This is one of those things that would completely depend on who it was. If it was someone I'm frequently annoyed by, my emotional response would be to find it absolutely horribly rude. If it was someone I like and find friendly and helpful, I'd love that they cared enough to check in. I hope that knowing this about myself would help me extend grace to the annoying guests, but on a bad day it wouldn't, I'm pretty sure.

I've been told that saying something like "I'm here for you. If you need to vent, I'm here to listen, but we could talk about your kids or I can tell you a crazy story about my cat, or we could just watch this movie together or read books next to each other, if you want." Is that something that would be welcome, those of you who know?

Thanks to you all. I'm working up a better list now. Yes,my oldest is 7 and a Wolf. She owns a knife thanks to my dad, but she doesn't feel ready for it and won't be allowed to carry it until Bears next year anyway. I'll fix my signature to make it less confusing. I just know I'm too lazy to update whenever we have a birthday.

We are, and it's always good to know which off brands are actually a good buy and which are cheap in quality as well as price.

We did that last year and will get pool passes when it warms up. We have a pretty long outdoor swim season, so we're a little low on indoor pools. Last year I got the oldest swimming well, the second on his way, and the third ready to try. This summer the oldest can learn different strokes and maybe join swim team, the second can get to the point of swimming laps, and the third might be able to as well, if he's willing.

Thanks! Some of that we already have, but some of it had completely slipped my mind. Underlayers for sure! I'm not sure I can get elderly relatives to get excited about giving it to kids, but we will make sure they have it.

Our kids don't have many items on their wish lists, but we need to ask for things to keep from being given random toys and such. I had the idea of lightweight portable camp chairs for cub scout events, which made me think of other camp and scout things, but I'm a little thin on specifics. I haven't done much with this before, and my husband gets his gear free through the military, though some of that he'll have to give back. We have an arsenal of knives dh has won as prizes, and the kids are a bit young for them anyway. Also they have hydration backpacks already and we have a family tent. Any ideas? It's okay if its something they can be excited about now but not really get much use out of until they are older.

Basically, yeah, that's part of it. If someone seems unhappy in it, or like it isn't working, what can we say or do? Right now I'm thinking that steering the conversation towards "what are your goals, and what steps do you need to take to meet them" is a good way if it can be done naturally and non judgementally, but I'm trying to get more perspective.

Sorry, I didn't mean pressuring someone into homeschooling. Absolutely not! I mean, just the fact of so many people homeschooling, especially in circles where it is popular, creates some pressure, and that's something I haven't seen discussed here. Should we try to counteract that? If someone sees that homeschooling is working for us and others and so starts, but it isn't working for them but they seem to be continuing because they feel they should, is there anything we should or even could do without violating every boundary there is?

Have any of you seem home schooling be contagious or people feel peer-pressured to home school? I know many have seen the opposite, but the threads complaining about new homeschoolers and some of my own observations make me wonder how widespread this is. I've seen it be good. For example, one young relative will be homeschooled starting in January because when her Kindergarten class was clearly not meeting her needs, despite her parents working with the teacher, her parents felt good about making the switch and so weren't stuck just complaining about the situation. On the other hand, I've seen a few families who are surrounded by home schoolers bounce their kids in and out of school, feeling guilty when they enroll their kids somewhere but not ever getting around to much education at home. How do we harness this peer pressure for good, encouraging other families to all do our best by our families? Everyone's homeschool will look different depending on differing needs and priorities, so is there any standard at all we can hold up as a general goal? I know some here are very "eyes on your own plate," but I'm at least a little "no man is an island" on this subject, especially as it relates to close friends and family. I'm interested in hearing thoughts and experiences on this to help me develop my own thinking.

One year my mother-in-law gave me pan scrapers from Pampered Chef. I'm not sure what they're actually called, but they are really hard plastic and great at scraping gunk off pans without scratching them up. Each corner is different so they can get right into the edges of every dish I own. I rolled my eyes when I opened them and they sat in the package a while, but I use them nearly daily.

Thanks, having this to say is probably more helpful than my "that seems like a bad idea." I agree totally, but I have to stay in the bounds of encouraging and giving the advice asked for. We're close enough for me to say some things, but I'm not the parent.

Thanks. That was my gut reaction from what I had heard but I didn't want to give advice from a position of ignorance.

Another mom of several is looking to simplify their school day and asked my opinion, but I don't know much about Saxon. Would doing Saxon Math 2 days a week (alternating with English two other days) be enough to allow kids to progress? The kids are elementary and middle school age, with one mathy child and one struggling learner in the mix.

I got 69, which is far better than I expected. I focused on the eyebrows and described them in words for each one, which I think helped. That doesn't work so well in real life as many people have very similar eyebrows.

He may have only been half playing you, half playing himself. I remember being completely surprised from time to time how easy something was once I sat down and just did it. I convinced myself that things were impossibly hard and time consuming. I still do that when the mound of dishes grows tall.

Thanks. We took advantage of this. All we had to do was click "yes" that dh was a veteran, active duty, reserves, or guard. I don't know if we've given them evidence before or if they just decided to believe us.

Thanks, that will be helpful. I think articles would be fine, too. I'm planning on having her read one book about pilgrims, can one about something else, and then getting some more perspective from articles or videos, and having these additional ideas helps with searching.

One of the Wolf Cub Scout requirements can be met by reading about people who came to America for religious freedom. I'd like to make sure that my kid gets not only the Pilgrims back in the 1600s but also sees that this has happened with a variety of religions in a variety of settings. I can find Pilgrim books easily, and books about immigration in general, but I'm having trouble finding books about other religious asylum seekers. She's a fantastic reader but young enough (7) that books for kids or about kids are far more appealing than those for or about adults. Does anyone have suggestions? Mostly about non-Pilgrims, but if you have a great book about Pilgrims, I'd be happy to hear that, too. And if it's people going to a different country than America, that's also good. It won't meet the cub scout requirement, but it will meet mine. 🙂

On the idea that some mothers will feel shamed for wanting to cover up or go to a private room to nurse if public nursing becomes the default: I think this will happen to a certain extent just because it is so easy to feel shamed when feeling vulnerable and unsure. Probably most of us have had a time when we felt shamed or judged while we were trying to figure out this parenting thing, even though no one was actually judging or trying to shame us. Like in the original story that started this thread. Maybe the woman offering the private area was making a statement against nursing in public, or maybe she was just being awkward because she knows it can be a touchy subject and didn't want to appear judgemental but was worried she had. A brand-new mom would likely be far more shaken by the experience than a pro like the op. I'm convinced a large part, though sadly not nearly all, of the mommy wars are in our own heads. We are so self critical that we read judgement or attack into benign statements. This may have even happened once or twice on this very thread. I've been working on this in myself, but I have no idea how to help the problem on a more macro level.

I ask this all the time. I like food. My husband occasionally remembers to eat, and he never complains about my cooking, but he doesn't actually enjoy eating. The best meals are those that cause large numbers of calories to easily slide down his gullet without much thought. My oldest seems cut from the same cloth and dislikes most foods (as he did when he was young.) We're working on thinking "have I eaten enough to let me body grow and stay healthy?" and then eating more if the answer is no, because listening to her stomach would lead her to starve. The next child is polite and likes many things, but no sauce at all, so cooking for him is boring. Plain noodles with meat on the side and vegetables next to that. And then the next two are too small to eat significant amounts. Grrr. I don't know why I bother to cook.

Yeah, that stinks, but it's why I don't send anything I'm not willing to have destroyed.

I tandem fed my first 2 since they were 17 months apart, and no one warned me about this being a thing! It was hard and grew harder as time went on and I started to feel anger at my sweet toddler just for wanting to nurse. It all worked out, but I think that's part of the reason I want nursing, and nursing in public, to be more normalized. If children grow up seeing nursing, seeing babies held in different positions, seeing the mom grimace but go on when the baby takes a nip or when let down is strong and they suddenly grab the other breast to keep from pouring, and so on, those kids are going to have a much easier time nursing or supporting a partner in nursing. They will have an easier time knowing what is normal pain and what pain indicates a problem. Also, my nearly 90 year old Grandpa, who blushes when people curse in the presence of ladies and grew up on a ranch in Montana finds it odd and a little amusing that women feel a need to hide while nursing babies. That's not something he grew up with, at all, and I hope that's the attitude that takes (back) over.

With 4 kids close in age, I feel like the last 2 have been nursed in every kind of place. I even nursed 1 in a toilet stall, interestingly enough. We were at my brother-in-law's fancy wedding. He was about 18 months, so he didn't need to nurse often, but we were there for a very long time (the other kids were in the wedding) I was in a non-nursing friendly dress so there was no way other than topless. Plus, it was a really nice toilet stall, haha. My favorite was settling into a nice, discrete corner of the science museum, just before the area was mobbed by a field trip of middle school boys. I don't think any of them paid attention to me and their chaperone avoided eye contact. They didn't have a chance to learn too much from the experience, but it made me giggle a little about learning science at the museum.

My husband has this crazy plan that when we someday build a house, there will be a light house included as part of it. He and his best friend from the army had a deal that the best friend would come live as a recluse in a light house, so there will be no easy access to the living quarters, just a dumb waiter to send up provisions. So, I don't really wish to live in a light house, but who knows. I may have one attached to my house someday, complete with a hermit who is my husband's alter ego. By the way, we don't live on the coast.