
Parenting: Who is it really for? (2017) - kick
https://sivers.org/pa
======
surfsvammel
I love that blog, but this doesn’t help. Parents are bombarded with messages
that just adds to their anxiety and self-doubt about being a good parent and
giving their kids all they need.

Being a parent is tough. It’s hard work — you are thrown into this huge
responsibility with no experience what-so-ever. It’s easy to feel completely
abandoned in this task, it’s easy to feel that you’re not enough, that you
could, or should, be doing more, better or what have you.

I believe what we need, as parenting advice, is that what kids really need is
love and care. It is ok to be tired as a parent, it is ok to not be able to
sit and play with your kid for hours straight, it’s ok to have the kids watch
the iPad, even though it’s “not stimulating their intellect” so that you have
the time to shower or get something to eat. And most important, it is ok to
not be the best parent in the world.

I think the internet needs more messages like that instead of further
increasing our insecurities as parents. Being a parent is damn though as is.

~~~
kick
_I believe what we need, as parenting advice, is that what kids really need is
love and care._

I agree with this.

 _it’s ok to have the kids watch the iPad, even though it’s “not stimulating
their intellect”_

Not criticizing: Why this? Why not encourage the child to do something like
use Swift Playgrounds (an iPad app made for young children), or play a game,
or read a book?

 _And most important, it is ok to not be the best parent in the world._

Shouldn't that be the aim of everyone, even if they miss it?

~~~
surfsvammel
I’m thinking about a three year old here.

Yes. If you have something more stimulating to throw at the kid, that’s great,
but the point is to not beat oneself up if you don’t.

The thing is, I believe, that all this _trying to be the best parent in the
world_ is contra-productive. Because being the best parent in the world, if
you read online, seem to be based on completely the wrong criterias.

But that’s an opinion and maybe I am just holding on to that opinion in order
to protect my own parent-self-esteem. Telling myself that it is ok for me to
not constantly come up with new stimulating things to do.

By the way. Having a three year old sit through an entire opera seems strange.
Children at that age don’t have that kind of attention span for biological
reasons. That’s why you don’t diagnose things like ADHD at that age, because
everyone would have it.

~~~
em-bee
_Having a three year old sit through an entire opera seems strange. Children
at that age don’t have that kind of attention span for biological reasons._

citation please. my kids could watch tv for hours at 3 years, much to my
dismay. i'd actually love it if they got bored from it.

however, that is exactly the point. sivers managed to instill an attention
span in his child that i find admirable. good on him, and also good on him for
recognizing how much he benefits himself from that.

~~~
surfsvammel
Doing some googling I realise I might have misunderstood it. It seems that the
attention span was defined as “working alone” at activities.

I agree. Good on him, good for him.

~~~
em-bee
montessori has 2-3 hour work cycles in which the kids from 3-6 work alone on
activities. they may switch activities, but they effectively spend the whole
time by themselves in the classroom. of course the younger ones less than the
older ones, but they quickly learn from their peers.

the teachers mainly observe and will focus on one child at a time, when they
need guidance or are ready to learn something new.

------
mothsonasloth
This guys blog post oozes pretentiousness, especially with the music part.

Most of us all capable of reproduction, and most of us are capable of raising
children.

It's the loud minority of people on the sidelines, who sow doubt on this
topic, with stories of CEOs who don't have time for their kids, druggy parents
neglecting their children or absent mothers/fathers.

Go forth and multiply.

~~~
xkcd-sucks
Parenting blogs are about convincing other people to raise children in your
own image

~~~
dragonwriter
No, parenting blogs are about getting external validation about your own
parenting skills from someone other than the people subject to them.

------
jacobr
Agree with the conclusion of the article, but many people would have better
lives if they reconsidered this “parenting” thing.

Are you sure you are cultivating his attention span, or were you both just
born like that, and he is getting older and more mature?

The hours you spend with your children (5 hours a day would be really
difficult with 3 kids) during a couple of years in their childhood is not that
important to their adult personality. It’s a combination of traits from birth,
which class mates they get, the teachers, if they get sick, infections,
siblings, grand parents, media, culture...

Personally I enjoy spending time with my kids, so both me and my wife work
shorter hours, but it’s to do stuff we all enjoy _right now_ , not to
cultivate this or that personality trait.

Don’t be a terrible parent, and your kids will turn out whoever they were
meant to be. And do the things you and your kids enjoy.

~~~
mlyle
> Are you sure you are cultivating his attention span, or were you both just
> born like that, and he is getting older and more mature?

Ah, nature vs. nurture-- perhaps not the most novel take.

> The hours you spend with your children (5 hours a day would be really
> difficult with 3 kids) during a couple of years in their childhood is not
> that important to their adult personality. It’s a combination of traits from
> birth, which class mates they get, the teachers, if they get sick,
> infections, siblings, grand parents, media, culture...

It sure looks like activities during age 0-5 have a __huge impact __on overall
trajectory. Yes, the genetic starting point matters, as does everything else
afterwards.

> not to cultivate this or that personality trait.

IMO this is the biggest problem. I think being _excessively_ intentional has
significant potential downsides.

------
38932ur98u
I don't want kids at all (at least right now in my life, I'm 25). These ideas
are however a pretty strong counterpoint to my negative feelings: that you can
completely shape a human brain from birth using your 30 years or whatever of
experience on this planet. Hopefully giving this brain a lot of perspectives
that you wish you'd been with all your life. I see this explicitly sometimes
living in Europe, some parents will raise their children to be tri or quad
lingual. I'm absolutely beyond jealous that my parents didn't give that to me
(although I have a lot of other things to be grateful for, so I can't
complain)

------
flywithdolp
If you ask my grandma, she will answer 'for everyone' (Sweet old Jewish lady)

------
theabsurdman
It's nice that he can do this with his child, but it's probably not realistic
for most people, especially those who work 9-5. Also, add another child to the
mix and suddenly things aren't so easy!

~~~
danenania
That’s true, although I think there’s still a good lesson in there about
making the time count, regardless of how much time you have to give. An hour
of real undivided attention is probably better than spending a whole day
together but being distracted most of the time.

------
fouc
Folks, don't get confused. This is not a parenting blog post.

> By cultivating his long attention span, I’m cultivating my own.

> By entering his world, I’m letting go of my own, like meditation.

> By broadening his inputs, I’m broadening my own.

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
What the author proposes -- spending 30 hours a week together with your kid
and apparently doing whatever they want, regardless of how awkward or
inconvenient this is for the parent -- is historically incredible abnormal
(ain't nobody got time for that if you're trying to coax a living from the
land) and likely to lead to a self-centered kid who _expects_ everybody to be
equally fascinated by what they're doing.

~~~
flatiron
Seriously. Also an only child. I have three kids five and under. I feel like
all I do is parent but never particularly get any one on one time. They’ll be
fine though.

------
sdiq
I was at a school graduation yesterday for preschoolers (yes, we do that in
these parts of the world!). Part of the speech of the guest of honour talked
about raising kids. His advice was that while we are usually bombarded with
messages of things to do, he said that the most important things are the stuff
that we should avoid. We teach our kids to fear, for example. This he said
does a lot more damages later in life - like anxiety disorder. Teaching kids
dishonesty. He said that kids learn through our actions and speech. So, if the
children learn that we, as adults, deal dishonestly with others then it
becomes easier for them to also end acquiring such behaviours. Can't remember
all the points though, now.

------
forkerenok
> Nobody else can play with us like this. Everyone else gets so bored.

My younger brother was like this. The downside is that he was growing up
without friends. He would be interested in many things other kids of his age
were finding boring.

------
werber
I appreciate the acknowledgment of the selfish parts of being a parent. I have
very little interest even after reading this, but it makes more sense to me
than the way most people talk about it

------
johnmcauley
We’ve (2 year old boy and 40 year old father) just finished an ancient
babylonian opera. So much more rewarding when translated into Farsi, a
beautiful language.

------
DoreenMichele
This is not parenting advice. He's just talking about his life experiences and
his point of view, a thing he seems to do a lot. And he's rich and famous
enough that people will read it.

I'm on my third parenting blog. I was a full-time wife and mom for a lot of
years. I've really struggled to get any traction with anything I've done.

I think I have really excellent credentials. I homeschooled. I was Director of
Community Life for The TAG Project for a time, which was pro bono professional
work for a voluntary health and welfare organization dealing with the
educational, emotional and social needs of gifted kids.

But that doesn't really translate to a resume, so to speak. I get a lot of
flak for trying to say "I know something useful and I have special
credentials." People mostly think I am making that up.

We look to famous actors and the like for stuff like parenting advice in part
because we have some sense of knowing them and being able to trust what they
say. Maybe someday I can address the "parenting information" space better than
Sivers, but it takes more than just being a good parent to do that.

You also need to know how to write extremely well, navigate protecting family
privacy while sharing inherently private stories and cultivate an audience.
There may be more to it than that, but that's a plenty tall order to begin
with right there.

If people think it is awful that some rich guy who can afford to spend a lot
of time with his kid is talking about that, then maybe go spend time on
parenting blogs written by full-time moms or people with less vaunted
financial circumstances.

Of course, one of the problems is that people working 9-5 who have children
probably can't manage to turn out a quality blog while doing all that. Good
writing takes time and effort.

There is no perfect solution here. I was trying to develop a parenting blog
when my kids were still minors and people on email lists were interested in
what I had to say and I didn't know how to deal with a lot of the pieces of
that. I couldn't monetize it effectively or get much in the way of traffic,
etc.

So when I got divorced, no, my blogs didn't support me. I got a corporate job
instead and continued to fail as a blog writer. I got some success as a
blogger while homeless.

This is partly me -- I didn't know what I was doing -- and partly the world.
The world didn't really want to help me succeed.

If you want a certain kind of information to exist, then be a good audience.
Go give attention, feedback and financial support to people doing that kind of
writing. Help them develop their craft.

Sivers is so rich, he can afford to not really care what anyone thinks about
him anymore. And he isn't giving parenting advice per se here.

~~~
watwut
> If people think it is awful that some rich guy who can afford to spend a lot
> of time with his kid is talking about that, then maybe go spend time on
> parenting blogs written by full-time moms or people with less vaunted
> financial circumstances.

Right. It is quite similar, isn't it? In more then one way, that is exactly
what he does and thinks about. None of what he write about is super
exceptional. It is also about him and about what we should do, not about us,
he is not telling us that we must do it his way.

But also, I guess there is some gender equality in angry responses from people
who are not in that situation. He is getting the same "shut up don't talk
about what you do" and bad faith reading that chilesspeople and working
fathers react with at mommy discussion forums (in my personal experience -
moms with one exception either ignored it or read it, but did not seemed to be
offended by its existence as much nor as consistently).

~~~
DoreenMichele
When I was growing up, my dad often asked "What's in the fridge?" My mother
always got aggravated about that and would tell him he could look in the
fridge as well as she could.

I grew up and was a full-time wife and mom for a long time. I always knew what
was in the fridge. My husband and sons would ask me "What's in the fridge?" It
looked like crappy gendered behavior.

I got divorced and got a corporate job and got my sons to take over "the
women's work." Once I stopped doing all the grocery shopping and cooking and
my son took it over, I began asking him "What's in the fridge?"

As a general rule of thumb, people usually aren't giving an intentionally bad
faith reading. They are just talking about how it looks to them from their
position in life.

Humans tend to suffer tunnel vision, in some sense. It can be very challenging
to get outside ourselves and take on a broader perspective. This is compounded
by the fact that most people are raised with either a shame model or guilt
model, so they are quick to feel accused, even if that's not what's happening.

~~~
watwut
I have collegues who use the name of this forum as nickname for stupid in
causual discussion "I read it on <name>" is their expression for "stupid".
They never read it, don't have kids. They "just know" it is bad.

Trust me, what I am referring to is bad faith reading. Reactions completely
disproportionate to content, very apparently hostile reactions from people who
did not read it, looking for reasons to mock. Reading attention seeking (or
external validation) in literally everything. Treating mild disagreement
between members as something horrible (no insults or personal attacks,
literally just disagreement).

Side note: I never start these discussions, for some reason people actively
used that as conversation starters. Along with dumb supposed funny remarks
about women. I know how to stop it now, but it was puzzling and frustrating
and shocking after I came back to work. Why are you conversation starting by
insulting people like me?

The most apparent public hostility was when said forum was looking for
programmer. The Facebook thread under it had people who were neither
programmers nor moms talking about supposed super crazy women there. Like
"take this job and you will be working for oversensitive anti vaccines
crazies". Meanwhile actual forums were like any other and prevalent sentiment
was not anti-vacine at all. It wasn't even big topic, trading used baby cloth,
craft, cooking and child raising issues were dominant topics.

And meanwhile ani vaccine male collegues gets no pushback whatsoever nor is
ever used as example of anti vacine person. Does not fit profile I guess.

------
rosybox
He's got a 5 year old and he's giving parenting advice. The ideal parent
folks. We all love our children, we all try to do the best for them. You're
not special. You don't post your kids face online, well I don't gloat how
great of a parent I am online.

We should all remember that how people present themselves online, whether it's
beautiful photos on Instagram or enlightened blog posts, is not reality.

Being a parent is fucking hard. I love it, it may be hard to see it sometimes
but it's worth it, and I don't pretend for a minute that I don't fuck it up
every other moment or that it isn't the most challenging role I've taken on. I
also don't preach to other parents how they should raise their kids. I do my
best, though I fail, to not judge how other people parent. I certainly don't
blab about it if I do. I guess except in this miserable instance.

~~~
kick
_We should all remember that how people present themselves online, whether it
's beautiful photos on Instagram or enlightened blog posts, is not reality._

Sivers legally forced himself to give nearly the entire value of his company
(~$22,000,000 - (5% per year of living)) that he had worked years to build to
charity, and that can be verified pretty easily.

It's safe to say he's a better person than most, and this article isn't really
advice in the sense you seem to be implying. Using a holier-than-thou tone
probably doesn't help your case, very much.

~~~
free652
I had to verify and I am calling BS on this. The charity will only give money
to anyone else but him when he dies. Until then he is paying himself 4.4
million per year or when the trust is depleted.

~~~
kick
Did you mess up your math? 5% of 22,000,000 is not 4,400,000, it's 1,100,00.

