I have the thought that this dynamic is made more complicated by her dating your ds, just because it inserts you in the relationship in a way you wouldn’t otherwise be with kids of this age. If this isn’t a good match, it makes it harder for them to go separate ways if you are providing a lot of support to her. I hope there might be another adult in her life who could fill this role more, so you can be more neutral—kind and supportive, but not an essential person.

Yes. It’s hard to change something like that so quickly though. As more young adults live at home, I expect it will be normalized and overtime, it won’t be felt as a negative but when kids grow up in a culture that puts forth moving out on your own as being one of the main indicators of “true adulthood,” it can be difficult for them to feel like they are successful if they are still living with mom and dad. It can be hard, with everyone from grandparents to healthcare providers asking when they are finally going to move out (when they are all of 22 🙄).

Are you thinking that rent hasn’t actually increased that much? Rent just goes up and up around here and is out of reach for a large number of people trying to get out on their own. The first article gives financial reasons as the primary reason for young adults give for living at home. I agree it’s actually beneficial to have less stigma surrounding young adults living at home. Especially when so many people do actually have room in their houses for that option. That’s not the case for everyone though, of course. If a family is living in an apartment where the “kids” share bedrooms, for example, I think that can be a harder situation for a young adult. Even a house with shared bedrooms is likely to be a situation a young adult would like to move on from, if they had the financial ability to do so. I like having my kids around, but I can’t blame them for not wanting to share bedrooms in their twenties.

I had no idea TGTB was that popular among homeschoolers these days! I looked at it when I first came out and I think I even tried something, but I didn’t like it, nor did I like their very heavy handed moderation of curriculum discussions, and I just haven’t looked at it since. I never would’ve guessed they were going to become that huge. I just took a look at their site and they certainly have a lot of products now. The high school level makes me think of CLE light units, but in color.

I have seen many articles in the last couple years about US young adults living at home in greater numbers and longer than they used to. Let me look for some links… More young adults are living at home across the U.S. Here's why. (This one says median rent has increased 18% since 2020.) A Third of Young Adults Live With Their Parents Nearly a Third of Gen Z Is Living at Home (and They Plan to Stay)

I had wondered on reading your post if this was an 18 year old still in high school or not. I still think Rosie’s approach is a good way to go, but I’ll go out on a limb and say I wouldn’t be thrilled with a son or daughter still in high school dating a 22 year old. That would feel an odd pairing to me. Fact that she has moved out does change how that feels though. And definitely makes it even more the case that there’s nothing her parents can do about it, so they best do what they can to maintain their relationship with her.

I’m sorry, but I lol’ed 🤣.

I was reading an article in Science yesterday about blood abnormalities in long covid, and there was this section that had nothing to do with the actual results that I found really striking (bolding mine) : Blood abnormalities found in people with Long Covid They had trouble finding people who had truly recovered fully after covid.

Those graphics are really useful @kbutton, where did you find them? It’s awful how often I read people reporting that their medical or mental health providers are telling them their Covid caution is a mental disorder rather than recognizing it as a rational set of precautions to prevalent threat.

Strongly, strongly agree. How high is high? And are you symptomatic and that’s why you’re having blood work done? I’m asking because wacky high ferritin is a thing seen sometimes after Covid. There are various things people do about it that sometimes makes them feel better.

Disappointing to hear that’s not just here. That’s precisely what I hear about expanding transit here. People are terrified people from the city will make it out to their house and commit crimes. So much of this. They are certain that if poor people had just done things the way they did things, they wouldn’t be poor. The judgement I hear about poverty (and most especially the homeless kind of poverty) is horrible. They don’t want to see people living in the streets and in parks (nor do I), but they also don’t think we should spend any money to get people housed, because that feels unfair to them. I can only conclude they’d just like the people to stop existing altogether so they neither have to see nor help them.

SSI is the one I’ve dealt with. I’m still trying to figure out if and when to have a disabled kid pay some rent in order to optimize future benefits. If I recall incorrectly, I believe it reduces their payment up to a third. That’s like from $900 something a month down to $600 something as the max payment if they’re not paying rent. Since fair market rent would be more than $300 around here, I’m not sure it’s worth having them pay. It might just be better for them to take the reduction. eta: it’s good to hear it doesn’t apply that way to SSDI

I have never seen this. Single family zoning typically means no condos or other housing setups with more than one separate dwelling on a single piece of land. Multi family is different than multi-generational. I'm interested to see if this is the case that there are places where related family members can not live in the same house if they are not the same generation. The complaints I see usually relate to multi family housing zoning restrictions, but I can't find any place that doesn't allow multiple generations of the same family. It's true that social security benefits [eta: specifically SSI] become more complicated when people share a household, which is frustrating. Benefits are reduced by an amount if housing is provided and the benefit recipient isn't paying for their share of housing.

Oh, I’m really sorry! So far are you finding your rebound symptoms to be better, worse, or the same as your initial symptoms? How is your iron status typically? I can’t recall if you’re among the low iron people. More research out this week about the way iron dysregulation appears to play a part in Covid recovery and Long Covid. I hope your symptom rebound is brief and you feel all better very soon. I know it’s not in your nature, but please take it easy for the sake of your body! Do some stretching and get up and move around, but I strongly recommend you don’t try to exercise right now.

Yep. And when it’s adult kids having the issue, but without meds they don’t have enough executive function to manage the effort required (or even with meds they may never have that degree of EF), then it compounds the problem because they end up just going without.

Form can make a big difference, and just wanting to note that for some people, methylated vitamins make things worse instead of better. If anxiety and irritability spike after starting a supplement, check if it’s methylated and try the opposite.

Oak Meadow has a Biology that looks good to me, but we haven't use that one yet. It ends up almost as expensive as an online class though. The May sale would bring it down some. The Kolbe syllabus uses Miller Levine and is very easy to secularize (you just leave out their supplement). I'm going to have to look at Savaas as I'm not familiar with that one.

I can never understand why people think it’s okay to spread their cold or flu either, for that matter. I’m less concerned about cold or flu for my family, but I still sure don’t want it and it causes a lot of misery and life disruption while illness makes it’s way through a large family, which could take a month when people fall ill one by one.

Thanks for updating. That was a smart thing to do and I’m glad all is well!

You're not missing anything. I can play devil's advocate based on what they say are the reasons, and it's not that I don't think there's any truth behind those reasons playing a part, but I don't think it's the whole story (they're leaving out the economic reasons, which I believe are huge). The CDC's job is to set public health policy. They're saying, since people aren't testing to know what they have, and covid, flu and RSV present similarly in the acute stage, the guidelines will be simpler to just make them the same for all. (This begs the question to me, why not make the guildelines for flu and RSV closer to match covid guidelines instead then--this would clearly be more in the interest of public health.) They're also saying that hospitalization and death occurred mostly in unvaccinated people last year, with the implication, that if people don't want to be hospitalized or die of it, they have the option to vaccinate. It appears that vaccination decreases the risk of long covid, but they are leaning awfully hard into that decrease. The rate of infections is so high that it is still a tremendous number of people being disabled by long covid every year, and each infection adds to the risk. Most people getting long covid were vaccinated (because most people were vaccinated). It's still an unacceptably high risk. But you're right, it's not in the interest of public health at all. This is part of the same advice, but you know it's not going to be emphasized or required most places: "C.D.C. urged those who end isolation to limit close contact with others, wear well-fitted masks, improve indoor air quality and practice good hygiene, like washing hands and covering coughs and sneezes, for five days." (and look, now suddenly we have the mask from days 6-10 (since most people are still contagious on those days) down to just mask through day 5, which is bad enough in itself). Bullocks. There is clearly no goal of protecting those at risk for severe illness (long covid itself is a severe illness and everyone is at risk of it).

Do you live in a state that allows homeschoolers partial enrollment? I’d be inclined to do partial days for her to try it out so that she can continue her math class at home and not get behind/thrown off in math by switching mid year.

“While still posing a significant health threat to those at higher risk, COVID-19 health impacts are now increasingly similar to other respiratory viruses, like flu, which are also important causes of illness and death, especially for people at higher risk,” according to the CDC. “As a result, this the right time to issue unified Respiratory Virus Guidance, rather than additional guidance for each specific virus.” This just isn’t true! They patently ignore the wide range of post acute sequelae caused by Covid. The continued focus on death and hospitalization (which still are significantly higher than for flu) is a constant diversion from the reality of what is happening—that people’s bodies are being made increasingly compromised and put at risk by each of these infections. Some will be disabled by it, some will have heart attacks and strokes because of it, others will lose time off the end of their lives because of it and still others will have early onset dementia because of it. We don’t even have any idea what other things, but those are all things we already know. But it would be an economic disaster for the government to acknowledge all of that, so we go back to the same policy of “don’t look up.”

💯 So disheartened today 😰. They’re stressing that they’re just bringing it in line with flu and RSV, since most people no longer know which one they have, as if it’s actually just fine and dandy for people to be walking around spreading flu and RSV to other people. Of course people will tout the new “you don’t have to isolate” guidance while completely ignoring the fact that the same guidance they say they’re following says they’re supposed to be wearing a well fitting mask the entire time, using good ventilation, and avoiding at risk people. That last part continues to burn me because it’s patently ridiculous unless they expect high-risk people to just not be in public. Nobody knows who’s high-risk so if they’re going out in public, they’re going to be around high-risk people unless those high-risk people just stay home from now on. but as long as everybody’s able to get to work, we know that’s what counts, right? Never mind that the number who are out of work due to disability continues to climb. And will do so even more as people are pushed to go back to work not just after five days but after a single day while ill.

We need a better than like emoji!! I am so, so happy for your husband and for you with this wonderful news! (we also need a 🙄 reaction for your sister-in-law’s response lol)

I think it’s going to be place dependent. I think the bigger issues is if insurance will cover it. I’m hearing of people going in and asking for one and getting it no questions asked. There seems to be much less gate keeping now. But I don’t yet know if it’s actually a good idea or not. We have to make a decision for our high risk person.