@planefag We also rarely encounter first-person perspective in such works as Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus and their related prophetic texts. Must be due to a lack of internal life and self-awareness.
@Hestia_Esq I will say that now that they are 11 and 13 i wish I had a third, but realistically I know how much chaos/sleep deprivation I was capable of handling at the time and without any local family support, a third baby could easily have tipped me into unmanageable territory.
@Hestia_Esq When I had two under 2 and those early years afterwards I was pretty cognizant of the fact that things were ridiculously adorable/magical and also that I never needed to experience that stage again. Both can be true.
My son just turned 14 and he's about to finally get a phone. He's been using an Apple Watch until now. It's been mostly fine until the last 6 months or so which have become difficult. As an example: he hasn't been able to flirt with a girl he has a crush on in the same way she has with him. They're having a debate about which of their prefered college football teams is better and she's sending him videos but he can't send her anything in return--only text. Is this a huge deal? No...but it's not hard to see why it feels like a huge social barrier to him.
@seconds_0@tracewoodgrains So is middle school which is fine bc it’s fleeting and we all recognize we’d never want to stay there permanently. Twitter is like the horror hotel where you can check out but never actually leave.
Theology aside, I think the elephant in the room is that “happier children” is a mask for guarding against something more shameful: parental disappointment. I speak of what I know. I recently had to make the decision about whether or not to start my son on growth hormone. My primary consideration was what my son would likely choose for himself looking back as an adult. But I couldn’t in all honesty say with certainty that my own ego played no role in the decision process. The best I could do was knowing that my ego wasn’t the only voice in the room.
It's been like this for a long time. In 2004 I was studying abroad in college and I took a day trip to Galipoli. I was 19, traveling by myself, and the middle-aged Australians couldn't stop grilling me about Bush and the Iraq War. One of their wives literally had to intervene to get them to leave me alone.
@tracewoodgrains Has politics ever really been principled? Politicians seem to either do the right thing for the wrong reasons or the wrong thing for the right reasons.
@tracewoodgrains@Jayseki@frea_bird I agree but the majority making huge and often burdensom accomodations for a tiny minority is a defining feature of the zeitgeist of the past decade.