Came here to say something similar. If I say I love pizza, would you say "why don't you love bagels?" I do love bagels but were talking about pizza right now.

Rites of passage often need rescuing from obscurity. Go into the belly of the whale and retrieve what is valuable.

If I can brag on myself, I think I'm doing a damn good job of mothering so far, although my daughter is still very little.

I'm not afraid to let other people get a hand on the ball. Any well meaning aunties and uncles are welcome to have a hand in raising her, even if they do things differently from me. It gives her a broader tolerance to different circumstances.

I have to remind myself to back off sometimes. But it breaks my heart when I see mothers working themselves to the bone, becoming resentful, and simultaneously boxing out anyone who wants to help, including the father, if those people don't follow moms methods to a T.

I have no interest in being the CEO of my daughters life, so I have trained this emotional muscle. I've been surrounded by good people and have invited them into our family circle to sincerely contribute to her upbringing, without my interference. It gives me a break and it gives them genuine pleasure.

As much as she may have her reasons, your PRIMARY OBJECTIVE is to actuate and live your life. It's not your fault. Signed, a mom

HAH, was this your daughter or son? Girls have their rite of passage built into their bodies with periods and puberty. Plus the relationship between mothers and daughters isn't quite the same as mothers and sons. My dad always said mothers and daughters are like capoeira fighters, locked in a circle of competition and collaboration.

And the mother must concede that her supremacy in his world is coming to an end. I'm a new mom; the pull towards your children is so supermassive, mother's could also use a rite of passage to act out letting go.

I like to sort of mash the avocado and soy sauce together into a paste. Divine.

Same but soy sauce

The second I started focusing on eating more protein, I realized I'd been doing food wrong my whole life. Getting in solid plant/meat proteins suddenly gave me clean energy without weighing me down.

I think it's common for young people to live for their parents approval. Frequently if the family is dysfunctional, that approval is entirely out of reach and the young person might never stop chasing the dragon. Maybe you've unhooked yourself from that impossible aim and are discovering relief that you no longer are beholden to your parents and can live for yourself? You've stopped banging your head against the wall and lo and behold, your head feels better?

Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon

I'm not surprised but that's the whole Book of Job, Crime and Punishment conundrum of it all. I used to lurk a lot on incel forums too. Many of those people had awful childhoods and/or were neurodivergent. Many of them didn't and were just learning bitterness because it was easier than fixing themselves. Who gets to spread misery? How bad does your life have to be before you get a free pass to curse existence?

I love the podcast This Jungian Life. Hearing the concepts repeated over and over in slightly different use cases has helped a lot.

In the summer I make cold brew with a few sprigs of fresh mint in it! It takes away the slightly dirty after taste and makes the cold brew extra cooling and refreshing.

I’ve lurked quite a bit on /r/antinatalism and unfortunately I don’t see how this “philosophy” is much more than a resentful nihilistic suicide cult with overtones of environmentalism.

Jung said the greatest threat to the human race are psychological epidemics.  In the west particularly we are plagued by an anxious depressive nihilism, of which the refusal of family life is one symptom.  It’s become trendy to reject existence and embrace narcissism.

“What’s the point of having kids?  Our world is too horrible.  It’s too cruel to bring life into being.  We’re all going to die in a fiery explosion soon anyways.  Plus I’m scared I won’t like parenthood.  It sounds hard. I’d rather focus on me.”

Not saying everyone who doesn’t want kids falls into this category.  But I worry many do.

head torch and battery fairy lights.

I was going to say something similar. Reddit skews anti-child so I know this won't be popular but becoming a parent absolutely decentralizes you in your own universe. It's what drew me to becoming a parent in the first place: I don't want to be the main character in my own life forever. There are other ways of achieving this but creating the next generation and focusing on their upbringing and making the appropriate sacrifices for them is traditionally how most people do it. Of course there are terrible parents who don't make the right sacrifices and there are some people who don't want kids at all. But I think anti-natalism is a huge trend right now and the overall effect on our collective psyche in the coming decades won't be good.

The engineer always fizzles out around episode four with an over-ambitious unappealing science project, while Old Lady happily bangs out the 10,000th Victoria Sponge of her baking career.

Absolutely. Shon has initiated a business deal with OP but never consulted OP in the first place. "Hello I rented your lawnmower by breaking into your garage and taking it and throwing a 20 dollar bill on the floor." Not acceptable.

My first thought was also that they’re going to end up raking off a load of dead moss in a few weeks.

Demons only exist where there is repression.  They feed on guilt, shame, darkness, fear, and secrecy.

Integrating vulnerability into your personality does not mean you will suddenly wake up a full catgirl femboy.  Once you shine a light on these aspects of yourself and welcome them into the daylight, they will become your friends.  It’s only by repressing them that they are able to torture you in return.

You're doing a man thing that it took my husband and I years to figure out. I would get upset. I would TELL him I was upset. He would explain to me why I shouldn't be upset and in his mind the conversation was over. In his mind, he had reasons why I shouldn't be upset and therefore everything was fine.

But my feelings are not up for debate. Your daughter has TOLD YOU that you upset her. You disagree with how she feels. Good for you. That doesn't change anything. You don't get to decide how she feels.

You're not actually hearing her.

It was also relatively inconsequential: they can go to the pool another time. Letting him feel the direct negative consequences of his actions now, when he's still a kid and the stakes are lower, is much better than protecting him from consequences until he's an adult and he starts getting evicted, fired, and divorced.

The reason this became an anthill is because both parents let him get away with so much for so long. The sooner someone tells him the truth, the better.

I was in a burn accident at home which was bad enough that I stayed in the hospital for three weeks and needed a skin graft. While I was on fire, everyone in my family, including myself, did lots of crazy things to try and remedy the situation. My younger brother ran back and forth from the sink with handfuls of water. My mom burnt her hands trying to pull my dress off. I could have easily jumped in the shower for example, but it's hard to think straight when you're on fire.

But ever since that day, I've had so much clarity in emergency situations. I know exactly what you mean.