u/ShinyRatFace

Hush.

Hurricane Helene sent my neighbor's giant pecan tree through my roof to hit my husband that was just laying on the couch minding his own business. He was in the hospital for three weeks.

I'm kind of glad that the guy that showed up with a crane to chop up the pecan tree and get it off my house trimmed back the other trees too. My house is a little harder to cool but at least I don't have any more trees that can come through the roof and try to kill people.

He wasn't so bad at five as long as he got a nap after lunch.

But...

He was an absolutely crazy, stubborn asshole as a toddler. Like, he'd do something, I'd tell him NO, he'd do it again, then I'd put him in time out. He'd rage and tantrum about it and when he was done I'd let him out of time out and he'd immediately go and do the thing again. While staring right at me. Then I'd put him in time out and he'd throw another tantrum. When he was done I'd let him out of time out and he'd go do the thing again. Like, over and over and over. Sometimes for hours.

Some days my husband would come home from work and look around and say, "The house is a mess! Did you even do anything today?" and I'd just reply, "Yeah. I told your son No." I really, really had to pick my battles with him and just focus on one No at a time because if failed to fully enforce a No then my son would sense blood in the water and just go after any perceived weakness.

Also, the crazy little shit figured out how to climb to the top of the fridge somehow at two! The fridge! He was such a climber that I couldn't stop him. I just had to make sure he was as safe as possible while doing it.

At three he was the most argumentative person on the planet. We'd have arguments about whether or not he was being argumentative! I wanted to just choke the little bastard. I don't know how I survived it. He'd ask what a sign said just so he could argue with you about what was on the sign... The little fucker couldn't read yet! But he knew more than me!

At four I kicked him outside to go play with the feral pack of neighborhood kids. They ran wild from my house to my son's best friend's house, to the park less than a block from here. He learned to ride a bike without training wheels and tie his own shoes from the other kids and became a big kid in a lot of ways.

He got the childhood I had growing up in this small town just a couple of streets over. He climbed trees, splashed in mud puddles, and even got in trouble for setting fires in his fort in the yard of an abandoned house. Parenting is so much nicer when you can just kick your kid out of the house and tell them to come home when the streetlights come on.

I'm a weirdo. My favorite stages were the terrible twos (two year old tantrums are hilarious) and teenager years. I didn't get very much rebellion from my kid because I loosened his reigns and let him have freedoms (and responsibilities) to match his maturity not his age exactly. He has always been more mature than most kids his age.

Kids are like puppies. Feed them well then wear them out so they'll be calm and sleep well. It really isn't much more complicated than that.

For reals. The kid went fishing today, his day off. Caught fish, cleaned fish, bought fish fry batter, cooked fish, and then offered me and his father some. He's an amazing cook. He worked as a cook at a fancy high end restaurant when he was 17. I'm just bragging at this point but I am incredibly proud of my kid.

Ten years ago was similar in that he knew absolutely EVERYTHING. Thank you very much! OMG! I swear the know-it-all phase left for about eight years in between!

Ten years ago he was hustling, selling his own original art at his grandparents' flea market stall and making $50 a weekend. I shit you not.

Ten years ago I was forcing him to read interesting chapter books on his (high school) reading level rather than something easy that was mostly pictures. (Comic books and manga with a lot of dialogue are a good compromise)

Ten years ago the kid got to experience his first hurricane, a category one. He's a born and raised Floridian but ten years ago marked the end of a lack of hurricanes for little over a decade. Now my kid has PTSD from Hurricane Helene, a category 4. (He calls it PTSTree after the tree that came through our roof because he inherited a sick sense of humor from his parents.)

Ten years ago the kid was blond with pin straight hair like his father. Now that puberty has had its way with him, he's got beautiful, thick, curly, dark brown hair just like mine.

A lot has changed. Some has stayed the same. It was one of the best decades of my life in a lot of ways. I got to see my kid grow up and become awesome. In a lot of ways this is what I've spent the past two decades working for; a grown up, self-sufficient person with a great sense of humor and a ton of resiliency. It is nice to be over the finish line so to speak but I still scroll my facebook feed and see activities and festivals for kids to attend in my small town and get a little wistful that my time at kiddy carnivals with bounce houses and face painting are over until my kid finds a woman that can stand him enough to make a grandchild for me, lol.

You want a seriously adorable child stage?

Being an adult.

My kid still lives at home because he's only 19 but he works full time making big boy money and pays all of his own bills and incidental things like clothes and video games. He's saving to buy a nice truck and then he'll start saving for a down payment on a house. He pays us $100 a week rent, 50% of which we save to give him when he eventually moves out.

Having my kid here is a bigger help than a burden. He does a decent amount of chores and helps without being asked. My husband got injured a couple of years ago (Hurricane Helene dropped a giant tree through our roof and onto him.) and just physically can't do some things. I have a bad back and can't do some things. The kid is in prime health and can haul heavy stuff around for us and does. I hope he never moves out.

That's because there is no real way for poor Americans to go to Canada. Canada doesn't want them. You need money and the right ancestry or in demand skill to move to a first world country these days. Most people posting here couldn't even afford to move to another county within their state much less move to another country even if they were allowed.

Sure, but what about my 19 year old. He's kind of a dick. Can I crate him?

I cheated and gave my son one of my business cards to put in his pocket when he was that age. He also practiced memorizing key phone numbers but when he was young and running around the neighborhood with the other kids it was nice to have backup so another parent could call me if my son skinned his knee or something. I also traded numbers with all of the other parents in the neighborhood just in case.

I've done this my whole life. I learned how to run a household from my Great Depression era grandmother. I go through... 4ish rolls of paper towels a year? I use them for cat vomit, bacon, and cleaning windows and mirrors. I have 5 indoor/outdoor cats but don't eat bacon very often. I clean the bathroom mirror weekly and the windows seasonally.

I have a shit ton of washrags bought cheap in a mega-pack 20 years ago at Wal-mart. The light colored ones are for dusting and heavy cleaning. Dark colored ones are for washing dishes and wiping down counters. They just get thrown in with the regular laundry.

I scored 8/10. What do I win?

I mean other than a crippling anxiety disorder and a tendency to hoard groceries?

Look up old Florida cracker houses. They were built to stay naturally cool and have no insulation except in the roof. No vapor barrier either because their is a gap between the walls to let cooler air from under the house flow up to vent out the insulated attic.

Though, all of this would be absolutely miserable in a cold climate.

My house is an old cracker house and it consistently stays 5 to 10 degrees cooler than outside. 650 square feet and two bedrooms so I'm not sure if it qualifies as tiny but it is certainly small.

These horrible children. You either end up driving a shitbox or nothing at all because you care about their safety!!! My offspring, after getting into a fender bender outside a bar (Thankfully he was just there to play pool with a friend and had not been drinking) had to pay to replace my front bumper and he still hasn't color matched it.

He (and his wallet) felt really bad about the accident and offered to ride his bike to work. He works close to home but the traffic out there is Mad Max style and I don't think they make Mad Max gear fit for riding a bicycle. He'd get run over in like a day. So, because I love my kid I re-presented my wounded car to him to continue to drive for another 6 months.

Oh and don't even get me started on what it was costing me monthly to sit at home with no way to go anywhere!

Yeah, I've got a 19 year old and he has always helped with chores around the house. The only fucked up thing he ever did to the house was wipe boogers on the wall next to his bed when he was five years old. I handed him a bucket full of hot, soapy water and a scrubby and told him he was going to scrub until every booger was gone. He got it clean and then never did anything like that again.

The key is to actually raise them rather than let them run completely feral. Any kid that knocked a hole in my wall would be learning to patch drywall before there was even a chance to throw food in the hole.

And WTF is up with this parent that leaves food to rot in their walls and pools of water under a kid's bed until it damages the sub-floor? If the parents aren't cleaning how are the kids supposed to learn?

We just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary a few months ago. Our son is going to turn 19 soon. We did it! He's an adult with a good job and a 401k!

I could brag to you about how great my marriage is or I could tell you how awful things got several times along the way. Child rearing is hard and stressful and we only had one child! I'm not sure we would have all survived raising two or three.

We married when I was 21 and my husband was 28. I had our son at 22. I was a stay at home mom the first few years and never worked more than part time because I was the primary parent and my husband not only wouldn't clean, he barely even used the trash can.

He was everything we complain about. He never helped with our son or chores around the house. Even after I furthered my education and got a job. I would spend my days off frantically cleaning only to have the house filthy again by my next day off. I never got a chance to relax.

When I turned 30 my attitude to all of it changed. When I was in my 20s I was working on things and it was fine. After 30... Nope. This is my life. I didn't like my life. I didn't like the state of my marriage.

At one point my husband and I started a business working from home. Some days we would drop our son off at elementary school and then come home and scream at each other for literally hours until it was time to pick up the kid, cook supper, and pretend to be civil.

It was awful and absolutely our roughest rough patch. We would have divorced but we literally couldn't afford to live apart and even if he moved in with his parents or something, he'd have to come over here every day to work. With me. At the business that took both of us doing our thing in order to work.

How'd it end? I know it is a reddit cliche, but he went to therapy. He unloaded all of his baggage about his shitty parents and upbringing at therapy instead of picking fights with me. He got diagnosed with ADHD and got medicated. I (who has already done shit tons of therapy) adjusted the strength of my anxiety meds and had a lot of serious talks with my husband about what I needed from him to feel okay and what he needed from me.

The main thing is that even when we screamed at each other for days straight... He's the love of my life and I'm his. We are best friends. Honestly, I'm glad being broke got us through the rough patches without divorce because coming out the other side has been wonderful.

He cooks supper every night. He cleans... Not much because I'm back to being a housewife and I make it a point to clean messes of his that I'd yell at my son for. My husband pays my bills. My son does not, lol.

I really think that what makes our marriage so easy and enjoyable now is that we did all of the hard shit already. The kid is grown and paying for his own phone, car insurance, etc... He pays $100 a week rent; $50 of which we save for when he moves out. My husband has also moved into a new position at his company and gotten a hefty raise. We have soooooooo much less stress over money now! We have agreed on what being a housewife does and doesn't entail and what is expected of him in return. We literally have nothing to fight over anymore!

That's my happily ever after. We just fought it out until we were happy with each other again. We never stopped loving each other even though the worst parts.

I've been there! My friend's kids were plague rats and so was she. She'd come over and her or one of her kids was always sick and was snorting or coughing on my kid while they all played together.

My friend would claim it was just allergies and then a few days later my whole family would come down sick with "just allergies".

I talked to her about it several times. She knew I didn't want to hang out if anyone was sick. She'd do it anyway.

I finally slow faded the friendship and quit talking to her after she brought her daughter over to play with my son while the daughter had MRSA. Like the daughter was hospitalized for it shortly after because they had one more antibiotic they could try before they'd have to start cutting away at the affected areas and praying as a last resort.

My friend and I reconnected when the kids were in their late teens. She respects my boundaries now and her kids cover their coughs and stay home when they are sick.

When my son was a toddler, my cousin and I were sitting at the kitchen table drinking a couple of beers. Son kept pestering us for some and wasn't really old enough to get the concept of grown-up drinks; he just wanted what we had.

So I helped him hold my beer and take a sip knowing he'd hate it.

NOPE! After that first sip the little shit snatched the bottle out of my hand and ran off to chug it. I had to chase him down and get what was left of my beer back.

He graduated high school this past summer so I don't think it fucked him up too badly.

It took my husband two years of us living together for him to figure out that I don't like fish.

A friend and I were discussing food preferences and I said that I didn't like fish. He overheard and was confused. He said I had to like fish because I always cleaned my plate and said "Thank you." when he cooked it for us. Yeah. Because if someone goes to the store, buys ingredients, comes home and cooks food for me, then serves it up to me on a plate... I'm going to eat it and say "Thank you."

Your husband needs to be kicked in the shins until he understands the amount of love and effort that goes into cooking meals... Especially if you are growing the ingredients from fucking seeds!

Early in my marriage, like 20 years ago, we didn't even have a dishwasher and my husband was an ass about dishes and trash. Enragingly, he would leave trash on the kitchen counter right next to the trash can. I worked more hours than him, was taking more classes than him, it was only fair that he did half of the housework.

He did not.

After a few times of telling him it was his turn to do dishes and him leaving them for days I threw all of the dishes away. I don't know what he did but I got by on microwave burritos and Hot Pockets nuked on a paper towel. I also ate meals at friend's and relatives houses.

After a year I allowed new dishes into the house and instituted the rule that all dishes have to be washed directly after use. I'd wash supper dishes (our only shared meal) if he cooked. He's a good cook so I figured that would work out.

Until I found dirty dishes under the couch.

I didn't really want to throw away the dishes again because I really liked this set so I washed and dried them all and packed them away somewhere he'd never find them. He was allowed paper plates if he paid for them and continued to do all of the cooking.

By the time our son came along we were back to real dishes and him doing his part. I don't just throw away dishes. I ban them from the house for a year for each infraction. I AM a bigger asshole than my husband when I want to be.

I only use paper towels for things like bacon grease or cat puke, something that really needs to be thrown away. Most other messes I get with a dish rag. I have a spay bottle of diluted Dawn and I give the rag a couple of sprays and then wipe up the mess. Then I rinse out the rag and it is clean enough to continue to wash dishes and wipe up messes. The next time I do laundry I throw the rag in the wash and get a new one. It doesn't add anything to the amount of laundry I'm doing. It is just one rag.

A big, wet mess that is more than a dish rag can handle means I pull a bath towel out of the dirty clothes hamper and use that to soak it up. Why use half a roll of paper towels to clean something up when I can use a towel I was going to wash anyway?

How is it so hard to fathom that people don't use paper towels? I mean, my grandmother grew up in the great depression and didn't use paper towels. I learned how to run a household from her.

I lived the first 20 years of my life with no AC in Florida. It sucks. Really sucks. The worst part is that in summer you never feel clean because even if you take a cold bath, the second you get out you start sweating again.

That said, after living so long with no AC, I tolerate heat better than most people. I use ceiling fans and keep my house air conditioned to about 80 degrees and I'm comfortable and also saving a lot on my electric bill. I bring a sweater when I go to restaurants and movie theaters because they are too cold for me.

I actually explained the Geneva Convention to my newborn son one night at 4 AM. He didn't care. Babies are assholes.

Most people getting big refunds are getting the Earned Income Tax Credit. Even if they pay zero taxes throughout the year they'd still get a refund.

Puppy formula is what most wildlife rehabbers use, myself included.

We lived in a big city when I was a toddler and I distinctly remember being fascinated with the subway tracks and wanting to climb down there. Fortunately, every time I tried to get to close, Mom had a kid leash to help control me. She held my hand a lot but the kid leash helped her keep track of me in crowds when I'd pull away from her and try to bolt towards the tracks.

As someone that has suffered, and I do mean SUFFERED, from anxiety for the last 20+ years... Get on meds! Therapy helps but only so much. And it can take some trial and error to find the meds that work for you but it is SO worth the effort! I can function normally in society now and that improvement is ALL down to medication.