Look, I’ve never felt any pressure from you that I co-parent. But your idea that I take no responsibility for raising your child…it’s naive. It’s not that I think you’re not capable of raising a child on your own – of course you are – but short of us dissolving our partnership, I’m not capable of not being involved. N-Not as the child’s father, but as it’s…mother’s friend.
Watching my toddler figure out how to language is fascinating. Yesterday we were stumped when he kept insisting there was a “Lego winner” behind his bookshelf – it turned out to be a little Lego trophy cup. Not knowing the word for “trophy”, he’d extrapolated a word for “thing you can win”. And then, just now, he held up his empty milk container and said, “Mummy? It’s not rubbish. It’s allowed to be a bottle.” – meaning, effectively, “I want this. Don’t throw it away.” But to an adult ear, there’s something quite lovely about “it’s allowed to be a bottle,” as if we’re acknowledging that the object is entitled to keep its title even in the absence of the original function.
Another good post to read for those writing small human characters.
My son was about three when he came to me in the middle of the day and said, “Mommy, there’s a knight behind the bush.” I thought he meant a toy knight or something. So I follow him outside and he goes, “Listen. Do you hear it? It’s night behind the bush.” It was a cricket. A cricket was standing in the little patch of shade under the bush, chirping. So, my son saw this dark area with accompanying nighttime sounds and decided, okay, well, that is a night right there. Their brains are incredible.
My little bean knows she’s two, constantly saying proudly ‘I’m two!’ And the other day she saw this very frail old lady who looked one foot in the grave, pulled a face and said ‘oh shiiiit. She’s three.’ I almost screamed.
I live in Korea and have a lot of international friends, and the same is true with language barriers in adults.
*Looking at a bowl of pears* “Can you please pass me the… apple’s friend?”
Actually, on the subject of age, let me throw a quick little PSA your way. Kids don’t lie to adults about your age on the internet. Please. Let adults live in their comfort zones. I know we often hear it the other way around, which is also not okay, but last night I found out a girl I’d been speaking to who said she was mid twenties was actually sixteen. It just… it makes me feel uncomfortable. Please respect adults and what they want. Please don’t lie so that you can engage with them. It’s not cool. That’s all. Thanks.
This is one of my favorite things about being a parent: how you learn things that you might not have had to otherwise. That’s the thing about it–yes, I love my daughter and she is the focus of my parenting goals, but my experiences with her have helped me learn and grow in ways I never expected, and I’m grateful.
There’s a new girl in my kindergarten class who’s autistic and it’s like she’s barely / not really verbal but like idk she opened up to me a little, I don’t tell people I’m on the spectrum at work because they already treat me horribly because I’m the only poc there but like she’s a little Latina girl who I know exactly how she feels and like I was like “hey Nina, If you don’t wanna talk it’s okay, just thumbs up or thumbs down if you understand the (math) problem? Okay?” So we sorta made like a thumbs up and thumbs down thing between us and today it was the most surreal thing because I like “I know they tell you to make eye contact but I’m gonna tell you a trick, look at their neck, chin, hair, and whatever is behind them, I don’t like eye contact very much either? Thumbs up?” And she said with the smallest voice “Thankyou , for not saying I’m dumb” I wanna be the person I needed when I was her age
-“OH, WHAT, ARE U #TRIGGERED???, LIFE ISNT UR #SAFE SPACE LMAO”
Stay away from children for the rest of your lives please
The people who hate this are probably the ones traumatizing their children
this is a show for 3 – 6 year olds what is WRONG with these monsters???
Fun fact, sesame street was created to fill the gap in education for children whose families could not afford to send them to preschool. Sesame street taught basic math and phonics as well as interpersonal skills so that children below the poverty line weren’t starting elementary school behind their more privileged classmates.
Here sesame street is trying to fill a gap where supportive adults should be. Where there should be a teacher or a family member or a counselor to help, for whatever reason, there isn’t, so Sesame Street is stepping in.
This breed of person has always hated Sesame Street. They hated it for showing black and white children playing together. They hated it for giving children of color the head start that rich white families were paying for. They hated it for Bert and Ernie for showing two MEN who LIVED TOGETHER, for the married black nurse who lived on sesame street when it was first released, and for them explaining death. I feel like there was a pregnancy at some point in its early days and they would have REALLY hated that.
These days they don’t (usually) say “I’m not letting my kid watch anything with black kids in it” but they sure throw a tantrum in the youtube comments when Sesame Street DARES to show an autistic girl playing with non-autistic children and being treated like shes anyone else. They lose their shit when Sesame Street has to explain incarceration to 5 year olds. And the muppet in south africa with HIV? Hoo boy.
They hate everything Sesame Street stands for and tries to provide. They always have. We just have to ignore them and keep supporting the show. Or tell them to shut the fuck up and keep supporting the show. Either way Sesame Street will outlive them.
– Communication doesn’t work on bullies. Telling a bully they’re making you feel bad is the wrong way to go. They want to make you feel bad. That’s the point.
– being kind to a bully doesn’t always mean they’ll stop. Sometimes it means they’ll just use your kindness to manipulate you while still continuing to bully you.
– not every bully has a sympathetically tragic home life. Sometimes people are just mean. Sometimes people just get off on hurting others.
– on that note, a tough home life is a reason, not an excuse. You don’t have to put up with bullying because somebody’s life sucks, just like you don’t have to let someone mug you because they’re broke.
– in order to forgive someone, they have to apologize first. If your bully has not apologized to you, you do not owe them anything.
– getting bullied as a kid can still mess you up in adult life. Maybe kids grow out of being bullies, but the marks they left often don’t go away.
– there are ways to get people to stop bullying you, but they almost all involve being mean back.
– as long as parents keep raising shitty bullying kids, there will be bullies. No amount of assemblies and hand-drawn posters will fix the problem. It’s the parents’ fault.
– It’s not your responsibility to fix your bully or to stop the abuse they send your way, but some adults sure will act like it is.
– Many times (especially in the case of girls) your friends can be your bullies. This makes things even worse as these are people who know you and your intimate secrets and use them to their advantage. If your friends are bullies, don’t take crap from them. Get new friends.
im gonna throw in that its never your fault, people will pick a target to gang up on because theyd rather it be you than them. even if you think “this must be because im weird”- everyone is weird, in different ways. anyone can be made a target. it’s not just you for some reason in particular, i promise.
Today a little boy was engaging in “pulling pigtails” behavior, pestering a particular girl. I told her, and the class, that sometimes when little boys like someone they’ll act like jerks just to get their attention. The rest of the class hooted, the boy protested, and the girl grimaced and said she knew, her mother and older brother and old teacher told her.
I continued on to say that just because a boy likes you doesn’t give him an excuse to be a jerk, and you shouldn’t give them a chance to get your attention until they learn how to behave and her face was priceless. Basically, picture a tiny elementary school girl with red bows in her hair embodying the spirit of this gif:
wupacing 