r/daddit

I’m just doing weekend parental work for an extra day. Beats going into the office, but doesn’t really have the allure of a day off either.

edit - perhaps when the kid is older than one and more activities open up to us I won’t feel this way. Also supposed to rain for the next 6 days

edit #2 - to be clear, I was being a bit tongue in cheek. I love hanging w my son and he makes me laugh constantly. it’s a joy. but 3 day weekends used to be a wealth of me time and/or getting extra things done and now it’s keeping my energetic little dude fed and happy and alive. we’ll have a great extra day together. it just isn’t the lazy carefree 3 day weekends of yesteryear and I was mildly lamenting it. maybe ruin was a strong and incorrect word.

I'm serious. My 4 and 6 year olds had both mastered Uno; Poker came up in discussion. Of course, that seemingly innocuous question precipitated a number of follow on questions and ultimately a request to play Poker. I never played the game. My knowledge of it was limited to the movie Rounders.

So I researched it a bit more, learned Texas Hold Em, and bought some cards and chips. We started off just playing with our hands visible to one another and sans chips. On car rides the "Animal Game" was replaced with Poker hand quizzes. The kids are now Poker fiends. They love it and it's been incredible watching how quickly they're picking up the different elements of the game. The 6 year old recently won a pot by bluffing a terrible hand.

Anyhow, there are so many developmental benefits to this activity: pattern recognition, tactics, strategy, probability theory, cost-benefit analysis, risk analysis, psychology, etc. I think it's surpassed Legos as the developmental gold mine for now.

I made a similar post last year, it's definitely become a tradition. Every year it's a bit better, I think mostly because I can see my kid healing. Writing these also helps me keep straight what did and did not happen over time, which helps me maintain perspective. Those with the ban-hammer, if this is too close to a repost, let me know and I won't return next year, but I think this PSA annually might do some good.

As camping season approaches, I wanna talk about something with fire safety that's easy to overlook.

CHECK THE BASE OF ANY FIREPIT YOU ARE ABOUT TO USE AND VERIFY IT DOES NOT HAVE A CONCRETE BASE.

Story time: Two years ago now, my spouse and my then 2 month old child went to visit a friend's family cabin. They had a firepit that the family had paid a contractor to install, and they had used it for many years without incident.

It had been raining off and on during the trip, but when the weather improved we decided to have a campfire. Unbeknownst to me, the base of the pit under the accumulated ash was made of concrete, not sand, steel, dirt, or gravel. Anyone who knows anything about campfires knows using wet, rigid, porous materials with direct contact with flame is a bad idea.

I didn't check the base of the pit, despite having a fair bit of training in fire safety over the years, because it looked professionally constructed, so I assumed it was safe. Turns out, it just borrowed bits and bobs of prefacricated stuff that made it look purpose-built. A closer inspection the next day had me fuming over the carelessness of myself, the contractor, and the family this installed it. 2 years later that burns hot when it comes to mind, everything that follows just didn't need to happen.

Prior to lighting the fire, my friend removed the majority of the ash from the pit as we'd used the pit multiple times that week between sporadic rainfall, and so the pit built up quite a bit of ash.

After being emptied, there was only a thin layer of ash left, just enough to obscure the base. As a result, the fire we lit ended up heating the water-saturated concrete, over the course of an hour or two, to the boiling point and beyond like a pressure cooker. Meanwhile, we sat around the dire firepit the entire time, oblivious. There was no warning sound or sign, the firewood was dry and barely sputtered at all. Even so, none of us were sat close, we would have to scoot our chairs up A few feet to get close enough to roast a marshmallow, and my spouse/kid were furthest away from the fire.

Right as we were preparing to pack up for the night, the steam that had been cooking out of the concrete without our knowledge reached critical pressure, and exploded, throwing the **entire fire** both at and into the air *above* my family and our friends, shooting out in every direction and then falling on us like rain. I'll never forget the sensation, as the impacts initially felt and sounded like the opening of a very heavy rain, until the heat registered. Murphy, of course, aimed most of the hot coals and logs towards the side my family was on.

My spouse actually deflected a burning log away from herself with her bare hand, but was still was peppered with several handfuls of burning coals, leaving tiny first and second degree burns on her arms, head, and chest (and burning off a small portion of her hair). I got a coal trapped in the heel of my shoe that gave me a third degree burn over (and probably inside) my achillies tendon. The rest of the coals either rolled off us or were too small to do anything but singe our clothes. But none of this mattered or even really registered at the time, because the hot coals also hit our 2 month old child while dozing in their sleepsack next to my spouse, at what we had thought was a safe distance from the fire.

I deliberately am keeping details on the burns to a minimum, but there were big second degree burns and we had to go to the hospital immediately. Our kid has since recovered, and 2 years have reduced the scars to white shadows on their arm and leg in places that can be easily covered, but those 24 hours still haunt me. I can hear it, see it, vividly, whenever I let my mind go there.

This year, I can still hear the screams if I try, but they're faint now. Seeing my kid laugh and talk and love things helps a lot with that, I think. We'll see how they feel about the scars when they're older.

We all mercifully managed to not be hit by the concrete shards themselves, which I found scattered around the pit the next day up to 30 feet away. I imagine the speed and weight of those would have been... Considerable. The only merit of burning firewood hitting you is that it is lightweight.

My advice this year is the same as last year: Don't use a firepit with a concrete base, especially if it is directly on/in/below the ground. That's the critical thing that can keep the water inside the concrete rather than drain away. It's dangerous and completely unnecessary, there are so many cheap non porous materials you can use like steel or non-porous rocks. Hell, just buy a fire pit kit from your local big box store, there's plenty of cheapish models that take away all the guesswork. If you can, destroy any firepit with a below-ground concrete base you come across.

I still ask you to spread the word, it's so easy to overlook and though odds of explosion are low, if it happens it seems inevitable and so avoidable.

Shout out to last year's dad's adding to check for tree root infiltration and river rocks. They pose their own explosion hazards.

They're all literally a bomb waiting to go off. Don't be there.

This past year I was thrust into the role of a stay at home dad for my 3 kids, 4, 2, 8mo. Company downsized, wife gets an insane offer, we move to another town.

Trying to keep the toddlers entertained while keeping the house together and keeping the baby happy is no small feat BUT there is hope. This new neighborhood has a ton of kids around the age of mine. There's 6 kids under 6 just on my street. I've been taking them for walks the past 4 mornings and end up playing in someone's driveway for an hour or two which is great for everyone involved. The kids keep eachother entertained, the parents can relax a little since the kids are distracted, I get to socialize outside of my own house. My kids ask me every morning if we can go outside and find friends and they all play very well together.

Only problem is, I'm the only dad hanging out with all women. My wife seemed like she was okay with it until yesterday when I mentioned that the boy next door came over to play with our kids, which she thought was great, until I mentioned something about the babysitter and her mood dropped off a cliff. Her only other long term relationship ended in him cheating and getting physical with her, so I get it.

Heres the conundrum: now we've met and played with these kids so if my kids are playing outside, there's a good chance someone is going to walk by and just stop to say hello, which turns into a play date. My only other option is to never take the kids outside while the wife is at work. My wife hasn't met any of these women yet but unfortunately for me none of them are ugly, which is not going to help at all.

She has Monday off and it feels like that is my opportunity to get her on board with my new gal pals but I don't know what to do. I don't want my kids to be stuck inside all summer but I hate seeing my wife getting stuck in her own head about her husband being around younger women. I would never do anything to jeopardize our marriage, especially something as stupid as cheating, but I don't know how to show her that.

So a couple of years ago my employer closed the office I worked at and my new work location was some 100kilometers away (by Dutch standards, that is quite te distance). As a result I left home early and got home late due to rush hour.
So we decided to relocate and found a town closer to work but not all the way so the family was within distance (80km).

Two months in, my gf says this was a mistake, she misses her family and we have to move back. Disappointed I pushed back and 5 years with many arguments, 2 births, Corona, a burnout and work termination later we finally found a house back in the old region. I wasn’t thrilled but sticking together as a family outweighed where I was going to live.

Our oldest (5y/o) at the time, had a hard time fitting in at the new school so after a month, gf again says this was a mistake, what have I done ripping her from her familiar surroundings, we should move back yet again. So we went to see houses but over a couple of months, our oldest started to fit in and the town grew on my gf, so she started backpedaling. But we continued looking for homes and we finally found it: free standing home with a big garden, something we could not afford in our youth region.

We placed a bid, it got rejected. Before we placed the second bid I asked her if she still wanted to move ahead. She was reluctant and maybe I wanted her to want it a little too much, idk. Second bid got accepted and then you have a few days where you can back out of the deal (by law), and she wanted out. I wasn’t thrilled gutted, and my sadness, disbelief, frustration, helplessness all turned into anger, so I gave her the stink eye for a couple of days. I totally broke down in front of her and she agreed because she didn’t want me to be unhappy. After all, she initiated the move back.

So we closed on the house, bought a new kitchen, new floors, have new stucco, broke down internal walls, tens of thousands of euros invested. And now she says she wants to move back *yet again* because this isn’t her place anymore. The old school was better, the old town was better.

She even said she’d move back alone and leave me and our kids behind so we could be happy, but she can’t bear to stay here. And, she confided to our oldest, who now thinks she has to choose a side.

I am torn between keeping my family together and go live in an area I really don’t like vs staying in an area that makes me genuinely happy but breaking up with my love of 15 years, the mother of my kids, and a potentially nasty issue with where the kids are going to live. If she moves out and gets the kids, the alimony will mean I have to sell the house anyway. I am the provider of our only income, she stopped working some years before we had kids and I was fine with it then.

I know this is my choice to make, maybe I just need to vent. I’m at a loss. I am working every night and weekend to make the house into a home, and the feeling it may all be for nothing is not helping me keep motivated, yet there are deadlines in our construction planning…

What would you do?

This was the best news ever for me, so a call to some realtors started our search for a new house

First off I want to say I love my son, and I love my wife. But holy shit am I miserable.

We had an unplanned pregnancy, she was on birth control and we hit that 0.01%. We accepted it pretty early and eventually we were pretty excited by the idea, and the first few weeks were great. I used all my PTO to stay home and take care of the wife and baby while she recovered from the C-Section.

But now Im back at work, working 6 days a week. My life is wake up at 6:30 -> commute -> work from 8 to 4:30 -> commute -> return home to screaming baby because its the witching hours. I take him generally most of the night when I get home so the wife can have a break. I dont mind, its just exhausting.

But the part that sucks, is that everyone is so dismissive about the struggle of being the working parent, especially the dad, who misses every thing. I missed his first smile, ill miss his first laugh, ill miss the first time he crawls, walks, his first word, everything.

But when I bring my frustrations and exhaustion up with anyone, its "you need to do more, mom has it worse, at least you have the "privilege" to goto your soul crushing job every single day" like I acknowledge that being a stay at home mom is brutal and is insanely hard. but its not the pain Olympics, it can suck for everybody, but it feels like saying this to anyone immediately gets me labeled as a dead beat. Ive never felt so isolated and hopeless. People say it gets better for the dad at 1.5 years, but it hasnt even been 3 fucking months. i dont know if I can make it that long. And I cant even get a break from a day at work, because weekends are "take the baby so your wife can rest (my wife pushes back on this and we try to both decompress but its the expectation from our family) and I dont even have any PTO left to give myself a day. This sucks

Sorry for the rant, this was kinda cathartic.

I’ve been looking for a nanny/caregiver for about a month. I found a great prospect for our 6 month old. My wife got upset during our phone interview and tanked the whole thing.

It’s so infuriating. Afterwards my wife accused me of not caring for a baby because I want to hire a part time nanny. She already returned to work full time and I’m the stay at home parent. I’m a part time employee and have the option to pick up more work.

Our house is a mess, we are always eating out and there are so many chores and maintenance items that need attention.

Edit: Thanks for all the suggestions. Responded to several questions but going to bed now.

Sorry in advance for the rant.

I went in for a check-up today, and something my doctor said has been stuck in my head all day, and I need to get it out.

First off, I have diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and suffer from panic attacks, so I have to see my doctor every few months to be able to refill my prescriptions. Naturally, he asked how I’d been doing lately, and I told him I’d been struggling with the usual stress of a dad with two young kids, and also with work/money stress, again, like any normal dad in their mid-thirties. Then, I mentioned that I hadn’t been making my regular biweekly therapy appointments for almost two months because last minute work meetings had just happened to pop up during my scheduled therapy times, and I hated that I’d have to miss another appointment this week because my younger daughter’s kindergarten graduation will be at the same time.

My doctor is probably in his late 50s, and while I appreciate his attempt to make me feel better, his response to me telling him that I’d be skipping therapy to attend my daughter’s graduation seemed pretty crazy to me. He said, “nowadays, us men are made to feel guilty when we can’t attend every little activity our kids have. When I was a kid, my dad made it to things when he could.”

Now, my dad was a thrice-married alcoholic who split when I was 2, and did just enough for me until he could stop paying child support (which I found out later he almost never paid) when I turned 16 and chose not to drive myself to see him. He ended up killing himself when I was 21, and left me with nothing but bad memories, inherited mental illness and alcoholism, and a love for movies and 80s music. That’s pretty much it.

With all of that being said, come hell or high water, I’m going to attend every single event I can for my kids and give them the childhood that I never had. I will show the fuck up for them no matter what.

We started watching an episode on Netflix tonight and we decided the whole family would play along. Fifteen minutes in and my heart is pounding. 10/10 experience

my daughter is 2.5 and for the longest time i thought i was supposed to be on the floor with her basically every second she was awake. especially on my days off from work because in my head i was already gone most of the week, so i felt like i had to make up for it by constantly playing with her whenever i was home.

so on weekends i’d sit there for like an hour at a time pretending to be involved while mentally thinking about dishes or laundry or random stuff i needed to get done before monday again. then i’d feel guilty for not being present enough. if i grabbed my phone i felt bad. if i got up to clean something i felt bad. whole thing was weirdly stressful.

a few months ago i finally got up and started doing stuff around the house while she played nearby. not ignoring her, just not hovering anymore. i’d check in, talk to her when she wanted, hand her stuff sometimes, but mostly just let her do her thing while i did mine.

she actually plays longer now. like way longer. this morning she sat there moving little animals around and talking to herself while i cleaned the kitchen and made coffee. when i used to sit right beside her she would last maybe 10 minutes before climbing on me or wanting me involved in everything.

honestly maybe this is obvious to everyone else already but i think me hovering over her constantly was kind of making it worse and i just didn’t realize it at the time.

I go to my kid’s wrestling practice and one time I counted 6 parents on laptops. One woman I SWEAR never gets off her phone the entire time, even during sumo or other mock events. Just a sad state of affairs in my opinion.

I've been cleaning vomit up all week from my 3 kids because nobody can manage to get to a toilet or provided bowl in time. Now that it's my turn to be sick do I just do it wherever I want and make them clean up after me?

My ex and I broke up about 5 years ago, we've a 9 year old together and tbh it was the right decision to break up, our first time meeting sober was when she told me she was pregnant. Way to soon.

We've always done 50/50 though and I had our daughter 5 days a week more often than I've had her less than 50/50 until September 2025 when they moved about 2 hours from me. I'm now a McDonald's dad that sees her about 4 days a month and I don't know what to do but cry and hate life, it's so alone.

I can't afford transportation and my house, I can't move on, I just want my kid home and with me bmand I don't know what I'm supposed to do the rest of the days when I'm alone.

How do you force yourself to give a shit about life when your love is gone?

make it stop

I need help I guess, my wife whose a month or so from her due date is just constantly getting mad at me.

Not for a lack of me trying to prevent it but it just seems to be a weekly occurrence where ive done something thats irritating to the point of anger.
**Is this a normal experience?**

I understand pregnancy changes hormones and other things but like hell guys, how do you stay on their good sides when you try to & work all the time?

Any advice helps..im just trying to not get murdered or divorced. (Neither will likely happen but its a though)