This is unfortunate to read. Of course everything doesn’t need to be planned, but food and shelter are the bare minimum.
Maybe they won’t be an A student when they reach school but does it actually matter?
There’s kids who literally survived the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and lived very successful lives after.
That said there is a natural instinct to be a decent parent. You don’t really have to try or be ready to. Just need to be around. In my opinion it’s similar to the instinct to turn off a burning stove - a bunch of common sense stuff that requires zero planning.
Are they becoming a happy person? good, moral person? Do they contribute to society or are they a drain on society? Do you, the parent, have to bail them out of jail every other weekend?
Don't neglect your kids, people. Please.
The unfortunate reality is that this groundwork is laid from around 0-10. After that it's a lot harder to correct the mistakes and the influence then definitely falls much more under peers than the parents.
For those that want to dive in a little bit these are Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE). It's not an end all be all chance that you'll develop something with a long term impact but the more you experience the more likely you are to do so.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/riskprotectivefa...
Lil Timmy falls down a well, or has a really handsy neighbour, or has to see someone get hit by a car.
Like, obviously, don't beat your kids, but you don't need to be superlative parent, esp. since a great deal of their education and raising will happen, essentially, in someone elses workplace (i.e. school).
Parent should first make sure they are good to bring someone else and not to give a disadvantage start, playing gamble with life who did not ask.
How callous can you be to bring a life into the world and think "i'm just gonna wing it" in this day and age. The kid didn't ask to be brought here, it is 100% under the responsibility and care of whoever decided to have it.
> If the life they are coming to is already bad, financially, legged behind from others in many ways, or any other, that's selfish. Forcing someone to terrible start without their consent. > > Parent should first make sure they are good to bring someone else and not to give a disadvantage start, playing gamble with life who did not ask.
Literally every aspect of raising a kid is a gamble, but there are degrees to these things. What counts as a "disadvantage" isn't always clear, let alone the degree to which it is actually harmful. Making a few mistakes or not doing things perfectly is probably fine. There is a huge problem with pregnancy and parenthood where controlled studies can't be done for ethical reasons, the number of confounding variables is about as extreme as it can get, and the outcomes you're measuring often aren't even well defined (what does it mean to have succeeded as a parent? What does it mean for someone to have a happy life?).
It's important to try to make your kids have a happy life, but there's a lot of disagreement on how exactly to do that. One factor that seems to have a huge effect is having parents who express their love for their kids and spend time with them. It's important for parents to take care of themselves and their relationship with their partner. One part of that is not burning yourself out trying to hyper-optimize things.