We take the stance that as long as it is legal, not hurting others, and they are happy and fulfilled we can get behind it and support it because we support them. So far our kids are a detective in our state police force, a surgery resident, and about to enter medical school in the fall. The next child in line will be off to college in the fall and we still have five more daughters at home.

Hugs... I honestly have no idea how much our daughter's funeral and burial expenses were. My husband took care of all of that.

Our eldest daughter is getting married this summer. She will be starting her first year of medical school shortly after the wedding and her husband to be is in medical school now. Her wedding has been a bit of a compromise between what she wants in the context of what her great grandfather thinks she needs to have. Before anyone says it is her day and she should have what she wants; her father and I completely get that but one of the things she wants is for her great grandfather to be there and celebrate and enjoy this wedding. He isn't getting any younger and this very well could be the last great grandchild wedding he attends. To also be fair to her great grandfather he is gifting her/ her fiancé all of the reception "essentials" (venue, caterers, etc). So in that context I think her/ our cost will be well under 5000. My mom made her dress but that was what she wanted and it looks stunning! We are also doing some of the flowers for her wedding because she wants some of her late great grandmother's roses incorporated into her bouquet. The actual wedding will be in the church she grew up in. Our church doesn't charge for the use of facilities for members although generally families do make a donation to one of the ministry funds in honor of the couple/child/event. Her father and I plan to do that. Her grandparents and great grandfather probably will as well.

I think a lot of careers can be at least co-opted to allow for parenting. I do think that within a lot (maybe all---but my experience is limited in some careers) of careers there are areas which are more conducive to working with and around family commitments. I was originally in a surgical subspecialty which was doable until I had a sick child. I ended up switching into EM (which required doing another residency which negated some of the benefit in the short term) and then doing a fellowship in toxicology. Now I would say I have a career that works well with parenting. I work 1-2 shifts/week and take some additional toxicology call. I'm blessed to be married to a man who is an awesome dad and takes care of the kids while I work but even if I was relying on outside childcare this would be doable. I will admit that I am more comfortable leaving my kids with their amazing dad than someone else so I understand that there may be some additional nuances to this for others. *Yes, I also appreciate that there are some members of society [and, sadly,even this board] who believe that leaving your children with their father while you work is deserving of significant mom shaming/mom guilt.

I'm sorry medical school applications didn't work out for your son this year. Our daughter had the advantage that I am a physician and her brother is currently a surgery resident. (His experiences regarding school fit and applications were much more relevant than mine.) Because of this I'm really not sure how good her pre-med advising was or was not.

Generally, yes.* We do scrambled eggs with "extras" (vegetables and cheese) a lot. Sometimes we do pancakes with fresh fruit. Sometimes we do oatmeal with some kind of homemade nut paste or peanut butter. We also do breakfast salad which is cold. *With the caveat that sometimes that "hot" breakfast is actually prepared by DH (especially if I worked an overnight physician ED shift and may be coming home just as breakfast is getting to the table---or after it has been cleared away in some cases).

Our leases require sixty day notice to break and are generally one year. Tenants we would be happy to renew receive their renewal package and new lease around four months before the end of the lease. We expect the signed lease returned to us by sixty days before the lease expires. At this point if the tenant doesn't wish to renew we list the property and secure a new tenant. We have offered month to month after lease expiration in limited cases for good tenants with extenuating circumstances. We have also had a few decent tenants over the years who failed to renew in a timely fashion and were able to renew during the new listing period with the terms of their offered lease.

We do have multiple homes---one happens to be on a lake in the mountains. It initially was built as a vacation home but now I actually do some working vacations and run a few days of traumas while my husband keeps our kids safe skiing or swimming. The other homes are in less typical vacation spots but one is near an amazing medical center so I suppose it could be useful for medical tourism (my DH actually did live there with one of our kids for that reason about five years ago). Our primary home is also in a really cool area and does see a lot of visitors even if it wouldn't really meet your above criteria. We could probably very easily VRBO or AirB&B at least the mentioned three but so far the associated hassles and potential liability have outweighed the benefits for us. We have actually never had more than one mortgage at a time and currently don't have a mortgage on any of our homes or rental properties. My husband had satisfied the mortgage on our primary home before we considered building a vacation home. We have also been in a good position to get some good deals on properties and perhaps better deals with cash offers.

Do you sew? Bathing suits are actually pretty easy and so far all of our older daughters have gone through at least a season where that was the easiest option. DD12 is currently about there but she swims competitively now and we've had to work with commercial suits for meets (I am just not that talented!) so I guess she is a bit more adaptable.

Congratulations on your first grandson! I hope everything else works out as well.

Thanks Cat! Somehow I knew you were going to make me feel better about this! To be fair our seventeen year old is a daughter but she is an athlete so she probably should be eating like a teenage boy.

We rarely cook from anything but raw ingredients, we don't keep beer or soda in the house, and our main refrigerator in the kitchen is 32 cubic feet. We also have another two smaller refrigerators and a chest freezer elsewhere in the house. We grow most of our own produce and we still have six children at home so that may be part of it.

Yes! Honestly, our kitchen is clean unless someone is actively preparing food. Then I don't really consider it messy but rather 'in use'. If our kids are old enough to help themselves to food or prepare food then they are also old enough to clean up after they are done.

Our school district works with gifted IEPs so they don't equate IEP with low performance automatically. AP courses do have prerequisites and usually require instructor permission so they aren't a free for all but I doubt that kids are being excluded just because of having an IEP. As far as legality, this may be in a bit of flux with some of the current attempted/proposed legislative changes.

I think the hard thing is that at face value the reported interaction isn't really so off. For discussion sake, my MIL lives in our neighborhood and she is a knitting grandma so she has completely popped in a few times to have the kids try on sweaters in process to be sure they were going to fit or to let them select the yarn they wanted. I don't see her trying to wake up one of our sleeping kids because I know she is a big fan of not waking a sleeping baby but if she wanted our eight year old to try on a sweater and she was too busy with whatever else I can see her saying ok well maybe we'll try that later. I can also see her saying that she won't be able to go any further on the sweater until she tries it on (and perhaps going ahead with another project for a time before giving another chance). I think DH/I would both view that as natural consequences of our daughter's disinterest/rudeness. To an extent, this is what your mom did and, to be fair, she probably really can't start the dress, or make it at all, if she doesn't have the measurements. I really think there is so much more to this than the dresses so I would try to separate out the dress concept from all the rest unless you feel like you are at a point with your mom where you just need to go to complete no contact. If that is the case, then draw your boundary, hold fast, and don't let Easter dresses tempt you off course.

Zanamivir is the other Influenza A/B antiviral. This one is inhaled [and not recommended in patients with underlying lung disease because of increased bronchospasm risk] so I'm not sure if that would be an option--could your son use the disk inhaler with good efficacy?

We don't see family medicine doctors currently. DH and I have PCPs in a local IM group and our children are established with an amazing pediatrics practice so I'm answering this in that context and perhaps that makes a difference. I suspect that our kids' pediatrician would want to see them before prescribing but I've never asked her to call in anything (which isn't legal in our state anyway) and I really can't imagine a situation where that would be what I wanted. I generally think that if a prescribed medicine is needed then an in person evaluation is also needed. Our pediatric practice has never not accommodated a request for a same day appointment when I or DH have asked for that for one of our kids. As a side note, Tamiflu is most strongly recommended for kids under five or kids with chronic conditions which make them higher risk for influenza mortality and post influenza complications. I probably would opt for Tamiflu for our twelve year old but that would be because of her underlying lung disease. I suppose this is another reason to schedule an office visit for a risk benefit discussion in the context of the individual child's medical history.

The en suite bathrooms with soaker tubs all have separate walk in showers. Some of our other "kid bathrooms" have tub with shower combos. I have actually never seen a jetted garden tub with shower combo. I really didn't know that was an option (even if I am tending to agree that it seems like a bad option).

We do have a jacuzzi/hot tub but that has a built in sanitation system.

Amber, I am very sorry for the loss of your mom. My dad died from cancer when I was pregnant with our oldest daughter. It was hard. He was a great dad and so great as a grandfather with my brothers' kids and my stepson so in some ways I feel the loss so much for our kids as well. It is all hard so be gentle with yourself and with your family. My mom did eventually remarry a widower. His kids, with the exception of one, were at least as opposed to the relationship as you and your siblings are. My mom and her husband delayed the actual wedding for years hoping that his kids might come around. Unfortunately they didn't. My mother would have never cohabitated outside of marriage so that option wasn't on the table for them. Eventually they accepted that they would just marry without the support of his children. It is very sad that he has no relationship with three of his four children and none of his living grandchildren. He is actually amazing with my kids and I love that they have another person in their lives to love them but feel a bit sad at what his biological grandchildren could have, but don't. I really hope that this whole situation works out much differently for your family. Disclaimer: I probably shouldn't respond to this because I am my husband's second wife. I'm definitely older than his oldest children (both the biological son he had with his late first wife and his godson, the son of his best friend who we raised after his death) although I will admit that I was mistaken for the latter's wife when we happened to bump into one of his colleagues while we were all their with our respective children. I will also acknowledge my financial net worth increased when I married DH but I'm a physician so I think I probably would have made things work financially regardless. Fortunately my husband's family, friends, and our local community have been so much less judgmental and so much more willing to extend kindness and keep an open mind than many posters on this thread. Sometimes life is just hard and sometimes we have to embrace the joy that can emerge even from and around much sorrow and tragedy.

Jetted tubs can be a pain to clean and can lead to mold and/or bacterial growth issues. We have soaker tubs in our master suite and in one of our guest suites (the other has only a walk in shower).

We have multiple rental properties currently. My husband's law firm processes all rent for us (and yes we personally pay a fee to his law firm for this service every month) so they accept checks, credit card/debit card payments, and will set up EFT/direct deposit transactions for tenants. Our tenants receive rent discounts for having direct deposit and or having rent received before the first of the month. They pay late fees if rent is received on or after the fifth of the month.

Our kids currently run the age gamut from one to almost thirty two. Our two eldest are boys and were legal adults with their own children before some of their younger sisters were born. Our kids really are each other's greatest fans and DH and I love that our kids have each other. For this reason, and many other reasons, we work very hard to ensure that our kids have a sibling relationship and that older siblings are not put into a parenting position.

Is it possible that in the course of living independent of their parents they were either in foster care or a ward of the court at some point after their thirteenth birthday? This would qualify them. Perhaps that is the piece of information that is being missed.

Prayers...