For my sister — if she is just going to use Uber on bad weather days, on the 3 days a week she goes to the office, I don’t tend to think it would be too expensive. She is someone who frequently goes a week at a time without driving, and bikes to work when it’s not raining or snowing. Most of the year she can bike. For me, for how much I drive, there is no way I would save money with Uber. For her I think it’s likely she would save money. I don’t know if she is going to think it’s reliable enough to count on it to get to work when it’s raining, what if there aren’t enough drivers then. I don’t know, and it’s new to her area. But it’s also looking like her boss might just let her “call in” and work from home if that happened. “Calling in” is turning out to be very flexible as long as she doesn’t overuse it.

Uber has just expanded coverage to her area, but those “close, and a necessity, too far not to drive” things might work with Uber now for my sister. I will add about her unreliable vehicle, she wants to keep it until she can get an electric vehicle, but her area does not have any electrical vehicle infrastructure so she wants to wait for that. Her state seems to be moving fast. Uber might be a game changer for her, and for out of town she has rented a van once before. She likes to go to other towns for concerts and fairs and she goes to things like folk music festivals. So she’s often going with a group anyways and lo and behold, they don’t want to ride in her unreliable vehicle! But she could reciprocate by renting a van here and there. Edit: her first choice is for the electric vehicle infrastructure to improve in her general area where she would drive to another town. Right now a lot of her friends who are married couples have one electric vehicle for everything local, but say they keep their gas vehicle for those kinds of trips because they can’t count on charging stations. These are the friends she goes to concerts etc with.

Sadly my sister will never move back here and the heat is a big reason. She is the kind of environmentally conscious person who is not comfortable with running AC. That is a little part of the reason she lives where she does. Her boyfriend is more environmentally conscious than she is, too, and they have been together 20 years! So they’re including lots of “how can I be environmentally conscious” things in their decisions.

My sister lives in the downtown area of a small town, but a small town that’s a regional center and has a lot of offices and shopping in the downtown area. They just got Uber in the past few months. She is wondering if she will keep her vehicle (that is expensive for her to keep running) or try not having a vehicle. She would rely on going to other places together with friends if she did that. She doesn’t really want to be reliant on giving other people gas money, but as it is she often does ride with other people and give them gas money. But it would be different if she didn’t have another way to go, instead of just riding with someone else that time. Her boyfriend does not have a car, but he rides his bike everywhere. But he also uses her car. She gets irritated about it sometimes but he has got other good qualities. She has started a new job recently that has 2 work from home days a week right now, but that might go up. She rides her bike to work in nice weather. She is currently thinking “what if I did just Uber to work in bad weather.” I don’t know what she’s going to decide, but she’s someone without kids, things are pretty walkable and bikeable for her, and she is wondering if Uber is going to push her over. She has also rented a van one time when she had a trip planned and her vehicle was in the shop at the last minute. That worked out well and shes also thinking about what if she did rent a van for trips sometimes, and would that work out for her if she didn’t have a vehicle. Edited to say, she does not have kids. She also told me when we were talking about it, she feels like she is older and doesn’t want to be always needing a ride, she did that when she was younger but feels like it’s different to do it now that she’s older. She did it in college, but now she’s in her 50s. She’s not at a stage in her life where she wants to be the person without a car who wants to go do something in another town and needs a ride. But in practice she almost always (if not always) goes as part of a group and is not the one driving anyways. Partly because her vehicle is not as reliable, but she “could” drive. This would be rides to go see a concert or go to an event, not daily life.

We went with a lower cost of living and that is good for us. We also picked to live near family, and that has been really good.

We use Mint Mobile with paid-off phones. We have gotten our younger kids used/refurbished phones. It’s working out for us. We get 5 whatever of data, and the kids just run out of data early in the month most of the time. But they can still text or call. Edit: it costs $15/month per phone but I think that is with an annual payment. My husband is the plan owner and it’s been easy for him to deal with, but he has heard that their customer service is horrible if there’s a problem.

He is so cute!!!!!!!!!

Yes, but…. I have definitely felt constrained by needing to respect privacy of my family members. I have gotten used to it now and it’s fine now, but honestly that was hard for me. I have joined a support group instead of sharing with people in my circle besides my husband. This seems like a good solution. My oldest child told me very clearly to stop sharing things he didn’t want me to share, when he was about 14, he didn’t want to be a topic of conversation among my parents and my sisters.

Don’t you work in a school? Totally unacceptable.

I am totally fine with disliking or disapproving, and choosing not to support it. I don’t think it’s fair to say it means someone is going to abuse their partner. That’s literally as much support as I get it. If other people act that way, do you have to act that way, too? If somebody else is going “boss, give me the chance, please, I want it really bad,” then do you not do it? To some extent, I think it be answer is yes. But it’s also a physical thing people are doing. They are already touching people and talking loudly to communicate. That’s already *part of what they are doing.* But really where was there a physical threat to the coach. The coach did not appear to feel physically threatened nor did he give in to the player. I think it’s just misreading it to think it’s a threat or meant as a threat or was perceived as a threat. I do not know if it’s possible to identify an abuser by how a competitive athlete acts on the field. I think there ARE things that are warning signs. I just don’t think this one is. However, if someone has information that this kind of behavior IS a red flag for abuse, I would take that to heart.

My husband worked for 20 years in an all-male environment. It was the Army, he was in the Infantry. He does this bumping people, talking in their face thing, and people do it to him. To me it comes across like the coach is in charge of this interaction. The player didn’t get his way. The player let it go at that point. The player knows the coach is in charge! My husband does not act this way now that he has retired and never with me or my kids. It’s an acceptable way to act in that work environment sometimes, but he isn’t going around acting this way everywhere he goes or all the time.

Saxon? Singapore Math?

Just as an aside, I have also seen r/teachers and I don’t think it is representative of the 3 school districts that we have lived in. I have also seen some r/homeschool and I don’t think it’s representative, either!!!!! I have known of 5 sad, neglectful homeschooling situations. Two are my husband’s relatives. Two (siblings) are my husband’s friend’s kids who are from the same controlling church. One is a friend of my son’s who was pulled out of school during Covid. Those seem vastly over-represented to me on Reddit compared to my own life experience and homeschoolers I have known in person. My sister and my nieces know a lot of homeschoolers as well, their church is very supportive of homeschooling and hosts a co-op. They know zero homeschoolers that don’t seem at face value to be active in their kids’ academic and social lives (and religious lives etc). I think this too for other parts of Reddit. Some things just do not seem representative to me. I personally also skim things and think “I don’t fit in here” or I can feel like “things are great for me in this area, I don’t want to come and be super-positive in case it makes other people feel bad about themselves.”

Just as a thought, if money is an issue it might be cheaper to do one passport process or the other. I agree with others, it’s important to secure the citizenship of the country they weren’t born in. But it can be pricy for two kids. There might also be a time difference for how long it takes to process things. This was for my oldest son, but in my memory we had to have his consular birth certificate saying he was a US citizen, before we could apply for his passport. It added an extra step/time. But the Mom’s country might not require anything like that.

I think there are ways to try to prevent a parent from getting a passport at the passport office or embassy.

Wouldn’t he just go home on his home country’s passport? Wouldn’t he go home on the same passport he entered on? I would assume his kids will need a passport to travel internationally. I would assume they can apply for a passport from either the US or the mom’s home country. If they qualify for the mom’s home country, maybe that country has an embassy that does foreign-born children passports. For the person I know, he couldn’t get his driver license valid for a date past the date his EAD expired. He will have to keep renewing at the dmv, as he gets extensions, until he gets his green card (permanent residence). Edit: I mean his drivers license expires on the same day as his EAD. So my understanding is that this man may not be working legally or driving legally while his EAD is expired. Edit: for the driving there may be something about someone’s immigration status that makes a difference, or the state someone lives in, but that is what the situation is with the person I know in this state. Edit: also some people have international licenses but I don’t know about that, but he might be driving legally now that I think about it more.

His kids sound like they qualify for dual citizenship. If they were born here they qualify for US citizenship. That doesn’t mean they don’t also qualify for the mom’s home country. The mom’s home country might make them renounce their US citizenship when they turn 18, I haven’t heard of that for younger kids. I believe the US allows dual citizenship with any country. I know someone who has an EAD and recently got an “EAD extension” that gave him another 2 years. It’s just a pdf. He’s legally allowed to work for another 2 years. The EAD stuff seems independent of the visa/immigration stuff. They seem related for sure, but it seems like EAD extensions are what people do, while they are waiting on their immigration cases. The truth is this person needs to see an immigration lawyer. I think all of this is immigration lawyer stuff, because there are so many details that make a difference in how things are handled. Maybe there would be more lawyer stuff beyond an immigration lawyer.

https://marybarbera.com/autism-sleep-how-improve-sleep-children-autism/ My child did not have sleep issues, but this is one of my favorite authors for younger children with autism. I just skimmed and didn’t see anything about ruling out medical issues. This author has tons about ruling out medical issues with children who may not communicate well or show expected signs of medical issues. If it’s not mentioned here — it is one of those things that is always worth considering.

Things have gotten better, I think this person appreciates that my step-dad cared enough to talk to him and encourage him to change some ways he was acting. He has made it clear to me he wants to get along with me. I’m shocked, I did not think it would work out this well. I have also made it clear I do want to get along with him, and my husband has made it clear he wants to get along, too.

My mom is a really nice person who wants everyone to get along. But she is extremely conflict avoidant. Two main things happened that she (and my step-dad) let go without addressing. Truly they should have been addressed. My step-dad ended up addressing them in a way that really worked for me. These things happened in my parents’ home. Then it turned out there were low-level things that I was shocked they weren’t aware of, but they weren’t aware of them in particular and didn’t realize what it had gotten like for me. But they also thought “well these things do sound like things this person would do.”

I have, unbelievably, had some resolution with a vaguely similar issue. Basically, I’m supposed to be the person who gets along. It’s on me. What about other people who are difficult? “That’s just how they are.” My mom never, ever took my side. Now, if she didn’t take sides, that would be different. But she did take sides by expecting me to do something different, while making excuses for other people. Somewhat unbelievably, my step-dad went to bat for me. My mom has stopped with some things where I say “well did you talk to my sister about it, too?” My mom also wanted to say it was just about political things, but it was not, there was actual rude behavior directed towards me that I was supposed to just ignore for family peace. Anyway, it’s a lot better. I moved back to my hometown in July 2020 so it comes up more, because I actually live here and I am either seeing certain people or I’m choosing not to see them. I went 8 months without seeing some people and basically was not going to go to major holidays either if I was expected to put up with more of the same. I do feel like I had to make a change as the only way to change the dynamics. It’s good enough for me now. A lot of it for me is just feeling like my feelings matter and I’m not somehow one of the people who is supposed to put up with everything, while certain people are allowed to be difficult just because somehow they are allowed to be difficult. I do mean, as in actually rude. I can put up with political differences, when the other side is also willing to (motivated to) put up with political differences. It goes a long way.

*Also my husband likes guns so it would be weird to say someone can’t take it out of the holster to show my husband. That would actually be weirder for my situation.* Edit: in fact I think it’s likely people do show my husband their guns 75% of the time. Edit: but not in the house!!!!!!

I do think where we used to live at the time, there were storage laws for guns such that you couldn’t lock your gun in the trunk of your car. One person would visit us from out of state and couldn’t just leave his gun home if he was on a multi-day trip. It’s more involved in its way. I’m trying to remember if there was an issue with a motorcycle, but I think he had a truck. But it is true if someone is riding their motorcycle cross country and wants to come over, they have to safely store their gun in some way if I won’t let it in my house. But this person was not someone difficult and I know we had some easy solution. Because this person wants to get along and find a solution. Honestly there are also people where I would be fine *if it even come up but it doesn’t because they don’t conceal carry 100% of the time.* But if I’m going to have a rule it’s also messed up if I say “I don’t mind your friend Kevin but hell no for your dad.” Except I do also mind his friend Kevin but I might not care if it was just Kevin. Edit: or open carry actually.

I do not trust the judgment of the specific people who would conceal carry in my home.

Someone bought a special car gun safe so they wouldn’t have to bring their conceal carry into our home. It’s not something I condone. Edit: Realistically people are either leaving their gun home sometimes or concealed carrying illegally. Because some places do not allow concealed carry. So either they are leaving their gun home sometimes or they are getting a car gun safe of some type or making some kind of other arrangement that is legal and safe. Edit: I have let someone come on our patio as a compromise which seems fine in good weather. Oh but wait! Technically we didn’t invite him inside. Because we knew he always carries and I think it’s disrespectful to me. This is an in-law for me and I don’t see why I should be disrespected in my own home.