You know it's funny, I have gone way beyond asking to stop at a taco shop when he didn't want me to. I was a hardcore drug addict. I have done no shortage of things for him to have been upset about in the past, but it's stuff like accidental mild offenses to someone's preferences that he can't let go of. You'd think he'd be happy that I'm alive and not jabbing needles in my arm anymore. Maybe part of that was to cope with having him for a dad, I don't know. But still. The whole thing is nuts. And as for professor mom's post/ question, there is sadly so much more not-happy than happy. It has so much to do with the "should" of it all. I do not enjoy being around him at all. There's no joy and laughing aside from him making rude jokes (that he finds very amusing) about my youngest's middle name and stuff like that.

Would you let them pay for those things? I agree having our own car and space would make it much more handle-able. But this is the kind of thing that would be brought up for many years to come. "We paid for your visit and _______ (insert angry remarks about something I did as horrible as the stopping at a taco place thing)!!!" I feel grief over the fact that my kids basically never see him, and we already have weak relationships all around on both DH and my side. He wants to see them and I'm basically not letting it happen. I wish it could happen though.

It's interesting for me to hear how others would handle it. As you might guess, this is my normal, so I can't really see it objectively. Plus I am aware of the biblical mandate to honor thy parents and how hard to apply that this is to my situation.

Long story short, I can't remember ever feeling like I had a decent relationship with my dad. I am a grown up now though, and a Christian as well, and would like to do my best to overlook as much as I can. He has been split up from my mom since I was a small child, and has had irregular involvement in my life. He has a wife who is not an easy person for me to like, but same thing with her. I want to try my best. Often when I talk to him on the phone, maybe once a month, he brings up the topic of DH and I and the kids coming to visit them (visits are rare because of circumstances). We don't have the means to travel several states away but he has offered to help. I'm wary of visiting them. I'll just give one example that pertains to what I'm asking in the title of this post. There are many examples, but I'll give one. The last time we saw my dad and his wife for a proper visit (aside from one brief lunch while we were in the middle of a cross country move), was 6 years ago. On the way back to their house from the airport I asked to stop at a fast food taco place that is local to there that I missed going to. I was also pregnant and tired and traveling with a toddler. Almost every time I have talked to my dad for the past 6 years since then (this is not an exaggeration) he brings up me stopping at the taco place. It was offensive to him and his wife because they had food at their house. I was being an incredible pain in the ass. He gets so angry when he talks about it saying "if you visit again don't do stupid sh*t like that". Annoying or abusive? But what I'm really asking is if this type of thing (and trust me, many more like it) is worth considering not visiting them on account of it being a true problem. Or am I just being difficult and too sensitive?

I have no idea what I expect of my kids at this point in terms of what my and DH's fate will be when we're elderly. Lots of variables. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there. As far as my own dealings with our parents, for one thing, it makes it hard when one's parents are aging and not married to each other. Between DH and I we have 4 different people none of whom will be in the same room with each other. Plus add 2 for my dad's wife (has no children)/ DH's dad's wife. My dad and his wife, and DH's dad and his wife are taking care of each other for now. Our moms are both unmarried. My mom is not in great shape physically but would probably rather die (I've asked her) than live with us since we live in a low income area/ home which does not meet her standards.

I'm sorry this is happening. I started smoking pot at 12 and ended up rotating between meth and heroin by the time I was a young adult. My background sounds much different than your son's, (my mom was also using drugs etc) so I don't know how helpful I will be. But I wanted to say there's almost a zero percent chance that your son hasn't come home drunk or high. Also, lying is just plain par for the course with drugging. It's basically unheard of that a drug abusing person tends to tell the truth. There's a chance that your son may need to feel the painful consequences of his actions. And hopefully it won't involve him dying or some lifelong damage that basically wrecks his life, but those are realities. Rehab may or may not be helpful. I never went. And some of the people I knew who did go to rehab actually left there with a fresh batch of drug connections because of the people they met who went straight back to drugs. It's a hard hard thing. Feel free to PM me if you want.

Personally the older I get the more I don't really want to think about how old I am. Maybe that's true for others too. My age is incredibly easy to keep track of though. Being born in January 1980 means my age is found in the year. 2000 I was 20. 2016 I'm 20+16 = 36. 20+20 I'll be 40. BUT I still am not sure how old I am sometimes.

I struggle with some of the same sort of things. I often do not look forward to going to church. I am a pretty big introvert too, but honestly I think it's not just church. Everything in the general culture caters to, and rewards extroverts. Anyway, I go to church because I think it's a good and healthy thing to do as a bible believing Christian. Randy Alcorn (who I appreciate) has a couple of good pieces about this, including one about Christiandom's beloved C.S. Lewis, who was not fond of attending church! http://www.epm.org/blog/2015/Nov/2/reluctant-churchman-c-s-lewis http://www.epm.org/blog/2012/Sep/19/why-we-need-church http://www.epm.org/blog/2014/Feb/17/jesus-local-church

I'm waiting to see how my kids teeth turn out. I'm a little nervous because neither DH or I have straight teeth. Neither of us got braces because it wasn't a priority for either of our sets of parents. DH's teeth look a little like Mater from the movie Cars (our DD preciously pointed this out when she was a toddler) and I have lateral incisors that stick up and out with central incisors pushed down and back (moderate to severe crowding). In the right lighting and angle with a flash on the camera my teeth look pretty straight, but from many angles I look a little like a crack head. DH and I are self conscious of our teeth but we're relatively healthy. I want braces but feel guilty about asking us to budget for them since our kids might need them. It's not fair how people are seen as lower class if they don't have machine-like straight teeth. I know that when my DH goes to a job interview they probably judge him and it makes me mad. I guess in many ways class is something you have to be able to afford.

Quill, I waitressed for a couple of years and you're right, the money is actually nothing to sneeze at. I actually think that is one of the best options. There were nights when I left with over $100 tips in my pocket for a 6 hour shift. Plus I rather like the idea of bam, go in, do your work shift, make your money and get out. I am not a sales person at all, so MLM is not only unappealing but sounds like a bad fit for someone like me anyway. DH's work schedule makes any possible part time job basically impossible for me to procure though. We never know ahead of time, 24 hours at the most (usually it's much less than that) whether or not DH has to work the weekend and/ or late into the night. There's no way for me to commit to any part time job schedule... and there's no way for us to make any plans ever as a family since we are always in suspense, never knowing if DH has to work overtime or not. But this is our lot right now because his overtime wages put us a little further from the poverty line. I'm actually pretty disillusioned with all the years of praying I've done over our situation (we are massively in debt and live in a run down tiny rental in a somewhat ghetto area). Nothing ever changes and I have kind of given up for the time being. Part of my vision is that my kids are better off than us, and homeschooling is part of that. Sorry to type out my life story but it all comes back to the topic at hand of being given false hope by MLMs when it might very well make my situation worse.

I would like to hear from anyone whose ever homeschooled your kids mostly at night for any length of time. Also, has anyone ever put Dad primarily in charge of the schooling for any length of time? If you've done either or both of these things, what were/ are your reasons? How did it work out? I'm considering getting DH to do school with the 5 and 7 year old at night after work. Yes, I stay home with them all day, so I guess it makes me look/ feel kind of loser-y that I can't get school done. It's just that I have a toddler tornado, for one thing. I can't do anything that requires concentration while he is awake. And his naps are unpredictable. Often by the time I eat and take a breath he's awake crying. I'm hoping that this won't have to be a long term thing. Just until the toddler is older and more manageable.

Thanks, everyone. Again, cynicism comes easy to me. It's just so hard for me to believe in MLMs as a valid endeavor. I have never known anyone closely enough to verify if their MLM gig is as great as they say. I only knew my mom who was stuck with cases of Mary Kay stuff and no income to show for it when I was a kid (she was working full time as a single mom but also tried to do MK). In line with what Quill said, it seems like they do target poorer women, and also SAHMs or women who would like to be home. But it seems like the level of obsessiveness one has to have about it is such that they might as well not be home even if they are. Either that or they fail to be successful because they don't "have what it takes". I was reading a post by a MLM fitness coach recently and she was carrying on about how because of her new career she has the life that she can be proud of now, achieved all these things while staying home with her kids etc and I guess I felt momentary pangs of discontent with my situation. I stay home with my kids because it's important to me, not because we have good finances. We don't. But I would love to change that if I could. I'm just very cautious of what it means to get involved in an MLM, and I think it's highly unlikely I'd join. But there's probably even people out there looking at our situation and wondering why I don't just start "selling oils" or whatever else. It's not that easy.

I tend to err on the side of skepticism so I'll say that right off the bat. But I just want to know what you all think. MLM's are nothing new right? There's been Tupperware, Avon and Mary Kay in the 80's. But now it's fitness coaching, essential oils, magical mascara, jambery nails etc etc etc. I wonder how these people, overwhelmingly women, make actual money. When I see their efforts to sell products all I can think is why would I buy ____ when I can go to a store or buy it on Amazon? I have never once wondered or thought that their products are special and superior. And speaking of women, I wonder how good these ventures are for women. They are time consuming, a little cult like and always seem to require an upfront purchase. Also, I've felt a little manipulated at times when a lady will make an effort to reach out to me in friendship, only to find she's actually trying to hock her wares. Am I missing something? Is there anything good about MLMs?

A trend that I personally wish would die is people (mostly younger adults and teeny boppers) saying they are so "OBSESSED" with (fill in the blank: food item, clothing item, shoes, celebrity etc) Being obsessed was once considered a not good thing. But really it's just annoying to be "OMG SO OBSESSED" with everything.

I used to do heroin. I credit God and Jesus with helping me get out of it, do with that what you will. But I would say an important notion that people seem to overlook is that there's a reason people do drugs. Drugs make you feel good and they are fun. Of course by the time the bad outweighs the good you may be addicted. I think pointing that out is better than the standard "drugs are bad, mmmkay" conversation.

Based on what the things listed here, our home is probably one big asthma trigger :crying: I somewhat knew this, but we need to start dealing with it. We live in a run down rental that you can tell the landlord doesn't care much about. The positive is that the rent is low but it has things like the nasty carpet that I mentioned, plus mini blinds that are so old and busted, it's not even possible to clean them. We have an old, cheap (no fancy filter) vacuum too. But I appreciate your feedback and experience, it is helpful as I try to navigate this new road. Neither of my other 2 kids have asthma/ breathing issues, and this little one has it bad. We did buy an allergy air filter for the boys room, and replaced the toddler's ancient hand-me-down mattress. One thing at a time, and hopefully we can get this under control.

Also, our son's pediatrician told us not to bother with an oximeter at home because it's not enough to determine if he needs emergency care or not. We definitely thought about buying one though. So, I don't know.

Thank you, ladies. What kind of flooring do either of you have in your home? We have gross wall to wall carpet that we suspect is a trigger. We're currently trying to get the landlord to approve us putting in laminate flooring and paying for it ourselves. We haven't had a chance to get an allergist appointment yet but we will get going on that.

Does anyone have experience with asthma/ reactive airway disease in very young children? My youngest is 22 months old. We are not supposed to call what's happening with him asthma, because apparently they will not diagnose it at his young age, but it looks like asthma. They call it "reactive airway disease". His first incident was in October, so about 4 months ago. Since then he has been in the ER about 5 times, and hospitalized twice. Very rapid breathing, wheezing and low oxygen when they test him at the ER. He is currently on Albuterol as needed and nebulizer steroids daily until further notice.

I think the word hippie has a lot of history and changing connotations. I like a lot of 1960's music and I don't think of it belonging to hippies or created by hippies at all (aside from maybe the Grateful Dead). I think of hippies as fans of it although not everyone who is a fan of that era's music is a hippie. I think of 1960's hippies as sort of the privileged class, while many others were working and didn't have time for that. I am in my 30's, and identified with the punk rock scene in my younger years. The term "hippie" conjures up a Caucasian young adult with dreadlocks and an extensive marijuana habit who comes from a wealthy home, thus has the means to do things with their time that don't involve making a regular living etc. They listen to repetitive jam bands and go to drum circles and have a goofy, stoned demeanor along with sloppy clothing choices. Edited to add: also major commitment to natural living, veganism, no deodorant etc. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just giving my honest answer to what the word hippie makes me think of. If you google "trust fund hippie" you'll see I am not the only one who thinks this.

Well, in my book it can be negative because of having been involved in the punk rock scene. Hippies are seen as foolish, misguided, unrealistic, poor taste in music and clothing etc. But that is probably not a widely understood thing in the regular culture.

Too bad they probably won't hire my 7 year old!

Beyond the glass thing... I checked out this guy's blog because of this thread. I don't know. He seems to have a largely female readership even though he's supposedly talking to men mostly. Seems like he's trying to win female admiration for being heroic about all his and men in general's faults.

Interesting blog this guy has. I wonder if his ex-wife reads it.

My ds had just turned 21 months when dd was born. I will just say I think it's one of those things where it's extremely hard at first and then you see a big payoff. My 2 who are less than 2 years apart (they are 5 and 7 currently) play together so much, and rely so much on each other for interaction and entertainment that I have no idea what we'd do if they didn't have each other. They do fight but they are basically best friends.