There’s One Part of Parenting I Just Can’t Bear. I Think I’m Screwing My Kids Up for Life.

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Damir Khabirov/iStock/Getty Images Plus and goodmoments/iStock/Getty Images Plus. Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so today we’re diving into the archives of Care and Feeding to share classic parenting letters with our readers. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, I hate playing with my kids. They’re 3 and 6, and I find it torturous. They beg and beg till I give in, and within five minutes I’m snapping at them and having to use breathing exercises because I just want to scream and punch walls. I hate myself for not being a better parent. I cuddle them and read to them and fix their boo-boos, I help them with homework and take them for walks and check on them at night, but I hate pretending to be a cat or playing Twister. All the books say that they need quality time with parents. Am I screwing my kids up for life? —Bad Mum Dear Mum, Not liking playing with your kids doesn’t make you a bad mom. Kids at that age can be boring as hell. I haven’t met a parent in all my life who hasn’t complained about the interminable monotony of folding oneself on the living room floor only to be served wooden sandwiches and plastic fruits from the same incompetently run, bullshit-ass “restaurant” time and time again. It’s normal to dislike such a thing. You should also know that hating yourself is never good, never helpful, and never necessary. If you need to change something, you change it. If you don’t, you don’t, but let us work to do away with the self-hatred. Not only is it not great for you, but it’s also not great for your kids to have a mom who talks about herself that way. These kinds of attitudes are never kept within. They bleed out and impact all of our relationships whether we intend them to or not.So what I’m going to say should not be taken as a criticism but as an observation, born of experience. You need to work just a bit on your patience. It is not necessary to enjoy these absurd games, but it is very important to make a good-faith effort to show up for them as much as you can and with a good attitude. As you point out in your letter, this quality time has a purpose; it is one of the parental sacrifices we make. Play like this is annoying because we have to slow down and be with ourselves. (Lord knows these kids aren’t providing any substantial entertainment.) We don’t have a phone or a deadline or an email or a reality show or a book to occupy us. We just have the kids. We’re not used to that kind of simplicity, and it’s weird and hard. But I believe it’s something you can and should get better at with practice. See if you can make it 10, then 15, and then 20 minutes just sitting with them, playing along, and not snapping while they bore you to tears. Then when you reach your endpoint, you can gently excuse yourself—before you feel like screaming. It’s not easy. If it helps, keep in mind that sooner than you think, they’ll be the ones doing their level best to get away from you. When that happens, you may not miss these infernal games, but it’s quite possible you’ll feel badly about having been so impatient. —Carvell Wallace From: Dear Care and Feeding: I Hate Playing With My Kids. (January 9th, 2019). Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don’t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Care and Feeding, Timeouts have been working well for my 5-year-old in terms of eventually curbing the bad behavior in question, but I feel like we spend the entire timeout period (a couple of minutes) arguing and negotiating. Am I doing something wrong? —It’s Like 12 Angry Men in Here Dear IL12AMiH, Ah, yes. I too spent a number of timeouts with our oldest child engaged in conversation with a delightfully tenacious little sea lawyer. Timeouts are supposed to be a break for both of you from the conflict at hand! (I know some people are now trying to claim that timeouts are bad/abusive/alienating and what kids really need is more time-ins, whatever the hell exhausting form of engagement that might be, but f’chrissakes we gotta have something left to us as parents.) Yeah, don’t argue with a kid in timeout. Find a boring, safe location, pop them into it, set the phone timer, and go somewhere where you can spot them leave but are not in their direct eye line. If they’re negotiating, you’re studiously not listening. If they take off, you’re putting them back and adding another minute to the timeout with a stony expression. You need the personality of George C. Scott’s Gen. Patton (as opposed to the personality of the actual Patton) to make this effective. Tilting at windmills only goes on for so long; your child will not eternally try to keep bargaining if you never provide them the satisfaction of engagement. If you want, preface the first New Regime timeout with “timeouts are not for talking, only thinking,” but don’t get after them for talking, just police your own reactions. —Nicole Cliffe From: Do Not Pierce My 5-Month-Old’s Ears! (June 29th, 2018). Dear Care and Feeding, Through a combination of a grandparent gifts and cutting cable and some financial aid, my oldest daughter has started going to a private school (I know this sounds like Gilmore Girls but it’s honestly real) and most of the culture shock has been reasonable, EXCEPT … these stupid, stupid slippers. The school has a uniform, obviously, but apparently in their downtime and at their parties and hangouts, everyone wears these ridiculous $500 slippers, and my daughter feels like a sore thumb. She’s a really good kid—she hasn’t even asked for them—but it’s just clear this is adding some stress to her whole transition into her new school. Should we try to buy them? A pair for Christmas? Or not? Am I crazy for even thinking about this? —SLIPPERS, WHY Dear SW, Five! Hundred! Dollar! Slippers! For! A! Child! I have two answers! One is that you can actually get these slippers (barely touched) from a variety of online consignment sites for a fraction of the price (I just checked and there are dozens at $95, still silly), because the sticker shock and related regret comes to everyone in time. So if (and it’s a big if!) your daughter still desperately wanted them come Christmas and has not developed a more jaded impression of the acquisitiveness of her peers, spring for a single used pair. My second answer is that there will always be a pointless marker of wealth your daughter will not be able to possess, and that’s OK because it’s pretty much universally nonsense. I grew up getting my clothes from donation bags, and I am not going to attempt to claim it built character (I am not overfilled with character), but it did help give me a gimlet eye for signaling bullshit. What was this item in your youth, or your partner’s youth? Mine was mini-backpacks and name-brand sneakers! My husband’s parents couldn’t get him Levi’s. Ask your parents! I bet they still remember. It goes all the way back to Amy March not being able to buy pickled limes! You have a good kid. Have a talk about this as a rite of passage, and I guarantee when she’s 40 she’s going to be like, remember when those dumbass affluenza teens had $500 slippers? and chuckle happily and wryly. —N.C. From: I’m a No-Soda Mom at Home. When My Kid Visits Friends, Can I Demand Other Parents Do the Same? (September 14th, 2018). More Parenting Advice From Slate We told our 11-year-old daughter clearly from a young age that we budget, and while we have a good life, it’s not fancy. She’s always accepted that. The thing is, we actually make a fair amount of money. Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Family Kids Parenting