1574 Philosophical Parenting - Part Four - Solutions - Freedomain Radio
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Alright, so this is Philosophical Parenting, part 5.
Solutions. Always important to throw a few of the solutions into the mix, so as not to be called overly negative, or at least not overly negative for this particular thing.
I'm going to make a case here that is going to be startling, and it may be troubling for you if you're a parent, particularly if you're beyond this particular phase.
And I'm sorry if it is upsetting, and I'm sorry if it is troubling.
I really am. But I don't think that there's much that can be done about that.
But I'm going to make the case anyway.
So I hope that you will bear with me.
And listen, hear me out about this case.
Even if you're past this phase as a parent, you can always offer this to your own children when they become parents themselves.
Look... There are two things which we're generally told to save for in life, right?
The first is we're told to save for our education.
And we're told to make economic sacrifices for the sake of our education, right?
That we all understand.
You forgo hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of income To get a college degree, if you sort of include the costs of your books and your tuition and your living expenses combined with the money that you could have earned and invested, and by the time you get older, it's a lot of money if you'd invested that money and so on, right?
So, to get a four-year college degree, we're told, hey, you're going to have to live like a dog, eat ramen noodles and sometimes your own toenails and make sacrifices, but it will pay off, right?
So that That kind of sacrifice is considered to be a good thing, and I think in many ways that it is a good thing, and it's certainly a sacrifice that I made.
I lived like a complete hobo when I lived in a tiny room.
I once lived in a room with another guy, actually twice lived in a room with another guy to get by as a student.
I lived in a house with six other people.
I Oh, man, I won't even get into it, but it was real touch-and-go for me for most of the time as a student.
When I was a student, it was real touch-and-go to survive financially.
And I was late on rent and juggled bills, and it was crazy, crazy.
Anyway, but when you make that kind of sacrifice, people say, well, go ahead.
Sorry, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the guy ahead of me.
When you make that kind of sacrifice, people say, well, that's a wise thing to do because it's going to pay off, right?
It's like, pay me now or pay me later.
And paying later is often a problem for people.
Like, if you don't go to college, you lower income and lower job opportunities and always that question about why you didn't go and perhaps some social anxiety around more educated people.
There's lots of things that you pay for if you don't pay for college, and we all understand that.
That's four years right there which you're supposed to save for and sacrifice for and live on the poverty line for in order to reap the rewards later.
That's one thing. Now, the other thing that we're supposed to, really supposed to, Save for and plan for is our own three-decade-long or two-decade-long retirement.
So, from when you were a kid and when you start your first job, you start thinking about your retirement, your 401k, your RRSP, you've got to save, save, save for that which is going to occur for you 45 years down the road, this extended vacation.
Of 20 years.
You get to save, save, save for that.
And if you don't make sacrifices to save for your retirement, you are roundly and regularly castigated as an unthinking, unplanning economic idiot who is going to end up living out his last days in some sort of Raskolnikovian gutter house or room.
And that is a very, very bad thing for you not to make the sacrifices for your extended 20 to 30 year Holiday calls retirement.
And for some people, of course, it's much sooner.
Retire at 55 or whatever, right?
Make plans. Make sacrifices.
Save, save, save. Do you know what nobody ever talks about with you?
Nobody ever says, you really need to save.
Not... For your 4 to 6 to 10 year college degree.
Not for your 20 to 30 year retirement.
You need to save so you can be home for the first 5 years of your child's life.
Nobody has ever said that that I am aware of.
Nobody has ever said it is as important to save to be home with your infants as it is to save to go to college or to save to go to retirement or even to save to put money aside for a rainy day that you have a year's living expenses in the bank.
Has anybody ever said that to you?
This is a core life thing that you need to save for.
No. No. And how tragic is that?
How absolutely tragic is that?
Oh, it's heartbreaking.
It's just heartbreaking.
What's more important?
Your goddamn college degree or the health, happiness, security and intimacy of your family life?
What's more important?
Being able to go and work on your goddamn golf swing when you're 65 or to give your children the best, warmest, intimate, most intimate and most loving and most peaceful start to their life?
Oh, and...
And what are you going to pay for more?
Reduced income, some social anxiety, reduced opportunities because you don't have a college degree, or lifelong problems with your children that will occur because you're not home for the first couple of years of their life.
See, it's inconceivable for people that you would have as great and absolute, inconceivable to people, that you would have as great and absolute financial requirement to save for your children.
As it would be to say for your college or for your retirement.
Do you see how far we are from understanding that children are not endless variables to be sacrificed for the efficacy and financial reward of the moment, for the economic comfort of the moment?
We are so far from understanding it that we value getting a college education, it would seem, almost infinitely more than being there for our own children when they're going through the most crucial years of need, dependence, intimacy, and development.
Why is this never talked of?
I mean, you don't really think about that.
Why is it never talked of?
Why is it never talked of?
Why is that never part of anybody's financial plan?
You need to save to be home with your children.
You need to save to be home with your children.
Ideally, you need to save for both of you to be home with your children.
People say, wow, those are my prime earning years.
We need the money. We've got to have an income.
We've got to have this. We've got to have that.
Well, do you?
That's not the argument that people make when it comes to saving for college or for their retirement.
No. Well, of course, nobody profits, right?
People profit from having you go to school.
Schools do, and governments do, in terms of the fact that you will get taxed for higher income if you go to college, right?
You'll be a better tax slave.
You'll be better and more fruitful tax livestock if you save to go to college.
So the state's happy. Colleges are happy, right, if you pay to go.
And of course, if you have to save for your retirement, all of the assholes and charlatans who manage your money will be very happy to manage your money for 40 years and take their fat commissions, whether you make money or not.
So they're all very happy.
The governments are happy that there's money in the stock market, lets them manipulate things even more, and also keeps the allegiance of the scum-sucking aspects of the business class who are happy to have the supercharged stock market drip its filthy gold into their endlessly gaping mores.
But who profits from you being home with your children for the first five years?
Who profits? Who profits?
Well, not only does nobody profit except you and your children, but it actually makes them less able to be productive tax slaves because of the insecurity, fear of authority.
Negative experiences with authority will not condition them to take their Place in the little stalls of tax livestock to be milk for eternity.
So not only does nobody profit, but there's a disincentive for the ruling class to have you home with your children and for you to be a good parent.
So if you're a good parent with your children and you're home with them, your children get the fundamental message that their presence is incredibly valued, as opposed to the message they get with all too many two-parent working households, which is that they are an inconvenience and they need to be moved around and prodded and rushed and snapped at And controlled and sometimes and all too often bullied and sometimes and all too often spanked and sometimes and all too often jammed into a timeout because there's no time.
And I think it's important.
I think it's really important to save for the first couple of years of your child's life to be home.
To be home, both of you. Oh, we can't.
Of course you can. Of course you can.
Of course you can. Look, I'm no financial wizard.
I'll tell you that. I am also not a rich man.
I drive a car that is 12 years old.
I have no plans to get a new car for another 10 years.
If I can drive this car to a quarter century, I could not be happier.
That's what I want. And that's what I'm willing to do to be home.
I'm willing to work a job and a half.
In fact, it was close to two jobs, full-time software executive and nascent podcasting chatterhead, so that I can set up free domain radio to the point where I can, with some sacrifices, be home.
After Christine and I got married, we did not take a vacation for years.
We didn't eat out, not even at McDonald's.
We still, last time that we ate out, where the bill was more than $40, was eight months ago, six months ago.
Before that, I can't even remember, maybe two years.
We just, we don't.
We don't do it. The computers that I have, I will tell you, right?
One is a notebook that is two years old that I got pretty cheap.
One is a desktop that is two and a half years old.
The other one is a desktop that is eight years old.
It's eight years old.
That's the one we use downstairs. Another one that is used in Izzy's room to broadcast the webcam, right, is ten years old.
That's been repaired twice.
I put in a new hard drive.
I had to get a new video card.
I'm not going to buy an iPad.
I'd love to. I think they're really cool.
I'm just not going to. The computer that's at my wife's office, we bought secondhand seven years ago for $80.
And it runs fine. It's slow, but what is it used for?
Word processing and the internet. Some things I will buy for Free Domain Radio, I will spend money.
I will spend money on Free Domain Radio because I think quality product is really important.
But just don't spend money.
Save money, save money, don't spend money.
That's all my financial advice ever comes down to, is put down the visa.
Step away from the cashier.
And lots of stuff that I would love to buy.
And if you buy something and you're not perfectly satisfied with it, take it back.
Take it back. Do your research.
Anyway, I mean, I'm not going to nag you about all of this stuff.
You all know this stuff, right?
But I would say that it is absolutely essential, absolutely essential For you to have as a very high financial priority staying home with your children for the first couple of years.
And Christina and I talked about this when we got married.
And we're like, you know, when we have kids, we are going to do whatever it takes so that one and hopefully both of us can stay home for at least the first couple of years.
And what does that mean? Does that mean, if you're both staying home, you can sell a car?
Right? Cut back on your internet speed, if that's an option for you.
You know, cut back, get rid of your cell phones.
Cut back on, you know, use Skype and get rid of your phone line.
Or Skype, I can call phones for 30 bucks a year.
Something like that. There's lots of things that you can do.
And just save your money. Save your money.
Save your money. Save your money.
Don't spend it on crap.
Even fun crap. And I love the fun crap.
Don't get me wrong. That's the hardest part for me.
Isabella loves Best Buy.
Love Future Shop. Love Staples.
I love going there. And I've been talking about replacing the 10-year-old computer downstairs because it freezes like twice a day.
It's just so damn old. I've been talking about replacing it.
We've been talking about replacing it for three years.
We're actually priced out a nice little media box, 700 bucks.
But it's like, nope, I'm not going to do it.
I'm not going to do it. But to me, it is as essential, if not more essential, to have that plan for being home with your children for the first couple of years of their life, hopefully both of you.
And what does this mean? Does this mean you move into a small apartment in a small town for a couple of years?
So what? I was online the other day for no particular reason.
I was looking at the price of a house in Timmins.
I was researching for this talk.
You can buy a house in Timmins, which is a small town in northern Ontario, for $30,000.
What's the mortgage on a $30,000 house?
Is it a small house? Is it a crap house?
Yes, it is a small and crap house.
But what does your kid care how big your house is?
My daughter is not hungry for floor space.
She's not hungry for hardwood.
She's not hungry for marble counters.
She's hungry for her parents.
So, let's say you leave town for a couple of years, live in some small town, a place that costs you 400 bucks a month, and you have only the essentials, and you just stay home with your kid for a couple of years, hopefully both of you, or your kids.
What's wrong with that? Why not?
Why not? Isn't that so important?
And people say, well, but that's going to cost me a lot.
Well, of course it's going to cost you, but you're choosing to have children, right?
You don't get to choose to have children and then call yourself a good parent for farming them off to other people for 10 hours a day.
Whether those other people are strangers or your grandparents, you're still not the parent.
You're the babysitter, and you get the worst aspects.
At least babysitters come usually when the kids are asleep, like a chew gum and chat with their boyfriends, right?
But you get none of that.
You get the kids during the most stressful and difficult parts of the day.
And let me make the case as to why.
Look, I think, this may come back to bite me in a dozen years, but I'm completely convinced that problems that children have with their parents when those children become teenagers are entirely rooted in a lack of parental involvement in the early years.
I am entirely convinced, and time will bear this out.
I think there's some good research for this, but time will bear this out.
That if you are a parent who fully invests in his or her child during the first, or children, for the first couple of years, you will not go through nearly as many of the nasty stuff that can happen in the teenage years.
Why? Well, to me, it's a very basic and simple equation.
And that very basic and simple equation runs something like this.
Children are the greatest variable in any family equation.
And if you treat them as such, they will resent you forever.
That's my belief. If children were not a variable, if they were treated as full human beings, in other words, not as creatures whose needs could be cast aside for the materialistic or ambitious career decisions of the parents.
Look, I'm not saying it's only these things.
I'm just saying.
It's not only ambition and so on and greed for material things or status that drives parents to have two-parent working families.
But I think it's mostly that.
Or avoidance of children, right?
For fear of being bored or whatever, right?
But then I don't have the kids.
Nobody says you've got to have kids.
If you're going to have the kids, right, then you owe.
You owe the kids your full time and attention, at least for their first couple of years.
So if the kids' needs are first and foremost in the family dynamic, if the kids' needs are first and foremost in the family dynamic, then everything wraps around that.
Kids need parents. Kids need us.
We had children in order to be parents, so let's actually be goddamn parents.
We had children to be parents, so let's actually be parents.
Becoming parents and having both of you work is ridiculous.
It's like buying a month-long ski vacation and spending 20 minutes a day on the slopes.
Well, what's the point? If you don't want to go skiing, don't go skiing.
And resentfully, not wanting to go skiing, don't go skiing, right?
It is also my strong belief, and I think very powerful arguments can be made for this, that The people who are least able to satisfy their own needs should have those needs greater protected by everybody else.
So, if you are unable to satisfy your own needs, but those own needs are very real, then those needs should be a greater absolute for other people.
So, let's say that you have somebody home who's, you're home carrying a coma victim, and obviously the coma victim cannot feed himself, obviously, right?
Can't feed himself. So clearly, the need to get food into the coma victim is pretty paramount because everybody else in the household can feed themselves.
So that's the one thing you can't change as a variable is the need to feed the coma victim because he can't feed himself.
He's going to starve to death, right? That is the one variable you can't change, right?
And children cannot satisfy their own needs, right?
If children want to be with their parents and the parents decide to go to work, the children cannot create, substitute parents or reason themselves out of their own needs or change their needs.
They simply do not get their needs met.
And they will make significant protests, which, of course, are then dismissed as tantrums.
Or, you know, well, they need to adjust.
Oh, you know, it's good for them.
Yeah, right. Yeah, right.
You PB that one, motherfucker.
You PB that one. A child wants you, and the child needs to put aside his or her own desires because it grows.
But you want to go to work rather than be with your child, which is what happens if you go to work rather than be with your child or have saved for it.
But your needs are very important and must be indulged in.
But the child's needs are not. Well, it no worky.
It don't even come close to worky.
It's an embarrassing argument to even hear.
So given that the child cannot satisfy his or her own needs, the satisfaction of the child's legitimate needs, and all children's needs are legitimate.
All children's needs are legitimate.
It doesn't mean you indulge them all, but they're damn legitimate.
Since children cannot satisfy their own needs, it is up to the parents to satisfy the child's needs.
It is not because the children cannot satisfy their own needs and can't fight against the lack of satisfaction of those needs that that becomes a variable that the parents can then have the child adapt to a situation where the children's needs aren't being met.
Right? That's not fair.
That's not reasonable. That's not right.
Whereas if the family says, well, the needs of the children, and I'm talking here very young children, right?
Infants, toddlers, right? Let's say up to the age of four, ideally five.
Sorry, five, ideally four or three and a half is a sort of bare minimum.
If your children's need for you, for structure, for intimacy, for playtime with the parents, for interactions with the parents, if your children's needs for you as a parent become a variable that you can dismiss, then what you're basically saying is that those who have less power, that the needs or the preferences then what you're basically saying is that those who have less power, that the needs or the preferences of those who have less power are insignificant and unimportant and can be stomped on and trampled on, rejected, ignored, bypassed, and that those with the least power need
Well, well, well.
What is going to happen in that very clearly, very clearly communicated paradigm?
What is going to happen when the children get more power as adolescents?
The children, I mean, you've got to plan for this as parents.
It's not like you can't see it coming.
It's not like you can't see it coming.
It's completely obvious.
If you physically aggress against your children, you hit them, you spank them, you're just teaching them that might makes right.
Power is virtue.
Well, what is going to happen when children get the upper hand over their parents through their teenage years?
Now, I have the power.
Screw you. It's inevitable.
But if you fully respect the legitimacy and the absoluteness of the child's needs and preferences and requirements, requirements as an infant, which is for intimate And omnipresent parenting, hopefully from both parents.
And that's how we grew up as a species.
There's a reason that children have those needs.
It's not because they're greedy or needy.
That's how we grew up as a species.
Parents were, for the most part, available to the children.
I mean, you just look at a group of monkeys, chimpanzees, apes.
See how they're raised. Everybody's always around together.
That's what the children are programmed to need and to want.
And they experience incredible anxiety and problems when they're separated from their parents.
Ugh, 10 hours a day.
It's a lunatic. Might as well just have them randomly handed around to strangers, in my opinion.
Separation from the caregivers creates intense anxiety and problems and fundamentally changes the shape of the child's brain.
Changes the child's brain to go through that much stress and perception of rejection.
And it is rejection. It is rejection.
It's not just a perception on the child.
It is a rejection. The parent is clearly communicating that the job is more important than the child.
They say, well, we don't have the money to stay home and so on.
Well, find a way.
Find a way. Move someplace cheap.
Find a way.
Go into debt. Go into debt.
How much is it going to cost you financially, emotionally, stress-wise when you have big problems with your children when your children become teenagers?
What is it worth, right? Pay me now, pay me later.
If you're not home with your kids when they're young, they get.
Might makes right, we're not that important, and the weaker person's needs must always be dismissed.
Well, they get stronger, and you get weaker.
What's going to happen when that balance tips in the teenage years?
Well, stress, problems, rebellion, acting out, screaming matches, fights, but that's what you've taught them.
On the other hand, If the child's needs are paramount and central, of course they're going to experience a much higher self-esteem.
Of course. I mean, if you value the child's needs and preferences and feelings as an absolute, of course the child is going to value his or her own feelings, needs, and preferences as absolutes.
Of course. That doesn't mean that you never negotiate or you never give in or you never set boundaries.
I'm not talking about any of that.
I will also argue that the degree of aggressive authority that you need Is proportional to the degree of emotional distance that you have from your child.
And we see this with married couples all the time.
We know that married couples who nag and berate each other are not emotionally close.
And that emotionally close people do not need to nag and berate each other because they respect each other's needs and preferences and wants and desires and all this, that and the other.
They respect and want all of that.
They want their partner to be happy.
They listen to with respect and positivity what their partners are saying or needing or wanting.
They want that. They want that.
And it's the same thing.
You respect a child's preferences.
A child will respect your preferences because you're modeling that behavior for your children.
This is not theory anymore.
This is not theory anymore.
I have over 13 months under my belt of seeing this work.
And not work a little bit.
And not work sometimes.
It works all the time.
Isabella respects my preferences because I respect her preferences.
I do not need authority because I have modeled the respect for preferences for my daughter.
And she sees Christina and I talk in a loving and positive and enjoyable way.
She sees us hug and kiss all day long, take delight in each other's company, take delight in her company.
Why would I need authority when I have love?
Why would I need authority when I have love?
Because that's the choice. Bullying or love.
Authority or intimacy.
Aggression or affection.
These are the choices in life.
These are the choices. You understand, aggression is the black water, the black, cold, stinging seawater that rushes in the whole left when love vanishes.
It creates a vacuum and inrushes aggression, which in turn further pushes out love until you drown on the inside and walk around a soggy waterlogged corpse for the rest of your days.
You don't need authority when you have affection.
You don't need authority.
You don't need aggression when you have intimacy, when you have respect, when the child experiences respect and genuine love, desire for company, time with, investment from the parent.
The parent doesn't need authority. I don't need authority any more than I would need authority with my wife, whatever that would mean.
My wife wants me to be happy.
I don't need authority with her.
I don't need to bully her. She wants me to be happy.
We want Isabella to be happy and it's not even a sacrifice to strive for that with her.
It's not a sacrifice.
It's not a sacrifice to have much less time to write books.
Well, no time really to write books.
It's not a sacrifice to spend eight hours a day running after a toddler and playing with her.
It's not a sacrifice. That's like saying it's a sacrifice to be monogamous sexually or romantically with my wife.
It's crazy. It's not a sacrifice.
It's exactly what I want.
I got married to have that.
I had a child to do this.
We don't resent her. She doesn't resent us.
We want to make her happy.
She wants to make us happy.
She says if she has something that is tasty that she's eating, she will try to feed us.
She wants to share it with us.
If we do something that makes her laugh and we repeat it and she does something that makes us laugh, she will repeat it.
She wants us to be happy because we want her to be happy.
Love is a light that you pour in like a waterfall that comes back like a geyser.
You get out a million-fold what you put in, and it reflects back and forward until it is the widest heart-elevating and inflating laser that you can imagine.
Right? It is all about the love.
It's all about the love.
Why do we have a state?
Because people don't love.
People don't love their children, so their children grow up to be criminals and politicians, but I repeat myself, why do we have religion?
Because people don't love their children enough to tell them the truth and face their own demons.
They tell them about the demons in the world because they won't excavate the demons in their own hearts.
They invent monsters rather than dislodge the monsters from their own souls.
And once you've lied to your children about your authority and virtue, Aggression is all you have left.
Aggression is all you have left.
But if you start with love and investment, look, there are times that I'd love to be driving a newer car.
There are times when I'd love to be in an office.
There are times when I'd love to be flying around giving presentations, staying in $400 a night hotels and ordering room service.
Of course! Of course!
There are times when I'm sitting there playing patty cake for the eight millionth time of the day that I think, oh man, I have a brain the size of a planet and this is what I'm doing.
Of course that happens.
That's natural. That's natural.
But that's okay. I mean, I understand that if I were at work, I'd want to be home, right?
I also understand that 20 years from now, I'd give anything to come back and play patty cake with her one more time, right?
I know that. I know that.
That boredom in the present is not an indication of low quality.
But I did not have a baby.
I did not have this glorious child to give her to others any more than I got married to my wife in order to have her go on dates with others.
If you have the love, you won't have the problems later on in life.
Think of all for a couple of years' investment.
Let's just take the teenage years.
13 to 19.
It could start earlier, it could go on later.
Let's just say 13 to 19.
That's eight years if you count both on either side.
Seven years. That's seven years.
So for three or four years investment, you save yourself seven years of grief and stress and all of the effects that that grief and stress are going to have for the rest of your time with your child.
We're supposed to put aside 10% of our income in savings for retirement and so on.
You're going to know your child for 40 years to improve the quality of your child's relationship with you, with themselves, with the rest of the world, with their future, with everything.
To change the quality of a 40-year relationship.
Why wouldn't you invest 10% of that time at the beginning to have a massive...
I'm not saying it's the only thing, but by God, it's an incredibly firm foundation to have.
Why wouldn't you take that time, the four years, let's just say four years, the four years at the beginning, to make a 40-year relationship so much better?
To take it from negative to positive, from suspicion and discomfort and frustration and fighting to love and intimacy and humor and positivity.
Why wouldn't you? Somebody said, and it's not like when you invest that money for your retirement, you don't even get to spend it later, but you get to spend the time with your child in the moment, with your child.
I mean, I've spent 13 months raising my daughter full-time.
I'm not the only parent, of course, right?
But full-time. That's my job during the day.
For the most part, Christina will go and see patients, and I will do interviews, or I will sometimes do a convo during the day.
But that's my job. I'll take my Sundays and do my show, but my job is to raise my child.
I put money aside for retirement.
I don't get any benefit in the present.
It's financially. I take time to spend with my child when she's young.
I get massive rewards in the present.
It's an incredibly thrilling and exciting thing.
And yes, it's boring sometimes, but so what job isn't, right?
So, there's not even any deferral of gratification.
What there is is a deferral of vanity.
Driving in an old dented car.
I've got dents in my car.
Old doors caved in from when I turned too quickly in a parking lot like seven years ago and clipped the car.
I got it fixed. The guy drove past and fixed it for 80 bucks.
My original quote was 2,500 bucks.
Never did it, right? I'm driving around a 12-year-old dented car.
We have entire rooms of our house that are completely unfurnished.
No furniture. Cheap couches.
Old computers. I don't buy clothes.
I don't. Well, I mean, I'm pretty much the same as I weighed when I was 18, so I can still wear...
I'm not the same clothes when I don't have those, but I just don't buy new things.
There's a lot of false self-anity that goes by the wayside when you act on your love for your children.
So what? You know, all the other people who might be impressed if I were driving some snazzy new car, they're not going to be holding my hand on my deathbed as I go gently into that good night, right?
They're not going to be with me as the raindrop of my life splashes into the eternity of history.
They're not going to be there when I get old and I need help.
It's my children who are going to be there, and I don't want them ever to come and help me because they're feeling guilty or because they feel obligated.
I want them to share in my decline and eventual death as an act of supreme intimacy.
To follow somebody down into the well of death is to see into the future, to enrich and deepen the present.
Death and its preface is a powerful and beautiful and terrible thing to experience with somebody.
It is the other side of the coin of birth.
I hope that this has been a helpful case to make.
I really, really hope that you will think about planning To be home with your children, with your babies, when they need you, as the desert needs the rain, as the song says, when they need you so desperately, when they want you and have every right and desire and legitimate right to need you and want you so desperately.
I hope that you will think about planning to be home with your children, to not pass by the greatest gifts of parenthood, to not spurn the greatest joy and need and love and intimacy that you can give and experience.
But to build the foundation for your child's self-esteem, to build the foundation of intimacy with your child.
I'm one of the very few intellectual men who has stayed home full-time with a baby.
I'm telling you, I'm telling you, plan for it.
Don't let that pass you by.
Don't give up that gift of time with your children and the foundation for a beautiful and wonderful and great relationship.
Don't rely on Bart commands from a speeding car.
Don't rely on the aggression that is going to inevitably arise.
Rush in to fill the void of intimacy and time and love and investment.
Get the most out of parenting.
Invest in your children and it pays off in the future.
But most, most, most importantly, it pays off today and now in the pride that you have as a parent in the joy that your child has on seeing you every morning, on the reaching for you and snuggling with you and loving you and just being so amazingly, amazingly secure and happy in their lives.