Tootfinder

Addiction (Speculatve)
Kind of a fucked-up metaphor, but I was thinking yesterday that parenting is a lot like addiction. If you separate me from my child, I'll take completely irrational and desperate actions to get them back, driven by a deep instinct that goes well beyond "love." I'll also make self-disadvantageous long-term decisions like forgoing sleep, working an extra job, or quitting a job to do some combination of providing for and/or being present with my child.
Even in parenting situations where love is absent, and beyond, I think, the possessiveness that sometimes festers in those situations, there's often (although not always) a craving for simple presence of the child.
In a healthy relationship, there's a whole lot more than this, but it's interesting to me that the same obsessive craving and absolute priority that we think of as diseased and/or monstrous in someone addicted to a hard drug can be healthy in the right context (that is, when it doesn't contribute to abusive or twisted parental relationships but instead exists alongside a healthy amount of love and respect).
Makes me wonder if there are ways to have a truly healthy drug addiction, although I recognize the answer might well be "no" and that even if it's "technically/theoretically yes" it might still be harmful to hype up or even merely discuss that possibility since it might help addicted people in harmful addictions more easily justify inaction. At minimum I think any "yes" answer here involves assuming utopian-level differences from our current society.
#Parenting #Addiction

"We don't know what kind of cleaners they use. We don't know what people have done in there. PLEASE stop licking the walls of the [hotel] shower."
I swear to god, the shit I have to say to my kids..
#parenting

I’ve come to accept that raising a #baby is really time and energy consuming and that many of those things that I’d like to get done simply won’t. I find that acceptance quite liberating. There is tension though as C is not in the same place and is constantly fretting that things are not getting done.
#parenting

The main problem with #kids is that holidays become even harder than regular working weeks. So you literally never get a break.
#parenting

Overhearing my kids tell the babysitter, "You're the coolest adult in this house. But the bar is pretty low." #parenting

Me: "Would you like something healthy to go with those awful nitrate-ful hot dogs? Maybe an apple?"
Her: "Butt cancer!"
Me: "🎶butttttttttt cancerrrrrrrr 🎶"
13yo: "can you both please SHUT UP and let me eat???"
#parenting

If your 5 year old girl wants to shave her head, would you let her?
#parenting
Yes
No
Maybe (leave comment)

Me: [picks up dropped metal water bottle]
Me: "it's wild how much abuse these things can take, and they just keep going! "
13yo: "are you talking about me?"
Me: "yes."
13yo: "good, I finally get some recognition for my suffering."
#parenting 🙄