Very Special Parents. Congratulations.

I was just thinking the same thing. I'll add my congratulations to the both of them, and I'll give Creekster an "amen".