[pod 12:52] @realBitcoinDog It’s So Early! - Bitcoin Parent Boundaries 👶
This is the transcript for the _It’s So Early!_ Podcast. Consider listening in all its glory on fountain:
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Will Schoellkopf is author of Bitcoin Girl Save the World, AND The Bitcoin Dog: Following The Scent To The Bitcoin C++ Source Code, and host of the...
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[pod 12:52] @realBitcoinDog It’s So Early! - Bitcoin Parent Boundaries 👶 \ stacker news
[pod 12:52] @realBitcoinDog It’s So Early! - Bitcoin Parent Boundaries 👶 This is the transcript for the It’s So Early! Podcast. Consider lis...
It's so early! I'm your host, @realBitcoinDog Will Schoellkopf, author of _The Bitcoin Dog, Following Descent to the Bitcoin C++ Source Code_, and the novel _Bitcoin Girl Saved the World_. Today I've got burning on my mind the topic of Bitcoin parenting. In general, the advice I've gotten on parenting together with my wife, the mother of my kids, is it's much more important for us to have a united front rather than whether or not we agree or disagree. So of course, ideally, we would both agree on different topics of parenting or things, but when it comes to our two-year-old toddler and her acting out and testing her boundaries, what really matters is that her mom and I both stand firm on what are the boundaries or rules of the house, even if we're not in alignment. So to work that and to do that communication, I've tried to really be explicit and think about what are the boundaries she's testing, think of it for myself rather than just have the internet tell me, and try to think where I stand and where I think my wife stands. So definitely one of the ones is this concept of
## inside voice.
So our daughter has found her voice, you know, aren’t we thankful? And so she might shout or scream, or it's not even anger or crying, but just excitement and just excitements of glee. And it wasn't necessarily an issue until her baby brother was born, and he is only seven weeks old. He is a newborn. So when we finally get him to sleep, it's definitely our preference if we could use our inside voice. The thing is, I love my daughter. I love her. And when I go to, you know, change her, change her diaper at the changing table, it's just a moment, the two of us, no cell phone, no distractions. And then all of a sudden, she'll just yelp out, _eep_! And then I'll yelp out even louder, _eep!_ And then she'll yell even louder, **eep**! And then I'll yell even louder, ***eep***! Okay, this is the fun of having a podcast. I will, of course, transcribe this post for Stacker News. So you can leave your comments there or on Fountain. But yeah, so her mom, my wife heard this, and she was not thrilled that not only was my daughter shouting with glee, but I was egging her on and encouraging the behavior.
## So am I the third child that my wife has in the house?
So how important is it for me to enforce this boundary? You know, I don't want to just say, oh, yeah, no, makes sense. Got to be quiet for inside voice. I really want to think about, I don't want to make empty promises. I mean, this is the beginning. These are the tests, the tests of our marriage and the tests of our parenting, you know, and it's important to think about these things deliberately and not just say what I'm supposed to say. For me, another one is
## feet on the table.
I can't believe it. I wish I was this flexible. I never thought of this. Have you ever been at your dining room table, your kitchen table, eating dinner, and then after eating a whole meal, think, I would like to just rest my feet on top of the table? Not once. I have not once thought of this, but my daughter has thought of it. This one, I definitely know I can't stand for. I have a visceral physical reaction. I don't even have the patience to wait to ask my daughter and work with her to take her feet off of the table. I will take my hand and sweep away the feet off of the table. ***There is no place for feet on the table at my house.*** I was ready and I was prepared for this concept of no elbows on the table, but the feet, so that was a new one. So as far as I can tell, my wife is on the same page with me, no feet on the table, but I know it's not beyond her to put
## her feet up on the dashboard of my car
but that is a discussion for another time. Definitely there are people out there who like putting their feet on the dashboard of people's car when they're in the passenger seat. So anyway, I'm not bitter about that. ***I'm not bitter***. We're not here to talk about that. Another one I didn't think of was I feed her food or dinner and then she
## leaves the table with the food.
That's pretty interesting. For me, I'm hungry. I'll just eat at the table. I'm hungry. Food's right there. Let's go. I'll finish eating, then I'll go play with my toys, do whatever I want. But for her, eventually she's done and really the example I have is breakfast time, and I try to save giving my daughter carbs, giving her a bagel until the end of breakfast, because if I give it to her right at the start, there's a chance that's all she'll eat. I try to focus on her having her eggs, her protein, her sausage for breakfast. And we do have a dog, the Bitcoin🐕 , Sheila, Australian cattle dog. So my daughter, the other day, we finished breakfast and she runs off with a piece of bagel in her hand. But ultimately for my wife and I, how much do we want to enforce this boundary? We're trying to eat breakfast too. We're trying to eat at the table too. If she is preoccupied off to other things, she ate her eggs, she ate her sausage, let her go. Let us have a chance to eat in peace before baby brother wakes up. And what happened? My daughter goes out into the living room, the dog, very smart. Sheila, the Bitcoin dog is _very smart_. She is tracking that bagel. And I know what Sheila's thinking,
>like stealing a bagel from a baby.
And sure enough, my daughter's not looking. Sheila's not biting Paige's hand. She's not biting skin or anything, but she just takes the bagel right out of Paige's hand. And here come the waterworks, Paige crying. So what am I to do? A Bitcoin parent, **low time preference**. My daughter's crying because the dog took the bagel and she's not just crying. She wants another bagel. She wants more bagel. The dog took her bagel. Now, of course, my dog is not supposed to steal food. My dog is not supposed to take food on the table, but we definitely use the dog as a vacuum cleaner to clean up all the food at the bottom of the table when we're done eating. So that's a boundary that the dog has kind of needled her way more and more to see what she can get away with. But so, I mean, really, how many kids do I have in this house? This four legged family member. So I told my daughter, no, no more bagel. That's it. You know, this is why we eat at the table. There are consequences for her actions. If she leaves the table with her bagel, she needs to be careful of the dog. The dog will take the bagel if she's not looking. But also, she could just stay at the at the table or even
## eating dinner.
I mean, these things I just never even thought of, like she'll just stop eating. It's not even a thing of leaving the table with the food, but she'll eat just some of her meal. She'll prioritize eating the rice over the chicken at dinnertime or eating the rice over the salmon. I'm not saying she won't have any salmon. I'll make sure she has some, but she'll not finish the meal. She'll have enough to satiate and then go on playing. And this is rare. But this did happen the other night, too, where we had an earlier dinner than usual and we put Paige to sleep a little earlier than usual. And as we put her to sleep, she said she was hungry and she wanted chicken.
>I want chicken. I'm hungry. I want chicken.
And as a parent, it definitely breaks your heart. I don't necessarily just want to put my daughter to sleep hungry. I don't want her to, you know, go to sleep hungry. But I offered her a full meal. I offered her a full dinner. And from the parenting podcast and parenting books I've read, this is perfect. This is the perfect moment. I know I talked about before on Stacker News how daddy's superpower for parenting is ***infinite patience.*** The best things to take advantage of in parenting and setting the boundaries, the podcast and books say _natural consequences_. So things happening from the outside world or from nature that you don't control. Dog taking bagel out of her hand, her stomach growling. So rather than cater to her, rather than come in at 10 o'clock at night, 11 o'clock at night offering her late night snack to bed because she didn't finish all her dinner, let this be a teachable moment. It's going to be hard for us to hear her crying through the night. Hopefully eventually she falls asleep, which she did. She did eventually fall asleep. And let it be a teachable moment for her and reassure her that in the morning we can have a big breakfast. And then the next night for dinner we can eat a full meal. So that's what we did. That worked out well. So, so far I think the only boundary I've identified that I don't see eye to eye on with my wife is the inside voice. The one that maybe my wife does that I'm not the biggest fan of is, well, there's a lot of things I'm okay with. Definitely having the toys all over the room. But I can, I can appreciate how that's not good. I think what, I think what my wife does is she's very supportive of having Paige help cook with us and really getting into baking and
## baking those tasty treats.
But it does lead to a big mess. It does lead to flour all over the kitchen. My style, I am much more a clean as you go cook, clean as you go chef. And I can appreciate that when you're with a toddler, it's enough to just make sure they're safe, make sure they're not burning their finger on the stove, which she's already touched a hot skillet and that's okay. Put some neosporin on it. But I appreciate, I can see how when we're cooking together in the kitchen, it just makes a big mess. So I don't think it's a, you know, a boundary crossed with me necessarily. I love the benefits of my daughter baking with her mom. I've been eating _cranberry bliss bars_. They're absolutely delicious. But it is a consideration to say that, oh, I just see that mess. And I know I will be cleaning it up just because it bothers me if there's flour on the floor. I don't want to just walk on the flour or step on the flour and then have it lead to a bigger mess walking around. It sounds so obvious, but it just is the case that when it comes to cleaning, my wife's focus is much more on deep cleaning, like _deep cleaning_ the bathtub or _deep cleaning_ the shower or _deep cleaning_ the sink itself. These are things that I just don't see. And when I clean, I've learned to not call it cleaning, but _tidying up_ because it's not actually cleaning the floor. If I wipe all the flour spilt on the floor up, I didn't actually clean the floor. I just tidied up the floor and tidied up the flour. But I want to be loving and I want to be supportive. And I think it's great that we're involving her in the cooking. So let me know what you think. Let me know what you think, Stacker News. Tell me what you think. It's so early, listeners.
## I could use some guidance.
I could use some help when it came to your parenting or even reflecting on your own childhood if you don't have kids. What were the boundaries that were tested? And which boundaries do you think are worth enforcing? It's a wild concept because it's not just you or your partner. Now it's your two-year-old toddler. And I will leave you again with what we say, when it comes to Bitcoin, ***it's so early!***
