Circle of life

I, too, thought a lot about this.

Having kids now and reflecting on my childhood, it's extremely obvious that my parents truly had the best intentions and tried their best.

But they, too, are fallible and made mistakes.

Some of those mistakes were due to a lack of knowledge or bad advice they received. I think that nowadays, thanks to the internet, it's quite feasible to get much better advice. On the other hand, there is also a lot of disinformation.

I am optimistic that each generation will get better, because knowledge tends to accumulate and humanity tends to improve over time.

But perfection is still far away in a distant future.

It doesn't make sense when you're young .... but the older you get, the more you realize that everyone is just making shit up as they go along.

It's made me realize after a long life that my parents were no smarter (or no dumber) than me.

It's just that as children, we look up to our parents and think that they should be smarter than everyone else but in reality, they never were. It doesn't mean that they were dumb either ... it's just that people are people, including your parents.

Absolutely, my mother thought she was doing great by parenting me to live the childhood she never could, problem was, I was my own person, and absolutely not interested in experiencing all the things she never could.

My dad on the other hand treated me akin to a roommate (his words), which is not ideal for a teenager trying to learn basic life skills.

I wish I could adopt the mindset of them having good intentions and whatnot, but sometimes parents really shouldn't have been parents and are just truly shitty people.

To me it seems late 90s/early 2000s parents went overboard with helicopter parenting and ignored kids online presence due to their lack of understanding of the Internet.

Then late 00s 10s parents doubled down on Internet and tech ignorance.

It's weird, I think my parents did a fine job of raising me and my brother, even though my father was a raging (but functioning) alcoholic and my mother was (is) manic-depressive. They made sure we were taken care of, put us both through expensive college, and have always been there for us whenever we needed anything. But my brother decided long ago (thanks to therapy) that our upbringing was somehow traumatic and he harbors enormous anger and resentment towards our parents (although he keeps this mostly hidden from them). He has consciously chosen to raise his own children basically the opposite of how our parents did, but they have basically turned out exactly like him: socially awkward, depressed and in terrible physical shape. I asked him whether he blames himself for their problems since he blames our parents for his, and it turns out no, he blames our parents for his children's problems, too.

You'd be surprised how many parents struggle with even basic stuff like "don't scream at your child all of the time". It should be easy and common sense, and yet so many fail at this..

My parents are great as well. Very supportive and loving.

My parents were top notch but I was a fucking monster and made their lives hell, and I would not have blamed them for beating the fuck out of me.

I too could have used a 'sperg diagnosis, and they probably could have fostered my civil engineering and architectual design traits better, or given me more books on the subject. From as early as I can remember, I was designing and building detailed models of cities from whatever I could get my hands on. Sand, twigs, blocks of wood from dads carpentry business, cotton thread from mums sewing kit for powerlines, etc. I feel like that was a missed opportunity, now that I work in tech. But at least I have Factorio to scratch that itch.

Yes, but that alone won't heal someone's trauma.

Break the cycle,if you'd like to, and go /c/childfree @lemmy.world (community reoated links also at childfree.cc.).✨

I’m very sorry for your loss. it’s really touching to see how much you understand him and accept his imperfections. May your grieving be as smooth or intense as you need it to be.

Well i do agree with this. The best way to win the game is by not playing at all.

Easily one of my favorite poems. Glad someone else is aware of it too.

Anti-natalist sentiment definitely pretty strong on Lemmy, which makes sense considering the crowd but sometimes it gets pretty brutal and uncalled for. Like at the end of the day we're a species because we make babies lol.

I actually had my real story typed but then didn't submit it because it's way too depressing for most peoples standards and could make people feel sick in their stomach.

Always is

One of the larger problems is the government of the USA anyway providing zero healthcare/mental healthcare or any social help/care to it's own citizens then somehow expecting in the future to have a functioning country.

Our generation needs to fix this and clean up after our ancestors.

that sounds exhausting

People are flawed. Never gonna get a perfect system. Be happy with what you got

Meanwhile my parents don't remember any of their abuse and say I'm imagining stuff.

Some are worse than others though, for sure.

Yes when someone has trauma that impacts them from their parenting, it's reasonable to do so. Sorry that's news to you, welcome to 20th century psychology.

It can be difficult later life with no one obligated to attempt to care or find care for your frail body. But no one says I have to live that long.

My trauma was prescribed by therapists.

Pre-test and license makes sense but would turn out awful, because the biggest shitheads out there would just co-opt the process. Unfortunately, the best option is just not perpetuating the species on an individual level.

someone needs to google what Eugenics is, because what you are proposing is very much that...

I've also had the thought that you should have a test to have a kid. So you're not crazy! Maybe I am though... 🤔

some places have some level of test, or anyways interview or vetting, before becoming a childcare worker, or befire adoption. that could be seen as somethkng similar to described.

of course,multiple jurisdictions also make even accessing contraception, far more difficut that it should be, with all sorts of tests ands barriers in the way. I guess that's the opposite of, in one sense, of whats proposed perhaps.

...

And, yeah, don't do eugenics, . do, however, make contraception and scientificallya accurate sex ed, freely and widely avalable.