Thread by @owenbroadcast

a question i've often been asked over the last two years is: what's the most surprising part of having a kid?

normally my answer has been something about the parent child bond

however, now my answer is different. here's something i wish someone had told me beforehand, tbh

...

one of my favorite shows is king of the hill.

one distinction i'd make between something like king of the hill and the simpsons is that, eventually, i started to identify with hank. i never "became" homer while watching the simpsons. i became an adult, but that never happened.

but eventually, as i got older, i guess you could say i started to see the plots and episodes from hank's perspective, rather than the kids. it just made sense. we're not that similar, but - that switch happened. i wasn't "the kids" anymore. i was seeing the adults as the equals

well, if the adults are your equals, that means you're seeing the kids as kids. you're seeing their limitations and limited perspective as one of their main character features. those things define what kids are, really. and most importantly, they're not totally aware of them.

i've mentioned this before, but by definition, a kid sees things from a kid's perspective. he literally has to. and that limitation is self referential. its total. he cannot know what it means entirely, even if he is aware of it. that's "the whole game". its a closed limit.

i promised myself i'd never give parenting advice online, so, this isn't that. in fact is has nothing to do with the kid at all.

the most unexpected part of having a kid has been experiencing that flip in my own life story, with my own childhood - and, being forced to do that.

having a kid means a few things. you're literally looking at the kid a lot. it kind of looks like you. and you're going through all these childhood processes with it, while also planning and reflecting on how your relationship will be to the kid.

okay, thats very very obvious.

what i did not expect, and what totally blindsided me, was the implications of this. heres a tangible one that i think will resonate with some people.

you're a guy (sorry, idk what it's like to be a girl, maybe its similar). you're here so, you probably have weird interests.

so, for your whole early life, its quite possible no one ever really asked you about these weird interests. and you were a kid, so you thought, well, yeah this makes sense. im into [this weird thing], other people arent, so they dont ask me about it.

that makes sense

to a kid.

but when YOU have a kid, you realize: wait. whatever this kid was into, i would obviously ask him about it.

in fact, i'd be into it because he's my kid. i would be genuinely curious because i care about him.

if owen jr got into accounting, i would find accounting interesting.

if he was reading books about accounting a lot, and watching videos about accounting, and wearing "accountant" t shirts, obviously id ask him about it. id probably take him to accounting things. i mean, that would be like, front and center in my mind.

okay. so, obvious question

why didnt the adults in your life, when you were a kid, feel that way about you?

i mean no one asked you about any of that stuff. why not?

its kind of uncomfortable answering a question like that. theres really only a few folders to land in. none of them are great.

if that example doesn't resonate with you, theres 1000 others. you remember some time when you were a kid and XYZ happened. and you remember how the adults around you acted.

but now YOU are the one with a kid. and you would never act that way. so, why did they?

uncomfortable.

to be totally honest, for the last two years, its like that. ill remember something from when i was a kid, and my perspective on it is totally flipped. not trivial things. like, totally rewriting the story

i did not seek this out. it just happens.

its really, really annoying.

i never believed in psychology stuff, to be totally honest, but now i do think theres something to the framework of: you inherent this meta narrative from your childhood, and then carry it into adulthood.

what do you do about it? not sure.

but heres something positive. a twist

so, everyone has unideal stuff from their childhood. not to therapy out, but, thats true (imo).

im slowly coming to the conclusion that, even without this self awareness about it: having a kid is the redemption arc from your own childhood.

lets take a random example. this one didn't happen to me: divorce. you're a kid, and your parents get divorced. or, they did drugs a lot (like mine).

so, what do you do with that? its hard to come up with a great answer here. you get over it i guess. alright. thats something.

but theres really no flash or narrative there. alright. you get over it. thats not really a redemption arc.

one solid answer for what a redemption arc COULD look like is: you have your own kid. you create a new smaller version of yourself, and then you don't do that to them.

im sure thats not the only answer, but, its at least a pretty good answer. you (literally) see this new smaller version of yourself, and you get the satisfaction of seeing them get to go through life not getting bitten by the same animal you did

and, its real. it really happens

this brings an interesting spin to the popular topic of people not having kids. if we carve out an exception for something like a religious celibate life, its hard to imagine some of my close friends really getting the full redemption arc from their childhood without this.

so, that's my real answer. what's the most unexpected part of having a child? that you rewrite your own childhood story over again. you just keep turning over these stones and you're like:

woah, i had no idea that was there.

and no one ever told me that so, im telling you.