Dads: what challenges of raising a child scares you the most today?

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  1. The accessibility of street drugs. They were there when I was younger, but not as accessible as they are now.

  3. As a father who lives in Canada were weed is legal, drugs is my main concern. This followed by glorifying promiscuous style of life (for both boys and girls) and the hookup culture. I see plenty of young people now a days reaching their mid ’30s to make ’40s and they still single and have no intent of starting the family because of the hookup culture.

  4. Allowing them a phone soon enough (because come on, be with your time) while realising every single danger of the internet and the complete uslessness of “protective measurement” these days and the very very naive mind of a child jumping into this world with their eyes locked onto the pink clouds in the distance

  7. There’s just such a huge gap between my experience growing up and theirs. I feel like i had more in common with my grandparents upbringing in the 1940’s than my own kids have with mine in the 1990s/2000s. Like the whole dynamic of friendships and how people communicate and how families interact with eachother and all that kinda shit, when I was a kid past age 10 i was basically on my own program as long as I came home in time for dinner, in the summer i could call home once or twice and stay out for 5 days straight sleeping at friends houses and shit and there were always just kids hanging out around town you could hang out with even if u didnt know anyone, i made all my own choices without a care and shit just worked out, there were more places like Arcades and shit where it was like a kids world, neighborhood kids would come knock on the door to play. Parents would kick your ass out the house and tell u to go “play outside” all day unsupervised, and it was great. Mental Health? ADHD? Anxiety? Depression? Never thought about that or knew what it meant til i was almost an adult. Pretty much none of that is acceptable or exists today.

    luckily my kids love sports and skateboarding, and the team sports and skate parks dynamics haven’t changed much over the years or else i’d be totally lost lol

  8. Social media is about it. Even with that, you are the one that has to help build a solid foundation and realize your kid is watching your behavior too

  10. The fact if i had a child, i would have to have their Birth Cert, and other proof of them being mine, or risk getting labeled a predator.

    If their mother left, or passed away, i would have to fight for custody, because single dads are not fit to be parents /s.

    Schools that dont punish the bullies, but do punish the victims when they finally fight back.

    Corrupt government officials making everything more expensive, and then claiming they lowered costs when in reality, the cost is still 150% higher than it was a year ago, but hey, its down 50% from 2 months ago.

  11. In general, but in no particular order:

    1. Drugs
    1. Social media usage and its impact on self esteem
    1. Climate change

  12. My daughter’s best friend at the age of 15 ended her life. I can’t tell my kids enough how much I love them.

  14. As a teacher, my biggest concern is raising a child who cannot overcome adversity. Parents of today are way more involved and caring on the whole than my latchkey upbringing, which is, for the most part, a wonderful trend. Unfortunately though, between helicopter parenting and the effects of Covid, I have SO many students who completely shut down when facing the smallest of hurdles. I have heard enough stories from my parents and in-laws to know that the hard-ass approach their parents took post-WWII wasn’t good either. My biggest fear is missing the sweet spot of teaching discipline and strength of character without being a pariah.

  16. Random mass shootings. Anytime anywhere by anyone scare the shit out of me for my kids.

  17. Trying to prevent my kid from ending up with my wife’s temper, and my technology addiction. Wish me luck!

  18. My son is 9, I have already taught him that no matter what he does he can always come to me, tell me everything and seek help. I also taught him to approach carefully to everything unknown. I think I prepared him well for incoming teenage years, of course there will be more lessons in the appropriate time but I think I did the good job so far.

  21. Culture. Both sides of the spectrum of tradition and progression kinda suck right now. We are “live and let be” people, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to just be. I am afraid my son will be pressured to be one way or another, and not just be left alone to be who he is and not care how others are.

  23. I’m 42. My dad died around the age of 50. As healthy as I feel, I have an anxiety that rears its ugly head, if I imagine I am not here to look after both them and their mother, due to getting ill or dying.

  24. Education. This requires some commitment which they just might not have, and in that case I have no idea what to do. Especially when they are being poured on the propaganda that they have the _right_ to not do shit and everybody should just maintain them like some pets.

  25. Having a daughter, social media scares me the most. With boy/young men, the option to gravitate towards video games, mma, car racing is so much easier. Girls will eat up the “thumbs up” and will also get crushed by any kind of negativity.

  26. Navigating a world where all of their dumb, youthful mistakes are either going to be recorded, or encapsulated on social media. Every teenager is an idiot, and they deserve to not have those memories preserved.

  27. Not a dad but if i had a daughter, i’d probably monitor what shes doing online. You never know if she could be linking up with a grown ass man.

  28. Having my kid be easily influenced by smooth talkers, con men, and all around shitty people.

  30. My kids have grown up bathed in social media from the moment they were born. We’ve invented a bunch of stuff in a short time but we basically have the same brain that allowed for enough bandwidth to interact with a couple dozen people regularly.

  31. The internet at a young age is concerning. But Im also trying to push my sons to be more confident in talking and just overall. I don’t want them thinking they need mom to go everywhere with them all the time. Might just be an age thing but I worry about their futures all the time

  32. Tomorrow’s Jordan Peterson will be influencing the men who will attempt to date my daughter one day, and I’m too handsome for prison.

  33. My biggest concern is kids being able to persevere through hardship. I see it so much with people talking about running at the first sign of trouble at work, in relationships, etc. There is obviously a balance to be had there between staying in a toxic situation for the sake of staying, but if you can’t persevere through difficulty, you’ll never accomplish anything of value.

  34. Them being accused of something they didn’t do or was misinterpreted. I have personal experience with this and would hate to have them go through it.

  35. When my kids growing up was the cost. money to play sports ,Buying them new cloths they needed.. like that… music instrument lessons. I was laid off lot.. playing ball signing up for different sports cost$$ I kept them away from hockey that was biggest$$ sport..

  36. I agree with technology allowance in general, and I can only imagine what’s next for social media and the internet to combat as a parent.

    Biggest thing I will teach my son is to

    A: Fact check anything you see online that could be questionable.
    B: Always remember that there’s two sides to every story, if you can get both perspectives so that you can reach middle ground to come up with a solution.
    C: Be kind, you never know what other people are going through.

  37. Honestly it’s the being a dad thing. I love my kid like crazy but I consistently feel like I can’t do anything right or don’t really know how to be a dad.
    But that stems from learning from my dad who worked out of town and was home 3-6 weeks for the whole year. My son is almost 2 now and I still feel like I dont know how to be a dad

  38. Not enough time. My daughter is a really smart soccer player and my son is high functioning autistic and smart as well. I’m a single dad with 90% custody. I’m scared of coming up short before they are adults

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