There was one a while back that showed that most women would have liked more kids. Car size is oddly a big limiting factor. I’ll try to dig up the studies.

😆😆😆😆😆😆 no. ETA: we do get a paltry tax credit. The government thinks we’d all spend a monthly check on sex, drugs and rock n roll. They don’t like handing out money that isn’t incredibly tightly controlled.

I use my face moisturizer at bed time and cover it with Vaseline and my lips are fine by morning and air lasts all day. I’ll often just cover my whole face in the Vaseline after putting my moisturizer on. I think it’s called slugging now but I’ve been doing it longer than the kids have had a name for it.

You mentioned considering meds for your anxiety, it might really help your daughter to see you do that. Even if you just add in some vitamins to your routine, letting her see you take brain health or anxiety supplements might help too.

It makes sense that a higher dose would be necessary as her body weight increases. If 1 mg per lb is needed then 50 mg at 50 lbs would need to be 65 mg at 65 lbs just to stay at the same overall dosage, while staying at 50 mg at 65 lbs woukd actually be a large decrease in dosage. (Obviously those numbers are completely made up) That’s also before growth spurts and puberty hormones enter the picture in a couple of years, which will likely mean a need to increase the dosage too.

I slept with 2 until I had my first baby. Mr. Cuddles the bear sure helped prop that pregnant belly up towards the end.

Soggy teddy bear or disembodied doll head? Which is worse?

We shouldn’t have to lay bare our trauma to be treated decently or have our opinions respected. We shouldn’t have to play a game of comparing traumas and whoever has the biggest pile wins the right to have an opinion. There shouldn’t be a litmus test of “your trauma pile must be THIS tall” to have an opinion. Plenty of us have trauma piles that we just don’t feel the need to push out in front of us, here look at my pile, I get an opinion. You should have been allowed your opinion without needing to “prove” that you deserved one.

I like to play sometimes but I don’t feel like I’m very good at it, role playing isn’t my strong suit. I do like being around while other people play, it can be fun to watch. I like the lore and the stories.

You shouldn’t have to air all of that, or any of it, to be treated with basic respect or have your opinion taken seriously.

I haven’t told one person that the bear or forest they pictured were wrong 🙄, that basic recommended safety precautions were insane or unhinged, or that they were ridiculous. Pretty much every post I’ve made has been met with that sort thing.

Hunters carry guns, adding to the power differential. If I tell you to picture a tree and you think of a palm tree, are you wrong? That’s would be absurd wouldn’t it? So is telling people that the bear or a forest that first comes to their mind are wrong.

I don’t think people realize until it’s too late. Once your enrolled it’s too late really. And the schools that have live teachers actually teaching math aren’t the (relatively) inexpensive colleges a lot of people attend.

I’m getting plenty of those too. Who knew acknowledging that most violent behavior comes from men would be so triggering for so many? 🤷‍♀️

I don’t see how it’s more idiotic that bear in the woods that we’ve been talking about for 3 pages.

A man on Tik Tok has started a new one, geared at at men… Men, you are at work, on night shift and your wife calls at 3 am because she heard a noise outside. When she peaks around the curtain would you rather her see a bear on the back porch or a man?

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLu1vkxc/ This bear is just a good boy. Just an oversized puppy really.

Exactly. In my mind the question is just supposed to be a gut reaction, quick-man or bear. So a random man out of nowhere or a bear. This isn’t a man I know, or know of, I’m not meeting him in a safe context, I’m not seeing other people react to him or being introduced by people I know. I’m alone, I’m the woods, with no one around and boom-a man. You have to be wary. Of course I’d feel different running into Bob, Susan’s husband at the Costco, or Tommy I know a bit from story time at the library. If I’m in a vulnerable position, alone in the woods, I’d have to be more cautious. And yes, if you just say “picture a bear” I see a black bear. My archetypal bear is the black bears that I’m most likely to encounter. Honestly if you say “picture running into a man in the woods” I’m picturing serial killers from Criminal Minds or a hunter of some sort, not Chad the avid hiker with vegan snacks. I don’t live in fear of men. I frequently go to parks or stores in areas other people consider bad areas and won’t go with me, including our favorite one where I can see the homeless shelter and soup kitchen from the park. I take a short cut through the ghetto once a week because it cuts 5 minutes off of my drive. I drive across the country and use rest areas and gas stations late at night. There’s just a difference between “in town” levels of risk and “isolated in the woods”.

The *best* history podcast is Hardcore History. Each episode is more like an audiobook, around 4 hours but I listen to them over and over. The way he goes through everything is just so dramatic and riveting. He reads frequently from primary sources and just put it all together so well.

I agree. I can’t put my finger on it but all of this “poor men” on this thread about how some women feel feels a little like victim blaming or victim shaming. If men can’t be bad because my husband, father, brother, are great upstanding men, then what about all these women who have victimized? Their attacks happened, by something. If we can’t call it out as having been done by a man, because it hurts the feelings of the “good” men, then what does that say? It feels odd.

I guess I wasn’t as clear as I meant to be. I was talking about leaving your child with another adult, generally the other parent or a family member, for the long term, like years. Yes, the child is safe but not through any action of the absent parent. I have an inkling that more men abandon their children or family than woman. I know that it happens with mothers, not just fathers, But I think it’s more often fathers. I’m not sure though. I was just wondering how the “abuse and neglect statistic” would change if we included that sort of abandonment in the definition of neglect.

I don’t think it is though? 🤔. Maybe I’m wrong, but a person who just disappears from a child life isn’t committing a crime. The courts might be willing to remove parental rights after a certain time, or allow a step parent to adopt the child, but is the absent parent ever charged with a crime? We might be talking about different things. I’m talking about non custodial parents who just goes no contact with their children for years at a time. The kind who “go out for milk” and never come back. Absent fathers, though mothers can do it too. Am I just unaware of a criminal charge for being an absent parent?

I did not say “primarily live with the other parent”. I said Getting out of dodge, as in not seeing the child for years. Not calling, not checking in, not being aware of the child. Just noping out of the child’s life entirely. The kind of abandonment where the courts could remove parental rights. ETA: I’ve been a single parent too. I’ve seen the difference between a non custodial parent who is involved, even minimally and one who is just gone and never heard from again.

Young family members who have had them removed recently have all had them removed after a sleep study showed that enlarged tonsils were causing sleep apnea. A friend's child had theirs removed because of repeated bouts of sickness, and I do mean repeated. That poor child was never well but is now only a little sicklier than average with much more time spent being healthy. I'm going to look into it next time I go to the doctor, the past few years my tonsils have been becoming so swollen during allergy season that I have a difficult time swallowing for weeks each spring and fall. I don't want surgery, but I know sleep apnea is connected to dementia and I want that even less. If I had to guess, I'd say that removing them is probably more common in places where allergy season is more severe. For me, what starts as allergies ends up as bronchitis and sinus infections from all the drainage. If allergies can make tonsils swell, and if swollen tonsils make you more likely to get more severe infections, it makes sense that places with bad allergies would remove more tonsils.

I wonder what those numbers would look like if abandonment was considered neglect? Like, if abandoning your children with their other parent and just getting out of dodge was considered the same as criminal neglect. 🤔🤔. ETA: I’m being genuine, I’m aware that mothers abandon children too, usually with grandparents. It’s just an interesting question to me.