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A post is blowing up on my part of twitter where a guy is saying he only wants to spend 10 minutes a day with his kids.. This has a surprising amount of scissor power, with people coming down on all sides.
Relevant quote:
The one straightforward argument is that, well, he's a shitty dad. Especially since he says he wants to be working, accomplishing something, and what is his work? Well, he's a creative director at some random tiny crypto business working on "building digital gold." So... easily mockable.
The other side says that modern parenting norms are fucked, as he aludes to, and that kids used to be a lot more free range. Normally I'm sympathetic to this, but the guy's kids are below five, so idk. I think infants and toddlers definitely need a lot of attention.
Either way I'm curious how parenting norms might break down along culture war lines, and what people here think?
ETA: Also, a great and extremely sassy quote tweet:
So, I agree with (I think) Matt Walsh who said basically:
Why are you anxiety-ing about how you feel about doing something? If it’s good to do, do it.
Why are you vomiting this out in public / on twitter?
Moreover, I assume this is almost certainly a case of poorly trained attention span / boredom tolerance from someone who’s gooned their dopamine with the internet. This is just doing the work of basic conditioning.
Regardless of the kid aspect, if you can’t tolerate more than 10 minutes doing something boring and are in your head about whether it’s appropriately fun, you need to fix this about yourself.
Overall, the idea of over factoring in whether something is good to be doing or virtuous with how much one enjoys it is painfully cringe and just a bad life perspective. Therapizing about it on the internet to strangers is downstream of this.
Whether he needs to be spending more time with his kids and how he ought to be feeling about it, is all very far removed from these more immediate problems of basic task discipline
IMO his cry for help is about how he feels guilt that he doesn't find it fun. He sees it as a chore and it's breaking his heart.
He sees mom doing it without any sign of remorse. He feels fortunate that he has more time than dads of yesterday to spend with his kid, and here he is feeling unfulfilled by it.
Well, yeah it's a chore. Do you think every mother is singing songs of joy while cleaning up toddler mess for the umpteenth time?
Some things you have to do because they have to be done, and that doesn't mean it's always fun and joy. Parenting is hard. This is the flip side of all the talk about "what can we do to make people have more kids?" While women may naturally be more amenable to looking after children, this is the reality of it: it's hard work. Fathers have to share in it as much as they can, otherwise you will not - no matter how many rights you strip away from women - get that elevated TFR so many solutions on here have been posted about.
Welcome to parenting: it's a job. If you want four kids, you can't dump it all on your wife, you have to take some share as well. And it's not going to be fun and laughter and bliss every moment.
I think you're missing the substance of his post.
He's not complaining about the responsibility of being a father. He's specifically saying he looks at his precious little boy in the face who just wants to play with him and he is not fulfilled by it and it makes him feel like a bad father.
He just doesn't know that most fathers consider small kids kind of inane and that we have to just smile and think about the bigger picture. It's pretty normal, even though in polite company and pop culture nobody really says so.
And not only is this normal but his way of managing it is above average! I would have been thrilled if my dad had spent 10 to 20 minutes a wee month playing with me let alone per day! I'd be very surprised if most of the fathers sneering at him actually spent that much time per day playing with their kids.
I mean, I'm glad he wants to be an involved father. I suppose I'm just surprised an intelligent guy doesn't know, or had nobody tell him, that parenthood is a slog. You may love your kids and still be delighted to hand them over to Granny or the day care so you get a few hours to yourself. You won't always feel like rainbows and sunshine when they want to play with you or want your attention.
The important part is not "I should be spending X hours a day with them", the important part is "Can I put on my big boy (or big girl) pants and take care of them even when all I want is to go off by myself?"
Kids don't need 100% focussed attention from the parent all the time, just being in the room and they are playing with their own stuff while you keep an eye on them but do your own work is enough. Neglect is the thing that does damage; Dad or Mom brushes you off and can't be bothered ever to pay attention to your game or your question or your stunning kindergarten finger painting. Even half-assed attention is better than nothing there.
So if he's at least half-assing it, good job!
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