@bone#27133 For a long time I was self medicating (very lightly) because life was so stressful (not super stressful, but persistently sort of stressful). But I think we've finally gotten past that stage.
Or maybe its just allergy season and my antihistamines have taken over dulling my brain.
@Gaagaagiins#27130 not at all dude and while Iām unfortunately posting from a tablet right now and canāt respond at length Iāll just say that I agree with everything you said, esp re: imposition of nuclear family and atomization of society via suburbanization
Also, similar to what you said, I think the taboo on the expression of anger is largely a project of the liberal (in the modern American sense) elite, and it has the goal of obscuring hierarchy and our position in it. You know, weāre all friends here, we can talk this out, there is a process for addressing grievances. Remain calm. Itās all bullshit
Basically I feel that some anger is natural and just, and my goals as a parent are to help my kids discern whatās worth getting mad about, namely, injustice, or selfishness, and model how to express that anger in a productive way, and in a safe environment.
Also I get mad at my kids when I say ādonāt put the little screws from your construction set into the air purifier,ā and they do that anyway. Then I have to take the air purifier apart and they have to go in time out
I canāt count the number of times my mother told me that if I let someone make me get angry then Iām letting them control me and make me waste my energy.
There are very few situations wherein cultivating a feeling of anger is actually useful. I experience transient moments of anger, but feel its always appropriate to let that feeling go as quickly as possible in favor of a productive perspective.
>
@compositehiggs#27240 I saw Nussbaum speak about this recently and she got some very difficult questions from the audience. Even though Nussbaum nominally repudiates a purely virtue ethical position in her more recent work I think she still hews very close to that line, suggesting that emotional responses to external circumstances are unproductive compared to a cold blooded plan for a more just future.
Okay, she doesn't sound so bad then. I wouldn't mind asking her one of those difficult questions about why she may have at some point singled out Inuit in that way, though, hehe.
Definitely starting to veer off on to an interesting philosophical tangent here but it makes me think more about the thought I was playing around with already with anger as theatre as opposed to anger as a powerful motivator to confront injustice. Maybe a way to address that contradiction is to note that widespread social level injustice fosters an enormous subterranean reservoir of collective righteous rage that doesn't come out in one's personal life because most of us just want to be nice and go about our days, but under the right circumstances can be harnessed into things like revolutionary insurrection. And there are both good manifestations of that, like successful social movements won through violent struggle, and bad ones, as in when retributive justice crosses a line into violence as theatre or just pure sadism.
>
@tapevulture#27244 Also I get mad at my kids when I say ādonāt put the little screws from your construction set into the air purifier,ā and they do that anyway. Then I have to take the air purifier apart and they have to go in time out
Actually I take it all back, you didn't say anything about air purifier sabotage!! I'm kidding, but yeah, it sounds like you have a healthy relationship with anger, like what you're feeling frustration about is not that your kids disobeyed a command or anything but that they created unnecessary work for you.
I suppose another thing kids are good at is experimentation, and a major way they experiment is provocation. That's how they learn about social/interpersonal boundaries, by deliberately testing them. Social boundaries are abstract things and in some ways they don't really exist to a kid until they can experience the consequences of either crossing them or actively respecting them.
If you wanted to try applying techniques from Inuit parenting, what'd you'd do is take moments like that where you see they are clearly about to choose to test a boundary you have set, and intervene by play-acting out the consequences of their actions as you feel and experience them. If they do it after being asked not to anyway, it's your time to ham it up. Gasp in despair, go "ooooooh nooooooo!!! Screws in the air purifier, again!! boo hoo hoo," Talk about how sad it makes you to have to fix the air purifier, show them how hard it is to open up the air purifier, lament how now the air is gonna be full of dirt while the air purifier is broken, and so on. Or even, if they do listen and they don't do what you say not to, you can do an even more hammy routine but more about how relieved you are, how happy you are that your kids are so kind as to listen to their parent, because of how hard it is to fix the air purifier and how you love to breathe nice clean dirt-free air. Let's not forget how meaningful positive reinforcement is too.
I guess the idea with these sorts of techniques is that it's about working through that experimentation and decision making process with them in a way that is more hands-on with you, and about engaging their imaginations and being social, rather than being hands-on with the air purifier. They really do want to know what will happen if they do something like put screws in the air purifier, and as well they're just as interested in doing things you say not to specifically because you said not to, so it's about satisfying their natural curiosity without the frustrating extra chore for you after. Plus, your kids aren't the only ones who can be having fun in a moment like this. For kids, playing and learning and having fun are indistinguishable from each other and playing with them can help guide that learning.
If all else fails, you could tell them about the tiny little bug monster who looks around the house for the lost bits of toys that a naughty kid put somewhere they weren't supposed to, and how if the monster gets enough little bits of lost toys they'll put it in everyone's ears when they're not looking, and then everyone will have little screws rattling around in their skull, forever...
Theory and essays are great and all but that goes to hell the second your toddler flips over throwing their dirty diaper across the room, the doorbell rings, and the laundry is ready.
You cannot solve child-rearing and a non-parent thinking they have the solution to children infuriates me. They are complex human beings and just as varied as anyone. You are not going to solve that by returning to a state of nature.
@Rudie#27332 What do you mean by āreturning to a state of nature?ā
@Rudie#27332 Alright, itās been an hour. Iām no longer in the mood to be generous or polite.
What were your intentions in attempting to dismiss me using white supremacist rhetoric?
@Gaagaagiins#27340 Maybe take a break for a while? It's probably not worth flinging around deliberately provocative and accusatory language in response to what was most likely not meant to be supremacist.
I don't know @Rudie#27332 and so can't comment on their behalf, but I can say that I feel similarly annoyed by non-parents commenting on parenting techniques.
Please be compassionate. Let's not turn IC into Twitter.
@Gaagaagiins#27340
I didn't look at the forum.
The usage of "state of nature" in this case is about how using the Inuit people as a single mythical body that has the answers. That a collective little recognized group can solve modern society is reductive. As said all humans are complex individuals.
There isn't a formula or solution to society. Every interaction brings new challenges and problems. Information is helpful but then your child pees on the carpet, the rug, and themselves and then you almost break your toe on your bed frame.
@Rudie#27345 So, was the white supremacist rhetoric in your dismissal of me purely out of ignorance and/or lack of understanding or self awareness, then? This is not a trick question and I would be happy to educate you, but to be perfectly clear, whether it was white supremacist rhetoric or not is not up for debate.
@Gaagaagiins#27346 hi uh, person who is not even remotely white here. Iām not trynna debate anything or pile on here. Just saying that āstate of natureā seems to not be a known enough racist dog whistle (I had to google it with racial context and the explanation of the white supremacist association appears to be guarded behind scholarly articles and other gatekeeping stuff) to be used in the way itās being interpreted here. Iād love to understand more and be educated, albeit privately. Feel like that could be a nice way we could all deal with or grievances and irks on here.
I enjoy your posts but I feel like this was supposed to a nice supportive mutual space by a parent seeking support and guidance from other parents and Iād hate to see it become more derailed.
@jaws#27353 Bless. Beautifully said.
>
@Rudie#27332 You cannot solve child-rearing and a non-parent thinking they have the solution to children infuriates me.
i get the annoyance, but at the same time i have a fuzzy recollection of a time before kids, and i thought i knew plenty.
your point about kids being real people and actual individuals is very true though. even after having done it once before, if i treated my son as if he were my daughter, someone would be in jail and someone would be in hell by now.
@pasquinelli#27358
Oh yeah absolutely any "advice" had pre-parenting was completely invalid and coming from a position of ignorance. I keep asking other parents if they advice for X and they go "lol no."
Speaking of which if anyone knows how to trim a 10month old's nails I'm ears.
@Rudie#27360 find a kid with a fingernail biting habit
@Rudie#27360
>
how to trim a 10month oldās nails
I winced, reading this. Not fun memories.
All I can say is, wait till they're sleepy, put on a low-key video they like to watch (Peppa Pig always works for me) and do it while they're not paying attention.
@whatsarobot#27364 oh you updated after I liked.
We're trying to delay video as entertainment as long as possible. Will probably do more once Mom's maternity leave ends and I am full time dadding.
Whoops as I am typyong yhos I hear them climbing the couch byyyeeeep
@Rudie#27369 Whoa that post was like a very very short and low-stakes HP Lovecraft story.
The wait until they're sleepy part still applies though!
I am not satisfied in letting this pass by. @Rudie, your follow-up explanation did not instill faith in me that you understand what I am taking issue with here, and ignoring my more pointed question as if I didnāt ask you something more direct than the question you responded to didnāt help. Critically, you haven't expressed any thoughts or feelings on whether or not what you said was racist or not. From my perspective, that is behavior I would expect from someone who is unconcerned with having said something racist.
I know I am being direct and confrontational, I am doing that deliberately. I can understand why someone would feel threatened by that, but to me it is a reasonable reaction to being ignored. But, what I am trying to accomplish in confronting you is to provide you a chance to meaningfully reassure me that it is not because you are unconcerned about perpetuating casual racism without knowing or understanding why. I don't care if you are ignorant about what you're saying, I don't resent ignorance. I only have a problem with you if you refuse to consider my perspective and/or address my concerns.
I would also like to make an appeal to the integrity of this community, as well as to compassion. This environment is important to me, not just because it's a community where I feel that I don't have to confront racism, but more meaningfully, because I feel secure in the idea that if I felt the need to, I would be supported in confronting racism in a way I felt was appropriate. That includes being aggressive if someone is racist but also being constructive if someone simply had gaps in their knowledge and understanding. Believe me when I say that if I didn't mean to be constructive, everyone would know. And, I'm asking for compassion as someone who felt they had been dismissed, but more importantly by someone employing racist rhetoric, which is threatening whether it is intentional or not. I also have to show myself compassion by not staying in environments where compassion won't be extended to me in a way that recognizes the unequal positions in, say, an altercation where I felt a personal duty to defend what I feel is an integral facet of my own humanity. Knowing there are people around me who are uncaring of something like this makes me feel extremely threatened, so, I do hope that compassion will also be extended to me.
@Gaagaagiins#27383 The specific usage of āstate of natureā was a reference to the way white academics frequently talk about Native Americans and less-westernized cultures.