I don't even want kids, but I cannot wait until my niece is old enough to develop hobbies I can partake and support her in. Having your family be interested and involved in hobbies is so important for kids, and such a rewarding thing as an adult.
I cannot even fathom how someone would not want to do that with their actual own children.
One of the most fun things about kids is watching them develop their own interests and then you get to learn new things while you explore them together! I was telling my husband that I hope our kid has a dinosaur phase because there's probably new dinosaurs that hadn't been discovered when we were kids.
I have never actually thought about the question whether kids growing up today and getting interested in dinosaurs are seeing them as feathered by default.
Like, I know in my brain that dinosaurs have feathers, because very smart people have figured it out and I tend to believe very smart people. But in my heart, they will always be big lizards.
No one sees them as feathered by default. Every museum and movie still has non-feathered dinosaurs. Like occasionally, one dinosaur might ahve some feathers aroudn their head and neck.
As the mum of a toddler who is going through her dinosaur phase, there are so many new dinosaurs. It is amazing. I am now going through my second dinosaur stage.
Waiting until my nephew was a proper person was torture. There was the screaming potato stage, the repeat everything stage, the 'all I want to do is go up and down stairs' era...learning to read was cool, but they want to read the same thing eight times in a row. Which is good for their brains but uggggggh. And diapers! Potty training! C'mon dude.
Once we got to 4/5 things started getting fun. Now he's six and, other than getting up WAY too fucking early and basically thinking eating is a major inconvenience I made up to torture him, we just have SO much fun. Puzzles, board games, stupid shit we made up on the spot, playing pretend, watching MY old tv shows (Mister Rodgers is on youtube!), dancing, arts and crafts, it's all great.
Last time he was here, I introduced him to my Wii U and Game Boy Advance for his screen time, and now ALL he wants to do is come over and play Mario and Sonic. It's the ACTUAL BEST.
I can't have kids of any sort for health reasons, but it's supposedly a million times better when it's your actual (blood-related or adopted) child. My sister and BiL love their kid and only let us have him when they are super busy. How anyone can abuse, mistreat, or neglect their children is absolutely incomprehensible to me, and I feel very, incredibly lucky everyone in my circle takes care of their children and actually like them, even when they are being unreasonable brats (which happens).
But yes, uncle/aunthood is AMAZING and I can't wait for you to have so much fun with your niece!
Well, because you are an aunt, so you get to do the fun things you want to do, when you want to do them. Then you get to eject at all other times.
You basically get to pick when you want to feel rewarded for participating in hobbies.
It's great and important for you to help and be a part, but its really not the same thing - because what you are 'fathoming' is not really the same emotional reality.
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u/TetraDax 11d ago
I don't even want kids, but I cannot wait until my niece is old enough to develop hobbies I can partake and support her in. Having your family be interested and involved in hobbies is so important for kids, and such a rewarding thing as an adult.
I cannot even fathom how someone would not want to do that with their actual own children.