Comments (13)

By Real Dad, January 4, 2010 10:48 pm

Alright, the holidays are over and we are back to the daily grind. I had the last 1.5 weeks off of work and spent every waking second with my family. That isn’t a bad thing but I will say it again, I do not envy stay-at-home parents! My wife decided to be a stay-at-home mom before we had Nicky but planned on returning to work at some point in the near

#4 Baking nicely

future. That didn’t happen because we had a 2nd and 3rd child within a very short time frame. Lately she has been working part-time at night at a local catering hall but I think that has stopped as business hasn’t been good. It really sucks since she found out she was pregnant with #4 right before Thanksgiving! That’s right, ANOTHER BABY!

I know that this whole baby thing is a blessing (or so I hear) but I am really having a hard time with this. We currently have 3 kids that we struggle to provide for. We do not have a fancy place to live, nice furniture (actually we do not have enough furniture to furnish every room), my wife and I do not go out (husband and wife time), we do not socialize with anyone except family, we send 2 of our kids to a private school that we cannot afford because the local schools suck, the wife and I go without buying much needed items such as new clothes, we do not take vacations and having 3 children ages 6, 4 and 3 just eats at your last nerve in general. Now I am not saying that I do not love my family because I certainly do but it isn’t easy and it is not all happy-happy-joy-joy!

We all have our issues and I am sure that I sound like a whining baby and I really don’t care as it is my blog and my rules . My wife and I have had a long-standing disagreement regarding the amount of children we should have. I wanted a vasectomy for several years now but she was against anything so definite. We explored our options and settled on birth control pills but she stopped taking them over the summer (why I am not sure and right now it doesn’t matter). Recently we were a little careless and maybe forgot the whole birth control idea, so we are certainly both culpable and I understand that. Knowing the error of our ways is great but it does not help me with the future of what I have in front of me right now.

How will we afford to raise the newest addition to our family? This isn’t 1910 so I cannot pull Nicky out of school to work in the local factory for 18 hours a day or send Jordan to harvest the crops! I was thinking of pulling straws to

The way it was.......

determine which kid I would sell on the “black market” but I came to the conclusion that

A different time...and not worth repeating

wouldn’t go over well with the general public or law-enforcement officials. I even thought about becoming a pimp and “turning out” the wife but let’s face it, she is pregnant now and after she gives birth she will have to take care of #4. So what am I to do? I guess just the best I can.

I have a feeling that I will get a lot of flak for this post and I am prepared. As I told my wife, I don’t want to hear all of the “Oh this is great” or “What is the difference between 3 kids and 4 kids?”. It isn’t a happy time when you are completely clueless of where the money will come from to raise a family of 4 kids without some type of drastic change. By drastic change I mean pulling my kids out of their school and moving to a place in which the public schools are much better. The problem with that is we have to move far from where we are and my wife has been against being further then a short drive from her parents or my mine. I am also fully aware that some couples struggle to conceive a child and many view children as blessings

Just a little dream!

but we all have our struggles and this is mine. I know this sounds horrible but it is REAL and this is Real Dads Hangout; I tell it like it is! Unless someone jumps out of the corner of the delivery room with television cameras and a giant check with a lot of 0’s, I don’t want to hear it! I will of course fall in love with this baby and do everything I can for him or her and that goes without saying. It is the road that must be traveled by my family that I am a loathing. It will be long and bumpy so I hope we all come out in the end with all of our limbs and our sanity!

BRING IT YOU LIL CHILDREN BASTARDS, BRING IT! DADDY IS READY FOR FRIGGIN WAR!

Comments (8)

By Real Dad, September 24, 2009 9:55 pm

I don’t know what made me think of this but all day I was wondering “when did parents become pansies?”.  By this I mean, when did parenting become what it is today? Parents now worry about things unthinkable when we (parents born in the 70′s or before) were babies, toddlers and little kids. This is not to say that many of things we do as parents today are not beneficial to our kids health both mentally and physically but are we going over-board?

While raising us (I have 2 brothers) my parents:

• Had only 2 types of bottle nipples – beige for formula and blue for water
• Used a safety pin to poke holes into the blue water nipple to make it a formula nipple
• Maybe sterilized the bottles and nipples before they used them (for the 1st time only) with my older brother but most certainly did not with me and my younger brother
• Used a cold cloth to wipe our asses
• Smoked around us at all times
• Gave us regular baby food
• Did not play Beethoven to us while we were in the womb
• Did not surround us with black, red and white objects
• Did not have infant flash cards with funny shapes and designs
• Did not HAVE CAR SEATS (glad we have them now but it wasn’t a concern 25+ years ago)
• Let us roam around the back of the station wagon and hang out of the window as long as we didn’t bother them
• Whacked us (well the older brother and me… not such my younger brother) on the ass when we DESERVED it
• Put soap in our mouths when we spoke inappropriately and when I clinched my teeth shut my father used liquid dish soap
• Did not explain why they said no – NO JUST MEANT NO
• Let us play with toy guns
• Let us watch cartoons in which the cat hits the mouse on the head with a hammer or the roadrunner blows up the coyote (today’s cartoons do not hold a match to the old cartoons!)
• Instructed us to play baseball or football in the street
• Did not have a chart on the wall explaining the events of the day
• Told us to shut up when they were on the phone or talking to other adults
• Made us eat what they cooked  and if we didn’t like it, we didn’t eat
• Gave us white bread with PEANUT BUTTER on it (not knocking allergies as they are serious but these types of allergies were relatively non-existent when we were kids)
• Laughed when I got caught looking up my teacher’s skirt in the 1st grade
• Yelled at me all of the time
• Rubbed whiskey on our gums when we were teething
• Let us have a sip of beer
• Let us watch hours of television
• Told us to punch back harder if someone punched us

Now I  must admit that Carrie and I would not do some of the things listed above and we DID play Beethoven to Nicky while he was in the womb (1x only). Growing up I did not know one child with autism, a learning disability, a personality disorder or anything of the like. Again, I am not negating the seriousness of these issues, as they are real and horrible diseases/disorders to deal with (read my post “Fatherhood’s Perfect Dream and Nightmare“). Were these medical conditions just not diagnosed when we were kids or did they not exist? Are these problems created by the immunizations we let doctors give or kids, the sonograms women have while pregnant or the food we feed or children? I don’t have the answers but we all know that the amount of cases of these diseases/disorders in children is on the rise and we do not have an answer. This just made me think of the differences regarding how we parent our children and how our parents raised us. Just some food for thought!

How did I become a pansy? I don’t know!

Comments (0)

By Real Dad, September 18, 2009 10:19 pm

Last week my wife came home after spending a weekend with the kids at a relative’s house and once the kids went to bed, she announced a revelation of sorts to me. She told me that she felt that she was too easy on the kids and that I have become numb to the point in which I do not react (meaning be a parent). This came after she realized that the kids get away with far too much misbehaving, including not listening to either of us and acting out of control. I am not sure of exactly what brought this major change about but I was not going to question why she felt this way, as this is the way I have felt for some time!

So we began the following:

• None of the kids are allowed to leave the kitchen table until all of us have eaten
• Once we put them down to bed, they are not allowed to come out of their rooms or talk to each other from the doorway
• They get one warning and if they continue the inappropriate behavior we send them to a long time out (longer than the 1 min per year of age rule she has followed for the last 3 years or so)
• If they break the rules we set forth they do not get their desert, cannot watch television (we have certain times of the day in which we allow them to watch a show or two), they do not get to play with their favorite toy or other such suitable type punishment for the crime
  

  All for One and One for All!

I know that these are things that may sound automatic to most or at least some parents but Carrie and I have had a fundamental difference in our parenting techniques. If it were my way it would be something like this:

• When I say no I mean NO and for the most part they do not deserve a reason. On some occasions a reason may be warranted but it is age and instance specific
• Not everything in our house is for them to play with
• I do not have to spend every minute in the presence of the kids when I am home
• Rules and boundaries have to be established early
• The kids must put the current toy away before taking out another toy

Her way would be something like this:

• No is not something that should be said often and kids often need to be given a reason so that they comprehend why you may say no
• It is not a big deal to let the kids play with something if it is not going to hurt them or others
• Being a parent means spending as much time as you can with them when they are young and want your attention because one day they will not want it
• A house with kids is supposed to have toys all over
• Rules and boundaries have to be loose and can be changed on a case by case basis

As you can imagine, Carrie thinks that I am too strict and I think she is too easy. Over time we have let our house become a zoo. The kids don’t listen, run around like maniacs and do not respect property or material items. Now let it be known that Nicky, Jordan-Rose and Corey are great kids. They are sweet, friendly (most of the time) and have great manners. What has been allowed to happen in our home is equally our fault, from a parenting perspective. We let many things get in the way and we choose the easier way to deal with things which was to not deal with them at all, in most cases.

Carrie is in a tough situation and I respect her and love her dearly for what she goes through on a daily basis. She is home alone for 10-12 hours with 3 small children while I work. By the time I come home from work, the kids are either just getting ready for bed or already in bed. The majority of the parenting lies on her however we are their parents equally. Carrie has made some changes to her parenting technique and the benefits are already showing in the kid’s behavior. It also helps that Nicky is at school all day and Jordan-Rose attends Pre-K 3x per week for 3 hours each time. Bedtime is much less hectic and once they go to bed, they have been staying there and she has been telling me that dinner is much calmer and becoming a pleasure rather than a chore.

Now I have to work on being a little less uptight and more involved in the daily lives of my family. How I will accomplish this is the dilemma since my job requires a lot of my time. I guess for now, I will follow my wife’s lead as I clearly see a difference in the kids just after one week!