My personal experience as a dad of a 16 month old: new, intense anxiety about what the future will look like for my child.
A dangerous thing that can happen is when you over-identify with your kids. Like being the overbearing sports-parent that pushes their kid to succeed because you see it as an extension of your success. I think every parent runs into this to some degree. I have to remind myself they are different people with their own wants, needs, values, and criteria for what "success" means to them. Not an extension of myself.
Yet it's hard to balance avoiding over-identifying with the "I want to keep you out of obvious danger". Like "Don't go 200K in debt for a poor college education" or things like drug and alcohol usage at too young an age. The downside risks for some of these things are huge.
Anxiety is crippling me to the point of rupture.
Other than that, I strongly believe in paying well for good childcare and babysitting so you can take breaks.
I also believe in sharing your passions with your kids, and focusing on quality time rather than quantity or things that don't interest either of you. This can be surprising. My kids love camping, which surprised me. I love camping - my wife doesn't. My kids are meh on coding, they do it, but it doesn't grab them like it grabs me...
Focus your career choices carefully as your time on them is limited. I have found having kids, due to time crunch, has caused me to really focus more on what I really care about from work. Don't let others take advantage of you to do BS work, focus on what you want to do on a day-to-day basis that's fulfilling for you if you're able. I think sometimes parents fall into the trap of only focusing on $$ when really it's a good idea to focus on how much value you yourself are getting out of your more limited time investment
* A dose of magnesium glycinate in the morning and before bed
* A dose of black seed oil in the morning and at night
If you did a hair mineral analysis test, I assure you, you would most likely be magnesium deficient. The body needs magnesium in order to deal with stress. Anxiety is stress.
The deficiency wreaks havoc on the nervous system. Take a HMAT from Analytical Research Labs if you want to be 100%. You'll have to find a practitioner.
I've done years of therapy. But getting my basic nutrients in order, made an immediate impact and has had a much bigger difference in treating my anxiety.
Also don't forget about getting enough sleep every night.
I strongly encourage you to talk to a therapist or counselor of some sort - even after just a few chats they can arm you with some really great tools.
For managing the anxiety of life generally and parenting specifically, religion has been very helpful for me. If you're not into that, maybe find something that strengthens the big picture & long term view of things.
I'm tying (unsuccessfully) to get sleep, and I'll try magnesium supplements too. I already spoke about this but never got solutions, and at this point it feels almost even worse every time.
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
But seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
I'm worried that the planet will be inhospitable to human life, and that my kid will have to scramble for rat corpses in the shadows of collapsed skyscrapers.
Which, for many people, ends up being participating in the “meritocracy tournament” to secure cash flow. But I let them know what the rules and parameters of the game are, and possible consequences of various actions. After that, it’s up to them to figure out their goals.
You don’t need straight As and 3 extracurriculars to earn money, but you also can’t explore your interests all day and follow your passion to secure your family’s future.
I would try to suss out what kind of life they want. If they want to jet set and have fancy things, they need to do the things that get them high pay. If they’re okay clocking in and out and going home without stress and maximizing enjoyment in 20s, maybe do a trade or something. If they don’t care about having roommates for the rest of their life and what kind of school district their kids are in, then they can study art or do whatever they feel like.
They should also be made aware that their potential mates will be affected by their lifestyle choices as well.
1. How to handle success
2. Dealing with failures
I guess your anxiety could be based on the location where your living? I believe my daughter will be able to find plenty of great opportunities in her life and I'll be able to give her a very nice start compared to most people around where I live (Thailand).
I have to admit I am also not worried for things like covid and climate change, so if these things worry you a lot, I guess that might be part of your anxiety.
Would you care to explain why?
I'm not sure if my explanation would be fruitful here. I realise most people on HackerNews likely disagree with me on these issues. I am not here to convince people of my views on these issues. I respect anyones opinions on these matters.
But since you asked, in short:
- I really don't believe COVID-19 is as dangerous as is projected in the media
- I believe the human influence on climate change is much less than what most people tend to believe
My views are based on my own research on these issues.
If you'd asked me what issues I'm worried about, it's issues like pollution in the general sense (e.g. like plastics in the sea) or human population growth.
Well, it's obviously not very dangerous, on a medium or long term. The Black Plague had a 40% mortality rate, SARS about 20%, etc. A virus with a 1-2% mortality rate won't bring society down, obviously.
The media machine needs nourishment and they tend to exaggerate things.
However Covid-19 is still a big deal. If it runs its course unchecked ~50-80 million of people could die. That's a lot of pain and suffering, the likes of which the world hasn't had in at least 60 years.
> - I believe the human influence on climate change is much less than what most people tend to believe
This, I don't think anyone can justify. Maybe the climate warming estimates are overblown, ok, but human influence is undeniable and worst of all, we have no control over it and little visibility. It's like physics and closed systems, humanity is an open system and we're leaking pollution everywhere. Any way you cut it, that can't be good or sustainable. And there are so many of us that we definitely have an impact on the world. For example the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch). And these things will only become worse as we will have 3x - 4x as many people living in industrialized countries (4 billion people or more).
I disagree with this with a resentment towards someone saying its a research based view. Putting that aside, however, why would believing climate change isn't human influenced would make things more palatable? In the vaguest sense, that sounds to me like it would be worse, because then we can't possibly do anything to halt it.
My parents lived through the most intense portions of the Cold War. The world could have ended at any moment. That is much more anxiety producing than climate change. And yet they made it through ok.
Honestly, a big concern is how my daughter will deal with things like social media. Young girls are self harming at unheard of rates. Depression and anxiety are through the roof. I don't know how to deal with this.
The worst consequences of climate change won't fall on Middle Class Americans, it'll fall on people who cannot afford to move, rely on subsistence farming, etc. Maybe Miami and New Orleans don't exist in 2100. But cities like Chicago were founded and became large cities in under 80 years.
And I'm pretty sure cities like Miami will just slowly recede inward rather than pack it all up.