It should probably be noted that of of the biggest and earliest proponents of fundamentalist courtship was Joshua Harris has decried his book, "I Kissed Dating Goodbye", asked for it to be pulled by the publisher, and is now divorced with both he and his wife leaving Christianity. This kind of thing seems to do a lot of harm to a lot of people. It isn't like traditional dating is perfect, but at least choice is there, and one can figure out what works for him or herself vs. having it dictated.

Can I just say that tree reproduction should be banned in nature, and only lab produced trees created? 😁 Tree sex just about kills me, and makes early spring not fun even though I sooooooooo look forward to the end of winter! As for church, I am just a big fan of giving kids antihistamine in time to take effect before church, soccer, whatever, or stay home if not an allergy. Other families should not have to figure out what is wrong with the child or have to leave because of it. I know it gets old staying home with little ones because they get viruses all.the.time. But unfortunately, it really is what needs to happen, and we need to be a society in which this is very okay. No one needs the perfect attendance award at church, kid sports, piano lessons, etc.

I actually think that for most of us, it comes down to practicality and the undo burden placed on girls to make the get up work to the industry standard which has required "other" then the boys who do not have to bikini wax, tape their breasts, shave or wax legs, and armpits. It is so hard on the girls in puberty. I would be perfectly fine with basketball shorts and jerseys if it was practical, but for this particular sport, not.

LOL, I have NO idea what the Space Force is training for, and since Huntsville is the reported headquarters for it but personnel is just beginning to arrive, I am going to guess they aren't doing much at the moment.

Totally agree. It is kind of mind boggling! I mean, unfortunately, I do expect some "bean counting" here in calculating "do we fix it or not", but there is also the trial by public opinion and often that does help sway towards paying closer attention to.safety standards, and then ABET certification for colleges which requires safety coursework and ethics classes for engineering students. But yikes. The Chinese seem to have a bit of a wild west approach to some of this!

Snicker snicker, ya lots of naughty bit, but not in exactly the steamy kind of circumstances! 😂😂😂

Yes. I remember seeing a photo of that. One of the things they are totally against too is any career where the female would be alone with another male. Of course that means paramedicine is out because shifts and partners are not gender segregated. Locally, it has been a fairly male dominated field much like fire and law enforcement so our daughter had far more male partners than female, and it was pretty much a no worries kind of thing. But we were criticized by local non ATI/Vf fundies for "allowing" her to go into the profession. Of course we stared at them like they had two heads and just peeled their faces to reveal their lizard status because the whole thought of telling our daughter that we did not allow her as a legal adult to go into paramedicine was just nutty! But, many of these extreme fundies are against them becoming nurses, medics, accountants, IT professionals, you name it, any career in which they might not work practically exclusively with females thus the cottage industry stuff like flower arranging and wedding cakes without store fronts and professional quarters where they would go to work without chaperones or customer face with men.

I remember this story. I also had a similar experience to yours. A 28 year old new pastor approached my dad about courting me at 15.5 because "She plays the piano so well and she would make a great addition to my ministry". My dad had moderated his fundiness at that point and was a little squigged out by the guy thinking of me as an addition to his career. However, he did ask me what I thought at which point my mother got a look in her eye that might be called " murderous" and said if the guy came around, he might not like what happened to him, and then told my father that he could hit the road if he ever got any ideas like that in his head again. And that was the end of any interference at all in my romantic life. I dated whom I wanted to date, and left for college dorms before I turned 17 thus ending all parental involvement in my life since I did a lot of touring with music groups in the summer between semesters. I do like what the author of the article said, if the tables were turned and it wad a 27 year old woman wanting to become betrothed to a 13 year old boy, how would fundamentalist Christians react? Not well I suspect. Not well at all. I know I would have been at the police department in a nano second if any 27 year old had a romantic interest in my 13 year old no matter the gender. I would not have tolerated it at 17 and 27 because they still are not peers, and there is an imbalance in power at that age. 27 and 37? Well, okay go for it! My grandmother married at 16 to a 29 year old who had been attracted to her since she was 10. No joke. My grandfather died before I was born and I know of zero stories linking him to any other pedophilic tendencies, but I have to say that I think my great grandparents were absolutely horrible people for not telling him to hit the road. And because of illnesses, she was delayed in school so she never attended high school. She was a young widow with three kids, no education, no marketable skills, and no family willing to help. So she worked jobs that barely kept a roof over their heads and food on the table, then remarried the first chap who offered, and he turned out to be a violent person that she had to be rescued from. My other grandmother was forced into an arranged marriage at 16, and he was 27. It was really a very bad marriage though he was not abusive to her. Still, they ended up hating each other pretty quickly because he just assumed she would fall in line and be a quiet, mousey wifey poo. That didn't pan out! So you can imagine that given the family history, I am pretty anti- courtship, anti- young marriage, and especially when the age gap is big.

I agree to an extent about tetanus. But unfortunately, we do have a terribly litigious society, and some majors put students at higher risk, automotive and electrical engineering come to mind, but several others ad well including the Ag Science majors. So I am not at all adverse to colleges requiring them.

It is so scary. When it happened to the daughter of an acquaintance, our eldest boy was only a year away from moving into the dorms, so I got him in for the vaccine right away. MSU several years ago had it go around and lost multiple students.

A lot depends on the pressures of the local community. It isn't homogenous even though we think for them this way. The local leadership is absolutely draconian with the rules, and there are a lot of problems within the community because of it. Some groups are. A bit more relaxed and the word gets around so the ones that want to.be the strictest live together while the more relaxed are together. The local group is so darn strict that it staggers the imagination, and they just love a good shunning which is pretty off putting for the young folks. But, when we lived in Goshen, Indiana, the Amish were way more easy going. Their young folks, hilariously, often had radios in their buggies and listened to secular music. It was kind of hysterical to pull up to a stop sign behind an Amish buggy and here the oldies station playing from the buggy! And we had some great conversations with their young folks that would never happen here. Shoot, if their teens even spoke to us, they'd face a beating. The local leaders are just wretched, and the sheriff says there is a lot of domestic violence. So it can be quite varied. Unfortunately, due to the horrendous attitudes and the way the locals treat their wives and children, they have very, very bad reputation here.

Agreed. I really wish Lewis was fast enough to get the mole tearing up our yard, but he is getting too old.

I think for something like season ticket holders for the symphony, they will have a way to upload vaccine proof, and then the entire season's tickets will be mailed. They will likely go with an honor system - but the crowd that is into classical music is usually not your forgery crowd - and will then only check the single ticket holders. Season tickets bar code scan for the DSO. My guess is that summer Meadowbrook series will not require vaccination for attendance. It is pretty low risk. Outside picnic on the grass, bring your own chairs, and naturally socially distanced. There is amphitheater seating, but very limited, and they could just rope that off and not use it. Otherwise I would totally expect ID to be checked for 18+ maybe even 16+.

A lot of colleges do not see it that way. It goes around dorms rapidly and is a huge liability. College students have been known to feel sick, go to sleep, and die in their beds, especially meningitis B. I do not blame colleges one bit for requiring it. My sons' colleges require meningitis A and highly recommend B in order to live in the dorms. One thing everyone needs to consider is that while K12 education is mandatory, college is not, and there is no constitutional or basic human right to a college education much less to live in a dorm. There is no requirement for colleges to provide housing; it has just been a historical tradition dating back to when it was vitally necessary to provide room and boars because there was not a college in every little city. Therefore, colleges really can require what they want like it or not. They don't have to let everyone live in their dorms or attend their classes. There are definitely ADA and anti-discrimination laws they have to follow, but beyond that, students attend by privilege not by mandate. Colleges really do not have to accommodate no vaccinated students except those covered under ADA who provide medical documentation of being unable to vaccinate. So I find the backlash against requiring the covid vaccine, assuming it is fully approved and off the emergency use provision, a little disconcerting. It is as if folks feel their kids or they themselves have a legal right to attend in person classes or live in dorms, but they don't. There is no violation of rights whatsoever. And the colleges can require whatever level of documentation they want for the vaccine, and students produce it or do not attend. I get some people do not like it, but the reality is that it is what it is. With recent outbreaks of measles, chicken pox, and meningitis on college campuses these past few years, I think one can expect more mandatory vaccines in the coming years, not less. I would imagine that for those who are adamantly against such stipulations, some private, religious institutions will still exist that do not have these requirements and that is where those students will have to go. For the record, I am 100% for meningitis, MMR, chicken pox, covid, and tetanus being required to live on campus. My engineering student has worked with enough equipment to make me believe some majors must absolutely be required to keep tetanus up to date! A few years ago, three students died of meningitis in their dorm rooms at my middle son's college...roommates discovered them. The new variants of covid could wreck havoc on a college campus, but the vaccines so far are working on the most prominent variants here in Michigan. I am very aware that this is not a popular viewpoint for some folks. Oh well.

My only child with big feet fore his age and height eventually hit 6 ft 1" and is officially 1" taller than his dad. But he did not end up with big feet. He is a men's size 10 narrow.

Let me give a full review. The area is very pretty. The MT. Randall campground has modern sites with electric hookup, and an immaculate bathroom with five shower units. The water is not super warm. You get a luke warm to just barely above luke warm shower. There is a small playground. The camp store, run by the hosts, is limited. Ice - $6, firewood $6, pop and water, tourist stuff. Potable water to haul is at the spigot at the bathrooms. The other spigots are capped at the moment due to covid - ie. not going around to disinfect those at the moment. About 4/10ths of a mile from the campground is the trail head. There are about 13 trails around the dunes at a mile or a little less a piece but they kind of circle around and join up so the boys made them into a much longer hike for themselves. I did not do many of them because my ankle does not do well on sandy trails since it easily twists. I have to do more level, well packed trails. The day use area on the lake is lovely. Three huge bath house pavilions, tons of parking, dune climbing as well, but huge level beach for laying out. Water is of course still very cold, and given the lay of the land and water currents, I think rip tides could be an issue at times if one got out beyond wading distance into swimming distance. Some sites are quite shady. Ours was full sun. All come of with a big fire ring and a nice picnic table. Now that said, we were in site 130, and there is coon den 20 feet behind that site. Cutest trash pandas you have ever seen. We named them Ziggy and Roy. They are NOT afraid and therefore a menace. They will come within three feet of you, and sometimes sit up and beg! No kidding, apparently some folks have been feeding them Twinkies on a regular basis so now they just approach humans and beg for their next fix. Sigh. They tore a hole in our tent. So do not stay in site 130 or the neighboring ones. Look for sites on the interior loop instead of up against the woods which are deep. We encountered one deer dick and one brown recluse. Though I hate spraying, I think if I had to do it again, I would RAID and Deet a small area around the tent site and wait for fumes to dissipate before setting up my tent. Again, not a big fan of doing that, but health and safety have to be considered, and I think the sites near the woods will have a lot more ticks and recluses once the weather gets warm. Definitely wear some Deet when hiking though ticks will not be so bad on the dune trails since the vegetation is sparse. There is cheaper wood - larger bundles - at the gas station just up the road on Red Arrow Hwy where it meets with I-94. Also another place south on Red Arrow that makes outdoor furniture. Meijer and Ace hardware in Stevensville so if you forget something, you can pick it up without traveling too far. Campground was quiet. That said, it was not busy by any stretch since it is still chilly at night which keeps the tourists at bay. There is a rustic campground north of MT. Randall. No idea what it is like. We did not venture up there. Mark had to check into work a couple times and keep his work laptop at the ready just in case so we needed to have electric hook up.

Yes, I know an electrical engineer who travels for his company and has spent a lot of time in Japan and China, speaks Japanese and Mandarin fluently and often stays with host families arranged by his company. He said the wealth and tech difference between Japan and China is absolutely startling. China just has such major issues with poverty, and all technological advancements are made on a shoe string budget that takes vital money away from desperately needed public health, infrastructure, and assistance. They have some glam looking sections of their cities, and try to keep the tourism to the areas for show, but the real situation is pretty awful. And then there is simply the not caring all that much about human life from their government. Why spend money to properly and safely recover rockets when you don't care who or where they hit? The one thing their government seems to depend on is that no other nations will take them on and retaliate. I wonder, since they are not likely to desist in their pursuits, if the international community shouldn't just bribe them to do it right. There are worse things, and at least maybe we could stop a big tragedy in the future.

I got what I wanted. A nature excursion with my husband and sons. We just returned from a week of camping exploring Warren Dunes and Indiana Dunes National Lake shore. I feel refreshed, well except for all the sand I keep trying to get off my scalp! I think my head has been mummified.

Well, I have not entered menopause yet, but am late stage peri- menopause so am skipping a lot, sometimes going three months without. I had some stand weirdness after my first dose of Moderna, and then some more after the 2nd dose. I hope I get back to regular skipping soon and finally get done. I am 53 and so very tired of the whole thing!

Our cocker spaniel is a natural born hunter. My understanding of terrier is that they naturally go after pests/rodents so I think you dog is doing this instinctively.

I wish the 8th grade education for Amish in this are was decent. It is not the same across communities. The local community is so strict on what can be studied and to what level that it really is only about a 6th grade education in English/reading, and Math, exceptionally limited in history, no formal science, but German is studied at advanced levels. Some of the Amish that have left are paying for tutoring with the teacher of the Mennonite K8 one room schoolhouse that uses Christian Light curriculum in order to get caught up enough to take high school work and study for the GED.

I have seem this too.

It hasn't worked out well here. In the really large families, they really hang on to the oldest kids because they need the help. We aren't seeing much courting going on. But, among the few that have done the courtship only, marry very young, the young families are living in poverty, and no one looks at all happy. I have to wonder if they will give up the religion in favor of educations in order to get better jobs and divorces. One thing the fundies didn't stop to consider is that since the boys have total agency, unlike the girls, they can choose not to court, not to marry, and not to stay home. They have a little bit more education and have often done customer facing in their father's businesses or job shadowed which means more exposure outside the cult which seems to lead to leaving their families and not looking back. It has left a bunch of young ladies coming up whose families may be looking to arrange a marriage and won't find an acceptable boy within the cult.

This women's leotard stuff is misogynistic crap really. White crotch, low back, inability to wear a bra or whatever makes her comfortable to compete/practice is just misogynistic crap. More of the same old no bodily autonomy for women jive. If boys can wear shorts, girls can wear shorts. The end. Choices are good. Boundaries even better.

This is very, very true on our area. This kind of very strict, obsessive, oppressive religious stuff is having a hard time now. Milennials and then Z are bolting. Even the local Amish who have the greatest chance of keeping them because they are so isolated and undereducated, are losing some of their youth. The kids are banding together to live in tight, cheap rentals, taking whatever jobs they can get, and enrolling in community college after studying for their GED's. The % not staying is the highest it has ever been. My mother in law had an Amish young lady, about 22, who never married that she hired for household help. Granny is fully vaccinated now and so after this year long pandemic break, mailed her a note asking if she would be able to come back. The note came back from a sibling indicating that she had saved enough of her wages - she worked for several homes - that she was able to leave the sect. At least she got to keep the money she earned, unlike the Duggar girls!