I didn’t think you could make this shit up, honestly
My sister works as a contractor and has run-ins with private schools occasionally and whatever you’ve heard about these parents, it’s worse than you can possibly imagine. I never would’ve thought someone would be so proud of the fact that they treat their children like pawns and clearly something to check off on a life list or some bullshit.
I am struggling to wrap my mind around it. In the year 2023, it is common to ask two dating people when they plan to get married and have kids. Which alone wouldn’t be a bad thing, but these questions are so fucking ominous now that I have this knowledge. Fuuuuuuuck me
My parents had a scheme when I was a kid to raise me into wealth, but they believed in the whole “get good grades and you’ll be rich.” So they tried for a while, taught me multiplication tables when I was like 4, taught me world history and stuff. I could read and write way before I started school. I could even use a computer, which was a rare skill for even adults back then. I did become fairly advanced by the time I was 6 and the school district offered to let me test out of grades 3 and 4. (Parents didn’t like that idea since they said I wouldn’t be able to network as well if I skipped grades)
Problem is my parents were racist, unprepared, and not too bright themselves, so their lessons didn’t last much further than 3rd grade. They exhausted what they knew, so my grades dropped fast because of anxiety and pressure. Also I’m not actually smart or motivated
The attempt to get my grades higher always centered around them. They wanted me to become rich to buy them a house and nice cars. They wanted me to be on TV so I could praise them in front of crowds. Elon Musk wasn’t famous yet, but they wanted me to be him in every possible way, including the racist parts. That’s what they would always describe, they wanted me to be a business scientist rocket engineer, except not an idiot fraud like Musk. I think part of this scheme was motivated by how my parents were the poorest of all their siblings. I was from the “poor” branch of the family, so it must have been embarrassing for them to show up to family gatherings and our uncle is showing off his new boat, or our aunt has a new diamond necklace. Then my parents are there driving the same truck they had in high school
Nowadays we don’t talk much. Their plan failed and also I’m a communist
“get good grades and you’ll be rich.”
Yeah, a lot of energy gets poured into that pipe dream. Sorry you went through all that
the “poor” branch of the family
I know exactly what you’re talking about and I’ve always found it so wild that we are that atomized that peoole don’t even help their families and just accept this as natural. I know why it is, and i know yhe US is and has been that atomized for a long time. Intellectually i get it, but i can never get it emotionally. It’ll never make sense to me
I know exactly what you’re talking about and I’ve always found it so wild that we are that atomized that peoole don’t even help their families and just accept this as natural. I know why it is, and i know yhe US is and has been that atomized for a long time. Intellectually i get it, but i can never get it emotionally. It’ll never make sense to me
My dad’s side of the family comes from above average wealth. They own property all over the west coast, house or two -in- San Francisco, multiple cares, river boat property+boat and so much more. Like legitimate wealth and plenty of it. I never understood how I could go visit my wealthy Grandma in Georgia yet we always had to deal with having no clothes/ broken shoes and a scrap of dignity. How could anyone look at our family and just say “yea that’s normal”? Even as a kid, I could see my dad already broke down and debased his dignity to stay alive and keep the family floating along. It stings because looking back even now, I hate that side of the family even more. They convinced my dad he deserved it.
wow, just a portion? we are surrounded by them and it’s fucking disgusting
“what do you mean by ‘you should treat your child as a human and not force them to do exactly what you want without caring about their opinions’?” can summarize most of the conversations we have had with people like this
I don’t want my intentions to be misconstrued. I am not at all anti-child. I am very much anti-have a kid for the sake of producing a nuclear family and neglecting your children. Is that not the epitome of patriarchal conservatism?
Should have also added that this post stemmed from a mother (kids in private school) who said she was going to send her kids to a babysitter for the holidays so she and her husband could have peace
send her kids to a babysitter for the holidays so she and her husband could have peace
i dunno that’s kinda
hope she likes the worst possible home when it’s her kids turn to clap back
Sending my parents to the retirement gulag.
basically anyone who’s concerned about aryan birth rates
There are sooooooooo many more than I thought. Or who knows, maybe they’re just fucking loud
But private school is such a red flag
You sometimes see strange people online call others “genetic dead ends” as an insult, and it always strikes me that these people have a view of life itself that is so completely alien to me.
wonder if those folks even know what DNA stands for
“I’m only asking you once.”
“Where is the Deoxyribonucleic base?”
Da nut ayyy!
Some sciencey person told me once that after a couple or three generations, there’s nothing discernible of “you” left in your descendants. All these weirdos who think they’re fucking Charlemagne and building a fAmiLY LeGaCy or something don’t get that whether you have kids or not, when you’re gone you’re gone.
That shit always pisses me off. Like when people go “oh I don’t have kids but my sister does. So my genes live on” bro my genes are in some of the worst people i have met they are not the part of me I want to live on.
Some sciencey person told me once that after a couple or three generations, there’s nothing discernible of “you” left in your descendants
11th century nobility in shambles rn
I think if you just keep marrying cousins the math looks different
Not only that, but think about how little the average person knows or cares about their great great grandparents. That’s going to be everyone in a few generations. Familial legacy is a lie.
“You only live as long as the last person who remembers you” is a quote I remember hearing somewhere
Do not cry for me for I am already dead
A lot of women in my family have kids out of loneliness. It’s a terrible idea, but at the same time I understand the motivation.
It’s a sad cycle: grow up in dysfunctional family, escape only to be confronted with crushing loneliness, have a kid who grows up in dysfunctional family…
I’ll love them unconditionally but also I’m going to brainwash them into creating a revolutionary army
The Venn diagram of these freaks and Quiverfull freaks is just a circle. Absolutely terrifying shit.
reading this thread has made me feel much more confident i’d be a good parent. lotta ppl out there having kids who absolutely are not emotionally mature enough for it lol
Death to America
As a newly married person, being asked if we’re trying to have kids is fucking weird to us.
“Congratulations! So are you nutting raw?”
Little do they know, my balls don’t work anymore lmao.
But yeah, the general public at large is very much just following a script and checking off boxes on the life bingo card.
Tell them you’re an anal-only couple.
Probably will stop the questions.
The only babies i have come out of my butt after eating Taco Bell.
I’m not sure if Marx wrote about this, but this is another huge contradiction in capitalism. The idea of how important these checkboxes are, but they are also gatekept by speculators so they become little more than a sign of wealth. It costs 10s of thousands of dollars just to actually give birth to a kid. Homes have become an investment vehicle so there is an incentive in keeping housing as expensive as possible: society picked housing to be a way to make money rather than a shelter, so it’s that much harder to check off the checkboxes. Getting a job? Well employers are now very picky because they would rather just pile more work onto their pre-existing employees than hire anyone new. In their eyes, that’s leaving money on the table. They all think their google so they have like six rounds of interviews to let you know that they only want unicorn candidates. What’s that? They told you no? Well then you’re clearly intentionally leeching off the system by being unable to impress these petty tyrants.
this is most people.
Yeah they do, my “”“”“mother”“”“” was one.
She viewed children as pets and property. We were there to serve her financially and emotionally, and she had friends who viewed their children the same way.
Probably not, not exactly. Because having a child is clearly a bad investment.
When you make a child you have to keep track of how much money you spend on them, from conception all the way through adulthood. when they turn 18 you hand them the bill, with interest and accounting for inflation. It doesn’t have to be a bad investment!
spoiler
what do we post to indicate sarcasm when it might not be obvious? i don’t want to do /s because that’s reddit shit but idk
we don’t do that here because we’re not cowards
you indicate sarcasm by posting better sarcasm
What about people who have children to have an retirement plan
I didn’t need to be reminded of my existence this early in the morning
“I look after them for 20-30 years so they look after me for 20-30 years” isn’t such a terrible idea.
if youre an asshole sure.
Idk that’s just kind of how a lot of families work.
doesnt make something right, most people spank their children too. we as a society treat children as everything except human beings. i dont think you should have kids for any reason other then you love them. i wont cast judgement of people in extreme poverty but as someone with more personal family experience with people having many children in the global south its a very hard thing for that child to go through, to know that their existence was primarily a financial decision.
Love is kind of the point though. I don’t think most people have children for the sole purpose of having somebody take care of them when they’re older. If some people do, then sure, that’s wrong. I guess I just believe in taking care of the people you love. My parents are older and I care for them because I love them, and sure, I think it’s right to do since they’ve cared for me my entire life.
But I think we’re talking about different things here. I’m not really talking about the financial side, more the caring for side. Though sometimes the two overlap.
It’s not bad if you offer them the love, respect, and bonding that will inspire a willingness in them to support those close to them (as well as their community in general)
We need a portion of the population that wants kids as communist drones to balance it out
Have been singing Rossa Palestina and L’International to both my kids for the past 2 years. My daughter has even begun singing along to it. Also for some reason she enjoys the German version quite a lot, which I don’t understand at all but hey
This, but unironically. If you’re a first worlder “champagne socialist” who is here for the memes, the bare minimum you can do is raise kids with basic socialist values who are gonna take up the fight after we are gone.
DINK/“child free” is liberalism. Willingly having children is a privilege in most places, but it absolutely should be wielded by those who have it.
he/him ass opinion. Using your body to carry a pregnancy to term has a higher death & complications rate than getting a laparoscopic nephrectomy to donate your kidney to a stranger and save their life. Why aren’t you volunteering your body to do that, which is much more undeniably a comradely act than having a kid?
You can have children without biologically reproducing, although these do tend to come with their own ethical baggage.
Also this comment is targeted toward people in the first world with the means and privilege to support a family with relative ease, which implicitly includes the access to modern obsetric and other healthcare. More importantly, see above.
The figures remain the same even with modern obstetric care. Women I speak with are generally scared about going through pregnancy, reasonably.
That’s not my experience with other women that I speak with, and I’d like to see a claim that the figures don’t change correlated with wealth
They do change, but not enough to escape the comparison with live donor nephrectomy.
