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Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

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  • I have 3 step children (I am step dad) they were 13, 10 and 8 when I met them, currently 18, 15 and 12 (birthday soon). When I met them, the primary family activity they did with their bio dad was watching movies and playing video games. They also all slept with a TV on in their room. My girlfriend at the time, now wife, had nothing but an old xbox 360 for video games and they had an old CRT box TV in the bedroom the 3 kids shared. As a result, they did not watch a lot of TV at her house or play a lot of games.

    Currently, we do not limit the screens of the 18 year old at all. He has a job and is moving out in <2 months, he can do what he wants with his free time as long as it is not disruptive to anybody else.

    Our youngest REALLY likes video games. As a result, we let him play pretty much as much as he wants if he is not at school. That said, he is on 2 soccer teams (middle school and travel) and he works out extra at home. As a result, he usually has about 30 minutes of screen time a day during the school week. Plus he has his phone to play games on the school bus. He does not have Youtube or any streaming apps on his phone though. He is allowed to sleep with the TV on Friday nights only, to celebrate the school week being over. Weekends are screen heavy as well, except for tournament weekends or regular game days. Honestly he is a good and active child so we let him use more screens than would maybe be healthy. Summer is a bit different t, where we force him to go outside and play at least a few hours a day, but otherwise let him do what he wants, so lots of screens there.

    Our middle child is not big in to screens, they like to draw and listen to music and use makeup kinda like face paint. They also play volleyball and are not home till 830 most school nights anyways. As a result, they probably only use ~3 or 4 hours of screens a week, not counting changing songs on Spotify.

    If they were my bio kids and I’d been there their whole lives, I think they would all use screens less, except maybe the middle. As is, I am mostly glad it is no longer the primary form of entertainment for my middle child and that my youngest is so active.




  • I agree with you, at least under Joe Biden. And I hate that nothing will change under Joe Biden. I’m just saying that he didn’t advertise himself on things changing. He advertised himself as being sane and stable compared to Donald Trump. Which he has pretty much fulfilled.

    Nobody here is really defending Joe Biden or making excuses for him. We just acknowledge who he is as a politician. Personally, considering Joe Biden’s track record on drugs/weed, I’m pleased with what he has done and with this. It isn’t what I want, but this was a man who wrote anti-drug legislation while in Congress, this is more than I’d have expected from him if you asked me prior to him running for President.


  • I am pretty sure he didn’t actually promise it. I know he said he supports decriminalization and getting it rescheduled to Schedule 2, but I am pretty confident he never went out and said “I will get it moved to schedule 2” or anything along those lines.

    I have seen a lot of people say about what he promised to do while campaigning but I am pretty sure it is mostly people taking him saying he wants to do something and reading it as him saying “I will do this”. Joe Biden has been in politics a very long time and knows what the president can and can’t do, I doubt he overpromised.

    It isn’t like he ran as a progressive, he didn’t make a ton of big promises while campaigning. It was basically him saying “I will make things somewhat normal” after the Trunp presidency.




  • Before I go in to this, I want to clarify that when I say “children”, I’m mostly talking about teenagers. I mean it more in the “not legally an adult” sense than like…little kids. Moving on.

    I think the issue isn’t parent’s rights overall, just how the concept is being used by certain groups at the moment. Some choices should be made for the child, especially when they are very young. If I wasn’t able to make choices for my children, my 14 and 12 year old would never have gotten a flu shot because they don’t like needles. That said, I don’t think the parent has the right to know EVERYTHING about their child. Kids have secrets and that is healthy. I certainly don’t think that a parent has the right to force their child to hide their gender identity or sexuality.

    I am specifying all of this and pushing back because I think the problem is how the conversation is framed. A lot of this conversation is either started by right wing fundamentalists (who obviously frame it in a way to push their agenda and want children to have basically no rights) or children. The problem is, children talk about their rights and wanting freedom about dumb shit as often as they do about legitimate things. My 14 year old step-son got mad at me about his “privacy” a couple weeks ago when I went in to his bedroom while he was at his after school sport. He was big mad about me not respecting his rights. Except the reason I went in there is because we had 7 missing cups and I knew they weren’t anywhere else. One of the cups had old apple juice in it and we haven’t had apple juice in our house for at least 3 weeks. His overall point (children deserve privacy and the ability to have their own space) was valid, but I deserve to both have a cup to drink out of and also to not have fruit flies upstairs.

    I think the only solution is for people who agree that kids do deserve rights and privacy and some autonomy are more vocal about it, even if they don’t have kids themselves. Because as it is now, the only people very vocally arguing against it are literal children and while they might be right overall, they don’t pick their battles wisely and it makes the entire point look silly to an outside observer. If we don’t frame the conversation around things outside observers can agree with and not to the extremes that the right wing wants to push it to AND not the extremes that the children effected by this stuff will push it too due to the naivety of youth. I think it is very easy for a parent to go "well I SHOULD be able to make decisions for my kid. My kid doesn’t know better, " if we let the argument be controlled by people who will push it to the farthest limits.

    That said, I do want to specify that I think children SHOULD be part of this conversation. I know I remember being a child but I also know my children know MUCH more about it than I could possibly remember (they are living it). I also know my children can and do bring up valid points that I may not have thought of. This effects them more than anybody and if they aren’t a huge part of the conversation then we can never reach something that is actually good I think. As an adult I know I risk falling in to “well this is how it was when I was a child” or “well I know better” because that is just easier. The children keep us honest.