When talking to new parents, one of the biggest changes they would mention about becoming a parent is how they are no longer only living for their own sake. Having a kid means that your existence and purpose in life do not revolve around you anymore, but it revolves around this completely separate human being. This creates a firm distinction between good and bad parents – Good parents see this change as beautiful and meaningful, and bad parents teach themselves to resent their kids for it. It s…

You won't find many people who would argue with you for wanting a child-free wedding—except, of course, those parents who think their little darlings are the exception to any and every rule. It can get a little harder to sell this idea, however, when you try and pass the “child-free” rule for one specific individual: your “bad apple” 9-year-old cousin. Let's consider here that in most cases, for a kid that young, the problem is actually the parents themselves… regardless of what “attempts” they…

Let's check in on today's parents: How are they handling things lately? When it comes to kids, some things never change. All babies have the same needs, more or less. They get hungry and cry, they sleep for a while, then wake up and cry some more. Once your kid gets a little older, though, the toddler stage can be both really fun and completely insane. Having a toddler in your home is like trying to care for a tiny velociraptor. You spend a lot of your time watching as your tiny beloved child d…

How can one differentiate between people who act and make decisions out of selfishness and people who simply try to look after themselves and their own needs? As a society, we are constantly being flooded with contradicting messages when it comes to self-love and care: ‘Be kind to others’, ‘Love thy neighbor’, ‘Put yourself first’, ‘Love yourself before loving others’, etc… These messages make it impossible to know when we're supposed to put ourselves first and when we need to put ourselves asi…

We all have the idyllic When you grow up and realize that your kid's grandparents are also your in-laws, everything gains a new perspective. What's somehow even stranger, though, is coming to find that you're either “dad's side” or “mom's side” of the family for your sibling's kids. If a kid is telling you in earnest that they don't feel comfortable going to grandma's house, that alone is saying something.

As the saying goes, the punishment must fit the crime, and if the repercussions are too severe, no one is learning anything, and you're simply going to create a bad memory and lifelong resentment that will get brought up in 20 years at tense family dinners and when your kids attempt to talk to you about the trauma that you unintentionally caused them. Of course, as a parent, even if you have the best of intentions, you're not going to get everything right all of the time . And as teenagers, we'…

Memories are a funny thing in that each memory is shaped and reformed every time you recall it, making them easily susceptible to suggestion. Essentially, every time you recall a memory, you destabilize it and partially “destroy” it with your brain, then completing a process called reconsolidation to re-store it with your current thoughts and emotions added. As a brief tangent, this one one of the reasons why witness testimony is so problematic. This fluidity and fallibility of memory and abili…

Regardless of whether or not you've achieved immaterial enlightenment or are neck deep in the current iteration of the social-media-fueled consumerist frenzy, it's more than likely that you possess things that are your favorite. Chances are these items have some sort of sentimental value—a keepsake from a loved one or photographs that are irreplaceable despite having no measurable value. They may have some monetary value, too, regardless of whether or not you'd ever want to sell them. Heck, may…

It really should go without saying that you can't just go around renaming people just because you don't like their name for some reason. Even if—no, especially if—that person is a foster kid under your care. Some things like this are so outrageously laughable and out-of-pocket that they would be silly if they weren't so cruel… This 16-year-old foster child found himself facing hostility from his new foster family's extended family, who apparently came to the decision that his name, “Nico,” was…

As a kid, bedtime is one of the ultimate constraints; being forced to go to bed right at an exact time every night feels like authoritarian oppression, almost symbolic of the limitations being imposed upon you. Of course, when you're seven years old, your bedtime is really for your own good, it's not really like you can be trusted to make your own decisions at that point for whether or not you're tired. But still, who among us didn't “cheat” our bedtimes, playing in our rooms long after our par…

Spending the holidays with your husband's ex-wife sounds like prime material for a straight-to-streaming holiday-themed romantic comedy, but the reality is that it's not nearly as funny when it is your reality. This stepmother turned to this online community for advice on a complex personal problem she was facing and wondered if she was in the wrong for encouraging her 19-year-old stepdaughter to speak up about ending their joint family holiday gatherings with the stepdaughter's mother, her hus…

We can all probably remember those peaceful weekend mornings, sun filtering through the basement playroom windows, curled up on the couch with our favorite bowl of way-too-sugary cereal that we had to beg our parents to buy. That cereal might as well have been gold; we certainly thought it was worth its weight in it. My parents, however, never showed an interest in eating this cereal themselves. Something about stale marshmallows and really overhyped Cheerios just wasn't all that appealing to t…

Siblings are a difficult part of growing up—even when you're an adult, you're going to be prone to troubles with them. But, during your developmental years, you're going to be constantly compared to them—both by yourself and others. This creates complex psychological interworking and can create complex disorders and issues. And this is just with normal siblings; I can't claim to have one myself, but I can only imagine that with twins, it's a lot harder. No longer are they only similar to you or…

All may be fair in love and war, but when it comes to family board game nights, you can expect the gloves to come off if you go for below-the-belt strategies. Nothing causes family arguments like a competitive board game—heck, even Candy Land games can get heated when someone draws that plum card at the end of a close game—or rockets ahead with a lucky snowflake draw early on. And that's before you get into games that have actual strategy Board games from the beginning of the “Board Game Renais…

In a perfect world, everyone would have to pass a test to prove they are worthy of having children. The fact that anyone can become a parent, without any requirements or supervision, is quite honestly insane. In that perfect world, where parents have to prove their capabilities to become parents, they would actually have a good relationship with their kids. And who wouldn't want to have that? A healthy and happy relationship with their kids? Since we are not living in a perfect world, parents l…

Parents can be awfully sensitive to hearing criticisms about their kids. They can sometimes take it personally, even if the other person didn't mean anything by it. Up next, read about the things that had people rolling their eyes at the movie theater, like one person who was dismayed that someone in front of them “used a laptop throughout a movie last night.”