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Comment by jollofricepeas | Hacker News Reader

You know what’s kind of weird?

…When people say they can’t do any of their own hobbies because they have kids.

I get it if you’re into kinky or extremely dangerous hobbies BUT…

- I’ve always shared my hobbies with my kids. When I was really into making music, I gave my toddler at first Toca Music and then eventually their own iPad with GarageBand and we would just make songs together.

- When I wrote apps, I taught them Scratch. I’d work on myself and they’d do their own kiddie stuff next to me.

- Same with working out, I grab the weights while my kids do calisthenics and then we go jogging together.

- We read books together. Sometimes the same ones or different ones.

- We go out to eat and try different cultural foods. You name the cuisine my kids have eaten and probably love it from Armenian to Senegalese.

Make your kids a part of your hobbies (don’t force it on them) and your lives will be more richer for it.

Trust me ;)

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Anecdotally I see this with my friends who’ve had kids. A bunch of them all had kids roughly the same time (all within a year) and it’s fascinating how differently they all react. On the extreme ends you have one that nobody sees anymore because he has a child. On the other hand you have the guy that does everything he used to because, when possible he brings the baby, and when not his wife will take care of it (and he’ll do the same for her). What I’ve found most interesting is that the things he brings the baby to do (e.g. camping, or a music festival, the pub) are things the other guy would think are impossible. So I think a lot of it comes down to mindset and compromise (e.g. go to the music festival but stay in the family campsite and understand that you might not be able to get wasted but you’ll still have a great time listening to music and being with friends).

I took up tennis because of my kids. I rollerskate because (I fucking love it, inexplicably) it's the only "sport" my niece enjoys and none of the other adults will do it (helps that I fucking love it).

There was an interesting quote by Frank Zappa, along the lines of: treat your kids like adults, not property.

Here we are:

“The first thing you have to do if you want to raise nice kids, is you have to talk to them like they are people instead of talking to them like they’re property.”

Explain your reasons to them, even when you think the concepts are above them, and they will understand the effort, attention, and the body language if not the exact meaning of the words.

If they can understand the world you live in, the more likely they are to be compatible with it as they grow up.

I agree but sadly my 3 year old isn't able to rock climb, and he's a danger to himself in a room with free weights (much less actual plates), so I think I may just have to pick up additional hobbies.

Maybe he’s too young now but many kids like climbing in general so soon you might be able to go climbing together :)

Exactly, and the only way to one day be actually have teenage kid(s) to share the joy of climbing with, is to have earlier looked after young kids that weren't ready yet to go climbing. ;) OK, some people may say when they're teenagers they'll just want to "hang out at the mall" but I suspect some things, like e:g rock climbing, or making music, are potentially still very cool to teenagers even when being done with parents. (Disclaimer, ours are still young, so yet to see if they'll want to do that later, but their level of interest in the outdoors and music is highly promising so far...)

Maybe all you need is one more year. I'm bouldering with my 4yo weekly :)

This is good advice but you have to change your expectations. You’re not going to get the same kind of run with a 5 yr old as alone, for example.

This advice is great on paper, but hard to impossible to practise. I see some of my older friends can do it with their kids who are 8-12 years old, but there seems to be a very short period of time between being able to actually do something with them until they have their own interests and hobbies.

Put the 5 year old on your shoulders and make it twice the workout :p

My daughter used to climb on my back when I did push ups for some additional resistance. She used to give me a light slap if I was taking too long between reps.

Good times.

Funny, my son does that to me now! But he's 43 pounds. I can't really do more than a few with him on my back

This is the mode I am in with my kid. Got him started on making and coding at a very early age and he took to it. He's 12 now and doing some significant things with Python, 3D printing and Arduino; the latter two were new to me so I picked up a couple of cool hobbies. He's an avid reader so I keep filled a pipeline of good books for him, and I read them first which means I'm filling in gaps in my own education of books I should have read in high school. We went to home schooling when Covid hit and that has worked out very well.

But... I am older and I retired early (tech was very good to me) so I have full time to spend with him. That doesn't work for people early in their careers.

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