AnarchistArtificer

Stuff like this can be a useful tool to assuage one's insecurities. I reckon it's necessary to be mindful to not lean too heavily on external validation, but in moderation, it can be useful to reassure oneself and hopefully in the long run, outgrow one's insecurities.

I did something like this when I was running a DnD game for the first tim, and I was so emotionally exhausted and uncertain at the end of every session. Doing a questionnaire type thing helped

That's probably who I'm remembering; I recently discovered his work.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm from the UK, and whilst things are less politically dire here than the US, it's still pretty grim. Both the Conservatives and Labour seem reluctant to actually meaningfully tax the rich, even as the working class (and to a lesser extent, the middle class) are being squeezed by a cost of living crisis and general hopelessness. Parties like Reform are taking the racist "things are bad because we have too many immigrants" and I've recently realised that I need to stop resenting people for being taken in by that rhetoric; people are desperate and there aren't people in the mainstream pushing for alternatives (besides Reform). These people have a lot in common with me, such as recognising that we're being fucked but the system, but we just disagree on the solution. It's hard, but ultimately necessary to be able to be in solidarity with people like Reform' voters

I can't remember the particular phrase that was used, but I heard an argument recently that we need to be more like politicians going on an interview and ensure that we're more on message. For example, it's fairly obvious by now that economically, the problem is wealth inequality, but I see fairly surprisingly few people discussing that.

Not very good, but that's sort of the point for me; my favourite part of any hobby is the learning. I did a woodworking class the other day!

It's taken a lot of work to get to the point where I can be comfortable with being mediocre at something and just doing it for the joy of it. I'm quite an intense person, with perfectionist tendencies, so it's nice to be able to carve out some things that I can be more chill about.

I don't think you're missing anything. I think that your co-workers bragging is one of the toxic effects of how we tend to think about productivity nowadays, especially in America. I think that there's a tendency to glorify suffering (i.e. sacrificing time with your family to do so much work that by the time you get home to your family, you're too exhausted to be fully present with them).

I know fathers who effectively didn't have a choice about spending time with their newborns, because of a mixture of social pressures (especially gendered pressure from extended family) and financial pressure (such as not having access to paternity leave), who then go on to brag about how much they worked and sacrificed, framing it as if it's a choice they're glad they made. I think that for some people, this nonsense rhetoric is what they tell themselves to cope with the fact they were effectively coerced into something they regret.

Long story short, you're not missing anything. You are, in some ways though, going against the grain: even in places that have paid paternity leave, that alone isn't enough to change the tide of social attitudes. That change happens because of people like you who go "fuck this nonsense, I'm not making a martyr of myself to support my family when I can do a much better job supporting them if I'm there with them".

Unfortunately, based on reports from friends who are fathers, this is just scratching the surface of people being weird about men who are enthusiastic and engaged fathers. It sounds like you've got your priorities in order though. Your coworkers are very silly, and even if you don't feel it appropriate or necessary to tell them how absurd they are, you should at least internalise the fact that you are the sensible one here. An analogy that comes to mind is how, if your employer matches your 401k contributions, it's a no-brainer to take advantage of what is basically free money. If someone has "spare" salary and asked for financial advice online, one of the first and most basic suggestions is often that if you're not already taking advantage of any 401k match your employer offers, you definitely should be. It's free money! Similarly, taking advantage of the paid paternity leave is a no-brainer. This isn't a challenge run in a video-game, so there aren't any prizes for making things needlessly harder for oneself.

Edit: Also, I bloody hate it when people say shit like this:

"Most men are hard working and want to support their families so they don't take leave".

The subtext they're saying here is "I don't acknowledge parenting (and other caring labour) as being hard work, and I certainly don't acknowledge how critical essential this labour is for the world to function. I assume that this work is primarily for women, because this allows me to ignore it and the people who do it, which allows me to feel more important. The only way I can maintain my self identity as 'hardworking' is if I implicitly demean others' hard work".

It's bullshit, and your instincts are right to flag this shit as weird. Parenting is bloody difficult, and anyone who makes comments like this are actively reinforcing old systems that led to many fathers not being given the opportunity to be active fathers.

Anyway, rant finished. I'll finish this edit with something I forgot to say in my main comment: congratulations, and good luck in the weeks to come. And well done on taking this paternity leave, because that helps to disrupt the existing, outdated systems of traditional family structure that make everyone miserable. The impact of one person's choice is only small, but if enough people opt for their family over slaving over the altar of capitalism, I hope that we can build a world where a father wanting to actively be a father is treated like the normal thing it is.

I agree, it's one of my favourite internet things.

You may already be aware of this, but on the off chance that you're not, here's a cool thing: https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/

"Its one of the reasons its hard to have political discussion online. You have to determine what the words your using mean, before you can start arguing the points. "

This notion isn't one that's new to me, but for some reason, the way you've phrased it here is evoking some interesting reflection for me: I think that some of my most productive online arguments have been when the contention is what words mean. For example, when a transphobic statement is made by someone who is actually just an oblivious cis person, I've found that a "semantic calibration" can get at the root cause of their problematic statement (the hard part is discerning whether a person is genuinely engaging in good faith vs. being an asshole with plausible deniability. I don't always get it right, but people usually reveal quite quickly whether they're worth engaging with).

There have also been times when I have had the outsider's view of someone else's discussion as involving people talking past each other by using the same words to mean different things. Sometimes, I've found it possible to wade into an ongoing discussion and diffused a lot of tension by clarifying these definitional problems.

On the flip side, it's often not worth it to engage in political discussions online if it's apparent from the outset that it would just be too much work to clarify everything because you recognise that you're coming at the topic from a completely different direction than the person you're considering talking to.

Yeah, that's often the result (and like you, I also find this to be worthwhile nonetheless), but it depends on the context. Sometimes it plays out like this though (image below) and the trolling potential is glorious

Ooh, thanks for sharing this. I clicked on it thinking I had already read it before, but this is actually new to me. It looks interesting

This is well articulated. This dynamic is something I think of a lot, because as a cis woman, I often have a disproportionate level of social power in scenarios similar to this

If this was a joke, it wasn't a very good one