But it doesn't say that. It doesn't say that the wife is off the hook if the husband is unloving. In fact many authors and leaders actually teach the opposite - that if a husband is unloving, the only solution is for the wife to submit even more.

Saying that every man who is abusive or domineering would be the same if it weren't for an ideology telling him that it's ok to be abusive and domineering - and whatever you and I may believe, there really are groups and leaders who say that - is like saying that ideas and beliefs don't matter, because they never influence behavior. In that case what does it even mean to say you live according to certain beliefs? And what about the influence on women's behavior? If a woman is being abused, and her pastor tells her to submit, so she keeps on being abused, that's abuse that wouldn't have happened if she believed otherwise. Even supposing that the husband didn't interpret it as a license for what he is doing. But he will. In many places the nominal teaching is "the wife must submit to the husband, and the husband must love the wife," but only the first part has any real force. Churches where a woman will be disciplined or thrown out for leaving an abusive husband, but nothing will ever happen to an abuser. Knowing that he has effective impunity in his community, but his victim will lose everything (even supposedly her salvation) if she stands up to him, will absolutely empower an abuser. And though obviously not all conservative churches are like that, I think it is fairly widespread for people to implicitly regard the submission part as the really serious, binding aspect and the "love your wife" aspect as pretty window-dressing. This exploits women's consciences, because she has to keep submitting no matter how unloving he is.

But headship/leadership oriented leaders and communities are often content to be used as such an excuse - there are too many stories of women being told to submit to abuse, too many books published about how the key to happy marriage is for the wife to be a doormat. There's a hint of No True Scotsman in these points about what headship "really" is. It's not the loving, gentle husbands that people are worried about.

Children are image-bearers of God. They are not the image-bearers of God, elevated above all others. You can respect a child without giving them absolute veto power over adult desire to keep a conversation on an adult level, or even just on topic. In fact that is not respecting their need to learn appropriate social skills for when they grow up. Normal courtesy dictates that a newcomer to a conversation wait for an appropriate opening and do their best to blend in and be a constructive conversation partner for the others, unless of course the interruption is urgent. Children need to be helped to develop this skill. Shutting everyone else down and attending to them 100% the moment they appear - again, barring urgent needs - does not teach them that. A child who's taught that their desires and feelings always trump those of every adult don't learn that children are more important than adults - they learn that "I am more important than everyone else" and you run a serious danger that as adults they will behave accordingly.

My child's school provides everything. (Urban district, mix of middle-class and lower income.) Things that are communal for the classroom, like wipes and tissues, the teacher sends out a note asking for donations. I would not be in a position to spend $100 on school supplies. I wonder what percentage of parents are actually doing that. 48 pencils and 7 boxes of crayons suggest it's quite low and the few parents who comply are being taken for a ride. I would complain to the principal. It's not even legal anyway. My district is not rich and they manage to provide everything.

You have moved the goalposts from joining in the conversation to might wander by to happens to be in the house. So my response to the first version is being used to paint me as a ninny for being overly concerned about the later versions. That's unfair. And actually there have been times in my life where I have discussed the mechanics of sex with a sister or trusted female friend. I think that's fairly normal. I don't know why it's being painted as an absurdity.

Yeah, that doesn't help. Sorry, but I won't be discussing my libido with your kids, either.

My boundaries about whom I want to know about what's going on with my body are not up for negotiation. It does not need to be "pornographic" to justify not telling someone else's teenage son all about it. In fact I don't need any justification - and I'm raising my child that she doesn't need to justify her privacy either. The image of "frantically shooing" etc is a deprecatory stereotype of women who desire discretion. Such silly ninnies, right? That's not fair. Just because I don't want to discuss my body with your teenage son doesn't make me a prude. I discuss health issues with my husband just fine. Amazingly, I have different boundaries for him than for my friends' teenage sons. And if boundaries are silly and contemptible, what happens when a kid has something *they* don't want to share? If they've been taught all their lives that modesty is for stupid ninnies, where's their line of defense against people who want to have that conversation for nefarious reasons?

It's one thing for kids to be informed on sex and bodies in general. It's another for them to be privy to information about the specific sex lives and bodily processes of the adults in their lives. The latter is extremely unhealthy. Not necessarily in the sense of grooming for molestation, but there are subtle psychological forms of abuse where the child's privacy and growing sense of boundaries are subverted by excessive "openness." Sometimes people drift onto adult topics opportunistically, when the kids happen to be out of earshot. If the kids come along, you either drop it or brush the kids off, depending on the situation. I would have a lot of trouble with someone who expected a discussion of adult female body issues to continue in the presence of her 13 year old son. I almost can't imagine that. I would certainly steer well clear of a circle where it was the norm.

I'm not "children should be seen and not heard," but the idea that you should book a night in a hotel, or even a difficult to coordinate night out - to justify an adults-only conversation is bonkers to me.

Honestly, I hope this suggestion is not taken amiss but if you truly have a 24 hour caretaking commitment, you might consider bricks and mortar school. I do not agree that six months to a year of bare minimum is ok once they start getting into upper elementary/"logic stage." I'm also not sure how suitable it is for a young girl to spend her days off to the side of a caregiving situation in a home not your own, if I understand correctly about you and her having to virtually move in. Interest-led science and social studies is very afterschooling-friendly, but I don't think you should endanger the basics (and your own sanity) by pushing yourself to the limit. At this age they really need someone who can give substantial feedback on the structure of their writing etc. You would be free to go back to homeschooling at any time. Please don't take this the wrong way. Your situation sounds extremely challenging. I agree with PP about boundaries /ground rules about your duties in a household with a capable but "old-fashioned" male companion. You are not there to play maid to him - in your shoes I think I might bring my husband into the picture to help communicate that, if it's a question of male attitudes. I don't know if that would work in your family dynamic, it just ticks me off on your behalf! You can only do so much.

Children Just Like Me is a beloved favorite in our house. It doesn't have every country but it is the best for giving an idea of daily life in most regions of the world. It does feature a child from Korea (actually a pair of twins). It is a little dated (about 20 years old I think) but still an excellent resource. If you search I think you can also find kid-friendly webpages about the culture of most countries.

No, having one of those things happen is not majorly traumatic. Having them happen regularly on an ongoing basis, starting before you're old enough to really understand it, often with a patent element of sadistic pleasure in your fear (e.g. laughing as you run away), never quite sure how far this one will escalate, no clue whether he's been following you in his car for three blocks for jollies or because he plans to make you disappear - yes, that's quite traumatic. And although intellectually I can see the point about degrees of severity, on a visceral level it ruined me for such distinctions because my ultimate overall take on those experiences is that my friends and I were being deliberately terrorized with fear of the worst for men's amusement. Excessive concern for the not-that-badness of the lesser incidents tends to excuse the whole phenomenon. When I was ten years old, I just didn't have enough knowledge of the world to know that someone who was serious about raping or kidnapping you probably wouldn't start by following you down the street loudly making disgusting comments. Also my experience of flashers was not that they "run past," but corner a vulnerable individual.

There is evil in the world. I'm allowed to talk about my experience of it. Even if that challenges the narrative that a low chance of things happening means a guarantee that they will not happen. Yes, I used words to communicate my thoughts. There's a difference between that and judgement. I feel very judged by you. You are needling me by throwing trauma I stuck my neck out to share back in my face repeatedly. Please stop.

No, that is not what was stated. I just went back and re-read and I was quite careful about talking about the parameters of my own experience and how it affects my feelings about the statistics.You are interpreting me uncharitably because you perceive judgment and a desire to limit your choices where there is none. And now you are holding up the experiences I shared of having to run away from threatening men as an object of ridicule, similar to your rhetoric in the bathroom thread where you mocked her concerns about "perverts just waiting to jump on your son." You have belittled trauma by using the sarcastic phrase "scarred for life" in the context of saying the kinds of things that happened to me are no big deal. You don't need to do any of this to justify your choices with your kids. You don't have to justify your choices at all. I don't see anyone demanding that you do, and by talking about my personal pain I certainly didn't mean to.

How do you think Latin will help with another language? If there's no desire to actually use Latin, why not spend that time on the language you actually do want to learn? I love Latin (have a degree in classics) but it has a lot of grammatical structure not found in Spanish, French, etc., which is wasted effort unless you want to read Latin authors. The study skills are different from a living language, too.

Yeah, I can't imagine separating an adult couple if one wasn't my kid. And even if one was my kid, after a certain age (probably 25ish) I would have to accept if they weren't following my morals. It just seems inhospitable to force your morals. It seems arrogant to think that just because someone is your guest, that gives you moral authority over them. And it's icky to get into the details of someone's relationship that way.

Yeah the idea that that's a moral hazard worth turning someone out of your house to avoid... what?! Getting into some kind of territory like the girl's interest in her boyfriend is inherently nefarious/shameful.

I guess I just don't like the idea that a child's bf/gf is an object of suspicion. Yes there is reason to be protective because of the sexual element. But the girlfriend/boyfriend should also be considered... a friend. And parents should have care for their children's friends. When your children are with their friends, you should feel that their parents are looking out for your kids as well as their own. It's totally possible that a kid could concoct a reason to stay over. But if you're sure that's not what your kid is doing, as Goldberry seems to be, and the other parent is acting like that's the case, that's rough on the relationship between the families. Goldberry feels that these are honest kids, and she found out that that understanding isn't shared.

And sometimes they kill people, sometimes themselves. The responsible thing to do is stop and take a nap.

Driving tired - as distinct from driving on a different schedule to the majority of society, sitting through school tired, etc. - is actually really dangerous. If a person consciously feels that they're not fit to drive, it's certainly dangerous. That "people do it all the time" doesn't make it less so. You're supposed to pull over and take a nap if you get to that point.

I would be more concerned about the safety of driving than I would about the daughter concocting a reason to be there. I think it is wildly unsafe to have a policy that anywhere a teen goes, they have to come back from on their own. (Or really any family member - I can't imagine telling my husband, if he called me in an emergency, "well you got yourself out there, better get yourself back!") Thinking you're better from an illness and then finding out you're really not is something that happens, and can't really be planned for, especially by young people with limited life experience. If I was in goldberry's shoes I would be concerned about their apparent lack of feeling for someone who's been dating their son a year and a half.

That's a really lovely way to characterize my sharing of painful experiences.

I mentioned that she's autistic in my first post on this thread and got pushback.

OK, that is extreme. I am talking about not letting an autistic 11 year old with weak social instincts travel around town unaccompanied, or become well and truly separated for extended periods in large public spaces, which is my understanding of "free range." I think there is a communication problem because some people are talking about a thirteen year old in the front yard and some people are talking about an eight year old on the city bus.