Role models

I think it’s a good idea for partners to have their own dedicated space that they can decorate for themselves and keep their hobbies in. It helps keep the rest of the house tidy and allows for a little bit of a personal safe haven. Obviously, the traditional conception of a ‘man cave’ isn’t great, but I think that there is a way it can be approached non-toxically

Fuck that, I'm doing my soldering in the kitchen because that's where the best light is
- "IF I'M BREATHING LEAD WE ALL ARE!"
- Bro needs some 4000K 90 CRI 20W/m strips
- This is so true, heck I've even 'baked' some custom PCB boards in the oven to do some cheap reflow... Every man belongs in the kitchen, that's where all the big boy tools are
- And where the snacks are too!
- People REALLY underestimate the value of lighting. My wife likes it dim on the main floor. I am constantly reminding her that we evolved in caves for 100k years and finally have fucking light and she's squandering the advantage.
- Please don't melt heavy metals in food prep areas.
- Also you get a free fume extractor.
- Get an architect's lamp
I'd hope that nobody would disagree with this.

The toxic aspect isn't from wanting space apart from your spouse, it's in sending signals (even ironically or in jest) that the family you are a part of is something you hate, that your family is cramping your individuality, and that you want to escape from them.

Everyone needs their own time and space. Just because you married another human doesn't make you any less of an individual, and having healthy opportunity for time apart is essential.
Obviously, the traditional conception of a ‘man cave’ isn’t great

It's not the "traditional concept", it's the juiced up consumerist fantasy. The traditional man-cave is literally just the garage or the basement, where you keep your power tools.
- What if I'm not qualified to glue two pieces of cardboard together? Where is my hideout?
- When I first heard the word "man cave" it seemed to mean rec room/rumpus room as marketed by Spike TV. A finished basement, bonus room above the garage etc. often furnished with such things as a pool table, dart board, leather couch, big screen TV for watching The Game, wet bar, etc. From there it transitioned to mean any space that is considered "his" in the home, which might only be the parts of the garage that aren't full of rubbermaid bins full of shit they own but never use.
  
  Side note, remember when houses had a room called the "den"?
Wine and nice sayings isn't a hobby. A sports team you don't participate in at all isn't a hobby. Drinking isn't a hobby.
- Maybe not your hobbies (or mine), but these are all examples of an activity that someone does for pleasure when they are not working.

Sign saying "Just one glass a day" picturing a giant wine glass the size of a goldfish bowl.

Hilarious.

Also, "live, laugh, love" but it's aspirational, not what ever actually happens.
- “survive, nervous chuckle, obsess”
Casual alcoholism goes hand in hand with the wife bad/husband bad boomer humor. Tbh we call it boomer humor but most people I've heard it from were much younger.
- It may be because the boomers are the last generation to consider it funny

They need good role models like their parents who take them to a local brewery and shove an iPad in their face then ignore them while the parents drink craft beer.

Parenting (and childhood) is intense and unrelenting. You can't expect parents to be on stage continuously and continue to be patient and kind. You also can't expect a 7 year old to be happy listening to their parents talk about work for 45 minutes. Taking breaks or responsibly drinking a beer is perfectly fine and isn't going to negatively impact the child any more than allowing them to watch some age appropriate media for the time before they eat.
- totally agree that parents need a break and a good drink. hell it is exhausting. but please avoid just putting them Infront of a screen. get the grandparents to look after them, let them sleep over at a friend's house, organise a nanny. as a society we are already too often starring at screens.
Don't hate. Parents are people too and that's their time. Kid time is the other 22 hours that day.
- Eh, you don't need to do that. You have about 2-3 good every night
I wonder if my perception is fucked or what i have to think about these things. I was once on a date in a restaurant and next to us was a family of 5 and the youngest was maybe 7 and he played Fortnite on an ipad most of the time. My date pointed this out as "rude" and "bad parenting" and i agreed. But it made me thinking. I think i had pretty good parents, and they dragged me and my sister to a lot of places i didn't want to be. But i was pretty happy as long as i could bring my gameboy. The boy was 7 of course he didn't want to sit in a restaurant and do conversation with adults.

Now my sister has two children that are 7 and 5 and my perception has changed again. It's absolutely scary how addicted kids are to phones. It's like watching crack addicts. They aren't even allowed on the phone a lot, but the things they would do to not even do anything interesting, and just press buttons and play the worst mobile games and watch the worst youtube videos ever created.

I liked games on my gameboy, and later game gear, but i never liked any game as much as my nephew likes to watch a minecraft video on youtube in a language he doesn't speak (and he never played minecraft.) it's truly bizarre, and because he only likes to watch these dumb ass videos and is only allowed to watch a short goodnight story every night if he behaves, he can't even watch a movie. The concept of something bad happens to a main character blows his mind so much that he never wants to watch a movie with me, and would rather watch elsa getting impregnated by spiderman. He loves the movie cars, and when i showed him cars 3, he couldn't understand how lightning mcqueen would not win at some point.
- my sister has two children that are 7 and 5...
  ...and would rather watch elsa getting impregnated by spiderman.
  
  Who is showing the kid R34 animations?
- Oh is definitely an addiction and it seems that's what modern parenting has become. I definitely remember being bored AF when my parents dragged me to places and am I could do was sit around while they enjoyed their time, but they also had the care to get a babysitter for a couple hours so they didn't have to drag us around.
  
  Nowadays it just seems everywhere I go there's always 2 under-7 kids with their noses buried in a phone or iPad blasting loudly in a public place, and their parents ignoring them while they scream and run around.
  
  I had a coworker who would routinely bring their 4 & 6 yr old to a local dive bar while their band plays at 10pm. Both only paying attention to their devices
- Those kids shouldn't have phones.
  
  Giving your child a phone is bad parenting.
Well, its that or they might end up with a family who holds freakish anti-social views like "Love is Love" and "Let kids play dress up, they're not hurting anyone".
:(

My wife really wanted a kid. I love my wife.

I gave her no illusions though. This world is fucked. This is either the beginning of another dark(enforced ignorance) age or the end of human civilization entirely. The kid is beyond fucked.

I have more of a "welcome to the shit show, kid" mindset. I can't protect him from this exploitative hellscape, any more than I could protect myself. Oh and please spare me the cliche "well you need to man up and find a way to give them an awesome life," as reality isn't a Disney movie.

I can show him the stuff I like and ways to protect himself a little, but man his generation's future is bleak.

My husband wants kids, I'm okay without for the same reasons as you and a big disgust of pregnancy. I have a lot of experience with kids in my career and we love kids, but it just seems the kindest thing to do for them is to not bring them into this world. We're planning on fostering once we're in a better financial position and hopefully adopting from there. I'd rather grow our family with a kid or toddler that already got the shit luck of being here.
Aside from global warming the world as a whole has been steadily improving. I think you are confusing the USA with the rest of the world. Empires collapse, it happens, that doesn't mean the whole world is on fire.
- I wonder what romans would have done to the barbarians if they had nukes.
- You would be surprised how other countries (including your favorite role model European ones) are fucking themselves up right now.
- Aside from global warming
  
  I get what you are saying. But that improvement has been possible only because of global warming. Today we have more energy (=workforce) at our hands than ever before. This has imported things, but it's living on bored time Global warming will start to deteriate our world in multiple ways, I fact it is doing so right now.
  
  A collapse of this system build on sand is a very real possibility. And it is a very real possibility that it will take less than a generation to happen.

We're going to have problems if you are attacking caves, who doesn't desire a cave?

Robin. He's fucking sick of caves. Do you know what bat guano smells like?
If it means paying less rent, I'd seriously consider cavelife.
- Rent is more because the climate control is free
Me desire cave.
- Children yearn for the mines
our ancestors spent tens of millions of years burrowing. its in our instincts. its why you want a headboard behind your bed.
- its why you want a headboard behind your bed.
  
  I don't understand... possibly because I've skipped the headboard for many, many years of my life. Could you please explain?

As a man who really loves teaching children and helping them solve their own problems, handing them a world full of problems is right up my alley

Children need exposure to a diverse set of role models or they turn into hateful, close-minded lizards spitting venom at healthy people for their choice in decor.