• FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I grew up in a family with eighteen kids. If having such a huge family is good for anything, it’s that I don’t have the romantic veneer that most people do when it comes to childrearing.

    I know exactly how expensive and hard it is, and just how much it sucks.

    • Sarmyth@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Your life experience is actually so extreme that you don’t know exactly how hard it is or how much it sucks. Your experience is not going to be representative of 99.9% of the populace.

      You should basically never use your family life experiences growing as a reference point because of how extremely unusual it is. This is the equivalent of complaining about how hard it is to drive around town in the truckasaurus.

      Unless you are intentionally misrepresenting a foster home, which is again different than having your own child or 2.

      • rhadamanth_nemes@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Eh idk. I think most people who are alive were children at some point. Don’t think it is a huge leap to extrapolate what it would be like to have kids now that we are adults.

        • Sarmyth@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Most people who are alive didn’t get raised with as many children as the post I was responding to. Your point stands but is irrelevant to the post you are responding to.

          Also, that argument ignores the fact that everyone with children at one point did not. This means we already know what it’s like to assume what having children was like. We then also have the experience of actually having one. So when someone tells you it’s different, they’ve already got the “no kid” experience under their belt and can tell you how successfully they extrapolated what it meant to be a parent in that life atage.

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I don’t think that’s a great analogy.

        Driving a monster truck on a tiny road will give you a lot of life experience about driving safely. It’s the same when you have to do a lot of parenting and have no other choice. I have more practical experience rearing children than most people on this thread, guaranteed.

        • Sarmyth@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          It actually won’t, but if you own it, you’ll find lots of excuses to use it anyway and rationalize it to others.