I’m vastly happier having had kids in my 30s rather than my 20s. Greater emotional and financial stability as well as a strong foundation for my marriage were boons.
The modern right wing is all in on AI tools, in part because of their particular beliefs about the nature of expertise and general humanity.
We’ve seen AI tools used for tons and tons of inappropriate things over the last year. Reviewing research grants, aid programs, and regulations? Why not? Publishing propaganda on Twitter? Sure thing! Finding “fraud” in state benefits? Absolutely!
There’s a belief amongst these people that AI tools are better than human judgement and represent an inevitable future where CEO kings operate the world. Why not also apply it to war?
We can barely even meaningfully define UPFs, and they aren't cleanly correlated with junk food.
Potato Chips are not UPFs but tortillas with an added preservative are.
Ice cream purchased at the store that has emulsifiers is a UPF. Homemade ice cream is not. But I think we'd agree that it is the fat and sugar in the ice cream that is the bad part to feed to kids.
I will go further and say that eating some ice cream does not hurt kids at all. No, you are not a bad parent because you gave your kid ice cream. And fat is completely legitimate part of food. Likewise sacharides.
Tortillas from the grocery store are UPFs. This sort of "you shouldn't have had kids if you can't cook everything from scratch every day" judgement is outrageous.
Breastfeeding appears to have better health outcomes than formula. It is also hard as shit. I'm absolutely not telling a parent that they should have aborted their kid if they choose to use formula because the mother keeps getting mastitis or because their kid is not strong enough to get a full meal in less than 70 minutes on the breast. Perfection is not required.
Babies are incredibly difficult even in the best case. Sleep deprivation is intense. Breastfeeding is difficult. Adding in small additional difficulties adds up. "This is a bit more difficult" becomes a huge mess when you are on three hours of sleep and there are 10 different "this is a bit more difficult" things that people are suggesting to you.
Add this on top of any sort of complex baby (illness, allergies, colic, slow weight gain, etc) and suddenly the slightly less complex disposable diaper becomes a godsend just to save a few minutes or a bit of mental load.
Babies are incredibly difficult even in the best case. Sleep deprivation is intense. Breastfeeding is difficult. Adding in small additional difficulties adds up. "This is a bit more difficult" becomes a huge mess when you are on three hours of sleep and there are 10 different "this is a bit more difficult" things that people are suggesting to you.
Add this on top of any sort of complex baby (illness, allergies, colic, slow weight gain, etc) and suddenly the slightly less complex door dashing a warm bottle of formula becomes a godsend just to save a few minutes or a bit of mental load.
I don't judge people who order out all the time or pay for a night nanny or do any of a million things that make life easier with an infant. Infants are fucking hard.
You can try it. Parents should try what they want and there is a huge amount of "you must do it this way or else" material that just produces unnecessary stress.
My observation is that there is limited research showing that this actually works and that the amount of extra effort required to constantly be observing the baby for these cues makes the already extremely difficult task of caring for a baby just more difficult, even if it did work.
the amount of extra effort required to constantly be observing the baby [...] makes [...] caring for a baby just more difficult
you learn a lot more about your baby than just elimination cues by observing it. i'd argue that that effort is not difficult at all and has a lot of other benefits. see attachment parenting.
you are right about "you must do it this way or else" producing unnecessary stress though.
"The US is uniquely responsible for bringing about the end times through violence in the middle east" has been a belief system amongst a subset of american evangelicals, many of whom hold significant power, for a while. But it hasn't been around forever. It really is an idea that grew out of the late 20th century.
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