This is another thing that is rarely talked about. I'm not anti-pet, but we can't pretend that our billion+ companion animals (and their feral relatives) aren't putting yet more strain on the planet's resources.

You have to be above the 90th percentile of earners before the credits start to phase out--about $200,000 per year for singles and $400,000 for a married couple. This means that the overwhelming majority of parents do benefit from child tax credits.

The tax credits are refundable, or at least a percentage of the credit is; I think there was a bill up recently to make them fully refundable, but I haven't heard that it passed. Refundable means that even if a low-income family owed no tax to start with they can get the credit, so it really is a straight-up payment from the government. It can come as monthy additions to the paycheck (i.e. less taxes deducted) otherwise it shows up when you file your tax return and get a refund. I'd be in favor of monthly disbursements and larger amounts; there was discussion of that a couple of years ago but it didn't make it into legislation.

The thing is, per capita economic growth so far has also come with per-capita increase in exploitation of the planet's resources. For example: "The material footprint per capita has also increased at an alarming rate. In 1990, about 8.1 metric tons of natural resources were used to satisfy an individual’s needs. In 2017, that rose to 12.2 metric tons, an increase of 50 per cent. That year, high-income countries had the highest material footprint per capita (approximately 27 metric tons per person), 60 per cent higher than the upper-middle-income countries (17 metric tons per person) and more than 13 times the level of low-income countries (2 metric tons per person). The material footprint of high-income countries is greater than their domestic material consumption, indicating that consumption in those countries relies on materials from other countries through international supply chains. On a per-capita basis, high-income countries rely on 9.8 metric tons of primary materials extracted elsewhere in the world." https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2019/goal-12/#:~:text=The material footprint per capita,increase of 50 per cent. Reducing population while continuing on with per-capita resource consumption growth as a driver of overall economic growth is no more sustainable than perpetual economic growth driven by population growth. I see no path of perpetual economic growth within a closed system with finite resources.

Therapy is helpful for some and not helpful for others--it depends partly on the root causes of the depression, the approach and skill of the therapist, and the ability of the client to fully engage with therapy and apply strategies learned. For my husband, who has struggled with chronic, severe depression throughout his adult life, therapy was really never helpful. Medication helps, and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) has had a near-miraculous impact in improving his mental functioning--I'd encourage you to look into TMS providers neat you. Here's more information on the treatment: https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/transcranial-magnetic-stimulation/about/pac-20384625

One thing that never gets talked about, that I think needs to be talked about, is that an expanding population has been one of the major drivers of economic growth over the past few centuries. It's not the only factor, and of course the burgeoning human population has been facilitated by some of the other factors (and has in turn facilitated those factors in a feedback-loop manner) such as technological development and increased utilization of both finite and non-finite natural resources. But it has been a reliable, prime driver of economic growth throughout the modern era. And nobody seems to be talking about how worldwide economic systems that are all predicated on continually growing economies will be impacted when this major driver of growth dries up. As world population growth levels off and, according to predictions, begins to drop--I expect global economic growth to also slow and possibly at some future point reverse--there is an actual limit to how much an individual human can consume in resources and products, tangible and intangible both. It's a high limit, and maybe ultimately less of a factor with regard to the limits of economic growth than are the the impacts of increasing individual consumption and their consequential depletion of resources, contribution to environmental pollution, etc. In either case, endless economic growth eithin a finite system is not sustainable--but such growth is foundational to our globally-interlocked economic systems. Why do I never see this discussed? Why are we not, collectively, working to figure out more sustainable economic systems? Surely there are economists somewhere modeling what might happen with a long-term slow-down of economic growth?

Wonderful news, thanks for sharing!

These words are among a set that I pronounce more than one way, more or less ar random. Route oot and route out--I say both. Same with 5 syllable vs 4 syllable laboratory. And either comes out as ee-ther or as eye-ther as predictably as flipping a coin.

I've often wished I had a recording of myself as a young adult--people often commented on my accent and asked where I was from, and I wonder myself what it was they were hearing. Both my parents have fairly generic Western US accents--my mom grew up in Alaska, Washington, and Oregon, and my dad in California and Utah. At the time I came back to the western US for college I had been out of the country for 9 years, living in 4 different countries with 3 different languages, and most of the English speakers I interacted with were not American (and often not native speakers). I'd clearly picked up *something* but I don't know what. My siblings all had similar experiences of being asked about their accents. It's been years since people have commented on my accent or asked where I am from after hearing me speak, so I assume I have naturalized here.

This exactly--your accent is just the way you speak, the only way not to have an accent would be to not speak at all. Our own speech patterns, the patterns we have grown up with, of course make up our sense of "normal" speech so we recognize differences in the speech of people from elsewhere and identify that as an outside-our-norm "accent"--but of course to the person from elsewhere it is we who are speaking with an outside-the-norm "accent".

I have often regretted that my children could not have been born English--5 of the 7 really, really struggle with the strong rhotic American R. They are often told by people around us that they have a British accent. They of course don't have any true British accent, but words with R in them sound closer to British than American in pronunciation--in spite of years of speech therapy.

I'm so glad you had such a lovely visit ☺️

I cough, sneeze, and blow my nose loudly--more airflow=more gunk ejected from where it doesn't need to be. I don't moan though unless I'm in labor!

My 11 year old had his out when he was about 4--tonsils and adenoids. It helped immensely with his breathing and sleep (his nose was almost entirely obstructed by overgrown adenoids, and his tonsils were enlarged as well). Recovery took maybe a week? I remember it took longer than recovery for my older son who had only his adenoids removed. No regrets, no known negative side effects.

I don't think any of my seven kids potty trained until at least age three. I'd just let it go for a bit--I would suggest a few months--and try again later.