Does anyone want free crib? I've been procrastinating in taking this apart but if someone wants it, I will.

Owned it since new but it hasn't been used in the last 12+ months...

https://www.homedepot.ca/product/gra...5808?rrec=true

Are there even any places where I can donate this?

post it on any buy nothing group / daddy / mama group and people will flock over to get it

^^
This, if it's free it'll be gone in no time in those groups. Been on those groups for like almost 11 years, they're cheap as fuck (not blaming I understand why) but it's quite hard to sell anything for a fair price you have to have the mindset of just get rid of this thing for any price period.

Curious - do you plan on teaching your kid how to drive or will you pay someone to do it? I have a negative impression of driving schools b/c I think they're just teaching people how to pass the test rather than how to be good drivers. Maybe things are different today but I see tonnes of student drivers in my area and I'm extremely unimpressed by the quality of driving by the students.

Even before my son turned 16 we would point out good & bad scenarios as we drove around. So we were teaching him even though he wasn’t behind the wheel. He’s nearing 17 now and still hasn’t taken a single lesson, lol.

The plan is for him to take some formal lessons because it will reduce the L period.

Edit: oops, yes it’s to reduce the N period

Didn't they stop reducing L and reduced the N instead?

Has anyone thought about doing the stay at home dad thing for a couple years?



It's my wife's turn to pursue her career, so if either of us is going to stay home it would be me. While this would be a pretty big setback to our lifestyle and retirement plans, I think we could scrape by for some limited time.

It's a lot of tradeoffs, so just wondering if you guys may have thought of things I haven't. Especially those of you whose kids are now older and you've seen some shit. :p

My wife has been SAH for the last few years, it has its challenges but overall it's great. I'd do it in a heartbeat if I could.

I'm sorta doing this right now as I quit my job in Dec due to my hearing loss. I'm eventually going back to work but I'm taking time to noodle on what that will look like for me (consulting? f/t work? etc) but meanwhile I'm able to spend more time with my kid (6y). I go to her field trips (big and small) and handle more of her extra curricular activities. I'm also way more present as a dad - I'm not an exhausted blob at the end of the work day, I'm an active participant in her activities. I've also picked up a bit of the household work though that's a work in progress (my wife would say there is no progress).

I still have work related stuff that I'm doing here and there so I'm not completely a SAHD but I'm not exactly busy right now. From what I recall your job is pretty stressful with a fair bit of travel so it might not hurt to have a sabbatical for a bit to recharge and revisit your career.

If you can swing it definitely do it - I was hit a couple years ago by the quote of "From the age of 0-10 you are your child's favourite person" and it's always on my mind nowadays. I love being a dad more than I expected and it's my favourite thing to do by far so I'm not going to rush back to work right now even though we are running a deficit right now (we could handle it for another year if needed).

Happy to chat offline about my thought process on why I did what I did and how we are making it work.

Oh damn, that does hit hard.

Thanks, really appreciate it. PM'd!

My kids hate me lol so staying at home would be a challenge.

My wife wants to be a SAHM, but I don't think it's mentally healthy for her as she needs to feel useful and be productive above the home stuff. We also want to set a good role model that we need to work so the kids don't think it's ok to do nothing at home.

As for the hating me thing, no they don't actually hate me but they prefer mom over dad. The older is in Kindy now and the younger one is in daycare and we've seen massive growth with the younger one so we likely won't change.

A "fact" I've seen thrown around is that by the age of 12 you'll have spent 75% of all the time you'll ever spend with your kid and by age 18 it'll be 90%. I believe it's based off the American time use survey done in 2023 which you can find here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/t...nOnlyInTable=1

I can't find a way to break down the survey data to prove it's 75% and 90% but it mostly sounds about right give or take 10% (us Asians probably don't kick our kids out at 18 like them Whiteys so our numbers are probably a bit lower).

My wife quit her job to be a SAHM a few years after our second kid was born. Unless you have a nanny/maid, I’d argue the SAHM partner has a harder job than someone with a 9-5 office job because their job never ends. Running errands, getting groceries, preparing meals, taking kids to/from school and extra curricular activities, being available if your kids are sick or need to be picked up early - all of this takes stress away from the main income earner. On top of that, I always stress to my kids that we’re lucky to have enough money to have mom stay at home to take care of them. She’s never “doing nothing”. I always remind her that I’m thankful for everything she does around the house. The only worry I have is that she has limited time to spend with other adults, so any time she gets a chance (e.g. yoga class, ex co-workers) , I encourage her to go out with them.

All this SAHM talk, and I decided to Google nannies/housekeepers.

Is this site legit? https://nannyservices.ca/housekeeper/richmond

Obviously word of mouth is best, but how would you go about finding one?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/342595632570051

I'm part of this child care group on FB and there are regular postings from nanny's and many of the parents who use them will chime in. They do tend to be heavily Hispanic (like students from Mexico).

Good full-time nannies are $$$$. My buddy is paying $5k/mo for his nanny (she charges us $33/hr for babysitting services) but she's fantastic - she can handle anything you throw at her. (She's coming available in July I think if you're interested - she's out of New West and is Brazilian).

Thanks for posting this. I just came back from visiting HK recently where everyone and their dog is paying their full time live-in nannies 5K HKD/ month. I can do 5K HKD but not 5K CAD lol

[EDIT] Actually now that I think about it, I need a housekeeper more than I need a nannie.

Question for the girl dads: Now that you have a girl have you become acutely aware of how gross public washrooms are?

My wife has usually handled washroom duty for my daughter but I do it more and more now (like this week was a Daddy/Daughter week) and I have become so aware of how disgusting most public washrooms are. Women put their thighs on these toilet seats?! Ewwwwww, fucking gross. My kid has to hop backwards up onto these toilets?

Chinese restaurants are consistently the worst - they practically treat it as a badge of honour to be gross.

OTOH, the Metrotown Burnaby Public Library has a nice setup - there's a kid size toilet and it's clean and doesn't smell like shit/piss (unlike the one at the convention centre that I had endure on Weds).

Tactical wees before we leave the house and planning around washroom facilities have become a thing for me as a result.

Man, and it's one of those things where it just quickly escalates: as soon as somebody gets it a little dirty, then next person cares a little less. Maybe they get creative. They do the hover thing. Maybe they arc it from afar. And it just avalanches from there :(.

100% I'm more often the one taking my daughter to the bathroom and I always do a full on wipe dry > disinfect with wipes > then lay down a nest of toilet paper before she even goes on.

Men's washrooms are worse. I've stood next to a guy at the urinal where he decides he's just not gonna even bother trying and just pee all over the ground.

Not saying women's washrooms can't be absolutely disgusting, but you remove the standing to pee problem and you reduce a lot of the issues.

Honestly my wife still thinks public bathroom are gross.
Seriously, when you have to go blow chunks, you have to go.

Better to teach your kids young so they aren't scared of cooties and just properly clean and get it done. As they get order, it becomes harder as they get so jaded.

Le wifey had already booked a number of publicly funded summer camps for our kid -- these are basically glorified daycare for elementary school-aged kids, and cost around $100+ per week.

But we couldn't get bookings for all 8, 9 weeks of the summer, so there are gaps here and there. And now le wifey has started looking at some privately funded summer camps. Most seem to start at around $450 per week, and a horse-back riding one being something like $900+.

The private camps seem to be doing more interesting things, and of course my kid just had to say he is really interested in the stuff those privately funded camps do. But daddy's wallet can't really handle these $450+ per week blows.

Of course, mommy wants to see the kiddo go, but she is hesitant too bcos she obviously knows these privately run ones are easily over 3x as expensive as the publically funded ones...

Gosh back in the day, my parents just made us lunches and went to work. So me and my siblings were free to do whatever the heck we wanted to, and we turned out OK...

I'm going through this for the first time this year and was not surprised to see how competitive things are especially for the city funded ones. My wife and I had our laptops both ready to go at 10am with me doing August and her doing July and we were being pushed to wait lists by 10:03.

The basic city of Burnaby ones are $163/week and we got 4 of those then we got a couple Burnaby art camps and outdoor camps which cost about $280 or so. We also signed her up for French immersion day camp for 3 weeks at $250/wk.

Sure adds up. I had expected to save a bit money once she was out of daycare but my wife sure likes signing her up for classes - ice skating, swimming, girl guides (costs almost nothing though), Chinese school (w/ a private tutor too), gymnastics (that's on me) and now we're looking at tae kwon do (which I do want). Add in afterschool care and we're spending almost just as much as before on childcare.

Like you, I was just left on my own when I was a kid. When my parents ran a grocery store for a few years we were just left in the back to hang out. I even helped ring stuff up back in the day (I was like 10-12y.o) when they were busy.

I learned how to clean the windshield when I was young at a gas station when dad and mom were filling up for gas.

Kids nowadays don't wnat to do shit.

I mean, that's on us I think.

As parents, we have to show them what it means to take care of their shit. I'm presuming you only did the windshield cleaning because your parents put you in a life situation that you knew you'd better help.

My kid isn't 2 yet and he's going around on his hands and knees scrubbing the floors for dust. I didn't ask him to do that, he just saw me doing it enough times he thinks that's just what you're supposed to do.