I think a gift card to a grocery store or restaurant or door-dash would be great. Or something like a visa gift card with a note suggesting it be used however it would be most helpful--ordering food, or paying for a housekeeper to come in, or buying diapers.

Oh interesting! If family is nearby do they help? My mom was able to come help for at least a week or so after most of my births, it made a huge difference (especially as my husband wasn't up to helping much). We've never lived near family.

There are plenty of churches that don't do greetings as part of the service; if greetings detract from your church experience you'd probably be happier attending a different church. Human touch can be an element of community-building; I'm one who appreciates touch--I'd be quite happy to hug everyone every day. But I understand that lots of people feel differently. I have one son who very much does not like hugs--or to be touched by other people in general--and I respect that. I would hope that a religious community would be able to respect and accommodate individual preferences regarding physical contact as well.

Thinking more, I think one advantage of being a child in a large family is that any sense of parental expectations can be diluted among the children. Growing up, my dad often said he would love for one of his daughters to become a doctor because he had been so impressed by the female doctor who was on the treatment team when my sister had cancer. I think that, had he only had one daughter, that daughter might have felt a need to make dad's dream come true. As it happened, my dad had six daughters; I know several of us considered the medical school path but ultimately none of us opted for it--and none of us felt the personal weight of potentially letting down a parent. So much is family and individual dynamics so I don't really know how much of my experience is generalizable--but I was often grateful to have so many siblings (9 all together) that my parents' attention and concern was never focused exclusively on me!

I tell my kids that I very much hope to be a grandma some day, but that with seven kids it's pretty much assured that SOMEONE will have kids and I'm not expecting any particular child to produce grandchildren for me 😀 It really would be quite statistically unlikely for none of them to ever have children...

Writers of articles can write anything they want. That doesn't make the thing true. What this article-writer wrote is nonsense.

For Air Force ROTC, almost everyone commissions into active duty Air Force. It sounds like army is different. I didn't know anyone who went National Guard or Reserves.

If he's going in as a sophomore he may need to double up on the ROTC classes that are usually spread across freshman/sophomore years. I did that; they were easy classes. Time commitment that sophomore year was maybe 6 hours per week required. I did more than that, but by choice. Moving forward, there can be bigger time commitments that come with cadet leadership positions. We had plenty of cadets though who were doing extracurriculars and working part-time.

I'm sure it is no more problematic than any other hose. Don't drink from it unless it is designated for drinking water--that goes for any hose (there are hoses that are designated safe for potable water use, used for filling RV tanks and such; they are usually white).

Congratulations!

It's been a few years, but I joined AFROTC at the beginning of my sophomore year and commissioned when I graduated. They did help pay for my last two years of school. ROTC was the best part of college for me, I loved all of it.

I've never seen a full service station--not even one with a full service lane--in my current state. I loved the service stations in Japan with all the attendants cheerfully calling out "irashai!" I didn't have a car myself so I only experienced them when riding with someone else.

We use sand timers a lot--also silent and provide a visual reference for time remaining

Congratulations on passing the test!

To me what feels dishonest is referring to a man as a woman or a woman as a man. A he as a she or a she as a he. A daughter as a son or a brother as a sister. Those are explicit untruths I'm OK with they, they is not a lie--it just doesn't designate sex, as "you" or "I" does not. I don't care about names, names aren't inherently male or female.

The thing with integrity is it is inherently subjective. If a person perceives something to be dishonest, it IS dishonest to them regardless of whether others think it matters or not. Compelling a person to go against their own conscience seems to me like a pretty egregious and abusive practice, not a thing to be brushed off as insignificant

Those of you who believe it is completely moral and ethical to compel a person to lie by referring to males as females and vice versa, do you hold the same standard for other lies? I've actually faced that dilemma at work--been instructed by a direct supervisor to lie. I was a brand-new lieutenant in the Air Force, and military culture has a strong "do what you are told" element. Honesty and integrity are important to me. I refused to lie. My supervisor was not happy. I was confident in the ethics of my decision, but it certainly wasn't the easy path.

Laws, as you very well know, can be unethical and abusive. And, as you also know, sometimes the moral thing to do is to stand up to them.

Ethically, I would consider demanding someone lie to be abuse. If laws make such demands, the laws are abusive.

This is, in practice, where I tend end up--avoiding pronouns, or using they (since I see no actual linguistic need for gendered pronouns). Though doing even that sometimes feels like very much meeting the feminine expectation of always accommodating everyone...and I'm not a fan of that (gendered in the sense sociologists and feminists used a few decades ago!) expectation. Using she for someone I know to be male feels utterly dishonest.

There is nothing kind or respectful about sitting in a staff meeting with the expectation of controlling the speech of the people around you or expecting them to (according to their understanding of truth and significance) lie on behalf of your comfort. Respect cannot be a one-way street, expected of thee but not of me.

Pharmaceuticals in waterways are a very real issue. Sample research report, you can find dozens more. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749119300892

I knew many people in my own generation who as teens and young adults declared they were never going to have kids. Almost all went on to have kids.

Thanks, I needed a reminder to make an appointment for my son. We were hopeful that dh's hearing impairment wouldn't appear in our kids but two of them already having mild hearing loss and it's getting worse. Convincing a teen to wear hearing aids is an uphill battle though.

What I saw was people saying that PCOS doesn't make a woman something other than a woman--in spite of some people trying to frame it as an intersex condition. I'm not sure where you are finding the attraction stuff.