- Being a mom is HARD. 1000x harder than you expect and 1000x harder than any job. A good dad can fill in for mom on ANY task on ANY day. Start learning what moms do early and fill in for them every chance you get. My motto was always "When I'm at work, we're both at work. When I'm at home, we're both at work."
- By default the working parent, usually the dad, is going to be out of the loop. The working parent must spend a considerable amount of time trying to be present and in the loop. Kids will not naturally care as much about the working parent unless they are around (and even then they'll still be at a disadvantage).
- You never need to yell at your children. Typically this signals a failure of some kind. Imagine yelling at work, at your wife, at your parents, etc being the right solution to some problem. In the early years, the best way to prevent your children from doing something you don't want them to do is not to put them in the position to do it at all - i.e. Don't give them room to fail. In the later years positive reinforcement is 1000x more effective than negative reinforcement.
- In the early years you're going to worry a lot about whether your causing forever damage by doing X rather than Y. Basically nothing you do in the first 1-3 years matters, so you can relax.
- If you can afford it, have one parent stay at home. It is by far the most harmonious arrangement. Running a household (chores, food, child planning, etc) is a full time job and having two working parents split that job is difficult, expensive, and assumes child-care provides as good of care as you yourself would provide to your own children.
- The first 3 years are by far the hardest. They are grueling. If you are planning on having multiple kids, get them all done with as soon as you can. Once they get older than 3 it is 1000x easier to manage and really opens things up out of survival mode.
- By default the working parent, usually the dad, is going to be out of the loop. The working parent must spend a considerable amount of time trying to be present and in the loop. Kids will not naturally care as much about the working parent unless they are around (and even then they'll still be at a disadvantage).
- You never need to yell at your children. Typically this signals a failure of some kind. Imagine yelling at work, at your wife, at your parents, etc being the right solution to some problem. In the early years, the best way to prevent your children from doing something you don't want them to do is not to put them in the position to do it at all - i.e. Don't give them room to fail. In the later years positive reinforcement is 1000x more effective than negative reinforcement.
- In the early years you're going to worry a lot about whether your causing forever damage by doing X rather than Y. Basically nothing you do in the first 1-3 years matters, so you can relax.
- If you can afford it, have one parent stay at home. It is by far the most harmonious arrangement. Running a household (chores, food, child planning, etc) is a full time job and having two working parents split that job is difficult, expensive, and assumes child-care provides as good of care as you yourself would provide to your own children.
- The first 3 years are by far the hardest. They are grueling. If you are planning on having multiple kids, get them all done with as soon as you can. Once they get older than 3 it is 1000x easier to manage and really opens things up out of survival mode.