I had a college roommate who decided to go by her middle name at school and introduced herself to us that way. There was much bafflement when her family called and asked for "Jessica"; we didn't know any Jessica in the apartment....

Ah, so you get how brains can do their own thing with labels...

I just sent you a PM, this is a path I'm interested in pursuing myself.

It's even worse when I am around my siblings! At our recent reunion my kids were getting called by their aunts' and uncles' names, and my siblings were getting my kids' names. The worst though was my grandpa, who once slipped and called my dad (his son-in-law) by his dog's name 🤣

Out of curiousity, do you call your sons by each other's names frequently? Not all brains work the same, maybe yours doesn't naturally make such slips?

I'm going to elaborate just a little bit on my thoughts on requiring explicit mental attention to pronouns at all times: Under ordinary circumstances, most language processing in our brains runs on automatic. We've got neural networks in place that naturally and without conscious intervention take concepts and ideas and convert them to words. 99% of this is not under our explicit direction in ordinary circumstances. I don't have to stop and think "to tell my husband I am going to the store, I need to put the verb 'to go' in the first person present continuous form"--my brain just does it. Under ordinary circumstances, our brains throw pronouns into speech just as automatically. Expecting people to halt that automatic process and substitute explicit and intentional, conscious, effortful processing each and every time they use a third-person pronoun is actually imposing a pretty significant burden. This is the main reason I anticipate that singular they will become, over time, a default third person pronoun; we will eventually need to adopt once more some linguistic pattern that allows us to converse comfortably without extra explicit effort and attention. Validating the idea that misgendering is a significant, traumatizing thing is its own major pitfall specifically because human brains run mostly on automatic. My own brain persists in mis-labeling my children on a habitual basis, running those automatic circuits. If "John" were to somehow get the idea that every time I call him "Dave" or "Allan" or "Thomas" (not my actual children's names 🙂) I am inflicting harm on him, we would be in dire straits. The only way I could stop making these automatic slips is if I stop conversing with them in a normal and natural way. This is exactly what is currently happening with pronouns. Of course it's not an issue with people whose preferred pronouns match their clearly identifiable sex; our unconscious language processing circuits work just fine in those cases. And if there are one or two people in our circles who we know the pronoun preferences of and don't have to reference very often, we can make the extra mental effort occasionally. It isn't sustainable though long-term for a large number of people. One unintended consequence that I have seen play out is that a pronoun-sensitive, non-binary-identifying person became increasingly marginalized in a group because everyone was afraid of giving offense (this person took offense easily and became visibly upset). No-one was trying to exclude them, but people were naturally and reasonably gravitating toward spending time with and partnering for activities with people they could converse comfortably with without having to constantly be on guard and use language in an effortfull and intentional way. The preferred interaction partners included several who also identified as non-binary but weren't pricklish over pronoun use. Expecting effortful speech from everyone around us is not reasonable.

Alternative perspective: it's a gesture that can put everyone on guard by signaling that this is a space where pronouns need to be explicitly at the forefront of peoples' minds at all times because there will be judgment for not being cautious and explicit in their application and people may be prepared to take offense should natural use of language happen to go counter to their personal preferences, even by accident. Unintended consequences are always a reality. I don't actually think we've done anyone a favor by, as a society, reinforcing the idea that being "misgendered" is a major trauma, such that any use of 3rd person singular pronouns (those being the only gendered pronouns in English) must be navigated like a bed of quicksand. Social trends (such as the stating of pronouns) are rarely thoughtfully considered and examined for potential unintended side effects. Linguistically, I'm not sure how things will play out. I suspect that singular, gender-neutral "they" will continue to gain ground as a default third-person pronoun, because I don't think that continuing to expect everyone to expend extra mental effort to constantly track the pronoun preferences of everyone they encounter is sustainable. I have trouble imagining he and she disappearing entirely within a lifetime or two though, so who knows. I'll continue to subscribe to the belief that the Englush language as a medium of communication is a collective resource, and that, consequentially, pronouns and other parts of speech cannot be owned by individuals and claiming any as "mine" is nonsensical. Signed, maize Pronouns: whatever seems linguistically appropriate to the person discussing me

I identify as a historical linguist and consider the word man to be inclusive of all of humanity regardless of gender and will use it as such. I shall henceforth use the gender specific wer when referring exclusively to males of the species, and wif to refer to females. The linguistically appropriate pronouns that may be used to refer to me are, dependent on case, heo and hire. 😁

This is great to hear! My oldest did a StarTalk Arabic program when she was fourteen and learned more than I would have thought possible in such a short time!

I just sit on the toilet seat. Toilet seats are not a common source of infection. And yes, I touch the faucets etc. with my hands.

Language is inherently oral/aural; the written form is subsidiary to that. The languages I speak I learned primarily through immersion. In one case (Japanese), I never did learn to read and write past a second grade level even though I could understand and communicate clearly and comfortably. ETA I believe I am dyslexic; written language has always been difficult and slow for me to grasp--including English. I was a late reader in English and, while I did eventually learn to read fluently, spelling has been persistently difficult. I have very little visual memory capacity. Several of my children have dyslexia diagnoses, so there seems to be a genetic component. I speak Spanish and French comfortably and used to speak Japanese comfortably (it's quite rusty these days). I understand German well enough to follow audiobooks such as Harry Potter, though my spoken fluency is lower. Dyslexia does not have to be a barrier to learning to understand and speak a foreign language. All of us learn our native language before we can read or write 😊

For your youngest, could you pick one of the languages available at the local high school and start it now? Dyslexia does not have to be a barrier to learning to speak and understand a foreign language any more than it is a barrier to learning to speak and understand Englush, and a student who starts out with conversational experience in a language will struggle less in class in spite of dyslexia.

Thats why I labeled the ancestor thing as a bunny trail; it isn't really relevant to this affirmation one way or another. Just an interesting-to-think-about tidbit--to me anyway! And of course all of us have ancestors who were among the oppressors. We have ancestors who were murderers, ancestors who were thieves, ancestors who were rapists. Those people are among humanity so they are among our ancestors. The sorts of powerful men who become oppressors to large groups typically have more offspring than the average human, so they're actually a larger percentage of our ancestry--all of humanity's ancestry--than the percentage of the population they represent. It's just reality and statistics.

Probability says the chances you don't have royalty somewhere in your ancestry are virtually nill. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/charlemagnes-dna-and-our-universal-royalty

Yeah this isn't meant to be taken in a literal way, it's meant to evoke "each person is special and deserving of dignity ". But, total random bunny trail, while it is true that most of our ancestors were peasants, it's also true that probably every human alive today is the descendant of powerful kings, warlords, emperors, and chiefs. Pure statistical reality. Powerful men and their brothers and nephews and sons and grandsons are remarkably prolific engenderers of children. We all end up being their descendants.

Upset/disappointed sure. Not angry though--the person watching the kid did absolutely nothing wrong. I would deal with my personal disappointment privately and find something else to do together with my kid.

It's easy to switch tutors with preply; you pre-pay for hours (there's a discount if you buy more at a time) but if you switch tutors you can just switch your pre-paid balance over to the new tutor. My kids have done hundreds of hours of tutoring with various tutors for all kinds of subjects. My kids do better with individualized instruction than with regular online classes, and I can't provide it all myself so tutoring has become our go-to.

My rising 7th grader has been doing math 3 times a week with a tutor we found on Preply.com; that might be an option.

I don't buy that explanation either. I do think the technicians can get really good at seeing what they are looking for; I couldn't always see the twitches the technician claimed to see when I went with dh, but the treatments did work.

Yes, they use toe twitches to test the motor threshold for OCD. For depression the do thumb twitches (different part of the brain).

It's not clear from the website whether you actually have to live in one of those places; my guess is no but you could contact them and ask. They have other remote jobs as well.

I hope you get the school librarian job! Here's a no-phones work-from-home listing: https://careers.conduent.com/us/en/job/85399/Transaction-Processing-Associate-I

For TMS, you might be able to do both simultaneously; that is what my son did--both OCD and depression protocols in each session. According to our psychiatrist depression is easier to get insurance approval for. And I think response rates are better. OCD in general is just a beast to find effective treatment for ((())).

Neither my husband nor my son has experienced any notable side effects, let alone long-term damage. My sister has also done TMS twice with positive and no long-term negative effects. Unlike my husband and son she found the pulses hard to handle--they set off a strong emotional reaction for her, which I haven't heard of from anyone else. She still found that the benefits outweighed the difficulty of the treatment for her. Whether TMS needs to be re-done seems to depend on the individual. The tech who did my husband's most recent treatment series said that about half their patients end up coming back at some point for a second round. My husband is among a minority who seem to need and benefit from repeated treatments over time. Insurance has covered the majority of the cost for him each time. I don't know much about the intensive accelerated treatment option, I've talked to one person who did it and found benefit for depression. Insurance coverage is most likely for the once-a-day-for-six-weeks protocol because that's the current standard that has FDA approval. Doesn't mean it's the best option, just the most established.

The clinics we have been to use the Brainsway machine.