SOME ADVICES FOR FUTURE (and actual) PARENTS
So I’m personally not planning on having children, but I would like to counsel people who do (based on my own experience)
DO NOT, DO NEVER compare your child to other children or people. This is a direct road to therapy, you’ll cause them inferiority or superiority complexes, and that’s not good
Talk to them as they were adults. Yes, they’re cute. Yes, they’re chubby and you want to call them by cute names. But they will thank you later, it will incredibly develop their intelligence and critical thinking.
Do not brush their problems or complicated conversation topics away. Do as if they were valid adults - which they are, in a way. You talk about them, let them express what they need and feel, abs together come up with a solution.
Forcing them to meet YOUR friends (and extended family)? That’s meh. They won’t keep any good memory from it — they just feel like they’re dragged around like a pet.
The “do not compare” also applies to other generations. Your generation and theirs is completely different, with different problems and fights and joys.
You love your children, and they probably love you. However, they aren’t your property, and want a life of their own, so give them air and space. If you don’t, they’ll hate you or break free without your accord, or both.
Fix yourself before fixing your children.
Yes, they need you to survive. However, they don’t owe you anything for that, besides being grateful perhaps. But being fed and housed isn’t a privilege they should repay for; it’s something YOU chose to give them when you gave them birth. They didn’t ask to live, you made them live.
I’m not a parent and do not plan to be one, so of course I can’t really tell y’all what to do, but, truly, these things will 1) make your children happier and 2) make your relationship with them better.
Feel free to add anything!
