I have a lot of fears about my loss of free time, and about becoming as stressed and panicky as my mom was, when she was raising us. Maybe these count as embryonic regrets?
The loss of free time is real, but "it's worth it," as they say.
None of the regrets I have are about the child or the child-having itself. They're all about the social baggage.
They're all about the social baggage
Clarify?
The woman with the doctorate doesn't like the way people act mothers gegenüber.
Without motherfuckers there's be no mothers, but do they have a day? No.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
Without motherfuckers there'd be no mothers twice over, but there could still be mothers.
Until, that is, the human race died out, since each generation could be at most half the size of the previous.
Well, that's not really true. Each generation could be at most equal in size to the number of women in the previous generation.
7: 'Twould be highly impolitic and unwise.
So if you planned things right, it could be a linear progression to nonexistence rather than a geometric. Which is nice, I suppose.
8: I'm trying not to put words in the woman's mouth. And your remark doesn't clarify.
But I'm forgetting about twins, triplets, and their rarer but simultaneously more numerous counterparts!
So, really, the human race could survive just fine without motherfuckers.
1: I have a lot of fears about my loss of free time
The dumb thread doesn't take it personally.
Nothing! Nothing at all! How could you even ask me that!
except maybe that you don't call me enough....
17: Although after a few generations genetic diversity might become a problem...
Since the request is not limited to Mother's, I will contribute.
I regret nothing. I cannot imagine a life without children. (birthed, adopted, nieces/nephews, or a friend's kid)
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Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is really good.
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Each generation you take 2 sets of genetic information and replace them with 2 (or more) copies of half the original information (assuming identical twins).
I remember being about eight or so years old, and overhearing my mother on the phone with her mother, saying, "All this Sesame Street. My mind has gone to mush."
OK, here was her actual answer (yes, I made my Mother's Day call):
"I don't really regret anything in life...regrets are sentimental, and I'm not very sentimental...better to ask how life has been changed by having you. Personally, I wouldn't feel I had participated in the flow of life if I hadn't had children.
One thing I would regret, though, is if I didn't have grandchildren."
Changed the subject at that point.
12, 14, 17: This speculation is similar to taking China's one child policy to its logical conclusion. What there are not (after a while, and ignoring the various complicating factors of multiple births, remarriage, infidelity etc.) are aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces and cousins in the conventional sense. Each grandperson has at most one grandchild.
24: you can't rely on identical twins popping out of each mother, so the best situation for maintaining the level of the population is to have n women and m men, with n much larger than m, say 19 times larger (95% female population). Then even if there are no twins, you're still staying pretty close. But that means that there's not going to be much genetic diversity in the offspring, since there won't be very many fathers at all.
27: Yeah, that would be depressing.
so the best situation for maintaining the level of the population is to have n women and m men, with n much larger than m, say 19 times larger
Mmhm. It's all very scientific, isn't it.
My only regret is that I didn't acquire a second child; fortunately for my son, his father acquired one, so he has a sibling. And that I hadn't gone to law school when the Offspring was a toddler. Between work and studying and child-rearing, I was always sleep-deprived and probably a lot less enthused about visiting the Tar Pits for the eighteenth time than I might have been on a good night's sleep...
The absolute safest configuration, from a standpoint concerned solely with the size of the population staying the same, would be a population with only one man, who impregnates all the women. If, on average, 1/n pregnancies result in twins, and you have significantly more than n women in the population, it could even grow.
Here we have to abstract from mortality prior to giving birth.
Mmhm. It's all very scientific, isn't it.
We can't allow a mine shaft gap, so to speak.
I'm spending the weak with my sister, niece, nephew-in-law, and beloved grandnephew. Everyone got the appropriate M-day flowers and cards.
When the grandnephew acted in an especially vivid way, his mother and grandmother immediately explained it by his extremely vivid Hawaiian great-grandmother (mother of his sociopath grandfather, my ex-b-i-l).
The absolute safest configuration, from a standpoint concerned solely with the size of the population staying the same, would be a population with only one man, who impregnates all the women. If, on average, 1/n pregnancies result in twins, and you have significantly more than n women in the population, it could even grow.
Am I missing something here? If you have 2n women and one man, and a twins rate of 1 in n births, then you'll have 2n+2 babies, presumably half boys and half girls, and all your starting conditions will be lost for the next generation.
All the boys except one are given a Greyhound ticket to Phoenix.
Where they are immediately handed a ticket to San Diego...
Is UK Mothering Sunday always on the same day as US Mother's Day? I like to imagine that Mothering Sunday isn't a holiday, actually, but just a descriptive phrase. Mothering Sunday: the Sunday that mothers!
No, Mothering Sunday is nowhere near your made-up johnny-come-lately holiday - we had it back in ... um ... March, I think.
Biggest regret? My pelvic floor? Although it seems to be getting worse and I last gave birth years ago so it can't all be down to children. A friend of mine told me breaststroke makes things worse, but I can't find any internet evidence for this. Still, I'm thinking of practising my crawl.
I regret not traveling more before I had my kids.
Yeah, 'cos it's a lot more expensive travelling with them.
Having just looked at Apo's latest pictures, I have to say that I deeply regret not having another child or two.
43: I thought you were debating this? Have you decided then?
I kinda just dont think its going to happen for a number of reasons.
Can you tell Im having a Bad Day?
Apo's latest pictures
They're pretty awesome, aren't they? One of the teachers from Noah and Cassidy's daycare came over last weekend and shot those and a couple hundred more.
Can you tell Im having a Bad Day?
Aw, that sucks.
Theyre lovely, yes. I wondered who had taken them; figured you had hired someone. Yay daycare teacher!
I have some really good ones from when PK was a baby that were taken by a friend who also nannied for him a while.
My beloved grandnephew has absolutely perfect naturally-penciled long eyebrows and long lashes. I've been trying to get a picture to post but the moms are remiss.
I wish I'd never let my kids go on summer camp with those mormons in texas. they haven't been the same since
Sure, I miss having uninterrupted sleep at night, but I wouldn't call it a regret. How can you regret anything when you get to wake up to this every morning?
If you have 2n women and one man, and a twins rate of 1 in n births, then you'll have 2n+2 babies, presumably half boys and half girls, and all your starting conditions will be lost for the next generation.
Yeah, that is an issue. According to Maude Lebowski, though, it's possible to have some influence over what the gender of one's child will be.
54: Then why do you need starting conditions?
Heebie is the Socrates of Unfogged.
And that makes Jammies Alcibiades, I suppose.
I'm not a Socrater, I just ask a lot.
Heebie is more interested in kraters than Sokraters.
Jammies could be Xanthippe.
Fun in its own way, I guess, but desecrating herms is its own reward.
46: They're practically unbearable, apo. No one should be allotted three children that beautiful. Did you get a special license?
I'm not surprised to see much regret above from parents. The scale of the sacrifices you make, and the extent of the returns -- including the fairly awesome responsibility you have taken on -- makes the concept of 'regrets' seem kind of petty.
My wife had a vacation-cancellation episode in midstream while carrying my son. I joke that he owes me a two week vacation, but it would be pretty silly to call that sort of thing a regret.
Thanks MC. I took a nap, I'm dragging PK out for a cheap meal b/c I don't want to cook, we'll pick up some groceries, I feel better.
We went to the Hirshhorn today, for the last day of Dreams. Interesting.
65: Good stuff, o comment queen of our bloggy hearts. I think I get what you're gesturing at in 3, btw, about no regrets about the actual child[ren], but then there's all that social baggage of which it's really hard to speak. Of which, I might add, it doesn't actually translate to the deceptively neutral "parents," since it's all gendered/mothered in the first place...
ok, you f-ers. Shame on you.
I just watched Juno.
It was fabulous.
Did you get a special license?
My seed is pure. Or something.
Appropriately enough, the abandoned cat I took in a little while back is now giving birth. Being an ass, I only figured out that she was pregnant yesterday.
The pigeon couple my deck took in a little while back has now seen both their chicks slaughtered by the amazingly agile cat downstairs. I had to clean up both, but I still give him fancy feast when he invades my apartment, because he is a good cat.
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The beautiful and talented Margie Wienk just said that she receives stares of incomprehension when she mentions King Crimson in concert (Fern Knight covers "Epitaph"). What is wrong with the youth of today?
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I'll just add my voice to the chorus of "my only regret is not having more." Rory made me an omelet for breakfast and gave me a pedicure before we went to bed. I've mentioned before that she's perfect, right?
Merganser, my grandma took in a skinny little stray cat 15 years ago only to discover that there was a good reason -- 6 good reasons -- she was fattening up so quickly. (Two of the litter stayed in the family and are still going strong.) So cool.
39: Canadian Mother's day is on the same day as the US Mother's Day. I don't know when it is in Australia, but it's a similarly made-up holiday there.
The date of Mothering Sunday varies, since it's always th fourth Sunday in Lent.
Well, this one had five little reasons to be pear-shaped--three orange tabbies and two dark gray / brown tabbies. The mama cat only took about two and a half hours to deliver them all, with minimal help from me. Now that she's cleaned them over night, they're looking a little less like naked mole rats and a little more like kittens.
My eldest has a regrettable capacity to shriek. This morning she spent so much time screaming at me and then running away, you'd think she was auditioning for a slasher movie. Of course, our aspiring scream queen was not chased by a monster, but by a parent trying to get her to comb her hair.
oneword s/b two words?
kitties or puppies, back home they would be carried some place distant and left, cruel world
lucky them to be born here
i vote for pet sterilization
78: Rob, this is probably happening because you're bad parents.
80 - doesn't everything?
I gave up hairbrushing very quickly, and left it until they were old enough to *want* their hair brushed, apart from about once a week in the bath/shower, covered liberally with conditioner. Yes, my girls have all spent years with tangled hair, looking like crusties (the 5 year old still does about half the time). It was a bit hard initially to relinquish ownership of their hair, but I figured just doing it so other people wouldn't think I was a bad mother was not a good enough reason.
I remember having horrible fights with my mom about brushing my hair. She did it forcibly, and it hurt so fucking much. I have very thick frizzy hair, and combing it out is a misery. Even now, I only ever comb it in the shower with conditioner on it.
Funny, my wife mentions how her mother used to forcibly brush her hair hard and make her cry, and now she brushes our daughter's hair the same way with the same results. She thinks our daughter is just "acting" but she doesn't cry when Daddy brushes the hair, nope. not a bit of it.
Score one for me! Mommy might have the breasts, but I have the uh...the...hang on a second....it'll come to me in a minute.....I have the uh.........shit, now, give me a second here....
She thinks our daughter is just "acting" but she doesn't cry when Daddy brushes the hair, nope.
Likewise. I have judiciously refrained from pointing this out.
My dad pointed it out all the time.
People with kinky hair shouldn't comb it at all, just wash with conditioner and smooth straight back. Maybe use product. It took me some years to learn this, maybe it doesn't work for kids.