Hey, HotTakes aficionados! Roger here, swerving through your digital neighborhood with another piping hot slice of life that’s more tangled than my earbuds after a jog. 🏃♂️💨 So, buckle up, because you’re in for a rocky ascent as we navigate the peaks and valleys of familial duty, ADHD, and the age-old question: to climb or not to climb? That is the question. And trust me, you’ll want to stick around for **Roger’s Hot Take** at the summit of this tale—it’s a view you won’t want to miss.
Imagine, if you will, a story so steeped in the adrenaline of rock climbing and sibling rivalry it could only be real. And real it is, my dear readers, plucked straight from the fertile grounds of Reddit’s very own garden of quandaries. This saga stars an anonymous 28-year-old, rock climbing aficionado, tasked with the Herculean duty of introducing the sport to his eager niece, Abby (7F), and nephew, Bart (8M).
Now, our protagonist had the foresight to test the waters at a local gym rather than the great outdoors, a move that soon proved prophetic. Picture this: Bart, a child as spirited as a caffeinated squirrel, transforms the climbing gym into his personal jungle gym. Despite his uncle’s best efforts and a heart in the right place, Bart’s exuberance, fueled by ADHD, quickly escalates from playful to precarious, turning a family outing into a one-man chaos theory demonstration. Abby, on the other hand, seems to take to climbing like a duck to water—focused, excited, and manageable.
Faced with a conundrum more intricate than a belay knot, our guide decides to scale back his ambitions, opting to take only Abby on future climbs. A decision met with initial agreement from the sister turned sour as the story unfolds. The familial peace, once hanging by a thread, now faces the ultimate test. Bart feels left out, and our climber is caught between a rock and a hard place: the safety and enjoyment of one child over the emotional well-being of another.
Now, before you rush to judgment like a climber speeding for the first hold, let’s rappel down into the crux of this situation. Yes, Bart has ADHD, a condition that turns his world (and those around him) into an everlasting whirlwind of energy. And yes, our conscientious climber, empathetic to Bart’s plight due to his own experiences with ADHD, finds himself at a moral crossroads. The sister’s argument, “my kids, my rules,” echoes the ancient battleground of familial rights versus individual responsibility.
**Roger’s Hot Take:** Life, much like climbing, isn’t about erasing the challenges but learning how to navigate them. Our climber isn’t an antagonist for prioritizing safety and peace of mind. Instead, our focus should shift to creating an environment where Bart can participate in his own time, under the right conditions. Perhaps it’s not about what’s fair, but what’s right for each child. Separating the siblings’ activities isn’t a punishment but an acknowledgment of their unique needs and strengths. To scale the wall is to understand it, to know when to push forward and when to anchor yourself. Let’s encourage solutions that celebrate our differences, elevate our unique talents, and, most importantly, keep everyone safely anchored in the belay of family support.
And there you have it, lovely people. Another day, another dilemma solved by your very own Roger. Remember, whether you’re climbing mountains or navigating the rocky terrains of life, the view at the top is worth the ascent. Stay sassy, stay savvy, and keep reaching for those peaks. Until next time, it’s Roger, signing off.✌️🧗♂️
Original story
I (28M) like to rock climb and have been doing it on and off since I was a teenager. I have a niece Abby (7F) and nephew Bart (8M). They have always asked me to take them climbing but I always said wait till you’re older because I didn’t want to take them until I could trust them to follow instructions. Well a few weeks ago I took them to a gym for the first time and it was a nightmare. Bart is generally a good kid but very ADHD and once he got hyped he stopped listening entirely and I spent most of our time together trying to prevent him from hurting himself or other people. He ran around on the mats, constantly got underneath other people and unhooked an autobelay despite being explicitly told not to during induction (if you don’t know the autobelays retract up to the ceiling if they’re not hooked up to something and a disgruntled gym employee has to climb up to retrieve it). It was impossible to supervise him and Abby at the same time and no one had a good time, and tbh I was worried they were going to kick us out.
The next week I told my sister I would only take Abby because Bart was so hard to deal with. She agreed and it was way easier with just Abby. I started taking Abby climbing once a week which she loves but now my sister has changed her mind and doesn’t want me taking the kids climbing unless I take both of them. Apparently Bart is upset about being left behind and now my sister is saying it’s unfair to exclude him because he can’t help having ADHD. Well I have ADHD too so it’s not like I can’t sympathize with him but at the same time there’s no way I’m taking both of them again anytime soon, it’s a safety issue. I’m open to trying again in 6 months or something once Bart is a bit older but in the meantime I don’t think it’s fair to prevent Abby from doing something she likes just because her brother can’t do it. But my sister said my kids my rules and basically implied I was an asshole for knowingly hurting Bart’s feelings. I like Bart and I’m happy to do other stuff with him but I’m not taking him climbing until he can listen. I don’t think I’m unreasonable, AITA?