I'm just about to save ours to non-rewritable archive quality DVDs.

We're two adults and four children. I spend around £950 a month on food, toiletries, cleaning supplies, etc - that's about $1400 a month.

A very bright girl I know had wanted all her childhood to be a chef. Her father was worried that she was wasting her brains, but never said anything. When she reached 16 yo, and was doing very well at school, he arranged for her to go and work at a local restaurant during her summer holidays. Long days of gruelling, poorly paid work led to her to reassess. She ended up becoming a highly successful accountant. I also know a boy who, having spent a lot of time in and out of hospital as a toddler, set his heart on becoming a doctor at age 5. He never wavered, achieved his ambition easily and was very happy. I guess I'd just make sure that she knows what she's really, truly getting into, and maybe find ways of giving her real-life experience of a few alternatives. Otherwise, it's a fairly laudable ambition, and I'm sure you'll be very proud :001_smile:.

Nothing. My house is spotless. Except for the dung from the flying pigs :D. Seriously? Men. Men keep my house from being spotless. Five of them aged 5 to 53. And their mud, their socks, their mess. Sigh.

My two eldest are at our local secondary school and are getting a far better education than I could ever hope to give them. They're also having great fun. The eldest is very bright and hard-working, but is in a bad form and has had his life made a misery by many of his form mates for the past two and a half years, BUT, he has survived, and says he now feels a much stronger person for being able to cope with what he has to put up with. I would suggest, rather than worry about it, and maybe pass on some of that anxiety to your daughter, that if there are specific things that worry you, maybe find ways of working on those now - whether these be academic, social, self-management, or whatever.

Sounds like torture. Poor Parrot. :grouphug:

:grouphug: I'm sorry Audrey. I also lost an uncle recently, so I can well imagine your grief. I'll be thinking of you, your aunt and cousins, and hope you'll all be able to find comfort remembering together the good life of a wonderful man.

DH and I are just about as far apart politically as it's possible to be, but we're both fairly open minded and tolerant. We have some very lively discussions. However, while DH and I can live peacefully with our differences I find it much more difficult putting up with his family's views, which are much more strongly felt and forcefully expressed.

Thinking more on this ... I know of two men whose first marriages ended, one as a result of an affair, the other due to the stresses of infertility. Both said afterwards that had they known beforehand what absolute torture the process of divorce was, then they'd never have done it. So, I'm wondering whether a lot of these second marriages succeed because at least one partner fully appreciates the awful cost of divorce and does everything within their power to avoid it a second time.

I think ... that there are as many types of affair and divorce as there are types of people and relationship out there, so you really can't generalise. I also think that after the first couple of years or so there are very few ecstatically happy marriages; most marriages go through blah phases. There is a certain type of person, both male and female, who are more committed to satisfying their need to still appear young, attractive and desirable, to experience that high of the beginning of a relationship, than they are to working through those blah phases and making their marriage work. When the affairs of that type of person destroy a marriage then, like Scarlett, it makes me very angry, especially when witnessing the devastating effects of their behaviour on their children and spouse.

Funnily enough the only second marriage I can think of that failed was that of someone whose wife had cheated on him. A couple of years after their divorce he remarried a lovely girl who everyone adored, but he eventually drove her away because he was so insecure and jealous; having been cheated on once he just couldn't bring himself to trust her. He's now very happily married for a third time to a woman a little older than him who has four children and a very robust personality!

Psst! Sorry for interrupting (and for being cheeky too ;)), but I'm really dying to know what you think about marriages between a cheating exes and their adulterous companions. I've often seen it quoted that such marriages are highly vulnerable and often not likely to last. Yet my own observations don't bear that out. What prompted you to start a thread on the subject?

Thank you everyone! Yes, it was my instinct to keep him home too; DH had a much more relaxed attitude, so it just made me wonder whether I was worrying too much. I had a vague memory of my sister-in-law panicking when she was 8 months pregnant and had two toddlers who'd been exposed to chicken pox. He won't be at all sorry to miss his activities, he wouldn't enjoy them anywhere near as much without DS8 there.

... and I'm in a bit of a quandary over whether or not to send DS5 to any of his activities. The older two have had chicken pox, so they're OK, but DS5 is bound to get it next, it's just a matter of when. It seems they're very infectious for a day or two before the spots appear and then for a week or two until they crust over. DS5 has tennis and swimming tomorrow, Church on Sunday, and drama on Monday; at any point he could be highly infectious. DH says just send him along, that most people have either had it or want their kids to get it, but I'm sure there are plenty who really don't need it. If he doesn't get it for another couple of weeks, though, then has it for another couple of weeks, then he'll have missed a month of activities, and some of them are quite expensive. Tell me, what should I do?

I can think of two cases where men had affairs and later married their mistresses. One of these marriages has lasted going on 20 years, the other has lasted 4 or 5 years, although, for some reason, I can't imagine it lasting very long term.

Yes, I've been called an "anorexic *itch", and I'm not even all thin - at 5' 8" my lowest weight has been 130 lbs - I'm probably about 135 lbs now, and DH says "nicely curvy".

I'm sorry, I don't know of any suitable books. I'd have thought there are enough examples of mixed race friendships in popular culture to influence him in a positive direction, assuming you watch films, TV, etc. If it were my DS I'm afraid I'd come down on him quite strongly. Even at 6 yo I don't think it's too early to learn that prejudice against someone on the basis of their skin colour is just not, in any way at all, acceptable. I'd be as definite about it as I'd be if he'd cursed, or said something obscene. But that's just me. ETA Sadly, if your new area is predominantly Latino, your DS might just learn this lesson the hard way, as he may come across prejudice himself.

It has a whiff of desperation about it, and would have made me want to run, very fast, in the opposite direction.

I never said an unsupervised child was a neglected child. My own children are often out for an hour or two at a time in our neighbourhood unsupervised. But if a child who was supposed to be in school was left at home for hours upon hours at a time unsupervised, OR who were obviously neglected, then, yes, I would be very concerned. You seem to have been very determined to take offence at my words.

I doubt that it will, but it certainly made waves!

I think a lot of people are mostly concerned where overweight becomes a medical issue, rather than the aesthetics of overweight. Here in the UK the 'prejudice' is even officially sanctioned: http://www.bbc.co.uk...london-20897681

Our boys start secondary school at age 11 and are expected to develop that sort of organisation, self-management and self-motivation within the first term. The vast majority do rise to the challenge. A friend of ours is a chemistry teacher at the school and comments that the change in them during that first term is quite astounding; and there are some who start there a year early (they only have to pass an 11+ exam) so are 10 yo, others are only just 11 yo.

I find that on days like that I need a plentiful supply of cookies and chocolate. I usually eat really healthily, but there's something about sleep deprivation that has my mind screaming out for junk, and lots of it, to me going. Take it easy and be kind to yourself, it mightn't be as bad as you feared. :grouphug:

With both DS13 and DS11 I take the view that they can only really take ownership of their work when they care about it more than I do. If they do badly on something, if they don't try hard enough, I am disappointed, and they know it, but I just shrug and tell them that it's their work, their life. They're both pretty competitive, so they don't like even being second best, let alone failing. They know now that while I'll help them all I can, ultimately I'm not going to do their work for them. I know that while I can make them do certain things, I can't make them want to. Self-motivation is just that, it comes from the self, from within. I'd let him sink a bit; I'd point out where he could have helped himself, but that's where my sense of responsibility would end.