this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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I'm finding very little of this thread resonates with me. I have a toddler who I love and get to spend a whole day off with during the week. I still get to do my running, cycling, rock climbing. I get some reading done most nights.
I've mostly sacrificed video games and social life, but rock climbing is social and a happy child is far more rewarding than games.
There are sacrifices, but I don't feel like I've given up my life. Is this because I don't live in the USA?
It is because people are different.
Not living in the USA most definitely helps. The age of your kids makes a difference. My youngest is 16 months old and in his phase where he has no awareness of danger and sleeps like shit still and my gas tank is empty 24/7 by the shitty quality of sleep with the constant mental energy spent making sure he doesn't kill himself. And that is when everyone is healthy.
I would litterally kill for them, but it is easy to understand why people feel like they do, especially with the current economic and societal context.
I think some just cope with parenthood better than others. Some take the feeling of bone deep mental and physical exhaustion and wonder "why/what the fuck was I thinking". They just see all they are missing or regret not doing before. Others get that feeling and feel a deep satisfaction knowing it is a sign they are doing right for their kid. It completes them in a way that is inexplicable for those who don't.
Not sure if that added anything or not but I felt it needed saying.
When the sleep sucks, everything else is worst for it.
I love my kids and I feel a great satisfaction raising them, but my tank is always running empty.
I think that parents are better at different stages of parenthood, and for me, between 9 months and 18 months is the fucking worst.
Some kids are definitely easier than others too. Both my kids wouldn't sleep for more than 90 minutes at a time until they were a few years old; and when they were awake they would demand attention; like most kids that age who are awake do.
Maybe we got lucky with our kid's sleep? I remember it was awful while my partner was on mat leave, but now they sleep through the night most nights so it's usually other shit that'll keep us up.
Were almost there. The oldest can manage herself for a little while in the morning and sleeps well
The youngest one is up at 5:30 - 5:45. It fucking sucks. And he still wakes up every other night.
6 more months and we should be over the bump.
Do you work more than 12 hours to make a basic income? I think that'd be a large difference between wherever you are and the US.
Nurse salary in the UK
My kid didn't sleep through more than a few hours until she was around 2yo but I'd already had my 2nd when she was 20 months and he didn't sleep through until he was around 2 also. Plus I had 2 c-sections to get over and we moved country. I don't care about sacrificing an old social life but my health and fitness took a massive hit.
I don't live in the USA either, good benefits here.
Same here. Some of the things that have helped make our situation easier:
What we gave up was doing things together as a couple (romantic dinners etc), as we always had to either bring the kids or stay home with them, but we could still do things on our own when we wanted to. We have family nearby, but they deemed themselves "too old" to look over the kids when they were still babies. Now that our kids are in elementary school age they've been able to sleep over once or twice a year when we get to do a parents getaway for our anniversary etc.
Really depends on your support network, and that's not USA specific. If you have help and your kid is easy going, then life can be a lot easier than if you have no help and your kid is challenging. Help can takeany forms, so yes childcare in USA is expensive and hard to come by, but involved family can help a lot regardless of where you live.
curious if you have somewhere/someone you can trust the toddler with while you do those hobbies.
I found that having a support network (either personal through friends family, or socialized through the government) has a big effect on how miserable parents are early on.
Yeah, I think one has to think about carefully first before having kids, and be prepared what they have to sacrifice. Raising a child is not easy.
I think what this post is portraying is regret that they haven't expected on what sacrifices they have to make to take care of a child. A lot of people want to get married and/or have kids just for the sake of it, because that is what society expect them to do.
Another big part is that so many people have virtually zero support. It's just them and their kids. For the first few years, we lived a 4.5hr drive from any family support. I don't even know how you find and vet babysitters these days.
It doesn't help that we're atheists, so we don't even get the built in community support that a lot of churches provide.
I'm in a similar position. Secular childcare is insanely expensive and the only alternative is church preschool. For what its worth, I don't worry about the more liberal religious schools as kids believe in Santa at that age anyways.
Same.
Japan doesn't have babysitters. It suuuuuucks.
Wait there are no babysitters in Japan? I was only there for a year as a very much childless young adult, but for some reason I assumed there would be babysitters. Thinking back, I don't think I ever knew someone who babysat unless it was an older sibling looking after younger siblings. Heck, I don't even know the Japanese word for it. Wow, for some reason I really thought that was only a modern American problem.
Nope, there's only a few on-call childcare services and they're very expensive and booked way out in advance. You also have to do interviews with the care provider.
It's definitely partly not being in the US. Economically... it's just really rough. Childcare for our one kid is nearly as much as our monthly mortgage. We make decent money but still have only enough savings to survive 2, maybe 3 months without income.
I still have plenty of hobbies, but like, because finances are tight, we only have one car in a very very car dependent area. There's simply no public transit where I live. So all of my hobbies have to be at home, or after when my kid goes to bed, which is usually close to 9:30pm, leaving an hour, maybe two, for time to myself during the week.
Do you still get to go places? I think the person in the comic used to travel a lot
Depends how much money you got. Once they are out of the "hold then in your lap" stage and you have to start paying for their airline seats it gets really expensive.
Not only that but trying to relax on a vacation with a small child must be miserable
My yearly vacation spot is iceland. How the hell would that work with a child
You don't relax on vacation with small children. You're always on alert, unless you got another family member or someone to look after your kids for a while.
You go because the kids have fun and enjoy it, but they're also small enough they might not remember it at all anyway, so it can feel like a waste in that regard.
I guess the idea is to live precariously through your child.
Okay. That was very clever. I like that one.
My parents took me to a lot of places as a kid to make good memories for me. It didn't work. My whole childhood is mostly just a big blur in my memory.
We have family time and take it in turns to have alone time. We also need less sleep than the kid.
Same. Of course there are sacrifices but I still enjoy my life and can do things. Work is what saps me the most and I love my job.
Its nice that you enjoy bein a dad. Do you and your other partner do equal parenting? Only One day in the work week with the kid sounds a bit odd. Maybe I am getting it wrong.
We both do 5 days in 4 (compressed hours) so we only have to pay for 3 days of childcare. I get to do fun things for a day with my kid, and the weekends are normal.
Ah interesting, sounds like a good model if you can find a good childcare. I think the comic refers to raising kids on your own without extra help. So it makes sense that there are fastly different experiences.
I am picking up more hobbies as my kids get older. I get into what they're into.