No, I wouldn't, because everything about piercing guns is already shockingly bad in comparison to a professional piercer using a sterile needle. Piercing guns do more tissue damage and they can't be autoclaved. With those two caveats, the amount of training is irrelevant. The gun is just gross, gross, gross. Totally unsanitary, unsafe, and gross.

Metafilter has a post with several more links on this story, and also a lot of fairly educated comments that manage to go in a wildly different direction from the comments here. I'm leaving this comment for people who want it, not because I want to get dragged into this conversation. I do not, in fact, want to get dragged into this conversation today. I just don't have the spoons. https://www.metafilter.com/196768/gentle-but-firm-hand-to-the-students-and-those-who-pay-the-tuition-bills

I kinda feel like the only person who can answer this question is your mom. *shrugs*

What's your objection to a tattoo parlor? They're the professionals, and they have higher standards than Claire's or wherever.

As far as I know, my parents never considered alternate names for either of us. My sister was Jennifer because my father, like apparently everybody else in his generation, "always wanted a girl named Jennifer" and her middle name is after some distant relative because my mom forgot that it's also her own mother's middle name. I'm named after my grandfather, which turned out to be amazingly apropos because the man was definitely autistic and so am I, and also I've spent nearly my entire life being told I look like my mother, and she inherited much of her looks from him.

Oh, you're just trying to use up a frozen chicken? Why not make soup? There's lots of recipes for soup with a whole chicken.

Did you brine it first? Brining is essential for baking meat so it isn't dry - especially poultry! You can look up recipes online.

That does not make this a good idea. Even if you want to start visiting - and there would be no judgment from me if you did not! - I really think you're better doing it during some less weighted time of the year. Not a holiday. Have you ever seen this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF9ST-j3u4M Carly Rae Jepsen is singing about extremely relatable problems that people with fairly non-toxic families would get, and the whole point of the song is that people fight over the holidays. That song is certainly not the first place I ever heard the phrase "It's not $HOLIDAY until somebody cries", lemme tell you. You know what's not in that song? Literally anything you mentioned here! She's talking about routine family drama, and you're talking about the sort of stuff that causes estrangement. If you want to visit your mother because you want to visit her - not because she's lonely or because nobody else will or because she's your mother and you love her, but because this is what will make you happy - then sure, visit her. But please, reconsider doing this visit during a holiday. It is not going to end well.

I wildly disagree with the bolded. A big family holiday is bound to be the WORST time to do this, even without all the complications. If you're going to try to resume this relationship, with or without the kids, then I'd suggest starting slowly, with more low-key options, like a weekly call where the kids are invited but not obligated to greet her. Build up to holidays, don't start there.

Without sharing an opinion on either thing - though believe me, I have 'em! - I will say this: When I find myself focused on intensely on an issue that doesn't affect me, sometimes that's because I'm trying to avoid thinking or doing something about something I really ought to be focusing on. Not always, and that doesn't necessarily mean that whatever issue it is isn't important. Upon occasion, those other issues are actually *quite* important, which is why they offer such a good distraction, and one that's morally justifiable too! I hope this is not one of those cases with you, but if it is, you probably already know it and need a nudge to get back on track, so, uh, consider this your nudge if that's the case.

Thanks. It sucks, but I'm playing a game called "no regrets", and the chief non-regret here is that at least she didn't particularly suffer in the process. Speaking of my mother, she could be a difficult person, but I cannot imagine her acting in the described way towards me and my sister nor any child we cared about. I remember once, perhaps seven years ago, the younger kid's best friend came over wearing bedroom slippers because she had no shoes, and when my mother saw this she said "Oh, by the way, does anybody want to come with me to the craft store and help me schlep home art supplies?" and, in the process, bought her two new pairs of shoes and gave her a good meal. Because this child was important to her grandkid, and she needed shoes. I don't want to take over this thread with that, so anybody who feels the same way, please just "like" Catwoman's comment.

Again, Scarlett, the trouble is not that she didn't feel a certain way about OP's child. The problem is that she didn't act a certain way towards her own daughter. You don't need to have any particular feelings to put up a picture. You don't need to have any particular feelings to buy a birthday present. You don't need to have any particular feelings to send a condolence card - and honestly, that is the bare minimum of civil behavior towards somebody you know who just lost somebody important to them. It doesn't cost anything to pick up the phone, say "I'm sorry for your loss" and let your child cry at you, even if you personally don't care one whit. It doesn't cost more than a stamp to scrawl those words on a piece of paper and toss it in the mail. Oh, I suppose you pay for the paper and envelope, and the ink from the pen. My mother died two weeks ago, and when I told the cashier at the corner store he said "I'm sorry for your loss" and comped me a free soda. He never even met my mother! I barely know him! But this near stranger managed to find a tiny amount of empathy for me, and that's little enough to ask.

I don't think it's wrong to charge fair value for time, per se - but it sounds like he's just gouging people, and that's not all right at all.

It's a mistake to try to understand the motivations of toxic people. You run yourself in circles trying to figure it out, and in the end - you still don't really know. Honestly, SHE probably doesn't really know her true motivations deep down. She probably has a host of rationalizations to cover up the fact that she doesn't know why she's like this or why she does these things. With that said, since you know what she's like, you can now do what you really want to do which is this: whatever the heck you like. Bring as much or as little food to family gatherings as you like, or undercut her one year and hire a catering service just because you think it's funny. It won't change her behavior or feelings or attitudes towards you one way or another. Better yet - don't attend! It's not YOUR family reunion, after all, it's your husband's. Let him handle it while you go to a spa day.

She could have pretended. People do that all the time. She could have put up a portrait to make her daughter and her daughter's children happy, she could have sent over condolences for her daughter's loss, she could have kept her unsolicited opinions to herself. She didn't have to think of this kid as her grandson, but she didn't have to act like this. You want to talk about relationships rather than legalities? If you want to have a relationship with your daughter, you don't hurt the children she loves.

Oh boy. So I have SO MANY THOUGHTS, not all of which are useful, but here's one: This woman has 3+ children, and none of them are interested in having a close relationship with her. That looks like a pattern, and there really aren't very many reasons for a pattern like this one. I always think the same thing in situations like these, and it may be a bit flippant but here it is: If she wanted to die surrounded by her loving children and grandchildren, she should have tried being nicer to them. And that's the truth. Right now, your responsibility is to your kids. Not to their dad, not to your mom, not to your idea about your relationship in the future - to your kids. And even without all this backstory, they're at an age where it is very reasonable for them to have exactly as much or as little contact with Grandma as they want. With all this backstory? Hooboy. If your goal is for them not to take the dramatic step of cutting off contact entirely as adults, the best thing you can do right now is respect their right to limit contact with their grandmother. That will show that you respect and understand their wishes in this matter, as well as their need to keep themselves safe. I also think you need to bring all of this up with a therapist, and... honestly, I think one of the things you probably should do with that therapist is revisit your childhood, because... well... let's just say I don't think your mom suddenly became like this as her kids entered adulthood.

Okay, well then, can you at least clarify which comments on this thread, posted BEFORE you made your comment about anecdotes, you consider purely anecdotal? Because that comment read to me like you were saying that this thread was just a flood of anecdotes and no science, and honestly, I find that sort of mendacious rhetoric to be really irritating.

I only see two anecdotes, and that's if I really stretch the definition of "anecdote". The other posts are firmly on the side of "data, not anecdata". But it does sometimes happen that I read quickly and miss information. Can you provide a link to any posts on this thread which you consider part of the "handful of anecdotes"?

Likewise, but to be fair, your anecdote and my anecdote still don't make "data", no more than two anecdotes about people missing a ton of periods would. People tend to remember anecdotes, especially those they *want* to remember, either because they're unusual and interesting or because they reinforce what they already want to believe. The only way to short-circuit this process is to relentlessly crunch the numbers, or, anyway, to get somebody else to relentlessly crush the numbers and tell us the results.

Oh, man, if I thought that the covid vax could stop my period for "months and months", believe me, I'd be getting a new booster every other week! However, the comprehensive study on the subject shows that the average length of increase in the mensrual cycle is, perhaps, a single day. Probably not worth it, even if it stacks. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/study-confirms-link-between-covid-19-vaccination-temporary-increase-menstrual-cycle-length

Scarlett, people make bad choices all the time. Everybody does it, even you. Even me! It's just that usually our bad choices don't kill us, so we go on and make more of them, each time increasingly convinced that our choices were just fine because, welp, hasn't killed us yet. You can't just say "Well, that's a silly idiot, let's let them drown" and I certainly wouldn't want them to sit there and say "Well, this is my own damn fault, I guess I'll just suck it up!" And that's putting aside all the people who would have evacuated but had compelling reasons not to, or who really weren't able to.

Well, that sounds worrying. I hope all goes well this time.

I don't know, necessarily, what I *would* have done - but you can be sure that unless there were clear and visible signs of neglect or abuse, I wouldn't be calling the police over this. This is just not a police matter, and I don't think it's a CPS matter either.

Oh yes. That woman never stopped talking, and loved to always be the center of attention. I only wish we'd been able to meet up like this more over the past 30 months, because she missed out by not being at her own party!

TexasProud, I don't think anybody meant to judge you. They may have just chosen their words poorly. I'm glad you had the resources to do what your mother wanted for her own funeral, that must have been a huge relief.