Teachermom2834 I would have matter-of-factly told her that the scholarship was based on your son's ACT scores, not your income. OP, some people just don't have connections, or time, or money, or the right combination of them, to land enough of the serendipitous opportunities, and/or also don't have the drive to go looking. That lack of drive is beyond your control even if you offer connections.

I missed posting again Week 13! My overall reading goals are to take in a mix of fiction and nonfiction, spiritually enriching, informative, and fun selections; to keep up with the Druid book discussion/study group I'm in, to put eyes on words not related directly to work more often than last year, and to read books that I bought ages ago and still haven't read. My currently reading list: The Táin translated by Ciaran Carson Update: 3 chapters to go. Odin: Ecstasy, Runes & Norse Magic by Diana L. Paxson Reading on Kindle. I haven't made progress on this one in the last month. The Uninhabitable Earth by Davis Wallace-Wells Finally came up on hold at the library (audiobook) A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (DH picked it up on Audible, so I started listening to it. Not even through the first book yet, and I've concluded that the TV miniseries was even worse dreck than I'd thought). Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. On audible. Put in when coworker was with me. She's made no comment so far. I read it years ago, so it's technically a re-read, but don't remember much of it. Next Up: Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport My 10x10 challenge categories: 1. humor Tough Sh*t and George Carlin Reads to You 2. science (nonfiction) 3. fantasy & science fiction by new-to-me authors (Ursula K. Le Guin falls in this category) 4. LGBT 5. classic fiction 6. folklore (The Táin will satisfy this) 7. religion (nonfiction) (Odin: Ecstasy, Runes & Norse Magic by Diana L. Paxson will satisfy this) 8. law (nonfiction) 9. modern fiction in translation (i.e., originally published in a language other than English) 10. books by women of color (Stone Sky met this requirement) The books must of course all be separate selections, though they may fit into more than one category, they cannot be used for more than one, so that I read 10 books for it. Books I've read for the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge this year (most recently completed first): 8. George Carlin Reads to You by George Carlin (on Audible) 7. The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (on Audible) 6. Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good by Kevin Smith (on audiobook, read by the author). Started this one AND finished it last week. 5. The Stand (unabridged) by Stephen King (on audiobook). Finished last week! 4. Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor Finished since my last post! 3. American Like Me by America Ferrera. 2. The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin (third book in the Broken Earth series) 1. The Sky-Blue Wolves by S. M. Stirling

I would make the dedicated space for them.

We have selectively delayed some vaccines. This was for several reasons, one of which was that I didn't want my babies to associate the doctor with numerous needle jabs (one was enough), another was that if they had a reaction, I wanted to have some idea what they were reacting to. Priority on what didn't get delayed was to things that presented the highest real risk,.For instance, we didn't delay HiB at all, because if you don't get it on schedule there's no point, as it's protecting against what is really only a high risk in infancy. Polio waited as the odds were extremely slim to zero that my kids would be within 10000 miles of an outbreak. Hep B waited, because my kids were low risk (no maternal exposure risk). Hep A was on time, because both kids were going to be in daycare settings for a while, and in my state it's a known risk in communal settings of lots of small kids. We delayed MMR some; wouldn't have if there was an active measles or pertussis outbreak in the state. They will be fully vaccinated eventually.

Our library puts holds in boxes with the last name rubber-banded to the spine, which is turned out so that people can't see what the book is without taking the box off the shelf. You can choose whether to have the library save your history aside from books actively checked out, on hold, or with outstanding fines (you have to opt-in to have it saved, not opt-out).

One thing that gets me is, the argument that we shouldn't vaccinate for something just because it's "less serious." The poliovirus, before a vaccine, was extremely common. Polio infection, and poliomyelitis, mostly affected children under 5, so the youngest and most vulnerable. Most people infected with it (72%) never had any visible symptoms. About 25% of people would get "flulike" symptoms that would go away on their own. 1 in 25 people with poliovirus infections would develop meningitis. Only 0.5%--1 in 200--people with poliovirus infections would develop poliomyelitis (the paralytic disease people think of when they think of polio). Poliomyelitis would affect breathing (and therefore could be lethal) in 2-10% of all cases of poliomyelitis, which is to say, 0.01% to 0.05% of all poliovirus infections. That's not a high percentage of infections! Someone who developed even mild paralysis was not one of the "lucky" ones. Good luck was being among the 72% who got no symptoms from the virus. All numbers courtesy of the CDC. Varicella, on the the other hand, also primarily caused childhood infections, and resulted in fatal complications in about 1 to 1.5 in 40,000 infections that is, 0.0025% to 0.00375% of varicella infections caused death. Numbers from CDC. That is a lower mortality rate by an order of magnitude. 0.2625% to 0.325% of varicella infections would result in hospitalization. That is an order of magnitude fewer serious complications than for poliovirus (4% of infections developed meningitis, which is a reasonable proxy for "serious enough to need hospitalization in the early 1990's"). On the one hand, people really aren't blowing smoke when they argue that chicken pox is less serious. The hard numbers show that's true. On the other, our society developing a lower tolerance for risk of complications from vaccine-preventable infectious diseases is not necessarily a bad thing. Everyone dies of something. Better it be something most common in very old age than something most common in children.

There probably is a connection. Everyone dies of SOMETHING. With the percentage of people dying of communicable diseases dropping so much thanks to clean water, adequate nutrition, and vaccination, more people live long enough to develop some kind of cancer in middle to old age instead of dying of polio or smallpox or influenza or cholera as a child.

I would talk to library staff (going up chain of authority if necessary), explain what has been happening (including in writing, with specific dates), and ask if they can flag your account to keep your holds behind the counter, or put them on the hold shelf under a pseudonym. It sounds like that would be a minor hassle which would let you avoid a major hassle. I would also start documenting these things, and maybe escalate to police reports, because in some jurisdictions it's harassment, and in some jurisdictions it could help establish grounds for an order of protection (for specifics for your jurisdiction, seek legal advice).

When duty and obligation run only one direction, it is even more problematic. Often that lower threshold for consent is only seen as on the part of one party: the woman in a heterosexual relationship.

What happens if she doesn't do the homework? My DS's school sends home homework starting in K. I thought it was ridiculous. I told him if the incentive offered in school (extra postive-reinforcement behavior goodies) was enough to motivate him, to go ahead, but that we wouldn't make him do it. I sent letters to the teachers in K and 1st to that effect. He generally did the homework anyway. The first part of 2nd grade, he didn't do homework for most of the first semester, and when he did, would forget to turn it in (2nd grade they were expected to turn it into a box, instead of teacher going through backpacks to find the homework folders). It had no effect on his grades at all. Since he does homework without a fuss usually, we helped him get better organized with reminders, etc. If this classical school is a charter, they are probably required to test for LD's if you demand it. Given the current homework drama, in your shoes (given my experience with a charter school with DD in 6th grade where I wish we'd done some things differently), I would write a letter demanding testing ASAP. It sounds like the reality is, the homework is not developmentally appropriate for 1st grade. But, this could be the first sign of problems which are best addressed sooner rather than later, so you are covering your bases. If they kick your DD out over an IEP, you could maybe sue them (seek legal counsel from an education law expert on that; I'm just speaking as a parent). 😏 "There are others who would like your spot" is an extremely unhealthy and shortsighted response to parental concerns. It might be true, but it isn't right.

Depends on how long she has. Experiments about chick growth would be easy if you have several weeks: measure (weight probably easiest) each chick, randomly divide them into a control group and an experimental group, carry on as usual in chick care for the control group, but make some change of your daughter's choosing in how the experimental group is treated. Could be a change in food, playing music for them or talking to them, handling them extra, whatever. Make hypothesis about the expect of the experimental treatment. At the end of the study period, measure chicks again, and write conclusions based on what she finds.

To clarify: I was being sarcastic.

Our duty of care to other human beings may be at the core of this. Incels, from what I understand of the subculture from secondary sources like the article posted by the OP, are a symptom of toxic masculinity. They have an unhealthy self-image as well as an unhealthy image of women. In my previous post I almost said something about them not recognizing women as fully realized human beings because they themselves are not fully realized human beings in many instances. I would not be shocked if many people sucked into the Incel subculture have borderline personalities, depression, or other serious issues. The idea that the reaction to not having one's own needs met is to disregard that others have needs as well just seems...sad and pathetic. That said, these guys sound like the perfect market for sellers of s*x robots. So I'm sure capitalism will have a solution forthwith for the Incel problem.

Also, when it comes to making lunches...he's a grown man. Why doesn't he make his own? Other than requesting that there be some leftovers now and again, and asking that preferred staple items (such as plain yogurt) get on the shopping list, I do not expect my DH, who does most of the home cooking, to pack my lunches for work!

It sounds like what he is saying is, "you should relax with me after dinner. Dishes can wait. Lunches can be made in the morning." As far as getting things for the kids when you want to sit down and eat, it's okay to set boundaries for yourself. Meals are a good boundary. "I'm going to finish eating. Child can get it themselves. They are capable. If you disagree, you may do it for them. I will not." And keep eating.

In our case, it was, "I was into attachment parenting as a lifestyle and DH was content to leave the major baby-related decisions up to me as long as they were working for us and everyone's needs were met." And with DD, baby #1, I definitely had some, ahem, control issues in that area. DH was the more experienced--he co-parented his firstborn for the first year and a half of her life. He and his ex did things differently, I'm sure...but then one of the things his ex did differently was up and leave for another state with their DD when the kid was ~18 mo. and do everything she could to make sure he never saw her again, so...he was open to doing things differently.

Someone may already have addressed this, but whether you look at single-transaction consent models, or marriage as an institution, "everything is a contract" is what modern Western society boils it all down to. Marriage is, and always has been, a contract. It used to be mostly about property and inheritance and legitimacy of heirs. Having a religious seal of approval for that was the main contribution of Christianity to the relevant body of law governing it in Feudal Medieval Europe. Women were commodities, with few property rights of their own, going all the way back to ancient Rome and Greece. Tribes who gave women more rights had invariably seen their customs and laws stamped out by Rome (under the Empire or the Church). Even with women acknowledged as persons capable of owning property in their own right regardless of marital status, a whole lot about marriage remains an economic contract, even if control of women's bodies is no longer explicitly part of that contract. If sex belongs only to marriage, then sex is part of the contract, implicitly if not explicitly. The whole Incel thing comes down to entitled misogynists failing to see women as fully realized human beings. It shouldn't be surprising that this mindset can be found in a capitalist society with a long history of patriarchy. Capitalism, at its core, is about treating human potential as a commodity, in the form of "labor." As long as our economic system is predicated on treating the fundamental necessities of life as commodities to be bought and sold, there will continue to be efforts to commodify sex. After all, if all the other basics of human existence: food, water, shelter, medical care, etc., can be bought and sold, and a price can be put on nearly all other human activities ("labor"), why treat sex, love, and reproduction any differently?

The default parent in our household has nothing to do with the contemporary realities of how our household runs. Most notably, DH has been the one making dinner 95 percent of the time since I started law school when DS was 6 months old and DD was 7 years old. Yet if I am home, it is an invariable law of nature that I am the one they will ask "what's for dinner?" I almost always tell them, "You're asking the wrong person." I also will get complaints from DD when she wants to come home from school because she doesn't feel well...while I am at work a FOUR HOUR drive from her school. DH is a full time student and will go get her if the school calls him. Some of this is just ingrained habit on DD's part, from the years when she was small that I was the parent at home the most, and she was exclusively breastfed (would. not. take. a. bottle.) and would only nurse to sleep unless she was at the babysitter's house/day care center. She barely noticed she had more than one parent until she was three or so, and not because DH was purposefully uninvolved. I was the "default parent" for her and probably will be when she's 30! DS on the other hand has had 3 parents in the household more or less equally sharing responsibility for day to day running of things and looking after him, subject to work and school schedules, and does not have that level of ingrained insistence that I am the 'default parent" even though I took him everywhere I could, wore him a lot, and he also was exclusively breastfed and child-led weaned (he WOULD take a bottle of expressed milk, and good thing too because I went back to work when he was 6 weeks old, couldn't afford not to) and coslept with me (still does nights I'm home). Part of the difference may be the pattern established in infancy; part of it I think is ingrained temperament of the respective children. DD was attached to just me. DS was attached to me, DH, GF, DD, and home in general. Even so, DH sharing in parenting tasks and staying home with him when she was little was NOT babysitting. Parents don't babysit their own kids. I agree with that.

I missed posting Week 11, but I've finished a fair bit of reading! My overall reading goals are to take in a mix of fiction and nonfiction, spiritually enriching, informative, and fun selections; to keep up with the Druid book discussion/study group I'm in, to put eyes on words not related directly to work more often than last year, and to read books that I bought ages ago and still haven't read. My currently reading list: The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin on Audible. I have 7 hours and 5 minutes left. Just under halfway through the book The Táin translated by Ciaran Carson Update: no progress. In my defense, the whole book study group I'm reading it with has been on temporary hiatus because of work and stuff. Odin: Ecstasy, Runes & Norse Magic by Diana L. Paxson (this is one of those "bought ages ago and still haven't read" books) Reading on Kindle. I haven't made progress on this one in the last couple of weeks. George Carlin Reads to You by George Carlin. Still only listening when riding in the car with my co-worker. There's 31 minutes left on the audiobook. Next Up: I still feel like I need to finish some more of my current reading list before I go looking for more, but the following have been added to my "want to read" list: The Uninhabitable Earth by Davis Wallace-Wells (This will fit the "science" category of my 10x10 challenge). Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport My 10x10 challenge categories: 1. humor Tough Sh*t definitely qualified! 2. science (nonfiction) 3. fantasy & science fiction by new-to-me authors (Thank you to those who made suggestions, I'll be going back to refer to them later!) 4. LGBT 5. classic fiction 6. folklore (The Táin will satisfy this) 7. religion (nonfiction) (Odin: Ecstasy, Runes & Norse Magic by Diana L. Paxson will satisfy this) 8. law (nonfiction) 9. modern fiction in translation (i.e., originally published in a language other than English) 10. books by women of color (Stone Sky met this requirement) The books must of course all be separate selections, though they may fit into more than one category, they cannot be used for more than one, so that I read 10 books for it. Books I've read for the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge this year (most recently completed first): 6. Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good by Kevin Smith (on audiobook, read by the author). Started this one AND finished it last week. 5. The Stand (unabridged) by Stephen King (on audiobook). Finished last week! 4. Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor Finished since my last post! 3. American Like Me by America Ferrera. 2. The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin (third book in the Broken Earth series) 1. The Sky-Blue Wolves by S. M. Stirling

The thing that's helped my son the most with this was the unit they did in PACE (what they call the gifted program at his school) on growth mindset. The idea is that the focus for accomplishment should be on effort, not on assumptions of inborn talent. This helps with the quitting tendency in perfectionism. DS will get very frustrated, cry, but still persist and keep trying because he has really taken this mindset to heart. I've seen it in the way he approaches things he finds difficult.

Yes. DS already isn't "clean cut" as he has only had 2 haircuts his entire life, the last one over a year and a half ago. I doubt he'll ask any time soon, though. He gets annoyed enough that people think he's a girl because of his long hair!

Lems.

I personally would like to see Algebra 1, Geometry, Consumer Math, and Statistics as the required standard 4-year run for diploma requirements for high school math. Students on a STEM track can take Algebra 2 after taking Algebra 1 in 8th grade, and could make room for Pre-Calculus if Consumer Math and Statistics were offered in condensed format of 1 semester each for accelerated/strong math students. Of course, I also think the maths required in college should have more bearing on the degree track the student is pursuing.

Now I want Tim-Tams, and all I have are Girl Scout cookies.🙎‍♂️

I learn new things about history all the time. Most of what I learned in school was little better than whitewashed campaigns for why this country is "great." Concerning the Civil Rights movement, I recently learned about Bayard Rustin, whom I had never heard of at all, from this podcast: https://www.historyisgaypodcast.com/listen