It depends on the credentials. The OP mentioned she is certified. Personally, I would never go to anyone with certification from Dave Ramsey. That would be a huge red flag for me.

Our old Y here was always very understaffed and the racquetball area where my husband used to spend lots of time would get so dirty that he would recruit fellow players to clean up and do repairs. It didn’t appear that there was any regular cleaning or maintenance, at least in that area. And the very small indoor pool area seemed to really trap in bad air and trigger my son’s asthma. Eventually they tore down the old building and constructed a new one. They seem to be doing a better job of keeping up the new building, but as it does not have racquetball courts, we are no longer members.

Sadly, not only do people accept it, but they very, very much reward it. We simply can’t seem to remotely learn from history.

Depending on the age, ability, and behavior of the child, I personally don’t see eight months as a white belt being ridiculous. My son’s style (not TKD) did not let kids start before age seven and all classes were mixed ages. There were certainly some children who took up to a year to earn their first belt, mainly due to being unable to focus, listen, and not talk or goof off for any length of time, often combined with only sporadic class attendance and sometimes also lower innate athleticism. What I always found more ridiculous is seeing young kids in some other styles with black belts who didn’t look like they had mastered much of anything when it came to form and technique, let alone discipline. I think that is much more problematic than slow progression. Although I also think martial arts schools need to be judged and evaluated on a variety of factors.

I’m only going to comment on the black belt aspect of your post. Getting a black belt in any martial art should mean something. And if it’s going to mean something, it should take many years and lots of hard work. Unfortunately, many martial arts schools are simply black belt factories because that’s how they make money and the belts are basically meaningless. So while I can see you deciding to leave the school due to illness or other issues, I would generally see slow progression on belts to be a positive and not a negative. It took my son ten years to earn a black belt, but it very much meant something and still does. Just one aspect of his test was consecutively sparring ten adult male black belts until he scored a point on each one.

I grew up in the area it was named for and during the course of k12 school, had various classmates or classmates’ siblings with it. None died, although a few were very sick, hospitalized, and recovering for a very long time and likely had long term health effects.

I’m confused. We knew about Maduro and the horrors in Iran long before Musk took over Twitter or before Twitter even existed. What resignations of very offensive people directly came about because he took over Twitter? How is it helping to identify criminals and terrorists in ways that wasn’t possible before his takeover?

True. But at least they are smart enough to not broadcast their poor character, values, and morals to the world.

Certainly studies show the effects on children of not being raised in intact families, so I don’t doubt for a minute that not having your father in your life at all had a pretty profound influence. I just don’t think it’s as simplistic as nurturing vs nudging and who does or doesn’t set the hard limits. I think your son and grandson are very fortunate to have you and your husband in their lives!

I think the hard limits coming from the father rather than mother is the one I don’t generally see. Where I can see the overall general description fitting my traditional upbringing, I don’t see it so much fitting most two parent households I’m familiar with today, including my own. But I agree with @EKSthat as long as a child is getting all of it, it doesn’t matter so much the gender of the parent or caregiver providing it.

So am I understanding correctly that you now attend a Southern Baptist Church where women are not allowed to be ordained or pastors?

I don’t know. Personally, I don’t find clutter and knickknacks aesthetically pleasing.

Yes, she can definitely pack food like protein bars in both her carryon and backpack. I don’t have any allergies and always pack lots of protein bars. I’m glad to hear she’s not bothered by airborne allergens, as I think people eating protein bars during flights is pretty common and many of them contain nuts. I’m not sure if it’s the same in Italy, but I will say that on our recent east coast trip, we were proactively asked about allergies at the vast majority of places we ate. It’s not super common where we live on the west coast, but seemed to be the norm there, at least in the big cities.

Now this is immersive travel!

I think you also need to decide whether you want quality or quantity in your travels. Do you want to see as many countries and places as possible, no matter how superficially (e.g. 13 European countries on one short trip) or do you really want to experience a smaller number of places.