u/CrispyJezus

I’ve been having a thing recently in where overconsumption is giving me the “ick”.

Since Covid, it’s obvious people are trying to declutter after so much impulse buying. It’s now nearly impossible to resell things in my city, even for free, because everyone wants to declutter.

I look at my local thrift store which is overflowing with donations and I worry where the clothes/furniture/decor goes if nobody wants them or if they cannot be worn.

I try to think of ways to repurpose unwearable clothes, but I don’t want to take up space with useless decorations in my room either.

I know I can’t fix hyper-consumerism alone. I wish we simply had a “delete” button like in video games.

So I’m not a parent (yet) but I plan to be in the future! I have two energetic little brothers who I have a large age difference with, so I definitely have some “experience” first-hand.

However, I have an small issue in where I’m not good at coming up with solutions or consequences in the moment, and often freeze up in a way. While I understand not every action needs a consequence ASAP, there will obviously be times where I need to resolve things immediately.

An example is when I took my brothers (8) to the local café for a treat. Brother #1 wanted to ride their bike on the way there, which I said yes to, as it is literally 250 meters away from our house (275 yards-ish for Americans?). However, I did not realize he took Brother #2’s helmet. Brother #2 tries to take the bike on the way back because “it’s my helmet!” Brother #1 refuses because “it’s my bike!”.

I stood frozen thinking for around 45 seconds, until I decided nobody gets the bike on the way back because:

1. I wasn’t gonna force Brother #2 to share his helmet
2. I wasn’t gonna force Brother #1 to share his bike
3. My mother, as well as the town LAW says no bikes without helmets, which is perfectly reasonable

I also gave them the whole not-taking-what-isn’t-yours talk.

Time has passed, and I can’t help but think if I gave Brother #2 the short end of the stick on this? After all, he got his helmet taken.

I know parenting is all about making mistakes, etc, and this isn’t the biggest situation, but I want to be prepared as possible for common situations, especially when I need to think fast (tantrums in public scenarios, for example).

Does this just come naturally with more experience?

I’m not sure if this happens to anyone else, but I downloaded Roblox a few weeks ago to be able to bond with my little brothers.

Unfortunately, as I’ve been playing it daily, I’ve noticed it’s making me more angry and impatient, not about the game itself, but… in general?

I get more irritated about little things, such as when I’m doing something and someone interrupts me, unexpected loud sounds, and just general random rage.

I’ve been using gaming as an “escape” and I’m wondering if it has something to do with this, or it’s just my accelerating symptoms.

I’ve seen various media about the school system in china, both online and from actual Chinese people I have met that have immigrated to my country. All my Chinese friends have agreed that the Chinese school system is indeed considered “hard”.

However, I’ve seen various media of foreign families living in china, and have their fluently Chinese-speaking kids in Chinese public school, and they often do vlogs about homework, etc.

I’ve seen most families say that the kids really only have about an hour of homework per night, and that it’s the optional “extra classes” that take up a lot of time, and that the hyper-competitive parents are really the ones who put all the pressure on the kids, not the actual curriculum. Hence, the idea that Chinese kids get home from school late, sleep late, etc.

Now, I can imagine it’s a bit hard to generalize, as each province may have their own curriculum, each family is different, and of course this differs between elementary/middle/high school.

But how much of this is pressure is due to the Chinese school system vs. Chinese school culture?