My grandmother, born in 1918, would have laughed so hard at this hyper parenting. She was of the mindset that kids should spend most of their free time outside without adult interference, help around the house and the farm, and show up for dinner on a regular basis. Beyond that, she wasn't a super involved parent. Amazingly all three of her children are stable and well established adults with grandkids of their own now, and they loved her dearly. She gifted them with love and independence. I think I'm more like her than I care to admit, which probably makes me a bad parent in the current culture.

I absolutely love camping. In my 32 foot camper where the kids have a seperate bedroom and I have a shower and toilet. I love sleeping on the pillow top mattress I bought for the camper that is super comfy and the nice silk sheets. We bought the camper pre-kids. One of the best investments we ever made. Every now and then we discuss selling it to pay down some medical bills, but the kids absolutely love campgrounds and it's about the only thing we do as a family. Us and 3 kids and 2 golden retrievers. I'm probably of no help.

I have a 401K and a seperate checking account that is in my name only(DH has both as well). But they aren't secret. I used to have a nice nest egg in both but they've been raided the last year and a half for medical bills. Hopefully things will stop happening to us and I can get them built back up soon. If push came to shove and I needed to leave, I would be able to access money of my own to get an apartment and buy groceries. I have enough in there to put first and last month down as well as a security deposit on someplace big enough for three kids. Fortunately I don't expect that to happen.

We walked 4.2 miles yesterday playing. I don't know that it's something I would have played on my own, but suddenly my kids want to be outside and walking around town all day. I'm okay with that. Also, this is going to force me to exercise and maybe lose weight. So we'll keep playing. ;)

I downloaded it last night. I'm still trying to figure it all out, but it looks like something my kids will love. Tips are appreciated :)

My grandmother sent me care packages on a fairly regular basis. I can't tell you how crazy excited I was to see the little slip in my mailbox telling me I had a package.

I didn't like the patriarchal overtones, but my dad really wanted to walk me down the aisle. I compromised and both parents walked me down. It seemed less patriarchal, no giving away of the bride was mentioned, and everyone was happy. My parents and My in laws would have been extremely upset if we had moved in together. We were 27 and 25 at the time, and once an apartment we liked came open we jumped on it. Since we were still months away from the wedding, we just did a civil wedding at my house with immediate family. We had a big religious service wedding three months later. I would discuss some of it with her, honestly. I don't think your concerns are invalid.

I have PCOS. My first was conceived on the second cycle of Clomid, my second was with metformin and Clomid. The third baby was a total surprise. Other than some irritability I had no side effects. I took the lowest dose with my son and a much higher dose for my daughter. It's at least worth trying.

I had NO idea that I would want to stay at home with my children until I had them. By then I had too many student loans to consider it. I am better educated and can make more money than DH, so he will never agree to it. I compromise by trying to work only two days a week(albeit 24 hour shifts) or other flexible arrangements. It still makes me sad.

The part where they all go to bed early and I can take a long, quiet, candlelit bubble bath alone. Oh never mind. That never happens.

Paramedic. In a few weeks I am taking a job as event planner and marketing coordinator at a restaurant. I actually think it's really interesting to learn about everyone.

Yes, kindergarten through 11th grade. I skipped 12th grade and enrolled in community college. DH was homeschooled from 3rd-12th. My mom is wrapping up her last year of homeschooling. She will have homeschooled straight through since 1986.

28, 30, 33.

DS6 is on a 10 month waiting list for a neuropsych. we have good insurance too. Just takes forever.

I am from upstate New York. I live right on a lake and my kids spend a ton of time in the water. Especially at DisneyWorld, I wouldn't think about alligators. It just isn't a part of my frame of reference.

I earned a BA the traditional way, but it is in philosophy and creative writing and has never done much to help me get a job. I went back in January for human resource management and marketing. I am taking a full course load as I really need to get done. It is much, much harder at this point in my life. I was always a good student, but merely trying to keep up with the online discussion is exhausting me right now. I wish--wish wish wish--I had listened to everyone and avoided a liberal arts degree the first time around.

My MIL watches my kids quite often, four times a week sometimes. We've offered a million times to pay her but she adamantly refuses. Instead we try to do things like steal her electric bill and pay it, we've paid her car payment a few times at the bank, sent her on vacation, things like that. She won't accept anything but we feel we should compensate her anyway. She saves us close to $300 a week.

They are probably a long way off from realizing that you can play Minecraft with other people. Hopefully, at least. Screen time is already limited, and I don't plan on changing that. I have found that, as with Skylanders, they play for a while and then once iPad time is over, create their own imaginary worlds in play time. They pretend they are Skylanders or pretend they are living in their Minecraft world for hours on end, and I am okay with that. That's different to me that spending all that time on the iPad in a virtual world.

Reading the other thread I realized how little I know. Ds6 and DD4 have recently gotten really into playing Minecraft. It seemed creative, fun and less annoying than Skylanders, so I've been letting them play during screen time. They only play on an iPad so no network or other people. I think. Ds6 has HFA and I have found Minecraft is popular among his classmates(all similar age and HFA), so it assists with communication that way. The other day we were at the store looking at Lego Minecraft kits and he struck up a conversation with a young adult, trading tips and strategies. It encourages him out of his little world and for that I'm glad. Is there anything I need to know as a parent though? Gaming of any sort has never been part of my life so I feel completely clueless. My experience began and ended with Tetris.

I'm probably a horrible mom, but considering the circumstance of the friend moving, I would allow the bonfire. It is his birthday after all. I might offer to negotiate with him---he is allowed the birthday party but has to perform more hours of slave labor in place of the one day less of grounding. If he doesn't want to do that, then it is his choice. Also, he is 17. Having these huge blowups and consequences about vaping is probably worthless. He knows exactly where you stand on it and is choosing to do it anyway. In a year he is going to be legally allowed to do just about everything but drink. I would be focusing more on helping make wise choices rather than strict punishments, which don't seem to be working.

I have kerataconus and am post-corneal transplant in my left eye. Something happened to the tear duct in surgery and I have some resulting issues. I am sometimes extremely light sensitive and have difficulty keeping the eye focused. I found that a pair of pricier sunglasses helps; they seem to block the light better. Other than that, I tend to hang out in a dark room until it passes. Sometimes that's a day and sometimes longer. Sorry I can't be more encouraging. I know it is very frustrating.

We each have $500,000 through Allstate. Then we also each have one year salary through work and some additional small policies that are basically burial funds. We also have private policies on the children that my grandmother purchased, and they have a rider on one of our life insurances as well. We wanted to make sure that all debt would be paid off and enough left over to live on for a few years.

As awful as it may sound, I would put it on Facebook or other social media and share publicly what you witnessed. I say this as a mom of a kid who was undiagnosed sensory/HFA at 3 and 4, and I naively sent him to VBS and briefly to a "fantastic small church preschool." Later on I found out from other adults present that he was shamed, yelled at, etc, for similar types of things(carrying his blankie, sucking his thumb/fingers, crying when it got too loud)...and no one ever told me. I wish one of those adults had spoken up, posted publicly what they were witnessing if they couldn't get a hold of me or knew me, whatever they had to do so I could find out what was going on. I would have ended that nonsense in a heartbeat. He's much better now, but we still don't do those sort of things without me or another trusted adult present(Sunday School with his aunt in and out of the room or similar). I wish I had known what was going on, but he didn't have the language to tell me and no one else wanted to speak up.

I pay $35/day for my four year old in day care. She goes two days a week and it is a family day care. I hired a part time nanny and I pay $50-75 a day, depending on whether or not she has all three kids.

We just found out DH has to have total shoulder reconstructive surgery that will essentially end his career. We just got a worker's comp check for the time he was off work due to his first surgery---last JUNE. I am thankful I have two degrees that can support my family and even though we have to tighten our finances a lot, I can support us for the long term if needed.