Miss Sugar Honey Iced Tea 🍯 @permabakedprincess - Tumblr Blog

glittergroovy

glumshoe

I heard too many sounds at once and now I am a bitch

yorksilk

I hate family vloggers so much imagine having this little respect for your adolescent kid’s privacy and personal life

yorksilk

Do You Know What Children Are

inunah

They don’t have jobs, nor do they pay for rent, utilities, or food. That’s the textbook definition of a freeloader.

yorksilk

no it’s the textbook definition of “children”

sinnomine-deactivated20220221

"why isn't this 3 year old paying rent? fucking freeloader i dont know why i keep you around"

the-trans-advice-blog

This has the same energy as “ambulances aren’t your taxi to the hospital”

lynati

Imagine making the choice to bring a child into this world and then declaring that child to be a leech on your resources. Like, did you not expect that you’d have to pay for your kid’s food and other aspects of their upkeep? Did you somehow miss all the memos about what parenthood entails? Or were you actively ignoring them in favor of a plan to birth not a family member, but an employee? THERE ARE LAWS AGAINST CHILD LABOR, HOW THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO ACQUIRE A JOB?? I’m pretty sure the dictionary didn’t specify it as “a legal adult who-” does those things because they thought anyone reading the definition would be smart enough to intuit that it doesn’t apply to those who are under the age of majority, and thus aren’t expected to be providing those things in the first place. Or it’s possible these potatoes really *don’t* know What Children Are.

jabberwockypie

I think a lot of these people - a depressing number of parents in general, really - liked their kids when they were cute little babies and toddlers who didn’t have their own opinions or demand privacy or whose boundaries and personal autonomy could be more easily over-ridden because you can pick them up and tote them around.

When you have a baby, you’re very much the center of that baby’s world. They’re completely dependent on you.

But once the kids get older and start being more opinionated and having more complicated feelings, and don’t just idolize their parents, and maybe start to realize their parents are flawed human beings just like every other human who’s ever existed, and you can’t just stuff them in a foofy dress or whatever to make them Be Cute on command, there’s a certain kind of parent who feels very offended and threatened by that.

It’s like when your kitten or puppy grows up to be an adult cat or dog, and they’re not “cute” anymore.

And that’s when a lot of shit about “earning your keep” starts, and a lot of the guilt-tripping, too, I think, when kids don’t just fall down at these parents’ feet in gratitude and obeisance.

why-so-srs

So basically what you’re saying is they got Pet Syndrome with children -- puppies are cute, but grown dogs are work so return them to the shelter I guess

jabberwockypie

Pretty much? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My biological mother did pretty much that about the time she lost her marbles when I was about 9. And she’s certainly not the only one I’ve known whose kids hit more or less that development stage and went “Oh, wait, I don’t want to be a parent anymore, this is hard and I don’t like it”

randomslasher

I mean, this is legit. Everyone knows at least SOMEONE (a coworker, a friend, even a family member) who says things like “I wish they could just stay babies forever!” Someone who, when one kid starts getting old enough to have independent thoughts, starts longing for a baby again.

It’s not inherently awful to prefer the parenting experience at a certain age, but if you deconstruct the reason behind that preference, a lot of the times it’s exactly the reasons listed above: the child is not an individual yet, but a living prop that can be commanded, modeled, molded. Ideas about consent, privacy, boundaries, even individual identity haven’t really surfaced yet. The child is nothing but potential and has not yet lived long enough to disappoint.

When I was growing up, something my mom told me always stuck with me. When I was somewhere around 14 or 15, on my birthday I asked if she regretted that I was getting older (because I’d heard my friends’ parents say things like that on their birthdays). She immediately said, “No. I mean, of course we’ve always loved you and your brother, and sure you were cute when you were babies, but truthfully every year older you get is so exciting because you’re becoming your own interesting person with your own ideas and thoughts and opinions, and honestly that’s way more fun.” My parents LIKED the fact that we were becoming our own individuals with our own identities. They did NOT prefer us as adorable drooling props they could dress up and show off; they preferred us as people.

I’m insanely lucky in that regard, I think. And it’s probably telling that even though I’m 36, I still feel like I can go to my parents for help, advice, or comfort, because they didn’t do this kind of invasive shit, which would have left me feeling like they violated my trust and autonomy, and would’ve made me want to get the hell away from them the second I turned 18.

And ironically, it’s the parents who DO do that kind of shit that turn around and whine that their kids never call anymore--and the kind who decide maybe their kids were just ungrateful freeloaders all along.

prokopetz

The idea that housecats are baby-talking at humans when they meow is based on a misunderstanding.

Yes, it’s true that, amongst themselves, adult housecats generally only vocalise to communicate with kittens, but the particular set of vocalisations that adult cats use to communicate with humans is distinct from, and largely non-overlapping with, the set of vocalisations that they use to communicate with kittens.

Your average adult housecat has anywhere from twenty to fifty distinct vocalisations that are basically only used to communicate with humans.

Cats meowing at humans is less baby-talk and more your cat learning a whole second language.