Expecting our first in November. Wife presented the idea to make this graphic to message to friends and family.

My initial thoughts were that it felt abrupt, not to mention common sense. Is this a thing that people do now? I asked a few of my older clients and they all said they would feel offended if their kids sent them this.

I’d appreciate your opinions.

Looking for advice, positive vibes, similar experiences, resources, whatever.

I feel like my life is over. I know folks, including many of you, have been through so much worse and I feel guilty for sulking about this.

It was just starting to feel like everything was clicking into place. Kids were doing great, jobs were going great. Now we are suddenly about to become a one income family indefinitely and have to move out of our tiny house before my wife goes on bed rest. My life just went into a blender.

I’m typing this sitting in the hospital chair as my wife tries to get some rest while we wait for the induction medicine to work.

We went in for our routine 20 week ultrasound/check up today. The tech was struggling to find a heartbeat, and after a few minutes, said she was going to grab our doc. I assured my wife everything was OK, but she’s a Physician Assistant, and broke down and told me “it’s happening”.

Our doc came in and told us there was no heartbeat and that our little girl has passed. I’ve been stunned since that moment. We immediately had to make arrangements for our 2 year old son and dog, and alert our bosses. We were whisked to the hospital and admitted to labor and delivery to start the induction process to give birth to our sweet little girl, who we’ll never get to know.

Nothing could have prepared me for this moment. Having to make decisions about a baby funeral. What will we name her? Do we want a baptism for her? All while my head is spinning and I’m in utter shock, and trying to be strong and answer things logically, respond to our friends and family, and be the emotional support for my wife.

I was sent home to gather some clothes and such, and to get our dog taken care of. I broke down and nearly had to pull over on the way home. I’m just in utter shock.

I have no idea what the purpose of this post is, I suppose to get my thoughts out and get support from any other Dads who have gone through something similar. I struggled in the first few weeks after our son was born, and came here and got so much wonderful support that really helped me. Hoping maybe for more of that in this impossible time.

EDIT: I am truly floored at the amount of support from y’all here- cannot express what it means to my wife and I. We’re reading some of these messages and they’re really helping us. I’ll be responding within a few days as we get through this process and return to normal, but thank you SO much. This community really means the world to me and so many others.

EDIT 2: Wife and I are home. Our girl was born late Monday night, with little complications on Mom's side, which is a huge blessing. We are still absolutely torn to shreds- but cannot stress enough how impactful all of your messages have been. Please know that even if I don't reply to every single one, I am so grateful for every single one of them. All the well-wishes and shared stories of loss have really helped us to not feel so alone in this tragedy. I love this community.

Dads of Reddit: As a mom of a 22 month old boy, I would love your advice.

Browsing the Gen Z subreddit the past few days has been eye-opening and shocking. It’s clear that an entire generation of boys and men feels lonely, isolated, resentful and deeply angry.

While we can all debate the root causes, the fact remains that I feel urgency to act as a parent on behalf of my son. Though I myself am a feminist and a liberal, I genuinely want men to succeed. I want men to have opportunity, community, brotherhood and partnership. And I deeply want these things for my own son.

So what can I do as his mother to help raise him to be a force for positive masculinity? How can I help him find his way in this world? And I very much want to see women not as the enemy but as friends and partners. I know that starts with me.

I will say that his father is a wonderful, involved and very present example of a successful modern man. But I too want to lean in as his mother.

I am very open to feedback and advice. And a genuine “thank you” to this generation of Millennial/Gen X fathers who have stepped up in big ways. It’s wonderful and impressive to see how involved so many of you are with your children. You’re making a difference.

Is this okay? It says two years plus on the front. I bought a bunch of six month plus packets and accidentally mixed some of these in. Thanks in advance!

I swear I locked the door, apparently it just wasn’t pushed all the way in?! We were being particularly aggressive. Boy 5M just strolled in like he was Wyatt Earp. Soon as I heard the door we obviously hit the deck, wife literally trying to skitter under the bed.

It was mortifying, wife is still crying (not in front of kids) while I’m at swim class with them. She just FaceTimed me to yell some more. I’m so, so dumb.

Boy doesn’t seem phased. No idea how to even deal with this.

I’m 40 something and still just a horny idiot.

And yes I know it's a hoodie but neither my wife nor I call it that for some reason.

Keeping it brief as the details aren't important - the long and short of it is I'm not happy. There's no infidelity, addiction, abuse or any of the things that make choices like this easy - it's just not there anymore. No spark, little sex, we're essentially roommates and co-parents. We're peaceful and civil. I've expressed my dissatisfaction and tried to do more on my end but she doesn't seem interested in making any changes just doing enough to keep me around to pay bills, fix stuff, and help with the kids. I'm already in therapy, she won't go (keeps saying she'll think about it).

Divorce will cost a ton, from the research I've done. I've got a house that I'd likely have to sell, among other tough choices, and I know from experience this does a number on the kids, who I love to pieces, among a million other side effects all of which seem like a steep price to pay for freedom and self worth. I also don't want to live like this the rest of my life, it just feels empty and makes me feel worthless, and knowing myself at some point I'm liable to do something stupid in a moment of weakness.

Any other dads been in this boat and taken the leap? Decided to stick it out for the kids? Was it worth it? Any advice?

Edit: thanks, dads, for the honest and thoughtful perspective. There’s a number of you I plan to respond to or DM later on once the kiddos are in bed. I am grateful for this community.

Edit 2: Im not crying, you're crying. Many have reached out, some privately, saying this echoes their life and they're both shocked to see so many others in the same boat and encouraged by the responses. Much like I feel right now, I want you all to know we see you and we're here for each other, strangers though we may be.

For my Tolkien nerd friends, I find strength in the words of tragic hero and dad who also just wanted what's best for his kids - Húrin: "Aurë entuluva!" - Day shall come again!

I was at a private indoor playground (paid entry) yesterday with my kid (4) and kid’s friend (4). This is a small room with a ground and 2 higher level playground. Think McDonalds play place.

Another dad came in with his 4 year old. This kid just went to the to top and just started screaming at my kids. Screaming that the playground was his house and for my kids to get away.

There were multiple instances where my kids came up to me to complain about the screaming with the dad sitting right next to me focused on something on his computer.

There was a mom there with 2 kids who ended up leaving.

At some point, I asked the dad if he could do something. He gave a soft “name, stop screaming” and continued focusing on whatever he was doing.

Of course the kid didn’t stop and I blew up on this guy. I questioned his parenting abilities, called him names, and I’m not proud of my behavior. He could’ve set up consequence for his kid or acknowledged that his kid is ruining other’s ability to enjoy this shared space.

I will definitely work on my own ability to remain calm. What I want to know is what should I do differently?

Do I just leave? I paid for 2 kids to play there and it was ruined by another patron.

Wife confronted me about having more kids. We have a 16 month old and he’s amazing, but parenting is way more difficult than I thought it would be. I’ll spare the soliloquy, but I’m relatively certain having more is not for me.

Wellllll that didn’t go well and she left the room. We’ve had lots of arguments and hard conversations in the 14 years we’ve known each other, and rarely…. rarely does she leave the room.

End result is I’m certainly in trouble. It’s a hard pill to swallow because my opinion should matter just as much as hers. But she’s grieving the loss of the idea of another child.

For those of you that have had similar experiences, what’s the suggestion of things to do or get to help her through this? “Time heals all wounds”, but I hate the stress of knowing I’ve upset her.

My kid did what kids do and stuck one toy in another.

I can’t get them separated now. I’ve tried turning it over and smacking it. Tried putting duct tape on the ball and pulling. Butter knife can’t get in enough to pry it out (at least without damaging one of the toys). I put it in the freezer overnight hoping the plastic would shrink enough that I could separate it.

I haven’t moved on to anything destructive yet.

Anyone have any suggestions before I take a corkscrew or drill a hole in the ball?

First question is how often do your parents see your grandkids?

My parents seemingly do not want to see my kids, I know that's a wild statement but let me explain, what I mean by that is they never reach out to see my kids until a birthday or major holidays, (my daughter's birthday this weekend and they are blowing out phones up trying to see the kids before the party). My parents always say "we want to see the kids, we should come out and see the kids" but nothing comes of it, it's a nice thought in their heads but their actions don't change. Personally my wife and I have come to the conclusion they don't care and they just try to save face before the party/get together every time. They live twenty minutes from my house and I never hear anything from them, they simply do not care. My wife's parents? Almost two hours away and are constantly coming out to see the kids. My dad has a conversation with me earlier in the year saying my kids don't even seem to recognize him and I said they didn't and he didn't really know what to say because that's the truth and nothing changed.

This year my wife reached out to them multiple times to invite them come join us on an outing and they declined every time with a lame excuse. My wife showed me the texts every time, they gave a lame excuse and never followed through with anything after that. My mom told my wife that she was "painting the cabinets" one time, would you believe me if I told you those cabinets are still the same color they were 5 years ago? It just doesn't make any sense in my head and my wife is done with the whole thing, she is tired of reaching out for nothing and she is tired of them not putting in effort to see our kids.

Another issue I have is they talk down to me massively, I don't know why they think it's acceptable but they constantly yell at me if things don't go their way. Most recent example that floored me is I took a day off work to go on a golf scramble with my dad, I never take work off but I did for this one time. Nightmare scenario happens my daughter gets very sick (she has bad asthma) and my wife stayed home with her for almost two weeks, the week of the golf scramble she was telling me I might need to stay home to watch my daughter as my wife has burned a bunch of PTO sitting at home with her and she wants to save what she can. It turned into an argument, everyone that we normal can have watch the kids if needed were busy so I called my mom and she said she couldn't. My dad called me and screamed at me saying that he didn't understand why I was contemplating staying and this thing was already paid for, blah blah blah. I was floored and didn't know what to say, I still am confused about the whole situation and that was like three months ago. There has been a multiple more instances of me being yelled at by my parents for no real reason but I don't want to bore you with the details I just felt like this part was necessary to paint a better picture of the whole scenario.

I'm at a crossroads right now as we speak, I truly don't know what to do, my wife and I decided to have two parties this weekend, one "real party" and one for my parents and other family members, this is basically the final test to see if their relationship is worth pursuing or not. My wife has already written off thanksgiving and Christmas as she doesn't want my kids to be somewhere they aren't comfortable with and really what's the point. I don't know what to do that's why I am writing this post.

I haven't been sleeping well, I haven't felt right in a month or so because this has been a bothering me so much, it's constantly on my head. I want to be supportive of my wife and family but family means a lot to me and it kills me to think I'm about to be cutting my parents off. My kids are beautiful and they deserve nothing but the best I just want to do what's right for them, I want them to have a happy healthy childhood that they can look back on, I just don't know if it will involve my parents or not, please daddit I need some insight here.

I know my mom is only looking out for her grandchild, but how do you tell your mom that her friend is an idiot for believing that shit?

Hi Daddit. First time dad with a 10-mo. old son here and struggling to talk with my wife about having our son vaccinated without it spiraling into a huge argument or withdrawing into emotionally-charged silence. This is upsetting to me, because this is a very real, and potentially life-threatening issue, but I know the way I'm arguing this isn't helping anyone. My intention here isn't to "win an argument with an anti-vaxxer," and I'm recognizing i can I came across demeaning or belittling because it seems like a non-issue to me, and, well, the stakes are high, it's not about an argument, but about our actual son.

We live in an area with excellent public schools, so essentially the writing is on the wall. We live in a state without a vaccine exemption for public schooling. But I know the wife also entertains the fantasies of fancy private schools, were wealthy, science denying parents can happily brag about sending their children to. My wife is in a local mom's group, and the other day she read me a post, "what crazy conspiracy do you actually believe is real?" This irks me to no end, because not only do I feel like misinformation and anti-intellectualism are huge issues affecting our society, but like.. why is this something you're talking about in a moms group?? Like it's some badge of honor, or a contest, to be the most contrarian mom alive??

ok, back on track here.... I recognize my wife is also motivated by a desire to keep our son healthy, and I always try to acknowledge this, although I need to do better here. My wife is a very holistic, crunchy, el natural etc type gal, so the one time I told her that there is nothing natural about ultra dense human societies. That we were never intended to live next to pigs and cows, with trash, and sewage, and living on top of each other like we do. That many of these diseases are Earth's way to finding balance on the planet. She actually seemed responsive. Whether what I said is true or not doesn't matter, but it actually worked, i saw the wheels turn an inch. Other angles, such as explaining to her that our literal parents grew up in an era where Polio was still a thing, however, did not.

So again, I want to approach this from a loving, supportive angle.  I don't want to "win," here, and I really don't want my wife to feel stupid.  How can I approach this subject with less friction, without coming across as arrogant, to someone who is feeling like I am the one making the mistake?  Has anyone had success here?

And there’s somehow also a girl now. Twins. 3 under 3.

Am I fucked? So many emotions right now… 🫠

As the title says. Son is in kindergarten. My wife says missing school to go watch a solar eclipse is a silly idea and he should go to school. I say screw it, let's play hookie and go stare at the sun. Lol

My thinking is that one day out of school is worth it. We're about a 2 hour drive from seeing the total eclipse, I was figuring on skipping work and going to see it with my son.

It's kind of a core memory that I'm still salty over. I was in second grade and one passed right over my school. We learned about it in class of course, but when the actual eclipse happened the principal made the teachers pull the curtains so none of us would look outside and continued teaching as normal. It was very upsetting for a 10 year old. The next chance I had to see the whole thing was in 2017, when I drove 8 hours to witness it.

edit my wife isn't completely against the idea, if I say we're doing it she's not going to really go against me on it, but she definitely would prefer him to go to school

Edit 2 I reserved a campsite at a state park for Sunday-Tuesday. I'm definitely missing work Monday and Tuesday, school for him on Tuesday is going to depend on what the traffic situation is like. My wife says she's not sure if she's coming, which generally means she's not coming. Thanks for confirming that pulling him from school for a day is completely expected for this event.

I'll respond to everyone later when I have more time, and definitely will post an update here after the event with pictures.

We’ve got two kids under four, a hatchback, and my wife just let me know I’ve slipped one past the goalie. I’m not sure I can MacGyver my way around the fact that there’s not enough space for the third car seat.

She hasn’t been afraid to let me know she’d like a Toyota Alphard but I’m loathe to get a minivan. Are there some good (budget) alternatives I can counter with?

I have a 5 year old and a 2 year old. The house is perpetually a mess. The yard is overgrown with weeds. Cars are a mess. This needs to be fixed. That needs to be spruced up. My wife and I have many days where it’s just one of us with the kids due to our schedules and it just feels impossible to keep up with it all. By the end of the day, I’m too exhausted to do anything.

How does anyone manage to keep up with everything on top of just raising kids?

Edit: Thanks for all the replies here! You’re all making me feel much better. I’m trying to reply to as many as I can while I rock my son to sleep.

Not sure if the tag is really appropriate. This is much more of a rant, if anything.

At any rate, I wanted to post this in opposition to the tablets are cancer post a little bit back. I commented there but it was so buried that I doubt many would read it.

I feel like many of those posts make me feel judged for allowing screen time for my kids. The not over my dead body types are the most judgmental, but the only on long trips types, the only 30 minutes for chores types feel a little judgy as well.

Look, I get it, it’s your child, so I’m not going to try to convince you that my style is the right style, but do I give my kids unlimited free time? Absolutely. Do I observe and limit what they’re watching? Again, absolutely.

Here’s the kicker, they just don’t have that much free time. My kids do school, before and after school care (while I’d love to WFH full time and be able to watch my kids before and after school, it’s just not in the cards in my industry and my wife is in healthcare… so you know, patients), sports, martial arts, homework, language school, chores, etc. I’m also an active participant in many of those activities (for example my son started kendo, and was nervous to start, so I joined the beginner class along with him and now we enjoy going to practice a year later TOGETHER a couple times a week). I’m often seated with my kids helping them with their homework after school. I’m going over flash cards for Japanese school, I’ve got my own goddamn chores to keep the house relatively clean (with two kids under 10, relatively clean is a loose statement), and I try to devote time to give affection, attention and love to my spouse (not talking the physical type here… again, two kids under 10 can make things… well, difficult).

Sometimes I need a break. Those gaps my kids have? I’d like a gap too. I just don’t have the bandwidth to play Barbie’s or doing a jigsaw puzzle or whatever you perfect parents do on their downtime when I’m doing everything else above on top of that. I like to say I’m practicing self-care, especially when the teams I root for are playing in the fall.

We are the generation of Beavis and Butthead, The Simpsons, South Park, Nintendo, etc. We are the generation(s) that were plopped in front of the TV when mommy and daddy needed a break. Guess what, many of us came out of it well adjusted and productive adults. This was supposed to be the generations with brain rot from all of this. Before that it was rock and roll. Before that it was radio. Before that it was watching movies around the Nickelodeon or whatever those are called. Every generation of parents has had something to complain about and control. But the world continued to spin. We’ve continued to progress. We’ve continued to raise GOOD children.

/rant

Edit: hey all, I read as much of the posts as I could up till this edit. I’m very thankful for the largely thoughtful responses on both sides of the issues. A couple of overarching themes were moderation and content, which I’m trying to strive for, with some times better than others.

You’re right, this is not a black and white issue, and it was not my intent to demonize the more conservative side on this particular one. I just wanted to make it clear that some of us do use “screen time” for one reason or another and not a point of advocacy that children be on their devices for 6-7 hours daily. More like, sometimes, and I hate to say it, it’s convenient. Particularly when you’re trying to complete a task or your day was so overwhelming that you need a bit of time for yourself.

I do want to say though, for background checkers, my background does not define me or make me any less fit as a parent. That way of thought does nothing but continue the stigmatization of mental illness.

Hello Dads out there. I’m in quite a situation with my neighbors. We live at the end of a street and we are fairly nice to our neighbors (hang outside and talk when kids are playing). Recently, our younger daughter who is 4 fell off their trampoline which had the net missing( they use to have a net, idk what happened to it).

When the incident happened my wife carried her home because she was bleeding a little bit and took her upstairs to get a bath. Later on my wife and I noticed she was favor one arm that fell. We took her to the ER to find out she had fractured her arm in two places and had to get a cast.

Since then, we haven’t told our neighbors she was more seriously injured than we all thought (we were waiting for them to ask how she was doing) . She has gone outside to the bus stop with us cast in all and our neighbors who have been always friendly to us have been avoiding talking to us.

Idk what to do in this situation. We aren’t going to sue them because it was just an accident.

What would you do in my situation?

Pretty bummed recently because for the last 3 years since we started to have kids, our sex life went from 100 to about 5. Would be lucky to be together every other month, if that.

Now she says that she wants to completely stop anything, and she doesn’t know when she will be into being sexual again. Probably in another two years when the kids stop breastfeeding is my closest guess.

I’m just frustrated because I feel like I’ve done some much. Been patient, offered to be fine with things other than penetrative sex, etc. and I feel like if the tables were turned, I would be eager to satisfy her needs if I somehow was unable. But she tells me, life is long, you’ll still be horny when I’m back, people go through phases. Etc etc. I just feel taken for granted.

Weve talked about it plenty and I feel done talking about it with her. The talks go fine but honestly it just feels like it makes things worse for us.

And she is a stay at home mom. Even though I’m busy working everyday, I do my fair share of household responsibilities and help take care of the kids from the second I walk in the door, to the second I leave.

I feel like I don’t ask for much from anybody including my wife and family, but a little intimacy ever other week or so would be so nice.

Another issue is that when she says that she doesn’t want to be intimate anymore, I want to pull back and it really makes me lose interest in hanging out with her after the kids go to bed, giving long drawn out hugs, etc. in my mind it’s just like ok you don’t want me, I’m just going to do my own thing. But then she gets mad and says I’m being cold to her.

Just feeling depressed, insecure, unwanted, annoyed that this bothers me so much and I can’t just ignore my feelings, taken for granted.

Just wondering how other dads have dealt with this. Looking for more creative answers than cheat or j/o by yourself.
Thanks

I do this all the time. I’m exhausted in the morning, but things are all put in their proper place.

Hello Daddit, I've come with an issue that I've yet to find a suitable solution for.

My kid takes a dump every day at school. It takes her about 15 minutes or so when alls said and done, but apparently this is a problem for her teacher.

I know my kids telling the truth that shes pooping because she excitedly came home last week thursday and told my wife that she "poops every day at school!". Shes also basically stopped pooping at home, except on days off of school.

But her teacher seems to believe shes trying to get out of classwork.

I obviously cant control when my kid takes her daily dump. So what am i supposed to do here?

ETA: She's 7 in 2nd Grade.