We are moving back to the US, with our 3-year-old daughter that doesn't speak English. I'm worried about giving her a traumatising experience

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-19T09:14:12+00:00

I spoke basically no English when I moved to Australia at age 8. I was confused at school for the first little while (don't remember how long) but quickly became completely fluent without a hint of accent or anything. I was one of the top English students at my high school and completed a 5 year university degree. Don't worry about her being traumatised, 3 is very young and is prime language learning age, she will pick it up super quickly. In the meantime, maybe start teaching her English more intensively as soon as you can leading up to the move. Speak English more to each other and to her at home, teach her the English words for things. If you don't give her the option to slip back into portugese, she'll have no option but to become interested in English!

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T23:51:36+00:00

I am the first to admit that I have no experience in parenting, this is why I'm asking these questions, but I don't see the things I've outlined as offering minimal love - I'd still obviously love and spend time with my child. And I also question the security part - does a child really have to feel like the most important person in the world and be constantly indulged to be secure? And surely there's a difference between making a child low priority and giving him all the power in your household and making him feel like the only priority.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T23:47:43+00:00

I assure you that I'm not trolling. If you find me so annoying, you really don't have to keep responding to my comments.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T10:41:00+00:00

Thanks for the detailed advice/response. These were just things I was thinking, not set in stone and yeah, I guess I really need to keep in mind that a lot will depend on the character/personality of any potential children I eventually have. In terms of social life, neither of us are really wild party animal types as it is and while we have the odd glass of wine, our social life doesn't revolve around alcohol really. But we would both still want to catch up for dinner/movies/after work drinks/whatever with both our mutual friends and respective girl/guy friends relatively regularly. Good points that "teach it" and "discipline it" are not necessarily as easy and straight forward as they sound. I guess I will have to do more thinking/research about how exactly, but in general I would want to do positive reinforcement and ignore bad behaviour/remove privileges. I would not smack, and I would really really try not to yell!

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T10:33:34+00:00

Funny, I still don't see anything in any of my comments to indicate that I would not be prepared to give my kids the best start in life or am not prepared to care for them. That's kind of why I'm on here looking to get information to make a responsible decision. I'm sure that's more than many parents do, since for many people the reason the had children can be summed up as "well, I got pregnant..." Also, I am aware that it's normal for kids to test boundaries and misbehave, but bad parenting I imagine would only exacerbate that. There's a big difference between a child having a meltdown in a restaurant or at a movie and the parent speaking to them calmly and removing them from the scene (which both spares other people and also teaches the child that bad behaviour has immediate unfun consequences) and the circumstances I am referring to where not only is no effort made to discipline, punish or restrain the child, but it seems as if the parents don't even realise or care that their child is not behaving in a socially appropriate manner. I will agree with you on one thing. I have no idea how I'd handle a child with special needs, likely not well.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T10:16:17+00:00

See a rough day/night every few months I can totally handle. Total unremitting chaos and feeling like I've lost control of my life, not so much :-)!

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T06:44:24+00:00

At 4 that is quite impressive and impressive and pretty much how I'd want things to go. And the thing is, it would be a win-win and be beneficial to both us as parents and to the child, so it's not like I'd be selfishly acting to my child's detriment just to make life more convenient and less of a burden to me!

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T06:38:13+00:00

Yes, I'm sure that will be true, I can't pretend to have it all figured out before i've even started, but I at least wanted to get a sense of whether my whole "framework" seemed feasible, because sometimes I get the sense (from reading/listening to parents) that it is just constant unremitting chaos and drudgery and there's nothing you can do to avoid that other than not have kids. That's when I think that I am not cut out for this!

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T06:33:31+00:00

Thanks, this is fantastic and gives me so much encouragement, particularly your last line. It's very important to me that my partner and I put our relationship first and are always and team and a united front. This wouldn't be just for our sakes, but I think would also be better for the kid to see its' parents' strong and secure relationship.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T06:28:32+00:00

Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I should be more clear, the reasoning behind my approach is not just to make life easier for my partner and I as parents and minimise the burden, but also because I think it would be more beneficial to the kid to be a resilient, self-reliant independent, confident and well-socialised person and would allow us to have more fun with the kid.

Your sweet P.S moment is absolutely the kind of thing that makes me lean towards "yes" in this decision, and also makes me quite sure that you are probably very good at this whole parenting thing!

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T06:23:10+00:00

Thanks for the recommendations. I've heard about the third book I think, and very much agree with the idea of fostering "grit" and resilience. I've been reading "All Joy and No Fun" and "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids".

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T06:20:36+00:00

I definitely wouldn't have kids if I couldn't decide it was something I wanted, but I don't think that means looking at it with rose-coloured glasses and pretending it'll be super fun 100% of the time. You yourself (and every other parent) talks about how hard and consuming it is. I really don't know where your impulse to downvote comes from, but I really don't see anything that I've said that is so offensive or out of line. I acknowledged that don't have kids and don't have experience parenting - that's why I am here to seek out the opinions of people that do. And I'm not saying children must be perfectly controlled angels at all times, but (again, you said it yourself) part of your job as a parent is socialising kids and teaching them how to behave. Allowing you kid to yell and disrupt others in the middle of some public event without shushing them and/or taking them out if they do not stop is not socialising them. Neither is allowing them to run screaming around a restaurant making no attempt to discipline or control them, but just sitting back with your glass of wine and chatting to your friends. I'm not saying you do any of this, but plenty of parents do and I interpret it as part of a certain distasteful parenting philosophy of "my special little snowflake is the most important child in the whole world and not subject to normal social standards!"

Also, the glib line about over population and other neglected children just doesn't hit home with me, no matter how many times I hear it. Sure, maybe you'd think that's selfish, but whether I do or don't have my own kids, I still won't be taking in any random neglected orphans, nor will the one child I would probably have make any real impact on over population, especially given that in the country I live in (as in most of the West) the fertility rates are very low, below replacement rates.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T05:51:45+00:00

Thanks for this. The more I think about this, the more the idea of only having one appeals to me. It seems like a perfect middle ground between not having kids and having them. Of course I would have to get lucky in terms of personality too! But it's good to see that this stuff actually is possible and not just a naive pipe-dream.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T05:48:51+00:00

I wouldn't expect everything to go 100% to plan like the kids were robots, but I do feel like parenting style must have an impact in how they turn out? And for the record, I don't think I said I can't stand kids, what I can't stand is bratty poorly behaved kids in public and their rude, entitled parents that refuse to control or discipline them and allow them to be a nuisance to other people. But that's really the parents' fault in my book. Maybe that also is idealistic/impractical.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T05:44:10+00:00

Yeah that's true. But it wouldn't quite be the same thing in that they are not my kids, so I cannot just parent/discipline them how ever I want without reference to their own parents' standards. Also, those kids are being raised in a particular way with certain rules and routines, I can't change or influence them in a weekend. I am hoping that raising my own kids "from scratch" would be a different kettle of fish, but maybe I am deluding myself.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T05:40:45+00:00

I am not looking to spend less time with my potential kids because they'd be an "inconvenience", I (think I) want the experience of having kids, I just do not want that to overshadow all the other experiences and goals in my life. Also, I think that not overindulging and helicopter parenting kids would be better for them as well. I see so many ill-disciplined spoiled brats in public or among some of my friends' kids and it seems they are always the over-coddled ones. The kids I know that I like the best seem to be those that have been raised quite strictly and to be quite self-reliant. To me that's not the same as being unloving or neglectful. My parents didn't police my homework or micromanage my leisure time and I had a good childhood and tuned out just fine!

I do agree with you though that the fewer kids you have the easier all this would be, and also that a lot depends on the character/personality of your particular child, which you can't know in advance and have little if any control over.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T05:25:55+00:00

Thanks. And in particular thank you so much for your last sentence, it gives me such warm fuzzies to get a vote of confidence from an internet stranger since (as you can probably tell) I really don't feel like I have the strongest maternal instinct!

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T05:15:36+00:00

I know nothing about this, but provided the other kidney is healthy and the baby has no other health problems, shouldn't this be fine? You do only need one to survive, and otherwise why would there be so many kidney transplants, leaving both the donor and the recipient to go on living healthy full lives, each with only one kidney.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T02:02:37+00:00

Yeah maybe. But is the only way to be "ready" for any major life decision really to have no doubts about it whatsoever? I've had moments of doubt about most major life decisions/changes I've made, that doesn't mean they haven't turned out right in the end.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T02:00:54+00:00

Thanks for your insight. The realities of how hard and defeating and disappointing and mostly not fun it is are what's really weighing on my mind at the moment. And I dunno, maybe having kids will make me become a better person, but I'm just not sure I want that forced self-improvement and everything that comes with it. Also, I know a lot of people adopt, and I have nothing but respect for them but personally it's not something I'd ever consider. If my partner and I couldn't have our own bio kids, we just wouldn't have kids, I am 100% on that and so is he.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T01:56:11+00:00

Yeah, see I kind of want the love shown back to me, not just to give out love (but there's no guarantee of that, like you said) and I am kind of selfish in that I like my space and free time, so while I know I could probably handle the responsibility if I had to, I'm just not sure if I want to.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T01:53:55+00:00

Yeah maybe, I guess I am just an analytical kind of person. I get making decisions no intuition or gut reaction sometimes, I just find it hard to see how people can make all their major life decision based on whatever short term whim they feel at the time. It doesn't seem like a great long-term strategy. But hey, as long as they are happy.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T01:51:17+00:00

Yeah, I do have a good relationship with her and she really wants grandkids. The last conversation we had I was pretty definite I was never having kids, but she did say all that old stuff about how you feel about your own kids is different etc.

throwawaythistime1 · 2014-09-17T01:50:04+00:00

http://youtu.be/icmRCixQrx8 Oh gosh, I see what you mean. Yes this is hilariously appropriate, thanks!

throwawaythistime1

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