Sansa has a tail.
WELL, you have my attention sir! (My gym, weirdly, has subscriptions to like three magazines for truckers, so I am already intrigued by long-haul driving):
I woke up driving an eighteen-wheeler 60 miles per hour through a field east of Amarillo, Texas. My partner was screaming as he bounced around in the back; he had just woken up, too. Everything in the truck rattled and shook. Baggage rained down on me from the upper bunk. The view a dark blur, I slammed on the brakes, but 80,000 pounds of inertia wasn’t going to stop for air brakes.
My last clear memory was standing outside a rest stop at 3:00 a.m. watching the canvas of white stars meet the glittering orange lights of the nuclear-weapons plant far to the north. It was crisp outside Amarillo, where industry meets the Texas plains, and I considered what I’d left and the world I was delving into. A spiritually paralyzing tower of student debt from four years of college. I’d been a long-haul truck driver for exactly three weeks. This was my test run.
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Daniel Holtzclaw’s victims describe what happened to them (YOU CAN IMAGINE THIS PIECE IS VERY HEAVY):
According to prosecutors, Holtzclaw targeted these women because they had records and lived in a high-crime neighborhood. He allegedly chose them because they didn’t want any trouble and because they feared the police — because they likely wouldn’t report their assaults to the police. He was the police.
According to the defense, these women are drug abusers and sex workers — some convicted felons with histories of lying to the police. Sometimes their testimonies are inconsistent, the defense said; they have “agendas,” they’re lying. Holtzclaw’s attorney built his defense on this approach: Focusing on the character of the women and the reliability of their testimony.
This is what they said happened to them.
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The politics and history of passports (THIS is what I’m saying about Collectors Weekly being the best, maybe I should start collecting stuff):
It seems strange to admit that in 2015, the right to exist in certain physical spaces on Earth—spaces bound by imaginary lines drawn on maps by our governments—can be prevented by a pocket-sized paper travel document. And yet, as millions flee Syria to escape continued violence, their lives often depend on a bit of official paper permitting transit to any number of safer countries.
In the early 20th century, the spread of compulsory passport usage coincided with the increasing stability of nation-states. Within this system of mutually recognized sovereignty, travel became dependent on official visas pasted or stamped into a passport booklet by each destination country’s authorized body. Passports provided governments a way of controlling the narrative, creating benchmarks for “illegal immigration,” and enforcing rules about who belongs where. But history has also shown that during periods of conflict, forged passports or visas are as likely to be utilized by government agencies as they are by desperate individuals. When the abstractions of law run up against the human instinct for survival, whom do passports actually serve?
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Two of our commenters send their love from the Schuyler mansion:
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I am suddenly so angry on behalf of a fencing team:
The Women’s Varsity Fencing Team at Tufts has a somewhat facetious motto: “If we can’t beat them on the piste, we’ll beat them in the parking lot.” One morning in October, this motto became partly true. We were forced out of our practice space in Jackson Gym to make space for a men’s varsity team. So we moved to the parking lot to continue our practice.
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I know we have a lot of readers who are very invested in Barack and Michelle’s marriage, and this link is for you (the good stuff will be in the real issue, obvi):
The movie Barack most enjoyed this year was The Martian, starring Matt Damon, while Michelle was smitten with the Amy Poehler-led animated movieInside Out.
While Barack says his favorite show is the Cinemax drama series The Knick, we know the president is also a fan of Michelle’s top TV pick: Black-ish. In fact, Anthony Anderson, one of the stars of the hit ABC sitcom, has said he’s petitioned the First Couple to make a guest appearance on the show. If it sounds like an outlandish request, it very well may not be. The president did, after all, trek through the wilderness with Bear Grylls in episode of Running Wild that will air Dec. 17 on NBC.
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This account of being horribly taken advantage of by a “friend” has so much to say about the poverty trap:
My personal poverty story starts with rotten timing (pro-tip: don’t graduate three months after 9/11 with a print journalism degree), is fueled by health problems I didn’t have time or money to address, and includes an almost impressive amount of bad luck. By the time I ran out of ways to make do, get by, and patch it together, I’d been racing for almost three years to find a way to survive in this bullshit capitalist system outside the service industry before my body broke down. I knew I couldn’t work physical jobs two or three at a time, 60-90 hours a week forever. I’d made two long-distance moves chasing opportunities and working side jobs dog-walking and bartending to make ends meet, while using credit to fill the gaps.
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The Divorce Colony (super-duper interesting):
Sioux Falls, at the eastern edge of the state and the nexus of six railroad lines, was the most convenient South Dakota destination for foreign divorce seekers from the East, and the Cataract House hotel, at the corner of 9th and Phillips, was their comfortable if expensive way station: steam heat, elevator, and electric bells to summon the help, all for three dollars a day. After 90 days, they would be recognized as residents of South Dakota, with the right to vote and to divorce. Across the street, the Edmison-Jameson building housed nearly a quarter of the town’s outsize legal community: 38 law firms and counting. In Sioux Falls, Maggie found a community of divorce seekers from New York, Boston, Chicago, even England—the pioneers of the “Divorce Colony,” as newspapermen christened it.
“Now that a niece of William Astor has joined the divorce colony in Sioux Falls,” the Philadelphia Record had written following her arrival on June 1, 1891, “the South Dakota style of severing matrimonial bonds may become more popular than heretofore. The amazing elasticity of the complaisant South Dakota divorce laws has up to this time escaped the attention of all but a few wandering actors and actresses.”
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An update to Ask a Manager’s “my coworkers are passing around a list of why they don’t like working with me” (WHAT):
So I confided in a few coworkers (with whom I was on good terms) and discovered that the childish coworker treated a handful of other women from our department the same way.
We all came to realization that he was sexist and insecure. Also, people actually complained about his actions – though none complained as loudly as I – thus his need for creating the burn list. We think he needed something to cover his behind. Also, I found out only a small few were actually contributors to the list, contrary to what childish coworker mentioned. Definitely felt better knowing that a large majority declined to contribute. In hindsight, I took his actions personally when I really shouldn’t have. He apparently does this, on varying levels, to other people. It’s his “thing.”
STILL GONNA TAKE THAT SHIT PERSONALLY IF IT HAPPENS TO ME. THIS IS A BAD UPDATE.
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THE BFG TRAILER IS HEEEERE UGH THE BFG IS MY FAVOURITE, also, obligatory re-post of the pic Darth made for me to illustrate my concept for a film in which a young Jewish girl time-travels to teach Roald Dahl about how anti-Semitism is bad:
no:
Dear Prudence,
My sister won’t speak to me because I taught her daughter a naughty word. I was playing Scrabble with my 8-year-old niece, who is very smart. She always kills me when we play and it’s kind of embarrassing for me. But this one game was close. I had the opportunity to play all my letters to spell “fellatio” ensuring I’d win the game. I thought a bit about whether I should play this word or just lose graciously. Pride got the better of me and I played the word. My niece didn’t believe it was a word and looked it up in the dictionary. This lead to numerous questions about sex that I wasn’t prepared for. So I told her to ask her mother. When my sister found out what I’d done she hit the ceiling. She was furious at me that I’d taught her this word. Now she won’t speak with me. I’ve considered apologizing but I don’t think I did anything wrong. She would have learned the word eventually anyway. When I was a kid, I learned far worse words younger than that.
It’s not foot-in-mouth disease:
A few days ago, Michael Moritz, who will be taking the stage at TechCrunch disrupt today, was asked about the dearth of women in his company, Sequoia Capital. His responses (among them, the firm is seeking women but “not prepared to lower our standards”) were described as “open mouth, insert foot.” Similar remarks across sectors and industries have been described this way.
But the “foot in mouth” characterization is wrong: it suggests that the speaker fumbled his words and misspoke. What’s happening when Moritz talks about “lowering standards” is not a clumsy handling of speech. It’s this: in that moment, a deeply hidden synaptic pathway is temporarily illuminated.
The ten best classical performances of 2015 (for the Toasties who appreciate classical music, which is largely wasted on me, but most of these things sounded pretty cool):
10. Semele
Experiencing Zhang Huan’s production of Handel’s opera at BAM was a little like listening to the soundtrack of one movie while watching another — a Baroque tangle of impossible love between gods and mortals laid over a spectacle of non sequiturs (sumo wrestlers, an ancient temple rebuilt onstage). It all worked, fueled less by logic than by sublime nonsense.
Ladies– we got outbid for a house AGAIN and this time the winning offer waived APPRAISAL. Meaning, that because we were all overbidding the asking price by tens of thousands of dollars, there is a possibility the people who won the house would just PAY THOSE TENS OF $$$ IN CASH no bigs. Like, HOW are you supposed to buy a house w/o unlimited money?
I am SO SAD TODAY can someone else tell me a nice story about how you didnt get a house you loved (or even the 1st 2 houses…), but then found another one and it all worked out and you’re so happy now and maybe have a dog?
We had that happen twice! Then one day we saw a sign in a neighborhood we liked and walked into a perfect house. After 5 minutes in it I whispered to my husband, “Buy this house”.
And we did! Don’t give up hope. There are always more houses.
but ARE THERE???
truly, there are.
We lost three houses to failed inspection and we were straight up
outbid six more times. But we just bought a house finally and it is the best and it is across the street from a giant park and forest so I get to hear the sound of trees again at home for the first time in a decade.
It will happen for you too! New houses will appear, and it will happen when you least expect it. I feel like you can know every house in a neighborhood and look for years and all of a sudden there will be one that appears and is perfect and affordable and winnable and will be yours.
“We lost three houses to failed inspection”
Considering how much money some people end up sinking into their houses (for major structural repairs, etc.), I’d consider this a massive win on your part!
I’ve mentioned this story before, but my mom almost bought a house once that seemed perfect in every way. (A nice little 1880s Victorian cottage, with tin ceilings and all kinds of lovely details). The inspection turned up that someone had cut through the central support beam of the house, so the whole thing could have theoretically collapsed at any moment.
Would it help to hear a story about how I got the first house I wanted and it turned out to be a terrible mistake and cost me tens of thousands of dollars? Because that happened twice.
YES IT WOULD ACTUALLY
I can also tell you that story. We fell in love with an amazing yellow bungalow, overbid in a multiple bidder situation 2008, even after a potential buyer had backed out under mysterious circumstances, wrote a letter telling the sellers how much we wanted it, bought the house EVEN AFTER the inspection revealed that the modern addition had not been built on a foundation that was up to code and we would never be able to get a termite bond on it. We loved that house so much that we would drive over every night before we closed on it and stare longingly into its windows and talk about how torturous the 2 week wait before closing was. We loved it even though we outgrew it (2 kids and 2 adults sharing 2 bedrooms and a bathroom) and realized the only renovation that our super strict historic district regulations would allow would destroy the historic character of the house (I know), and even after we lost our fucking shirts when we sold it.
We did find a bigger house we like (though not love) in the same neighborhood, and now we drive by the old house every day. The assholes who bought it from us painted it a hideous shade of pistachio-pudding green and are now renovating it, so not only did we lose tens of thousands of dollars based on our quixotic refusal to force an ugly renovation on the house of our dreams, the ugly renovation went forward anyway and we have to see it 2 or 3 times a day when we drive by.
So yes, we did get the house of our dreams and we did get to live there for 5 years, but financially and emotionally it was a disaster for us.
Hope that makes you feel better!
I have a historic yellow bungalow, but it is a mustardy/ golden yellow and I hate it. The trim is black and there are red bricks. I am thinking of painting the yellow a silvery-sage green next year (keeping the black trim and I can’t psych myself up to be the person who paints the 90-year-old brick) and I am now terrified of being the pistachio pudding green house.
More importantly, I’m sorry the new owners ruined your beloved money pit.
Yeah, mine isn’t a *story* story except that I bought my first house with my girlfriend from grad school (using a lot of borrowed money) and we were signing the papers the week that the housing market was collapsing. I remember being terrified that they were going to call up and cancel our mortgage at closing, AND IF ONLY THEY HAD. The house lost $80k in value the very next month! I had to pay for it for five years (with roommates) only to spend another $30k just getting it salable (also borrowed)! There was asbestos that needed cleaning!
A nightmare.
The house that I moved into is one that my wife bought under basically the same circumstances — first house she found, it seemed very nice, only later did we realize that traffic on our street is a nightmare, that every dimension of the house is eight inches two short, all of our doors and windows are irregular, the “mild moisture” problem it had is actually a pervasive mold problem, &c &c.
My parents have a story along those lines! They bought their first house (in their early 20s, on public-sector salaries, the part of this story I find the most unbelievable. Oh, for the 80s housing market) from a nice, friendly couple, with whom they had a lot in common; they even went for a meal together. Everything about the house seemed fine. Then after a few weeks the drains blocked and, in my mother’s words, “shit was running down the walls”; when they got plumbers in, it turned out the drains were completely blocked by tree roots, something that must have been an ongoing problem for years and which it would have been impossible for the sellers not to have known about. It had never been hinted at. Fixing it cost a lot of time and money.
I didn’t get the first condo I put in a bid for, and I really loved it. It was exactly the right size, in a really nice neighbourhood, move-in ready, everything.
I did get the second condo I put in a bid for, and it’s been great. It’s smaller and has needed a few repairs, but the other residents are incredibly nice, it has an outdoor pool that makes me incredibly happy in the summers, and my now-wife found a job within walking distance of it three months before she moved in with me.
Things will work out, and once you’re living in the new place you won’t be able to imagine yourself in any of the previous houses.
I put in offers for 5 houses before I got mine. I got outbid on 4, the other one was accepted but fell through on appraisal. It is absolutely nuts to waive the appraisal!! BUT the house I finally bought is great and actually perfect for me.
Make sure your realtor knows you’re frustrated as fuck- they should be hustling to find you a house, especially since they know that you’re a serious buyer! Here is the story of how I bought a house that wasn’t on the market: I had been looking for 1.5 yrs, had put in tons of offers, was completely beat down. A house I loooved came on the market and my agent got me a showing that same afternoon. When we showed up the house was already under agreement. I cried like a baby in front of my agent and told her maybe I needed to step away from house hunting. My agent, possibly feeling bad for me, possibly feeling her commission slip away, talked to every realtor she knew, found one who had a listing in the works, and got me into that house before it hit the market. Crying in front of my realtor was not my finest moment but it was probably the only way I could have gotten a house in my market so maybe it’s worth a shot for you!
I had not considered crying in front of the realtor! That is very likely a possibility, however lol…
WORK WITH MULTIPLE REALTORS MY FRIENDS!! I have one who specializes in foreclosures and one who specializes in condos. It still has not helped me find a house in the 2 years I’ve been looking (4 offers on lackluster, all outbid with cash offers), but it has made me realize that I really want the condo realtor to get the commission because she has been hustling for me for 18 months and the other one only responds when I email her about a listing (and then sends her assistant, which, I don’t blame her because she’s graduated to multi-million dollar properties, but still). Glad you got your place!
We lost 3 houses before finally closing on the one I’ve lives in for now 2.5 years. I love this house. The home buying process was so stressful that I told husband that I am never buying another house again and he needs to be prepared to bury me in the backyard next to our future pets.
GOD I dont even have one yet and I commiserate 100%
MrChouffe often says that he’ll leave our house only in a pine box, for much this exact reason.
As we were packing/unpacking, the one thing that got me through (after 4 moves in 5 years) was singing “never moving again!” over and over to myself.
I am also on a “staying in this house until I die” plan (though that’s mainly because I own so much stuff and I haaaaate moving).
SAME–I love having a house but I hated the house buying process SO much, and I feel like the house selling process can only be worse.
I live in Boston and was out-bid about 6 or 7 times before finding my current place which I adore. In retrospect, while the process was indeed incredibly stressful, I have realized two other things: a) there are many homes/places that I can love and be happy in — there is no one perfect place and b) there were many awful things about those out-bid condos that I overlooked because I was so desperate to find a place to buy. The golden glow of those “perfect” missed places will wear off with time and you will indeed find a place that you are happy in.
THANK YOU
Also a Boston buyer. This market is something else!
I consoled myself that the craziness of trying to buy near multiple forms of public transit and a walkable neighborhood would, eventually, be offset by the fact that we wouldn’t be paying years and years and years of car costs for me (the current non-car-owner).
It’s a lot like dating, IMO– there is no “the one”, there are actually lots of people/ places on earth that an individual could be very happy with.
I feel your pain. House hunting is the worst. I’m in a somewhat different situation; in my market, it’s less about getting outbid and more about there just not being that many houses going on the market. It feels like literally everyone else in this city has their house and now they’re done and I’m the one who lost the game of musical chairs. It’s especially bad now, because we have bad winters and nobody bothers trying to sell their house in fall and winter, so I’m basically just twiddling my thumbs until waiting for spring, while also immediately jumping on every listing that does trickle in, because what if the owners of my perfect home need to relocate for work and I miss it?
I looked at 80+ houses (including the one that had been a day care center and had all fixtures installed at toddler height, and the one with the backyard that was a sheer rock face) and bid on five (including one that I still refer to as “my first love” when I pass it every couple of months)…. before I got the house that makes my spirits rise every time I step into it, and has tripled in value since I bought it.
House hunting and house buying are incredibly stressful, since they involve both huge sums of money, and where you’re going to lay your head every night for (hopefully) many many years. I had never understood the concept of “stomach acid” until I was in escrow. If you can possibly bear it from a personal and financial standpoint, hang in there as long as you can to get the house you love — and if you CAN play the long game, you will see more than one house you love.
So true! And bids seem so personal because its like, HERE ARE THE HOPES FOR MY FUTURE LIFE and also HERE IS ALL OUR MONEY and some ass in an office downtown REJECTS IT ALL.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who refers to houses they wanted as past loves. There’s this one house with red shutters that I adored and whenever I look at another house in the same neighborhood I point at it and blather to whomever I’m with.
We were outbid with cash offers above asking price for three homes in a row (including one that waived the right to inspect, the waived appraisal thing is a new level of woah), one of which I was completely convinced was The One For Us. We seriously talked at one point about buying a home at the tippy top of our budget that reeked of cat urine in every single room just because we were so anxious and eager to buy and convinced the only house that we would be able to buy was the cat pee house. The house we bought this summer has been more perfect than we could imagine – big kitchen for an old house, a wall of bookcases, a great porch, walking distance to both our workplaces. I can’t believe we found it and it’s been such a great fit. Our two greyhounds love the yard and the long windows they can peer out to investigate the neighbor’s excitable puppy. It will be good.
Waived appraisal is becoming the standard! Faaaaaaack!!
How do you waive appraisal? Was it an all-cash purchase? The appraisal isn’t just (or, I think, even primarily) for the benefit of the buyer–it’s for the benefit of the bank writing the mortgage.
The buyers basically said that if the appraisal comes back for under the contracted rate, they’ll just PAY CASH FOR THE DIFFERENCE to the seller.
I mean, good for those guys for having all of god’s money, but at the time same: fffffffffffff youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
This made me laugh and also be SO HAPPY so THANK YOU
The appraisal definitely gets done either way but you can waive your ability to put a contingency on the appraisal. So if you did that and the house came back lower than your bank would grant you a mortgage for you would have to come up with the difference, rather than being able to negotiate or walk away. So, fine if you love the house and have tons of liquid assets but not great for most buyers!
I would never, ever in my life enter into a mortgage without financing contingencies (unless, I suppose, we negotiated a tiny breakup fee). It’s insane.
Hang in there and many hugs!!
I am now SO GLAD that our bids were rejected on Freeway House, Pee House, and Tiny House. By some miracle we stumbled upon Lovely Just Right House, in one of the toughest markets in the country, and we got it. Moving in next month. Getting minimum two kitties ASAP.
…But no Murder House? Goldilocks house!! Congrats!!!
We were outbid, often by people also foregoing inspection (and one place *totally* needed inspection) four times before we found our place. Oddly, the place we have now suits us better than any of the others *and* we were the only offer, and got the place at asking price.
I’m not saying the journey wasn’t fraught and emotionally draining. But I am so, so happy with the place we got: a full house with yard, walking distance to the train and buses, in the area of the city that we had first wanted (rather than the areas we had drifted towards based on prices). I’m not sure how it happened, but it did. We like to joke that we had set out wanting a pony, thinking we’d be lucky to get a goat, and ending up with a unicorn.
I had an offer accepted pending house inspection; and it turned out the SUPPORT BEAMS WERE CRACKED! HOUSE FALLING DOWN! RUN AWAY!
And I’ve been around house offers where inspections was waived, but Holy God no.
You will find your house.
Thank you.
Houses here in upstate NY are way less expensive than where you are, so I can’t share any hot bidding stories. But I know TONS of people who didn’t get inspections and ended up having incredibly expensive and awful problems afterwards.
I know relocation is not an option for many people due to jobs, family issues, etc., but I have to say that living in a low-cost-of-living area has a lot of good points. I hear a lot of similar stories from friends and family in expensive metro areas, and things are just EASIER here in so many ways. Plus, it’s always nice to have more Toasties in the area.
So frustrating! Gotta be zen about it though. My current home already had a bid accepted on it and I’d moved on to trying to find another I liked half as much, when wouldn’t you know it, the others’ financing fell through and I snapped it up (at a further discount). My Realtor thought I was either a witch or mafia. But the POINT is, zen! You’re in the position to be looking and buying, which is exhausting and frustrating but also wonderful, if you think about it. There is NO SUCH THING as a perfect house, there just isn’t. There are many wonderful homes and neighborhoods and OPPORTUNITIES, and eventually all three of those will fall in your favor. <3
I put out 5 offers, lost most of them to investors and am now in a house I love that cost less than most of those would have (only caveat is the HOA <barf>). I do have a dog.
Trying this for the first time:
<img source=”https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/12311078_778178347477_4942348872161450372_n.jpg?oh=b12f318f1a7a670d4130cf7368003271&oe=56D93532″>
Perfect. Exactly what I was looking for. A+ puppy.
Super late but that did happen to us! We even had an offer accepted but we pulled out during the cooling off period because our inspection found tons of rising damp. But the house we ended up in is lovely and affordable in a good location, and we even have both a Labrador and a baby girl now! It can be done!
This is fantastic! House + puppy + kiddo is the trifecta rt there! Thank you!
I have a friend who is currently being “meangirled” and outright bullied by her department coworkers, and hand to God I thought that AAM article was about her. It’s very frustrating being on the sidelines with the inability to do or say anything.
I hope she can get out of there and leave a detailed report with the company ombudsperson on her way out. Funny how it’s “OK” when the CONTENT of the bullying is not actionable. It’s not the content, it’s the actions.
How did the LW not realize that the appropriate course of action was to acknowledge to herself that she could have won with “fellatio”, played a different word, lost graciously, and then bragged FOREVER about how she could have won but took the higher road? I’d talk about that forever.
Plus, like, I still remember the time my dad was overcompetitive and purposefully blocked me from a two-triple-word-score bingo just because he saw me point to it. I WAS A CHILD.
Yeah, I would’ve arranged the tiles, taken a photo (that made it clear I was playing with a child), and trotted it out as an anecdote forevermore. Then it’s a joke rather than an age-inappropriate life lesson!
Sometimes I feel like I’m letting down the world of physical (as opposed to digital) things by not liking board games (except for Clue and Encore) but then I read stuff like this letter and feel FINE.
Yeah, that woman clearly has issues. And then to foist the consequences of her petty win against an 8 year old on her sister! Mallory is 110% correct, especially in her first observation that fellatio is only worth 10 points.
That being said, we have a house rule: +5 points (counted after all bonuses) for spelling a naughty word. Poop words don’t count.
It is amazing how often this determines the winner.
It would depend on how it was played — if you put the F on a triple letter and the rest falls on a triple word then it could be really good, especially if you use all 7 tiles. Even a double letter/double word could be really good.
Why did I assume LW was a man?
I did too! Possibly because Mallory started her response with “Bud”. Whether male or female, totally a tone-deaf person, bragging that you could have won but the other person wouldn’t have gotten the word and has to wait until they’re older is much more satisfying.
I’ve known more than one family member who appeared otherwise sane but when it came to holiday boardgames with elementary-school-aged relatives will immediately start aiming low and defend the pure and infallible rectitude whatever bullshit they needed to pull with this literal child who probably cannot dress themselves to the grave and beyond. And, y’know, on a scale that includes my uncle who would bully his kids into giving him interest-free loans so he could beat them at Monopoly, this guy/gal really isn’t so bad!
I LOVE that interest free loans in a family Monopoly game is a thing that has been used to coax boardgame wins out of children.
I won’t play Scrabble after getting into fights about it as a youngster. Basically I should not do anything competitive ever.
I am a certified board-flipper, and Scrabble is the one game I absolutely refuse to play for the sanity of everyone involved
Pfftt. Nah. Buncha Burrs in this thread. You gotta play to win.
Right there with you. And this gives me a lovely excuse to tell the story of how I learned about oral pleasure: my older brother was in middle school and shared that during the sit up competition in gym someone had done a sexually suggestive number of situps and everyone had laughed. I (elementary school aged) asked what the joke was, and my mother got this perfectly blank look on her face and described it in the most efficient, physical, and clean way possible. “Why would they want to do that?” I asked. “Because sometimes it feels nice,” my mother responded. She was very good with the sex talks.
why did she not parlay this into instant social media fame with an instagram of her tiles
Right? Bragging about your forbearance for the rest of time is OBVIOUSLY the best of all possible results. You could eat out for YEARS (as it were) on a story like that. I’m not sure whether I’m more disappointed at LW’s weirdo competitiveness or his (it’s got to be a dude, right?) startling lack of foresight.
A++++ for as it were.
I have no idea why I assumed it was a chick–probably because the idea of a grown-ass man introducing his 8 year old niece to the word fellatio is too horrifying to comprehend. Plus like, I think I assume most LWs are female unless they’re major jerks, in which case I assume they’re male.
“I think I assume most LWs are female unless they’re major jerks, in which case I assume they’re male”.
Cruel, but fair.
I also assumed it was a female, because I can’t imagine a male who would play THAT word and then spend that much time navel gazing about it.
Playing board games against children sucks whether you win or lose. I once played Chutes and Ladders against a child that I could tell would not be Capable of Handling A Loss and I tried SO HARD to lose, guys. But that is a game where the outcome is not decided in any way by skill, and I won, and of course the kid lost his shit.
I had forgotten, but you brought back the memory of playing Scrabble with my great grandma. My *Southern* great grandma. I declined to play the only possible move I had: PENIS.
I am *not* a coward. I am respectful of my elders.
OK. I was a coward in that instance.
As someone who has played card against humanity with multiple grandmothers, I do not understand this instinct.
My great grandma was at least as assertive and ruthless as the grannies of your card game. The critical aspect, though, was Southern culture. Elders. 3 generations between us.
It’s probably not in the rule book, but at the very least playing naughty words against a child is probably bad Scrabble etiquette, if nothing else?
I love Scrabble, but I’m not a competitive person, so it’s always a treat when I can find someone willing to play a co-operative version, where all the players work together to maximize the total score for the board. It makes for more interesting board patterns, too! But most of the time I play with my younger sister, who is OUT FOR BLOOD. One time she beat me so badly that she hung the score sheet on the fridge, and it stayed there for years. “I think I’ll grab an ice cream sandwich, and oh yes, that’s right, I am bad at Scrabble.”
Yeah, even if you think it’s ok to teach a kid a particular word, it’s pretty mean to score points against them using a word they shouldn’t be expected to know.
Also, I love the idea of cooperative scrabble!
Mustache lady at Dear Prudence: Mallory is correct and far nicer than you deserved. Keep your trap shut and avoid sending your niece down the path of Am I Good Enough, or since she is growing up in the West she is probably already on that road so avoid propelling her even faster. Life is hard enough for preteen girls. Praise her hard work and answer her questions and tell her you love her. That will be enough.
In other words, don’t be like my mom, whom I love but did start me waxing my eyebrows and lip at eleven, and started telling me at ten that if I ever wanted plastic surgery to “fix my ears” she would pay for it, and would sit me down in front of a light with a Stridex pad to scrub my face like an interrogation. My teen years were not a great time.
Oh jeez… And yes, agreed: don’t do it. Don’t even hint toward it. Just let her and her mustache be (she might even like it! I know I’ve grown to enjoy my peach fuzz)
My personal horror story: my parents once gave me a personal scale as a present, and also one of those torture machines with pads that you attach to your belly to get electric shocks there. The worst part? At the time, I was actually grateful, because I bought into the whole “they only do this because they care!” bullshit. Little wonder it took me years to develop a healthy relationship with food.
My side hustle is selling leggings. This past weekend, a customer was choosing leggings for her daughter, who looked to be about a ladies size 10. So she would definitely fit our S/M leggings. The mother stridently insisted her daughter take the large. The poor girl looked humiliated. We finally convinced the mother to take a couple pairs to the washroom and try them on her daughter. I wear a size 18 and fit our larges comfortably and even our S/M. They’re leggings. They stretch. Mother came out and said triumphantly “The larges fit her so much better. The pattern isn’t distorted as much.” The daughter said the S/M fit, but eventually gave in. Having grown up with a mother who constantly fretted about my size and if I were wearing appropriately flattering clothing, it took all of my powers to bite my tongue. My business partner understood and handled most of the transaction.
🙁
They fuck you up, your mom and dad …
One year for Christmas my grandma gave us three sisters cutesy underpants sets (weird enough in itself I guess, haha). My sisters both got size M and I got size XL. I’m a bit heavier than my sisters for sure, but we still share clothes. One of them actually has a larger pants size than me. Bodies are different! I don’t know. It scarred teenage me, that I supposedly looked so different from my sisters to her.
My step-mom and dad (who I did not live with) bought me some laser hair removal sessions for my birthday when I was pretty young. I didn’t use them & I’m still hurt to this day, even as I kind of wish I had some free laser hair removal now. It was the shittiest move.
On the other hand, I’m trying to teach my little brother a skin-and-hair care routine now (13) to take the edge off of those horribly awkward years. Is this basically the same thing?
Eh, to the extent that pretty much everyone has crap skin as a teen, as long as you phrase it as “general tips” and not as “wow, your face! Let me help you fix that!” you’re probably okay. Preventative stuff, to me, seems a lot more neutral: everybody can benefit from learning to take good care of their bodies.
Yeah, I try not to be like “Holy shit kid, look at your PORES!” while gripping his baby cheeks with my long, black witch nails.
AGNES! Close your pores!
Agreed. Also, for me at least, the hair issue is so tied up in gender norms–I fail at being an attractive woman because I have this anti-feminine attribute–in a way that skin isn’t.
Agree with Hedwig- if it’s framed as ‘everyone gets spots and starts to stink, you’re going to as well and so will everyone in your class at school, here’s how to give yourself the best chance of minimising the breakouts and keeping yourself smelling nice and being hygienic’ is massively different to ‘OMG you have facial hair and you’re fat and your ears stick out, your body is rubbish’.
I think this is a great way to put it – frame it in terms of hormones and puberty, with the caveat that it hits some folks harder than others.
Thanks! I just want him to grow up to not be one of Those Guys, you know? & he’s still enough of a baby boy to be EXTREMELY cavalier about teeth brushing/hand washing.
I had a sixth grade teacher who was wonderful about this sort of thing, and who gave us A+ instructions about stuff like face-washing methods (which I still follow today). She was the perfect person to usher a bunch of gross pre-teens into semi-adulthood.
(Also, after I finished sixth grade, I used to stop by and hug her every morning on my way to class. She was the best!)
Ahhh, it was my 5th grade teacher who pointed us in the direction of scrubbing areas we may not have had to scrub before, and also deodorant. Bless that woman.
I don’t think so, and here is why. Lots of kids don’t realize at that age that hygiene requirements are changing rapidly, and that things like deodorant and skin care are important when you’re dealing with hormones and growth and stuff. It can be helpful to have someone give you pointers or an idea where to start. I think the difference is forcing someone, or telling them if they don’t they’ll be ugly hopeless losers, or whatever. But I see nothing wrong with guidance and suggestions, especially at such a hard age.
Thanks for the input. I try to be gentle with him when it comes to his appearance, but I also don’t want him to go through high school (next year) as one of those stinky, greasy dudes that only talk about anime.
As a hairy lady who started waxing in her early teens after years of her younger brother making fun of her mustache, I disagree. I think there’s nothing wrong with making her aware that there are options if she wants them, as long as you can do it without pressuring her either way. The way it worked with me is that my hairdresser, who also did waxing, asked me if I wanted to wax my (caterpillar) brows and I said yes, and then after a few sessions of that (so I knew the pain) also asked me if I wanted to do my upper lip. I assume she talked about this with my mom before raising it with me, but it helped to hear it from an adult who I knew and trusted (she was my hairdresser since I was born) but without the emotional fraughtness that the offer might’ve had coming from my mom (who was not the hairy side of the family, thanks dad).
Idk, I’ve tried for YEARS to not mind my facial hair and it’s just so hard. I can deal with being fat, but there’s a limit to how much patriarchal beauty standard fighting one person can do. I’ve been getting laser treatments the past few months and it’s just such a load off my mind to not worry about how werewolfy I look on any given day. You should do your best to avoid making kids feel bad about their appearance, but if they’re already bothered, I think gently letting them know there are options they can choose (or not!) to pursue is a kindness.
But there isn’t any indication that the girl had brought it up herself. It’s all the letter writer assuming that, which is what rubs me the wrong way. And I do think there’s a huge difference between ten years old and early teenage years, since at ten lots of kids are still children despite their developmental progress. I think if the question was someone whose ten year old wanted to do it, it would be a much different question and answer.
I suppose the thing I’m focused on is the kid might not actually know there IS something that they could do, and thus don’t know to want it.
No one can speak for this girl, but I will say that for my part, I have been very hairy my entire life and EXTREMELY self-conscious about it. My mother would nitpick at things like how my nose was “too” wide or I was gaining “too much” weight, but refused to let me shave my legs or take care of my mustache. But boy did I know about ALL my flaws, because children (and parents) are vicious and made sure I knew about them.
I don’t think it’s a thing you should raise on your own, though–what if the kid doesn’t see it as a problem? Then you’ve just made it very clear that someone, somewhere, could see it as a problem. Some kids are really oblivious, and they should be allowed to stay that way when it comes to facial hair removal.
I, OTOH, started waxing my eyebrows at 11, and only stopped obsessing about them when I got laser treatments. Now I don’t notice or care anymore, really, and it’s amazing. But seriously, I cared so much for so long until now. I wish I’d never cared in the first place.
I’m coming at it from the perspective of someone who realized it was a “problem” when other kids started being mean about it (including my younger brother, in ways that were more “kid has no filter, says what they see” than actively malicious) but tried to pretend they didn’t hear or care. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know I cared about it, because I was so deeply embarrassed.
Also, another thing I wanted to note: there are varying degrees of moustachiness you can be and on me it is VERY noticeable. I am rather pale with dark, thick hair. For me, it’s both hormonal and genetic–my hormonal levels are off to a degree that medication could help but isn’t necessary. So when I picture the child, I’m picturing someone who looks like me, not someone who has this to a much lesser extent.
Similar story, but I didn’t start waxing until I was in my very late teens. I bleached, which was worse.
Just saying, when you raise your girls through puberty on Bob Jones Press Charm School books and how all boys and romantic relationships are sinful and how you shouldn’t look too attractive lest they tempt boys, you’re gonna have some hairy young women in your family.
Hell, when I’m feeling insecure and want to self sabotage, waxing my brows is still the first thing I stop caring about.
OMG, I was also on the periphery of the Bob Jones world growing up, and I just have to shout out to a fellow survivor. I’m sorry that worldview got ingrained so much in your body image and personal styling habits. 🙁
I totally feel you btw on the “I’m already being fat in public every day and only have so much energy with which I can fight the patriarchy” thing.
I mean, it’s not your kid, and she hasn’t told you that it bothers her and she wants to get rid of it, so there’s a lot of assumptions going on. If it were the LW’s daughter and she said “I’m getting teased at school a lot,” I might have a different answer, but like, no, your niece does not want you to offer to get her lip waxed unsolicited. Feel free to ask her about how school is going! Ask about her friends! Ask if the other kids in school are nice! But “Hey, I bet other kids hate the way your face looks, want me to fix it?” is not the way to start.
The only caveat I would drop is that facial hair (esp. so young!) may be an indication of an endocrine problem–either PCOS, or nonclassical congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The former especially has other frustrating symptoms. Being women’s health issues whose primary manifestations are “cosmetic,” they are both often diagnosed later than they should be. Depending on the writer’s relationship with the mother, it might be possible to mention *that* aspect of the issue delicately.
Otherwise, oh, Jesus, no, the harm older women relatives do trying to prepare us for femininity is immense.
this is a few days late, but i was on vacation and now i’m catching up with interesting links (and additional relevant discussion in the comments!) and OMG thank you for mentioning PCOS and the nonclassical congenital adrenal hyperplasia!
I had a mustache when I was 8 years old (everyone sort of blinked and noticed it after I was drinking grape kool-aid one night and wiping my mouth didn’t make the shadow go away, like “wow, has that always been there??”) and also began developing age-inappropriate pubic hair when I was 6. My parents apparently just thought I inherited the maternal-line “hairy gene” but it was obvious something was wrong when I did finally start menstruating, and I was subjected to several months’ testing to figure out the cause. I don’t remember much, except that they determined I had unusually elevated testosterone levels for not having the more obvious disorders for it, such that I am XX-gened but my testosterone levels were on the low-but-normal side for a fully-grown XY-gene person, and they presumed that it was either because of my ovaries or an overactive adrenal gland. Anyway, I can’t remember what the endocrinologist settled on, but I was on birth control for years starting at 13 because the increased estrogen (progesterone? idk) was supposed to inhibit the hair growth and help with the extreme pain of my periods, even if they didn’t fix the other problems. When I was 14 or 15, I went back for more testing and my testosterone levels were normalized, but still on the high side of normal, which I guess means it was the ovaries? so I stuck with the pills until my early 20s when I got sick of taking pills all the time. BUT I FORGOT ABOUT ALL OF THIS until reading your comment, even though I’ve been wondering lately if I don’t have PCOS because of some other symptoms, and I’m pretty sure it’s a family trait, or maybe my inability to shake my anxiety disorder has some physical cause, not just mental habits, since i’m really pretty good at doing CBT at myself, but a lot of the times, i feel the physical anxiety even when my brain is chill.
TL;DR thank you for the two terms you mentioned because it reminded me of all that testing 17 years ago and when i’m ready to approach my doctor again, i can ask if she has the records for what they’d found, and if it was either of those two things, or if they could be related, and if they’re things that could still be causing problems, maybe get to an endocrinologist again.
IMPORTANT EDIT:
BUT. The LW should absolutely not be nitpicking at the niece’s appearance, esp. while she’s only 10, and should maybe do her best to make herself a safe place for niece to come to, instead.
Weirdly, since my mother had the opposite approach (like, I was doing my own laundry as a kid and often didn’t have time; often did not own socks so always had smelly feet because I was wearing my shoes without socks; was never really taught about the importance of hygiene in general so I was often made fun of behind my back for being smelly), I kind of wish I’d had someone to take me in hand, buy me some damned socks, teach me about deodorant, and tell me that I’m good enough and pretty enough but sometimes kids are mean and I should shower more, etc.
So in that instance, because kids ARE cruel, and because finding out that people made fun of me behind my back for YEARS was horribly scarring, I’d vote to find a way to gently teach her about waxing or bleaching her mustache. Or maybe I’d start telling her about some of the grown up lady things that I have to do sometimes and we could talk about how silly they are, like waxing my own mustache and dyeing my hair, and she could come to her own conclusions and maybe feel safe asking me what to do before cutting her upper lip in three years trying to shave it off through her tears when she comes home from school after being bullied about it.
I get the “you should wear your hair long, short hair makes you look fat” from my parents all the time. I currently have what would be understatedly referred to as an undercut, and my hair on top is about 4-5 inches long. I’m fat, I look fat no matter what I do with my hair, seriously.
The fat shaming throughout my life, even when I wasn’t fat, has always been traumatic. Hell, they made me wear my hair long, with only trimming it, because my mom resented how her abusive mother forced her to wear hers short. It’s so fucked up.
Yup. My mom did this too, with bonus screaming at me for refusing to take accutane and taking me to some kind of spa where they used some kind of machine with suction cups on my face. And yup, I still feel that if even my parents don’t think of me as pretty in a token way, what must the rest of the world think when they see me?
My mother once stood me in front of a mirror to find out if I had a thigh gap. I was 8 years old and in excellent athletic shape. (I did not and do not.) She has also bought me a scale for every house I’ve moved into (the old one somehow having been mysteriously disappeared.) Somehow, I have a somewhat healthy relationship with food.
Charlie Potato Hashbrowns has spent like half an hour lying on my lap, lazily chewing on bits of me (very gently because I have been spending all my time teaching him to be gentle gentle gentle) and it is perfect in every way. I was a bit concerned that he was just never going to stop hurtling around my room non-stop.
What kind of puppy is Mr. Charlie Potato Hashbrowns? Because I am in the market for him.
he is a shih tzu mix. my dad said his father was some kind of husky but he really isn’t and nobody knows the truth. so, mystery cross!
now charlie is resting his head on one of my arms so i can’t type. thanks, tater tot.
Shih tzus are awesome. They have been bred for centuries to be cute and lovable and they succeed at this brilliantly.
He is the friendliest dog I’ve had! Of course, my last dog was so shy he would occasionally hide under the couch when unfamiliar people showed up, so having one who actively tries to run after NEW FRIENDS is a little bit hilarious.
And of course everyone he meets wants to be his friend. He tried to jump into a lady’s car the other day because she said hi.
I have a huge soft spot for shih tzu’s as our neighbors had one when I was quite small and they “hired” six year old me to feed him when they traveled. (obvs my mom had charge of the key and ran the can opener).
His name was McGruff and I still miss him even after two dogs of my own.
Please continue posting pictures of Charlie Potato Hashbrowns forever, thank you in advance. I haven’t been this invested in a stranger’s dog since the last time we followed a stranger’s dog on the Toast.
I know I always get super-invested in strangers’ dogs so I figured I was not alone and decided to enable everyone’s dog stalking habits. I’m glad you appreciate it!
Considering his St Bernard coloring, his button nose, his curly fur, and those button eyes, NOT TO MENTION HIS NAME, Charlie Potato Hashbrowns could hurdle around my room all the time, anytime.
I really don’t mind the hurtling so much as when he stops hurtling and gets very quiet in a place I can’t see so I have to get up and find what incredibly inappropriate thing he’s chewing on now.
Obligatory Roald Dahl: http://boingboing.net/2011/06/07/roald-dahl-kind-…
And that links to this: http://thisrecording.com/today/2011/6/1/in-which-…
and when you get to the letter the two little girls sent him (“Dear Mr. Dahl, We love your books, but we have a problem… we are Jews!! We love your books but you don’t like us because we are Jews. That offends us. Can you please change your mind about what you said about Jews! Love, Aliza and Tamar”)…I have never wanted to smack an author of beloved books in the head so HARD.
Highly recommend the Dead Authors podcast with Ben Schwartz as Roald Dahl… who doesn’t find out until the end of the podcast that Roald Dahl, whom he is portraying, was an anti-Semite.
I was gonna recommend this if no one else did! He goes so far off the rails it’s incredible.
Aw, this is so sad. Man. Ben Schwartz was really, really sad. I’m…glad, I guess, that I didn’t find out about Dahl’s worst tendencies until I’d gotten what I needed out of his books and was able to say, Ok, he was a fucker, but that doesn’t mean that 9 year old me didn’t get a lot of visceral pleasure out of the idea of having telekinetic abilities and using them to fuck with my teachers and scare off bullies. It’s been so long since I read his books that I honestly don’t remember – is this a Lovecraft situation, where the personal views bleed out into the work? Did Dahl ever actually say bad shit about Jews in his fiction works?
I think it was mostly undertones in the kids’ books but I seem to remember something very explicitly anti-semitic in one of his stories for grown-ups. The misogyny was also out of control.
Stephen Sondheim made some crossword puzzles. I find them difficult, but crossword puzzles have never been my forte.
I hate the word wheelhouse, but if I were to have such a thing, this would be in it.
Stephen Sondheim is a crossword puzzle fiend, so if you’re merely finding them difficult, you should feel good.
I can’t get the PDFs to open! ;(
They worked late last night… I emailed NYmag and I hope they fix it!
thanks!!
oh my god.
oh my god.
oh my god.
(i’m sorry, i have no other more coherent way to express the internal flailing of interests colliding.)
!!!
The BFG was my favourite (and first…that may have something to do with it) Roald Dahl growing up. I had no idea they were making a movie!
Mine as well! Frankly, I’m not sure how this adaptation can beat the (purely imaginary, as I had no video camera) version I did as a 5 year old starring myself as Sophie and my favorite stuffed animal, LeMutt (he is a dog, obv) as the BFG. THere was a slight scale issue, but it was brilliant.
I personally appreciate the classical music link. Anyone want to swap “favorite streaming classical station” suggestions?
I am in love right now with Seattle’s KING FM, and have been listening to KDFC in the CA Bay Area since I was 12.
I like Q2, WQXR’s modern classical stream.
Q2 is the beeeeeest
I’m on Sirius XM (channel 75) all the time but I pay for all those other channels too.
isn’t that the biggest pain? you need more Sirius options.
WFMT from Chicago, and WRCJ (daytime only) out of Detroit are my current favorites!
I work at a new music non profit in New York City that has an online-only 24/7 new music radio station called Counterstream and can be listened to here: https://www.newmusicusa.org/counterstream-radio/
Admittedly I am biased because I work here but the music on the station is great! (my coworker who edits our online magazine programs it and she is very smart and has great taste)
I grew up in North Carolina and I love the local classical station, WCPE, which was one of my first introductions to classical music as a tiny child. (I am a classical musician/musicologist now so this is a big nostalgic thing for me.) You can find it at the aptly-named TheClassicalStation.org
If you have Sirius satellite radio, there’s a great Metropolitan Opera station that plays both modern and historic recordings.
I can’t stand some of the announcers on our local classical station (WXXI in Rochester, NY), but I really like WCLV in Cleveland.
KUSC! I used to listen to this in the car with my grandmother and now I can listen to it on the internets.
Also (BBC) Radio 3- if I like their composer of the week, anyway.
I’m laughing too hard at that Dear Prudie question to make any judgments.
Collector’s Weekly, killing it as always. What a high quality site. Question, though: I’ve whitelisted CW from my adblocker, but I’m still not seeing any ads. Is there some way to throw money at them for continuing to produce such great content?
And, since I’m curious: Toasties, what do/did you collect?
I was a little magpie as a kid. First it was bottlecaps, then glass animals (which both mother and grandmother had collected in their youths), then tiny plastic foods, brass animals, and dragons. This was enabled by the many women in my life who loved garage sales.
I collected key chains, both from trips and ones my dad brought me from business trips. I had quite the collection, and I was partial to cool ones with moving bits. Now my husband and I collect magnets for the fridge from places we’ve been.
Glass and ceramic figurines, unicorns, wizards and anthropomorphic animals mostly. We found them in a box in the attic about 2 years ago and I now have a facebook album entitled “I had questionable taste as a child”. My 7 year old niece saw them and now they are hers. Maybe it’s a genetic thing!
Elephants, for some reason? Figurines made out of wood, of plastic, of soap … even one made of silver. It’s all in a shoe box at my parents’ place, I think.
I collected buttons. I wonder where my button box is now?
Glass animals!
I collect copies of “The Princess Bride” because it’s my favorite book and I love having a ton of copies of it. I desperately want to get the version with the weird pulpy cover, but I haven’t found it in a used bookstore yet.
YES. I have about 8 copies of Jane Eyre (at least) all different and all beautiful and I can never stop myself from buying another one if it’s pretty.
Cobalt glass! So pretty! But I’m super super picky about it so I can keep my hoarding gene suppressed.
Oh now I want to collect cobalt glass.
At my last apartment, the woman who lived there before me left behind several green glass bottles and in retrospect I’m sad I let my Dad sell them on ebay, I would have liked to collect them, haha.
Green glass is so pretty too! I have like 1 piece of green glass, and one of amethyst glass, etc and it’s so hard not to just buy all the pretty things!
I collect art from places we visit. It doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive; I just have to like it. So I have a mobile of elephants made out of old saris that I found at a street fair in Port Townsend, , and some paintings from the Laguna Beach Art Festival, and some woodcuts from Kyoto, and other things. They all look amazing hung on the walls and I get to remember trips I’ve been on.
Pennies! I had a big stewpot full of pennies and I would arrange them into little stacks.
I think this is more like “hoarding” than “collecting,” but I have never once, in the entire history of my seeing movies, thrown away a movie ticket stub. I have HUNDREDS, all languishing in various shoeboxes.
I cannot get rid of them, and I do not know why.
I used to do this too. I think I still have them all in one of the boxes of stuff I have at my parents’ house. Apparently I saw a lot more movies when I was in high school than I do now though.
I collected bells. I had a whole giant shelf of them as a kid, some gorgeous glass ones, and touristy ones my grandmother brought back for me from her trips to other states. Several really pretty ones with birds and such. Then one day my bratty little sister who refused to take no for an answer, jumped up, grabbed onto the shelf to pull herself up by her hands so she could steal the glass bell I wouldn’t let her play with, and pulled the entire shelf down. Pretty much every one of them broke. I didn’t talk to her for like a week and I stopped collecting after that because it was too sad.
Also I used to collect those little figurines that come in red rose tea. My grandmother drank tons of it and would always give them to me. I had a whole shelf of those too (when I had my own room lol). When I moved out I think my Dad sold them on ebay, but I’ve started collecting them again as an adult for kicks, but I don’t drink as much tea when it’s just me so I only have like 6 figurines right now. (They’ve been on the nautical theme for YEARS.)
My grandmother has a collection of Red Rose tea figurines too! She’s been building it up for about 40 years (or whenever they started putting them in tea boxes), and it’s all in a box that weighs a million pounds.
Oh no, I’m so jealous! I miss mine. I bet she has all the animal ones and circus ones that I used to have, haha. (I would display them on my shelf and set them out to make visual stories, you know?) They’re so random and yet there’s just something about them that makes you want to collect them.
Oh God, those Red Rose tea figurines, I LOVED those as a kid! When I see them in antique shops, my hands just itch!
I loved those little Red Rose figurines! the little brown tortoise was my favorite, and if I ever came across one again I’d buy it in a heartbeat.
I get a Harry Potter book from every new country I visit, in that language. Depending on the state of my suitcase at the time, sometimes I have to order them afterwards, but I’ve got about 20 different languages. I even found Latin!
I have done this with A Series of Unfortunate Events, but I only have 3 (so far!)
my neighbor and I had a pinecone collection. nearly 400 pinecones all stored very safely in my old radio flyer wagon. I had to give them back to nature when I moved because, shockingly, my parents didn’t want to transport nearly 400 pinecones, and I was devastated.
Stickers. I probably still have them at my parents’ house.
I collected Disney figurines and stamps as a kid (well, sort of collected stamps; my dad had two shoeboxes full of stamps he never got around to classifying in his childhood stampbook, so he passed them down to me). As an adult, I collect beach rocks and shells, and have been flirting with the idea of buying a pendant or necklace every time I travel somewhere.
I also “collect” books and yarn, if those count as collections.
I just read a post on a travel blog about the things she collects on her travels and now there are so many things I want to start collecting. Coins! Art! Bracelets! Etc! I leave Russia in 10 days so I guess if there’s anything I want to collect I should make sure I’ve got it before I go.
Suggest some more travel collections to me if you’ve got good ideas!
I collected animal couple salt and pepper shakers as a kid. It started with a pink and blue elephant set, which is still my favorite.
Most of everything I have is antique and thus collected in one way or another, usually fitting in with a handful of themes, but as for straight-up collecting I limit myself to Hermès scarves, particularly ones with mythological or literary themes (I nearly missed my plane from Paris because I had just discovered the Hermès at CDG had a scarf themed around Ovid’s Metamorphoses, my all-time favorite literary work.)
It’s a spendy habit so I’m a lot more discerning than I was a decade ago when I first got into it, but I still like to mark significant life events with a new scarf and I vaguely comfort myself with the idea that if I fell on seriously hard times, I could sell off my collection bit by bit until things got a little less hairy.
I also collect vintage sterling and enamel charm shields to put on my travel bracelet.
I’m not wild about traditional charm bracelets, but I’ve liked the idea of having this one object tell the story of my travels from my very voyage to, I hope, my last.
I also try to keep a diary to go along with it, detailing the meaning of each shield so someday someone will be able to look at the charm from the Holy Island of Lindisfarne and read about how I was 26 and a taxi driver named Alistair McTalisker took mercy on a dumb girl who didn’t know to read the tide charts and waited six hours at the edge of the submerged road leading to the island (only accessible when the tide is out) on her first trip abroad. Or how the little charm of Tanger ten years later represents that time Mr Negroni and I sailed across the straits of Gibraltar into Morocco prepared for mysteries unknown only to find out Tanger is basically the exact Maghrebi equivalent of the Mexican port town where we both live.
Travel shields used to be pretty popular, so they’re not usually too difficult to find online. It’s a bit of a drag not getting to collect in real time (sometimes it’ll take a few months to find a particularly hard to locate shield) but it suits me better than magnets or shotglasses which I’d probably lose/break anyway.
I kind of collect collections? I’ve been told that my apartment is like a museum (but a cozy, welcoming museum) by many people because I have collections of the following:
-Precious Moments
-Classic Pooh
-Those little collectible spoons
-bears
-owls
-seashells
-I still have my rock collection from when I was a kid, you know just rocks I liked when I was six and picked up and put in a box
-autographed books
-books in general
-Harry Potter stuff (chocolate frog cards, butterbeer bottle, a wand, a snitch, posters)
-movie posters (all saved from my days working at Borders where I hoarded all the best movie posters)
-Buttons (those pin ones – I have them from camp, work, Book Expo, randomly bought ones)
AND I think that might be it. Maybe.
Salt & pepper shakers, except that I never do acquiring part of collecting, just the keeping. My parents like junk shops and secondhand stores and yard sales and it seems those places have lots of salt and pepper shakers in various designs like animals, plants, people, etc. My parents also like to give me lots of Christmas/birthday presents, but not to spend a lot of money on them. They decided about a decade ago that I must collect salt and pepper shakers and ever since I receive at least one set every gift-giving occasion.
I dont know that I collect anything now except for bruises I don’t remember receiving and lawyer’s fees from the divorce I’m working on, but as a kid I collected all kinds of things.
My Little Ponies, tiny glass animals, tiny plush bears (I cannot find these now anywhere, and I miss them), picture books (I’m a prek teacher now, it doesnt count as collecting!), coins, piggy banks (I separated my coins by type and each had their own bank),
Weirdly, when I was with my high school boyfriend, his mom somehow got it into her head that I collected salt and pepper shakers. Seeing as we dated for five years, I had a LOT of salt and pepper shakers and no clear idea how to tell her to stop giving them to me.
Stamps. My dad worked in shipping in the age of physical post, and would bring me home stamps and air mail envelopes from all over the world. I learned that there were exotic places with names like Myanmar and Ceylon (I’m from ’74 so he must have kept those for a few years). I kept my collection in a big brown Manilla envelope and insisted that the prettiest specimens were incredibly rare, even if i had at least five of them.
My mom tried to get me started on her childhood hobbies too — scraps/die cuts, and pushpins with decorative blown glass heads — and I liked them well enough, was but never quite as fascinated. The stamps had been used for something, they came from foreign lands and had a history.
As a preteen (oddly), beer coasters. I had about a hundred, then gave up when I found out the world Guinness record was 76.000. You gotta know when to quit.
“Semele” is a very very sexy opera. I saw it at the Royal Opera House a few years ago in a very lush production. It is very long, especially if they put in all the repeats, but it is gorgeous.
“I’ve considered apologizing but I don’t think I did anything wrong. She would have learned the word eventually anyway. When I was a kid, I learned far worse words younger than that.”
Mallory’s answer was perfect!
It IS only eleven points. SAY YOU’RE SORRY AND NEVER PLAY SCRABBLE AGAIN
What I want to know is WHAT 8 YEAR OLD KNOWS THE WORD FELLATIO? Even if they know age inappropriate or worse words, why fellatio? Does anyone routinely use fellatio these days? THAT IS NOT A WORD SHE SHOULD DROP ON THE PLAYGROUND
When I was in sixth grade, I saw the movie Mermaids, in which someone brags about “oral sex.” I asked my best friend, as sheltered as I, to define this foreign term, and she surmised it was probably, “in front of everyone, like when we have to do an oral book report.” Seemed legit. Then I got a second opinion from another friend with a reputation for being “fast”, and was introduced to the concept of blowjobs. I refused to believe they were a thing. Kind of still do.
I think I found out about them around then too, but I didn’t get it. They were called blow jobs, so you put it (eww – 11 ish year old me) in your mouth (EWWWW – same) and blow? Like, a balloon? I of course pretended that made total sense and I already knew it because I’M 11 and not a BABY.
Then the next year there was a huge scandal when a teacher walked in on a student giving head to another student. I..I had to have my sister explain everything then, in what was the worst and most lesbian-confirming conversation I have ever had to date.
I was the innocent-est Catholic schoolgirl and when my peers found a condom at a lookout on a school excursion I totally knew what it was because I was 9 and NOT a baby.
I didn’t find out what a condom was until I hit the internet in my teens – I’m not sure they were even mentioned in high school. Thank God for the internet.
Right–when I first heard about oral sex I was horrified. You put your MOUTH there? No. Why. No.
I learned this about the same time the combination of sex ed + pop culture (OH, and the Clinton scandal!) were giving me the idea that women only had sex because men pressured them into it, so this fit RIGHT in. I was resolute that I would never be THAT much of a pushover for some GUY.
I definitely first encountered the term “oral sex” while reading a newspaper article about the Monica Lewinsky situation. That was 1998 so I was about… ten? I asked my (very very conservative Catholic father) what “oral sex” was at a gas station. I think I had been looking at the newspaper while he put gas in the car. I asked if it meant like french kissing. (I guess because I knew that sex involved body parts interlocking, and I knew oral meant mouths so…) I think my dad just made some sort of noncommittal noise or said he didn’t know. And probably silently cursed Bill Clinton’s sex drive for leading our society to a point where ten-year-old girls could read about oral sex in the newspaper.
That was one of the funniest parts of the whole scandal- just about every news paper and channel had something about how parents were calling and writing in because they were really upset at the questions their kids were asking after watching/reading the news. It was a great opportunity I thought for them to share their editorial decision making process with their readers and viewers. I wish I could remember now which radio person pointed out that she had a friend who was upset because her son *hadn’t* asked about it.
I just KNEW oral sex was french kissing. I mean, obviously.
Hahaha. My childhood best friend convinced me that “sleeping with someone,” as we saw on tabloid magazines in the grocery store checkout, just meant they’d had a sleepover, DUH.
I also thought “pot” was different from “marijuana” until at least middle school…
We deduced from “oral” it meant talking dirty. (And it took me a really long time to conceptualize cunnilingus, logistics wise.)
No child needs to know this. I learned as a young teen and was SHOCKED that it even was a thing. Middle school is too educational sometimes
I still remember the day and moment when I learned the meaning of that word. I was 12 and in middle school, and this was in the days of MySpace. There was some sort of name generator widget that everyone at school was posting the results of, and my friend and I put our names in it translated to something with that word as one of the names. The computer was in the kitchen, where my friend’s mom was making dinner.
Friend and I to each other, out loud “What is fel-la-tio?”
Friend’s mom, loudly and briskly, gave us the dictionary definition.
It couldn’t have been pleasant for her mom, and thankfully her directness saved us from posting our “names” on MySpace, but OH MY GOD I will never forget the mortification.
Wow. I haven’t read Mallory’s answer yet, but I definitely had a different reaction than everyone here. It’s a word! One of the benefits of scrabble is knowing words! It’s also an incredibly common action, though definitely one that children should be doing. I can’t imagine how it could hurt that kid to know that something exists.
That said, I’d probably apologize to the sister anyway, because life is too short. And I’d want the kid to have someone around who would answer her questions without getting scandalized that sex was involved.
Yo, I’m right there with you. I’d say sorry, because it’s not like that’s worth burning up a sibling relationship over, but I wouldn’t actually be sorry.
I think I would have discreetly shown my tiles to the sister and grinned lasciviously/victoriously and calculated my would-be score and played “FELLA.”
To paraphrase Cardale Jones, I didn’t come here to play moral victories.
I mean this person clearly lives for their own pleasure so if I was them I’d apologize profusely, do whatever it takes to get the incident forgotten, then next time engineer whatever elaborate Oceans 11 plot is needed to get a triple word score with cunnilingus
I think the “I’ve thought about it and I didn’t do anything wrong even though I knew it was wrong and thus debated playing it in the first place” defense makes it clear that this is not a person who is thinking in the best interests of the kid, but is rather grasping at straws for a reason not to apologize.
NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT FELLATIO IS NOT A WORD, YOU ARE BEING DISINGENUOUS
I feel like your last books post may have slightly weakened the force of the word disingenuous.
In any case, no, people are not arguing that it is not a word. People are arguing that there are certain words children should not know. That is pretty much the general societal standard! I just think it’s a bad one.
But, also, it’s not her kid, and the right to beat a kid at scrabble is not a good hill to die on, so she should suck it up and apologize as sincerely as she can manage.
yeah jeez what possible better place for learning about sex words than a nice calm scrabble game followed by a trip to the dictionary!
maybe if the relative is a dude it’s creepy but I assume it was a woman because isn’t everyone?
(not kidding! I thought everybody else was kidding!)
I say it does much more damage to a little girl to find out that you thought you were crushing your opponents at Scrabble only to find out that they were letting you win than to learn a vocabulary word you won’t have occasion to use for another ten years.
My mom and dad routinely crushed me in board games. They never broke the rules, but they destroyed me on a regular basis when I was a kid. When I finally started to win games, I knew – absolutely, unequivocally – that I was winning because I was doing well, not because they were handing it to me. I could see the actual improvements I had made, and I could finally beat my rivals (my parents) and it was remarkably satisfying. It also forced me to get better. That was valuable for me.
I would have been super-uncomfortable to have innocently asked the meaning of a word and found myself in a Sex Conversation in that setting.
Totally agree! I actually think learning about it in a non-playground, fact-based setting is the best possible route? Sex isn’t bad or wrong inherently, and giving kids non-judgemental scientific terms for things helps the know that.
It’s a word that means sucking dick. I don’t consider myself a prude, but I would find it inappropriate if somebody had a conversation with my 8-year old about dick-sucking.
I think there’s a missing “not” in that first paragraph. 😉
Oh no! That is a very very bad omission. And I can’t edit it now. 🙁
I’m mostly baffled by the fact people are pearl-clutching about how horrifying, horrifying I say, it must be for children to learn about sex and dirty words? I think I was like seven when I learned what sex was. I was like… oh, okay, and so were most of my peers. Dirty jokes started, most of us at least knew HOW to cuss by that point and added the f-word to our repetoire over the next few years, shag bands became a thing and we were all joking about blowjobs anyway. (Do Americans have shag bands? Legit curious!)
Not gonna lie, at the kids’ age if I’d asked my parents would have just been like “it’s a blowjob” and I’d have laughed. Shrug.
It is inappropriate for an aunt or uncle to teach their niece or nephew a word for a sex act without clearing it with the parents of the kid. Official Toast Stance.
Oh, yes, I totally agree she’s the wrong person to do it. I just think the whole “why would a kid ever need to know that?” stance is very far from my experiences in childhood, is all.
I don’t think it’s necessarily pearl-clutching to think 8 is a young, though. You can be sex-positive and still think age-appropriate conversations are a thing.
I mean, my mom instituted sex-ed talks from way before 7, starting whenever I asked where babies came from at like 4. Being open and matter-of-fact about sex doesn’t mean you have to go whole-hog with explaining a variety of sex acts to a kid who isn’t there yet.
I’m trying to imagine how my Scrabble-loving but fairly prudish family would have handled that situation. I’m pretty sure nobody would have played the word “fellatio” in front of an 8-year-old, but if only adults were present? At least one of my aunts would have played it (and played it on a triple-word score box, probably with at least one other letter doubled, and connecting to another word — all adding up to way more than 11 points before the 50-point bonus).
Oh man, that aunt better be ready to grovel for forgiveness. Because you know that kid went to school and was like “GUESS WHAT, EVERYONE” and now the mom is on the shit list of 20 other parents who’ve had to do impromptu sex ed talks with their third graders.
Oh, man, i was that kid. My mom was a nurse who regularly did not refuse to answer my questions about sex. So when “what’s blowjob” came up at my school, I was the one to ask. I got a legit, normal human answer, and disseminated the knowledge at my school.
Happily(?) I had no actual friends, so even if the parents had learned it was me, it was not like anyone had my contact info to chew out my folks.
My kid is going to be that kid. I have a sex talk show and am committed to honest/non-judgemental body and sex-positivity around everyone including my son. Hilariously, this means his current favourite joke is to claim that he has a uterus. (He’s 3.)
I love kids and the development of their humor. That’s not bad for a 3-year-old!
As a non-parent, I think this story is glorious.
I may be having a cranky morning but this http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/c/34656/f/636647/… is making me see red.
Ughh ughhhhhhh ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Is this a parody of millennial irresponsibility written by a 50 year old dude or something? I was in deep debt through my entire 20s/education due to some really bad decisions when I was working full time in my early 20s and… no. Do not recommend that lifestyle to anyone. Sure, some people will be fine, but many (most?) will not. It caused me so much stress and pain, despite being one of the lucky ones who could hit my dad up for a minimum payment when I absolutely couldn’t get more than 4 hours’ work per week.
I clicked, saw the title, and just closed without even reading.
I AM SO SAD THAT MY LONG BLISSFUL IGNORANCE OF ROALD DAHL’S ANTI-SEMITISM IS OVER
oh nooooo you were in paradise and I kicked you out!
The books are still awesome, just give your kid his ex-wife’s memoir once they’re eighteen for balance
Ooh, she lived in my hometown and everyone knew what he’d done to her so I very clearly remember my jr high english teacher being like, “Yeah, great author, but LET ME TELL YOU…” We were honestly too delighted at being given scandalous gossip to be too disappointed.
You should just assume that any author not currently alive had some political/racial/ethnic/religious/sexist views we no longer accept. ALL of them.
Also, many of the ones still publishing today!
Very true, but with them, you can hope they’re still learning and growing, as we all are. There’s a lot of very jarring anti-Semitism among great humanistic authors (Charles Dickens, anyone?)–but it is also true that these authors, with all their flaws, are the people who brought us to this point of understanding what’s wrong with that. And I say this as a person who lies awake at night having long imaginary arguments with Tolstoy about women.
I KNOW. He’s the one Problematic Fave that really makes me sad.
chickpeas posted a link above which makes things even worse. Like, considerably worse. I now know many more things about Roald Dahl than I previously did, and they are all terrible things.
🙁 Have you read his autobiography Going Solo? When writing about flying planes in WW2 he talks about encountering a Jewish settlement in the Middle East and being completely confused about what it is they want and why they need a homeland of their own anyway. It is jarring to look back on that (I first read it when I was pretty young) and realise that Dahl seemed immensely uninformed about what was going on with the Jews in WW2.
Ben Schwartz (Jean Ralphio on Parks & Rec) as Roald Dahl learning about Roald Dahl’s anti-Semitism on the very funny Dead Author’s Podcast is worth a listen if you want to hear “the man himself” recant – http://thedeadauthorspodcast.libsyn.com/chapter-3…
I don’t hang around a lot of children, so I don’t usually know what is child appropriate or age appropriate, but I’d think teaching kids the true meaning of fellatio would be saved for the double-digit age range.
I learned what sex was in 5th grade, but oral sex definitely waited for middle school when I started reading the Clan of the Cave Bear series. I think I was 15 before I thought the idea was anything but the most disgusting idea I had ever heard of.
Oh, good, I’m glad I’m not the only one who got a crash course in the various activities/positions when I read those books at age 12.
Aside–it was Covenant with the Vampire, by Jeanne Kalogridis, where I first encountered the idea of oral sex performed by a man on a woman. That was somehow, weirdly, way less gross at that age? I dunno, I can’t explain it… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Concur!
imo I don’t see any reason kids shouldn’t learn the true meaning of fellatio the same way we did, at midnight from three horny ghosts
I had a vague idea of what sex was when I was eight, but mostly just thought “so you put something . . . up there? That sounds painful.” I feel like that’s probably the appropriate level of knowledge for third grade.
Oh god, people who can’t lose at board games… I had an ex like that. *Full-body shudders.*
My brother is like that and it can be annoying but mostly it’s entertaining because he’s a savant at like every kind of game so beating him at something is super satisfying in itself and then watching his impotent rage is hilarious.
Oh, did you date my dad? See also, cards or any game at all involving any form of chance or subjectivity because it should always be the smarter person (not necessarily even the more skillful player) who wins out of fairness because all luck is bullshit for losers and anyone who gets any sort of unearned advantage didn’t REALLY win and shouldn’t get to claim credit.
Party tip: Ask him how the concept of unearned advantage plays out in his life as an able-bodied, upper-middle-class straight white American man from a “good” family and watch the sparks fly!
Meanwhile it seems to only thing I CAN do is lose at board games…
I remember using board games as a filtering strategy for dating. If he could win or lose graciously, he got to see me again. Dodged a lot of bullets of immaturity this way.
That’s an A+ strategy. (Right up there with observing how someone treats a waiter while you’re dining out).
Guys, Mad Max just got nominated for the Best Picture Golden Globe and I am SO HAPPY.
And Rachel Bloom got nominated for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend! I know the Globes are mostly an excuse to party, but hey, even a wacky clock is right a few times a day.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[sprays chrome paint on mouth] WITNESS
WHAT A LOVELY DAY
!!!!! NICE. and George Miller is up for Best Director! 😀
This is just the excuse I needed to rewatch it!
Golden Globe nominations are out, let us discuss.
Most importatnly: Mad Max: Fury Road got nominated for Best Drama Film so all is right with the world.
Yes!!! I’m so happy. And Alicia Vikander was nominated for Ex Machina, my other favorite this year.
And Carol is nominated all over the place! I wish that they hadn’t nominated both actresses for best actress, although they both really deserve it.
And Toast Boyfriend Rami Malik!
Justice for Brooklyn Nine Nine!
But Charlize Theron has not been nominated for Best Actress, which is a travesty.
Acting noms for Outlander’s Caitriona Balfe and Tobias Menzies! Gotta say, Menzies does stellar and terrifying work in that dual role.
Gina Rodriguez!!! She is the best.
To be fair, I have not seen it, but the Martian is a musical or a comedy? Here I was thinking it was Interstellar 2.0, the Mattening.
Also, Spy was hilarious. The line “I’m going to cut your dick off and glue it to your forehead like a limp dick unicorn” will always be the most beautiful thing ever.
“What is he wearing? He looks like he’s in the cast of Newsies!” is what made me cry laughing. Probably because I’m a longtime Newsies fan.
2015 is the year of Alicia Vikander!
God, I can’t wait to see The Hateful Eight. Jennifer Jason Leigh is the best!
Pleased that Eva Green is getting some much earned attention. She’s fucking stellar in Penny Dreadful.
Mallory is crushing it on Dear Prudence today (I particularly liked the answer to the woman who wants to get the 10-year-old’s moustache waxed.)
The story about the Scrabble game reminds me of how I found out what oral sex was – I was 13 and had just started reading the newspapers and I found an article by a journalist telling the story of how her son had been accused of raping a classmate and obviously this girl was a lying slut. Of the many things I didn’t understand about it, I decided to ask my mother what oral sex was (I was a very naive, undiagnosed autistic 13-year-old with no friends I could ask, and she’d told me to always come to her with questions about sex.) She flipped out and refused to tell me, so I looked up ‘oral’ in the dictionary, read ‘of or to do with the spoken word’ and for years had a mental definition of oral sex as basically talking dirty (again, autism brain). I guess it’s too late for the letter writer to resort to such strategies, though.
Also, I love how Barack Obama is taking advantage of his last year as president to meet all his heroes and just fanboy out. So far we’ve had David Attenborough, Marilynne Robinson and Bear Grylls.
Ohhh, you just took me right back to being 11 and seeing a newspaper on the kitchen table with a front page story about Girl X (only look her up if you want to be profoundly depressed) and going “Hey dad, what’s rape?” That was the day I learned what sex was.
My parents bought me a bought of Australian rhymes/riddles which was ill-advised, as they found out when I went and asked Dad what the c-word was. This is a man who gets embarrassed watching kissing scenes to this day. Poor Dad.
That should not be how people learn what sex is 🙁 Our world is not ok.
I didn’t realize he met David Attenborough! I highly approve of that fave.
To elaborate on the waxing answer, which I thought was perfect, there’s this wonderful cartoon that makes me weepy every time: http://zenpencils.com/comic/frida/
I followed almost that exact same arch of being teased about my facial hair in middle school and then coming to feel really proud of it as part of my identity and who I am, or at least I dig it now as a feature of my face. So great answer I think. If she grows up and still feels like it doesn’t work for her, then there always will be the hair removal option, but I think it’s nicer to decide for yourself which beauty interventions to do and when to do them.
Thank you for that Frida cartoon. Lovely in so many ways.
As a kid I went grocery shopping with my dad every week. Sometimes I’d hang around with him and the cart, but the majority of the time I would sit in the magazine aisle and read everything I could reach. This included magazines like Cosmo, Redbook, etc. One Saturday morning, at some point between the ages of 9.5 and 13, my brother and I were hanging out with our parents in bed (I loved this tradition) … and I asked my mom what a condom was.
You could have heard a pin drop for about 5 seconds, and then my mother went into a tizzy, you didn’t mean condom, you meant condominium, you definitely didn’t mean condom, what’s a condom.
Like, mom, you can’t fool me, I’m a very advanced reader and was reading the Chronicles of Narnia books in kindergarten. I know what words are. I did not mean condominium. But in addition to being a good reader, I was also astute enough to know that this was a Mom Hates Talking About Sex moment and pretended to agree with her (I was also a pretty good liar). But I feel like maybe your children should know about safe sex, even if we only have it once we’re married in order to not have a honeymoon baby.
I figured out the oral sex thing on my own when I was 12. I’d been through sex-ed and learned about condoms and all that. While i was one a road trip with my dad and brother we stopped off at a rest-stop, and in the bathroom was a vending machine with different flavors of condoms. I spent most of Utah wondering why you’d need a flavored condom before it finally clicked in my brain.
I, and I assume most kids born in 1986-1988, learned about oral sex from the Clinton administration (but only blow jobs. I don’t think I realized cunnilingus was a thing until, idk, late high school.)
Omigosh, I just remembered an incident from when I was 8. We were supposed to cut out a newspaper article and bring it in the class to discuss current events. I procrastinated and basically picked one at random the morning before class… and it was about a rape case. Which I then proceeded to pronounce as “rapped” when I presented it to the class. A woman was rapped. Needless to say, my teacher was horrified.
“…she’d told me to always come to her with questions about sex.) She flipped out and refused to tell me…”
Argh! Parents, don’t do this. Talking about sex with your kid is hard, but don’t tell them to come to you if you aren’t ready to follow through.
If any Toasties find themselves in this position and panics, here is a helpful hint:
Tell you child that you are glad that they asked, and that you would like to discuss it with them, but could they give you a little time to prepare? Then go calm down, look stuff up on the internet if you need to (Scarleteen, for example), and get yourself ready to deal with their questions.
Then, go talk to them about it. Admit to them if you are feeling a little awkward, and let them know that is it okay to feel awkward (and okay to not feel awkward). Answer their questions as best you can, admit when you don’t know things, and *also* direct them to good sources of info (Scarleteen, Planned Parenthood, Our Bodies Ourselves, Robie Harris books, etc.). Thank them for coming to you, and do you best to encourage them to continue to do so. 🙂
You’re definitely not the only one who made the oral sex = talking about sex connection.
I did it, and my mother told me she also did it when she was a very naive teenager
NEW SERIAL!!
https://serialpodcast.org/
I DID NOT KNOW THIS thank you for sharing yaaaaaaay
and already so crazy!
Has anyone seen the January cover of Parenting Magazine? It is making the rounds on Facebook just now and is horrible: https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xft1/v/t1.0…
As a palate cleanser: every wondered just why you want to squish Sansa when she is clearly the Best Dog? Science! http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/why-you-wa…
“Mercedes! Stop being Native American this instant and calm down!”
“If I have to explain cultural appropriation to you one more time you’re going to be grounded for a week!”
*snort*
I’m normally not that amused by Jimmy Carr (except when Richard Ayoade is making fun of his laugh) but he did make me laugh out loud in the QI example sketch. Thanks for introducing me to the concept of cute aggression! It explains so much.
I am HERE to discuss the fencing thing.
A little additional background from someone who was never on the Tufts team: Tufts has historically had both a mens and womens team. The Women’s team is Varsity, the Men’s is club. This is supposed to matter a LOT, because the institutional support for Varsity teams is supposed to be significant. Varsity teams generally get more money, better facilities, better gear, their coaches are better paid. They have warmups. And. Varsity athletes generally are just expected to show up and compete.
Club athletes (I was one) usually have a LOT more responsibilities outside of competition. Hiring a coach (if you can afford one), finding competitions, organizing the transportation to and from. Applying for a budget, applying for grants, collecting dues, running fundraisers. Running some practices. Driving to meets, if they’re far away, finding someone to host you, or finding the cheapest acceptable hotel. But usually driving. Making sure that you’ve got something to drive, and only maybe having access to the athletic department’s vans (or similar). etc etc etc.
Tufts Men are treated like a club team, and that’s fine. That’s the agreement, that’s what they signed up for. Tufts women are, too often, treated like a club team. If they WERE one, that would not be a tragedy– It would be really really annoying sometimes, but it would not be terrible.
But the Tufts women are varsity because Tufts needs more female varsity athletes to offset their male varsity athletes for title nine reasons, but Tufts isn’t really being honest about it.
I hope to god that the team is filing an actual Title IX complaint, because the admin just sounds HORRIFIC.
BOO ON TUFTS
*fistbump of club team solidarity*
That is really fascinating, also Tufts is terrible apparently. We’ll CALL you varsity, therefore we are not discriminating because words are more than deeds.
This makes me so unhappy and also very glad that I didn’t choose to go to Tufts for undergrad (sorry, Tufts). Fencing was a big part of my decision! I picked a school with a more competitive team and this is NOT AT ALL how a varsity team should be treated.
As a niche sport – yes, fencing gets the short end of the stick. I went to Notre Dame, and trust me we did not get equal practice facilities, advertising, etc. to the football team. For a couple of years we actually had a pretty crappy practice space. But it was ours, and it was inviolable. That “niche sport” argument won’t hold water. It’s a varsity team.
So yeah. Shame on Tufts, and I hope that team raises a royal stink.
“Fencing was a big part of my decision! I picked a school with a more competitive team”
“I went to Notre Dame”
…. please tell me you fenced sabre.
YES I DID
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Suggesting that you picked somewhere “with a more competitive team” is a little bit of an understatement there. I suppose it depends on the exact years whether that’s just sort of normal funny versus REALLY funny, but, still.
Oh no, feel free to laugh, I was there the last time we won a national championship 😛 I have a weird false-modesty hangup about acknowledging that I was on the team because my teammates were literal Olympians and I was this dinky little walk-on who never lettered.
Did you also fence sabre?
ETA: removed my email signature, yikes
I had friends on the fencing, rowing, track, and softball teams at ND and there’s no way any of them where anywhere close to equal to football, or even hockey or men’s basketball. It makes me wonder how the hierarchy actually shakes out. Not in favor of women’s sports, that’s for sure.
Oh, man, that article is bringing back memories of when I was in the women’s fencing club at my university (the men had a team, the women had a club), and our Olde Worlde Sexist Douchebagge Coach asked the women to serve coffee to the men’s team on the bus on the way to a meet. Goddamn patriarchy.
WAT.
such a good idea, to antagonize women who play with weapons for fun.
I was in the fencing club at our school (we did not have a variety team and the club was mixed men’s and women’s) and I wanna say your analysis is spot on. The Varsity teams should definitely be getting the “perks” of being varsity not just to add to Tufts need for more female athletes then ignored.
Also having to set up a meet and fencing strips takes forever! Especially if you don’t have access to the metal planks and have to measure out and test those wire mesh strips. It sounds like since their uniforms aren’t being replaced I can’t imagine funding for nice grounded strips are a high priority.
Not having things set up for them when they walked in is easily the most understandable part of things. Plenty of varsity teams are involved in setup. But they usually provide tables, chairs, water, etc. There’s usually a conversation about if setup will be done in advance, what tape can be used, having the tape provided, knowing if you’ll get the gym the night before to do setup, knowing if the visiting team is bringing grounded strips…. That piece of it should be organized between the coach and the athletics staff at the varsity level, and I’m not sure who was head coach during that period, but it’s very possible that that particular issue was the coach dropping the ball, not the Athletic Department.
(I regularly helped set up a competition literally called “The Big One”. It took HOURS. But as people came in in the mornings, the varsity teams that brought in mesh grounded strips all knew what was up, and had a group of people taping theirs down quickly and efficiently, so they clearly were used to this stuff.)
The ND team used to set up for our own meets as well – it usually took the place of practice the night before. That’s not so weird, but you’d have to have the equipment for it!
I went to a school where athletics were… not a huge deal. Like, Div III, practice at most twice a week, lost pretty much every team game, since finding more than a couple people who were actually competent was unlikely.
And our women’s fencing team was treated way, way better than this. I think we were technically varsity, but I don’t know if we even had a practical difference between club and varsity sports. We definitely had a coach, drivers for competitions (Well, often that was the coach, but still), and our conference/local coaches arranged meets. This is just… bizarre to me.
It’s also weird to me that the men’s and women’s teams are separate. Outside of which pools we were in at actual competitions, all our fencing stuff was coed. Which was really amusing the time a 6′ tall dude fenced short me for the first time and managed to lunge directly over my head without making contact.
I am also here to discuss this! (Under a burner account, though!) I fenced for Tufts and really wish we’d made a bigger stink about this while I was there. Things weren’t quite as bad then, but still awful, and the administration used the threat of taking away our varsity status to keep us from demanding more.
I bought and maintained all of my own equipment (it was that or share bottom-tier cotton uniforms and half-broken crappy weapons with the rest of the team). I didn’t even have warmups for a good portion of my time on the team, while other women’s sports had monogrammed Tufts warmups/backpacks. Our “strips” were just blue painter’s tape, and our reels were mostly half-broken (though this is true for many clubs!). The gym referenced in the article was really built more for dance practice, so it was slippery, dusty wood, and a massage class often used the room before our practice and got oil on the floor. I was one of the captains my senior year, and I spent half my spare time running to and from the sports administration offices to get/return van keys and negotiate payment for food for meets. Our team was driven to meets by student athletes (often on ice, pre-dawn and after sunset) 99% of the time. The cherry on top during my time there was one student athlete taking the initiative to design Tufts fencing socks (since Tufts didn’t provide them) and begin to design Tufts fencing sweatshirts (since the school would never make them), only for the admin to catch wind of it and give her and the team hell for considering infringing on the Tufts copyright.
There is a lot I loved about Tufts (mainly my fellow students and instructors, not anything to do with its administration/leadership), but its treatment of class after class of awesome, dedicated female fencers left a permanent mark on my feelings about the school.
HOLY SHIT. I’m so sorry to hear that. Sounds like your varsity team was treated worse than my high school team was, and that is just wrong.
“The administration used the threat of taking away our varsity status to keep us from demanding more.” I really hope the current team pushes the issue and calls the administration out, because wow – that is unbelievably bad.
Re: Tufts getting grumpy on copyright:
While Smith probably would have looked the other way if we freelanced our own branded gear, that was one of the considerations any time we redesigned the Hell’s Belles themed stuff. We enjoyed flying far under the radar.
This morning I woke up to find that one of my rabbits, Gaius Buntar, had died in the night. I went to refill their water bottle as usual and he was just… lying there dead. He was fine last night, he was up and about hopping around and doing rabbit stuff. I have no idea what happened 🙁
I’m sorry 🙁
Oh no, I am sorry.
At least he will live on in the photos of him I posted in last week’s Open Thread, I guess.
I remember those photos and it was obvious you loved each other very much. I’m sorry for your loss.
I’m so sorry… 🙁
i am not crying at my desk. i have something in my eye :* (
*hugs*
I’m so sorry, and I am sending you a giant internet hug.
That’s so sad. My heart’s hugging your heart.
I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll miss seeing photos of him. 🙁
I am sorry about your bun, who had the best bunny-name I’ve ever seen. I am offering you an internet hug if you would like it!
Oh I am so sorry! He looked like such a sweetheart in the pics you posted on the last open thread. I know you gave him a happy life.
This exact thing happened to my bun Clyde about a month ago. Fine one day then I got up for work the next morning and there he was. It’s so hard to lose a bun and I’m very sorry for Gaius.
I’m so sorry about Gaius Buntar, he of the fabulous name. I can’t imagine losing my fur baby, but I’m sure he was happy to have a good human. *Jedi hugs if you want them*
That is AWFUL and I am so sorry. And what a bun he must have been, with the most perfect bun name ever.
Oh no, I am so sorry, from a fellow rabbit owner. I’ve always read that bunnies show no sign of illness and just go suddenly, when it’s time for them to go. Sending lots of sympathy.
Um, if and only if you feel like telling us, will you bury him? This is something I worry about a little bit because my bunny is nearly 8… and I can’t help worrying.
We live in an apartment, so we have no outdoor space in which to bury him 🙁 I called the vet and she said to bring him in for cremation.
Thanks for answering (I’m also an apartment-dweller with no yard).
Cremation sounds as fitting as anything could possibly be — he will become smoke and spirit and very fond memories. So very sorry about little Gaius Buntar.
Mine are 8 and 11, and I worry every time I see them “flopped” out. Sometimes they do show signs of being ill and sometimes they don’t. They’re prey animals, so they’re really good at hiding it when something’s wrong, unfortunately. Mine have each been through several bouts of GI stasis, so I’ve gotten pretty good at reacting immediately with critical care and simethicone (aka baby gas medicine) any time they appear the least bit “off,” but there’s no guarantee… 🙁
oh no! I’m so sorry
Oh no, I’m so sorry!! I have two house rabbits (one is my profile pic) and they’re both “senior” bunnies at this point, so every morning I basically worry that this will happen. I’m very sorry for the loss of your dear bunny. 🙁
RIP. 🙁
So sorry you lost your rabbit friend, and so suddenly.
<3
Oh no, I’m so sorry about Gaius! How awful to have that happen suddenly. He looked like Such A Good Bun.
So sad! He had a very good life. He never suffered, did not decline through an illness. He was doing happy healthy rabbit activities, enjoying happy healthy rabbit feelings right up to the end. You’re a good rabbit guardian. Toasthugs.
Oh my god, I am so sorry for your loss. He sounds like an excellent bun.
Oh god, I had a similar thing happen with one of my cats about 1.5 years ago–walked out into the front of the house one morning and she was lying there in the middle of the floor, literally looked like she had simply keeled over, didn’t even make a sound. No signs of any illness or anything leading up to it. I know how shocking it is–I was shaking for minutes before I could even manage to call the vet. I’ve been told that usually this kind of thing is an underlying heart condition whose first visible symptom is dropping dead. Lovely.
By and large, you have to focus on the fact that you gave your pet a good life and they didn’t suffer. And when you think about how ill-equipped most house pets are to deal with long-term illness (because in the wild, they’d just die), that really is something to be grateful for. Let yourself grieve.
I’m so sorry about your bunny friend!
Oh no, I’m so sorry! I have a rabbit too, and they are such special animals. I’m so sorry about Gaius (which I have to echo the others and say is an amazing name). Nose bonks to you. <3
I wish I could believe that Dear Prudence question about the family who refuses to put their guns away for Christmas was fake but it’s not even the most outrageous gun-related story I’ve heard today (that award goes of course to the gun-enthusiasts who plan to stage a fake mass shooting on a university campus).
OH GEEZ I heard about that. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Someone could die.
Wh-whuuuut?
WAIT: If this goes according to the best-case scenario that lives in their heads, a “mass shooting” will result in armed civilians stepping up and shooting the actors, right? That “good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns” rhetoric that was making the rounds? Is that…what they’re going for?!
They’re supposedly staging it at University of Texas with, like, cardboard guns? They’re convinced that all these mass shooting could be avoided if someone on campus was carrying and could just bravely stop the shooter, which is presumably what they’re acting out?
Also they intend on doing an open-carry demo WITH REAL GUNS right beforehand so.
Apparently none of them saw that recent news story about an American Hero who witnessed a car jacking and tried to shoot the car jacker but accidentally shot the victim in the head instead (and then fled the scene).
It’s also just fucking ridiculous to present this as some kind of evidence of how campus carry would stop mass shootings, like, yeah, if everyone involved, including the person carrying out the mass shooting, HAS THE SCRIPT and has been INFORMED that Steve from the gun club will be portraying Law-Abiding Hero so no one is allowed to pretend to shoot him, it will probably go great! But that seems kind of unlikely to happen in real life!
Someone on twitter was pointing out that this is so far removed from reality it’s pure fiction so cosplayers should show up and join in. Which I think is brilliant and hilarious but also more of a risk than I would be willing to take.
Someone please show up with a sword and a cape and some beanbags. Please.
“I put on my robe and wizard hat…”
Maybe if they wanted real evidence they could allow funding for research on guns and gun violence. Maybe.
That they’re doing this at UT Austin, which is where *the* first mass shooter event occurred, is even more disgusting and cavalier. What terrible people, what disrespect for the dead.
I didn’t make that connection immediately but it’s so disgusting. I’d bet there are a lot of people in the area who remember the 1966 shooting.
And they had an active shooter in what, 2010?
Ugh. The big MLA (Modern Languages Association) conference with thousands of people is at Austin this year, and this is making me nervous about going. It’s not happening in early January, is it?
I believe it is happening today? Or this week or something. The open carry idiots will probably be protesting on front of something in January, though, since apparently they have nothing better to do with themselves.
The more details I hear about this the worse it sounds- they’re having an open carry rally directly before the “demonstration” so there will be toooonnnsssss of guns around. Also the “victims” are supposedly going to be wearing the shirts of the on-campus group working to make UT’s campus gun-free. This sounds like such a terrible idea and I’m worried.
Oh Jesus. That certainly makes gun activists look super sane and normal, yep, definitely thoughtful and mature enough to carry guns.
I wonder how many of those goofballs are from the whole Open Carry Texas thing, it sort of beggars belief that Texas has two entirely separate organized groups of Westboro-esque nutbars hiding behind ‘gun rights advocacy’ to blatantly run around terrorizing people for kicks but on the other hand, Texas.
Here to attest to being the mom of a cruising toddler at a house for MEDITATION only to be screamed at because my kid was hanging on the back of a chair (couldn’t walk yet), and asshole host hadnt bothered to mention there was a loaded gun in the pocket of the jacket draped over the back of the chair.
Said host was a factor in my divorce.
Or gee, maybe it’s not a great idea to KEEP a loaded goddamn gun in your goddamn jacket pocket (that you’re not even goddamn wearing!) when there are goddamn toddlers around.
you know
maybe
Yeah, you know, when my spouse at the time didn’t think it was a big deal (well, we were guests, he doesn’t have kids….), and this was before concealed carry was allowed in our state (ah, the golden years), I should have run then. But I had a toddler.
Ex still hangs out with loser. Been divorced three times, lost everything to IRS multiple times, now living in house owned on paper by his son so it can’t be taken, turned from a 60’s hippie into a tea party nut. Was renting out a basement apartment when I kicked my ex out, who went there to stay.
My kids hate the guy. Warms the cockles of my heart, that does. That’s at least one liar and fraud that won’t ever trick them.
What’s craziest about this IMO is that UT had the first mass campus shooting and it went down in a way where randos on campus with a gun would have accomplished jack shit. No magical gun or exception aim skills would have made it possible to take out the dude in the tower killing everyone.
UT already knows what a mass shooting looks like, and it doesn’t look like concealed carry saving the day.
They tried, you know? I read a story about that first shooting. People literally went home, got their guns, and started shooting back at the sniper. But it took a deputy (I think) who stormed the tower, into the room he was shooting from, to kill him. it had gone on for hours, and all the civilians with guns taking aim couldn’t hit him.
All the more reason to not have a bunch of civilians wandering around a campus with guns.
so many good links today awww yissss it’s gonna be a nice morning!
I would absolutely have played fellatio because I am the worst about competition and age is no excuse. (I also was a precocious 8 year old who knew what that meant because I had *those* hippie parents who let me read newspapers that syndicated Dan Savage’s column.)
This is probably why I shouldn’t have kids.
eh. there’s a lot worse things that can happen to an eight-year-old than finding out what “fellatio” is.
Also I think there is a big difference in what you teach your own kids and what you teach other people’s kids. I mean, if the eight year old already had a basic understanding of the birds and the bees then her parents could introduce other concepts in context without a problem. So go hippie parents!
But it is not okay to casually introduce other people’s kids to stuff that really needs to be part of a bigger conversation.
i’m gonna talk about sexual assault. this should really wait for the open thread but i’m doing it here before i lose my nerve.
i need to thank you guys so much. i’ve only been commenting here recently but i made myself at home 2-ish years ago. and have been much more vocal within my friend and family group, re: feminist stuff, and have very much annoyed them.
and i’ve grown even more vocal having been sexually assaulted several times within the past year. thanks to my previous speakings-out among friends, i know i can never tell any of them a single detail about it. family either.
and if it weren’t for this space, i wouldn’t be able to tell anyone. the incidents themselves were bad but brief and i’m not carrying anything more than anger. the knowledge that none of my IRL inner-circle would have my back is the much larger violation.
anyway okay thank you!
I’m so sorry that your friends and family are not there for you like they should be, but I’m glad that you’ve found a safe space here where you can vent.
I think Jen had the perfect response, so I’m just going to echo it: it’s really sucks not to have support in real life, but I’m so glad this safe space exists. I don’t talk about my sexual assault much anymore, due to my place in my process of healing, but, in my experience, being able to talk openly to supportive people really helped. I’ve never met you or talked to you before, but I’m wishing you all the best.
Oh I am so sorry to hear that people in your life aren’t supporting you. That is so difficult. But you are strong, and brave, and worthwhile, and I’m so glad that we’ve been able to provide even a bit of help with something so rotten. You don’t happen to be in the NY area, do you? Cause if so there is a quiet afternoon of tea and supportive hugs (or air hugs if that is more your style) with your name on it, just say the word.
Oh that is so sweet. Thank you so much. Unfortunately I’m on the other coast. :/
Just saying the words SOMEWHERE and not hearing “Yeah, well, but…..” has already made a world of difference. (And knowing there was no possible way someone here would say “Yeah, well, but….” and ask for details to prove it.) I didn’t realize how much this was mentally weighing on me until right now.
There are lots of us on that coast too!
I am so glad that the Toast feels like a safe space to you. It is to me, too.
Not that this happens for everyone, but I have been a staunch feminist for my whole entire life and have gotten lots of grief from friends and family but set strong boundaries and stopped being worried I was annoying people and stopped going to parties with people who did not respect those boundaries and it took me so long, but my friend group is now suggesting links to ME and bringing up things on their own and my “not a feminist but an equalist” sister just called herself a “raging feminist” on Facebook the other day. I just want you to know that sometimes things take a while to percolate, but sometimes (not always, but sometimes!) people finally come through.
That said, stay safe and well and don’t spend any energy you don’t have!
<3
“more vocal within my friend and family group, re: feminist stuff, and have very much annoyed them”
A+ for annoying them. It’s necessary. You’re forcing them to think. It’s how change happens.
I am so very sorry you’ve been assaulted. And very sorry you lack support from family and friends. Yes, the lack of support is also a violation. But please don’t feel alone. You have all of the Toastverse. And the longer you are vocal with your feminism, the more like-minded people you will attract. I predict new, better friends for you very soon.
thank you for saying this. and everyone else who commented, above and below, this is lovely and very much appreciated.
the main thing is that i have cited my own experiences as examples of misogyny, smaller things like groping and verbal aggression, and watched them be dismissed and minimized by people who claim to care about me. so now that bigger stuff has happened, i don’t want to risk that being dismissed too, or interrogated to see if it’s bad enough to “count.” or people thinking i’m trying to use it as some sort of feminist status symbol. “glorified victimhood” is a phrase that gets tossed around a lot.
if i had been more docile this whole time, i might have access to more compassion when i needed it. but it’s just not me, and i would not be sweeter if i could do it all over again.
having a place to put it for now is incredibly therapeutic. thank you again. <3
It sucks that that has happened to you, but I want to let you know that I believe you and I have your back. I’m just some rando on the internet, but I’m here.
Someone linked to this today and I thought it was pretty good (in the sense of good point, not in the sense of “that was good”): http://gallagherwitt.tumblr.com/post/133986448001…
That was a really good piece!
I will confess to this: when things were starting to get serious with the boy, I asked him to get me pads once when he went to the grocery store. Now: I really needed them. But it was also sort of a test – because I didn’t want to get serious with a guy who’d have his masculinity threatened by that.
He passed with flying colors, btw.
Thanks very much for that link.
“How can you be so offended by a small gesture that has zero effect on you, but could make such an enormous difference to the person who needs it?”
Spot-on.
So on the one hand Mallory is doing a bang up job as Prudie. On the other hand now I can’t hate-read Prudie. I am very torn by this.
I KNOW! And it seems like fewer wackadoos have written in to Mallory!Prudence, like they can sense that the new Prudie is not batshit and will not enable their bad behaviour. V sad.
On the subject of classical music, I am compelled to plug the most recent Cliburn doc, “Virtuosity,” because I loved the last set of contestants so much and still do. And the winner, Vadym Kholodenko, totally stole my heart (with his casual, oh I haven’t seen my dad in a long time, maybe if I do well in this competition I will see him again), and then he and his family up and moved to the US after the contest. I liked him during the competition, and after seeing the documentary, I want him to win at everything.
I also really loved Beatrice and Sean, and Sean was very gracious to participate some in the recent Cliburn competition for young people, which made me love him more. I was fortunate enough to get to see an outdoor performance by the competitors in the youth competition (thank you hands of fate for wanting a break from work at that moment), and he just showed up in his casual wear and was all, “Yes, ok, I will also play something for you folks enjoying your Starbucks at this plaza.”
What I’m saying is that people who compete in piano competitions kill me, and I think you should also find them charming and stealers-of-hearts.
Classical musicians are outrageously charming as a group these days. When I was a young, up and comer, they were all cranky artiste types who are all “leave me alone and just appreciate my ART.” I’m so glad my generation and younger are all “Nope to that! Gotta engage the audience and share the wealth.”
I blame that charmer Joshua Bell in all his infinite violin talent, stunning good looks, and is a genuinely nice person. He set the charm bar so high!
Oh, totally, the younger generation seems to understand that nowadays, people want crowd pleasers. Plus, I think they are just so grateful that they might get to do this professionally.
Of course, I say that, but the Cliburn seems to have a good record of having charming contestants, at least some of them. I don’t know if it’s the format of having them stay in the homes of city residents so that they relax a bit (or maybe all major comps do that?), or if it’s because it’s a big competition in terms of what you get if you win but it’s not THE competition. Or maybe they just come across well to the media and the public but aren’t really charming behind the scenes. IDK but I always love them, or at least some of them.
Oooh, haven’t seen the movie, but we watched the competition. I was rooting for Nikita, who was so cute and geeky in his ugly plaid shirts but played really beautifully. My kid cried when Nikita didn’t win. But they are all charming and adorable piano babies.
Oh, I loved him! He played in the only semifinal round I got to see live. He was fantastic. And you’re right, they are all adorable. Adorable!
If you get a chance to see the film, I recommend it, but I freely admit that I’m a weepy sucker for that kind of documentary so I’m not an objective reviewer.
So on one hand I totally get Mallory’s answer to mustache lady, but I have to assume that the kid’s classmates are going to notice it and tease her and make her feel ashamed anyway? And a kid who was picked on, I would have given anything to ward off more teasing; if someone had come to me and said “Hey, kids might tease you about X, and if you ever want to do something to change it I will pay for it” I would have been so grateful. (Granted, in my case, money wouldn’t have made me less of an awkward nerd. But it’s the thought that counts.)
The teasing would be the problem, not the moustache. But if no one is teasing her for it yet, an adult pointing it out pre-emptively is going to indicate to the kid that there’s a problem and it’s with her.
I know that bullying can be a problem, but I also think that kids can be a lot kinder than many adults give them credit for. I gained quite a bit of weight in middle school and high school and none of my classmates ever made fun of me for it or really even mentioned it. On the other hand, my dad telling me that there was nothing worse than a fat teenage girl and that I should never weigh more than 115 pounds all ostensibly out of concern for my health/what other kids would think of me did a hell of a lot of damage. Telling a kid that other people will have a problem with an aspect of their appearance in the absence of any complaints from the kid is NOT a good idea.
This was my experience, too. No kids in school ever made fun of me for my weight. I don’t know and probably can’t know if I ever missed out on making any friends or being more well-liked in school–and I have reason to think that in elementary school, at least, that might have been part of it–but I was also just a very shy, introverted person, so that’s at least a huge part of it if not the majority.
But if my relatives and especially my mom hadn’t made such a big deal out of it, to the point of having a “sit down” conversation with me in which she spelled out in explicit detail how I could expect to be less liked and made fun of and generally have a less happy life because I was fat (not even, really; I was an in-betweenie, if that’s the right word), I would probably have been 1,000 times less self-conscious and liked myself 1,000,000 times more than I did.
I was teased for being fat–and smart, what a toxic combo–in middle school but what really did the damage … okay, my parents insist that they did not intend this message but I definitely got the message from specific conversations about actual events that if I was fat, no-one would ever love me. And at the time, I was chubby, but given this message, I figured I was doomed already and so I eventually did become fat (topped out at 260) and, as far as I can tell, permanently single in my mid-50s because I really still can’t believe that anyone would love me. I have about a 90% great relationship with my parents, but it took a long time to come to terms with that other 10% and at least let it go.
I had the same sit down serious conversation with my dad. His thing was that I could never be successful or have people like me if I continued to be fat. Great thing for an awkward 16 year old girl to hear. (He told me I was too fat to be hired when I was unemployed this summer too, actually. I forgot how small and worthless that man can make me feel.) So yeah. Pointing it out is likely to cause way more trauma, in my experience.
But there’s a significant difference between “Kids are going to tease you; get rid of your mustache,” which frames body/facial hair rather than mean kids as the Bad Thing, vs. presenting info about (optional!) removal of face and other hair as part of an age-appropriate discussion about brink-of-nightmare-adolescence hygiene needs and grooming options—which it really doesn’t sound like LW would provide in a sensitive manner. (More good discussion about this under aravisthequeen’s comment.)
All: As I said, I get Mallory’s response, and obviously do not think shaming is a good thing. But if shaming is going to happen anyway, then I personally would have rather been informed and offered a chance to possibly ward it off.
Yeah, I definitely see your point, but preemptively guessing what people are made fun of for is a dangerous game nobody should play. There are just no winners.
I mentioned above that I was pre-emptively “warned” about how much shaming I’d get for not being as thin as my classmates by my family, and it was humiliating, damaging, and entirely untrue. My family are the only ones who shamed me, and it was in the process of informing me about how embarrassing it was going to be for me when, in reality, they were projecting their own dislike for my body onto my schoolmates, who never once mentioned it to me. I think I agree with the other commenters who say that preemptively guessing what problems a child is going to have due to their appearance is (a) ineffective and (b) actually contributes to creating those problems for the child in the first place.
I kind of had a mustache and nobody ever said a thing to me about it (except my mother one time, what the hell?). And I got made fun of a lot for all sorts of other things. I think assuming that there’s a problem is 100% likely to mortify the poor girl more than anything.
If it’s a problem, it’s a problem, and maybe you offer to help deal with it then, but I can tell you it’s one thing to have classmates fucking with you over your physical features and a completely other to have your parents/grandparents/aunts doing it
Well, OK, sometimes it may be worth it to take steps to alleviate the pain of bullying, but you have to tread very carefully so as not to start the kid down a path of changing herself in anticipation of bullying that may not even exist. Maybe her classmates are rad little kids who have been brought up to accept diversity in bodies.
It is a bit of a chicken vs. egg thing – you don’t want to suggest to the girl that it is something she should be in any way ashamed of, but it’s also possible she’s being teased and suffering in silence because she doesn’t know there’s something she can do about it, if she wants? I would err on the side of not saying anything as long as she seems like a happy kid.
(I had to beg my parents for everything – getting my ears pierced, shaving my legs, etc., because my dad was a super strict authoritarian and thought all that stuff was too grown-up. At 11 all the other girls were shaving their legs but I wasn’t allowed – while I definitely begged to be able to do it, I don’t think I ever told my dad that I was being teased for being the only girl who didn’t.)
I think that we all, at Toast Central HQ, seem pretty divided on mustache lady, depending on whether or not we were put through the femininity wringer as kids or not. It’s very interesting.
It’s not that I am against offering to pay for waxing because I wasn’t put through the femininity wringer. I am against pointing out her mustache because I was put through the femininity wringer by adults, not by my peers.
Seconded. Only adults made me feel inadequate for how I looked. (Kids made me feel inadequate for how I acted–which was a very different beast and not something a little waxing can fix.)
I want to go to the Schuyler mansion! Even if my suspicions are confirmed that Philip Schuyler was the kind of dude who could never keep up with his daughters (I mean, dude’s revolutionary war achievements — plan the disastrous Invasion of Canada, back out of it in poor health, leave everyone else to freeze to death in the snow outside Quebec City. People, don’t invade Moscow in the winter. Same goes for Quebec.)
Gun-and-kids question: My husband grew up in North Carolina, in a community where every eight-year-old had a BB gun. He would go shoot cans with his dad on weekends, and views it as a special bonding experience they had. He wants to get our (now five-year-old) son a BB gun when he’s seven or eight. I am appalled by this and adamantly opposed. I don’t want our son associating guns with fun, even if they’re fake, and I’m afraid of an accident happening no matter how many precautions are taken. My husband says that this will actually give our son a greater appreciation for shooting as a skill, not a game, and teach him that guns are not toys (by getting him an actual toy gun?). Also that it will be locked up in the garage and only taken out when they go shooting somewhere. After much heated discussion we’ve agreed to table this until he’s 13, but I’m still really really uneasy about it. I didn’t grow up with guns at all, real or fake, and I may be overreacting. We both agree that our kids aren’t allowed any other fake or toy guns (except water pistols), so I don’t understand why a toy gun with actual BBs that could hurt people would be an exception. What say you all?
I grew up with guns, toy and real. We hunted, I occasionally shoot skeet when I go home. I had toy guns from a very young age. I’m going to be honest: I do think shooting is fun, and I’ve always enjoyed it. None of that stopped me from being a hyper-liberal who’s in favor of extremely restrictive gun control. There is the risk of accidents, but with a BB gun, they’re relatively minor. I generally think that people should know gun safety and be comfortable with guns.
^^^^Yes. I think I fired a gun for the first time at age 6 or so. My dad owns upward of FIFTY guns, all hunting and antique pieces. When I was a kid, I helped him reload shotgun shells. Like.. that’s how it was growing up in a super-rural area. BUT. Guns weren’t in any way glamorized or taken lightly. My parents were compulsive about keeping everything locked up and making sure I knew exactly, precisely how dangerous they were.
As a sidebar, shooting cans is a really good way to demonstrate what guns can do. This tiny pellet coming out of this TOY GUN can damage something that’s made out of METAL. Following that logic through, what can a bigger slug from a non-toy do to something that’s a lot softer than metal? It’s counterintuitive but yeah.
My family of origin doesn’t hunt, but my dad did when he was a kid. He taught us kids to shoot a BB gun when we were about 8, and moved up to rifles and handguns as we entered our teens. I enjoyed shooting and I was good at it, but I’ve never been interested in owning a gun myself. Both of my brothers own guns and shoot recreationally with their friends, and my dad will take anyone who wants to go when we’re all home at the holidays or whenever.
My dad has been teaching my teens gun safety and taking them shooting at a range since they were 10 years old, just on .22 rifle and handgun. I go with them sometimes and the kids are blown away that Mom can just sit down and hit the target in a tight pattern because like PP I am pretty liberal and in favor of very restrictive gun control.
Anyway, I say take your cue from your husband. From what you’ve presented it sounds like he’s sane about guns and very sensitive to your views on the subject. If it turns out your husband sleeps with a loaded handgun under his pillow, I might have to re-think my endorsement. 🙂
I… have a lot of feelings about this. I come from a gun community and I know that it can be good or bad. My dad has maybe a dozen for hunting (which is way more than he needs) but he keeps them safely secured and growing up we were very strictly taught they aren’t toys. I would have been allowed to learn how to shoot only if I was interested in hunting because guns are tools. In my extended family guns are toys, or at least treats. (My cousin gave his niece a pink assault rifle for her birthday. She was 4.) They are extremely lax with gun safety and it’s actually terrifying.
I have every confidence that you and your husband would do everything the exact right way and be as safe as possible. I wrote a whole paragraph out about whether shooting a bb gun is a skill or a game but that’s really up to the two of you to decide. My only suggestion is, if you decide a bb gun is okay, take a gun safety class together as a family so everyone is more comfortable.
Recreational shooting gets a big no from me. It’s nice that your husband wants to pass down a fun bonding activity that he enjoyed as a kid but I think you’re completely justified to put your foot down. I doubt a BB gun is going to result in any terrible accidents but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with giving my kid the idea that shooting things is fun either. This seems like a good opportunity to start a new tradition instead!
I’m also debating this with my husband, though less the “bb guns” and more “gun in house at all”. I’m super anti-gun, don’t want one in the house, am triggered by hearing gunshots, while he used to have targets up on his wall from having gone shooting at ranges. We’ve discussed why I don’t feel safe having a gun in the house (both babies/kids being unsafe and not a great idea for depressed teens to have access), but also that I understand why guns should come with responsibility and a sense of respect for their capabilities, which is how he thinks responsible gun owners learn. Our current compromise is at some point he will take kids, if they’re interested, to the shooting range to learn how to shoot.
man my hippie ass parents didn’t let me near any guns or gun-related objects and come 18 I wanted a big doofy Rambo rifle to blow up pumpkins with with the fury of the fucking Sun.
If they’ve got any prior interest whatever in guns (probably, boys often do, it’s not like every last movie and TV show out there being uniformly on message about how cool they are don’t shape our interests) then a BB gun’s a great way to ease them into handling one safely and responsibly and using it in appropriate contexts with a community of other families doing same, rather than diving headfirst into the sea of strange creepy rednecks and trying to learn the important points of appropriate behavior from the guys who sleep with a nine under their pillow and think it’s funny to point it at you and pull the trigger, like I and some folks I know did.
I wouldn’t, like, force it on a kid who wasn’t already into it for a whole bunch of reasons, but abstinence-only education doesn’t work.
Sort of unrelated, but your comment made me think of this:
Through a weird turn of events, I, a person who hates zombies and all zombie-related media, found myself at a Walking Dead fan convention last weekend. Afterwards, I was expounding to my friends about how weird I thought it was that parents would bring their children to such a thing. The example I used was a 10-year-old boy whose dad wanted to send his kid through an interactive theatre thing where you are basically being chased by zombies for half an hour.
Two of the calmest, most reasonable guys I know just looked at me and went, “that’s what 10-year-old boys want. I would have loved that shit when I was 10.” I normally think gender essentialism is total BS, but that definitely gave me pause.
Check the gender breakdown here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m6YY2tBR1Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA-kOvdB62c
The little kid in the second video at around 1 minute in who is told very explicitly by one of the other kids not to touch the guns who then immediately reaches out and taps it, just because fuck you, you’re not my boss, is 100% me.
I don’t think the “abstinence only” thing is really analogous. Plenty of people (like me) grow up without any exposure to guns at home, and continue to have zero interest in them as adults. I would say that’s true of the majority of people I grew up with.
which is why if they’re not into it, you don’t force the issue because tradition/you loved it as a kid and they are Your kid now which means you get to relive your childhood through them/whatever. If they are interested, you’re not gonna succeed at ending your childrens’ horizons wherever suits you just by keeping them ignorant, you’re just queuing up a trainwreck for later. Plenty of parents try it, on all sorts of things they find uncomfortable, it’s not a smart method of control.
I disagree. There are plenty of activities that are potentially dangerous– e.g., rock climbing, skydiving, etc.– that many people have no exposure to growing up, and learn to do safely. Usually, safety lessons are an integral part of beginning that sort of activity.
It seems to me like anyone with a modicum of common sense who wants to learn about guns as an adult should be able to do so safely.
I have zero interest in guns, and don’t keep a gun in the house. I don’t live in an area where most people have guns, and none of my family have them. If I have any kids, I don’t plan on (e.g.) taking them to gun safety courses or shooting ranges. If they’re interested, I don’t see why they can’t do that perfectly safely on their own later.
I also don’t see it as a method of “control”, it’s just not something I’m interested in spending my time doing. There aren’t enough hours in the day for the activities I *am* interested in.
I understand the concern, but if any of your husband’s family has guns, there is something to be said for learning safe handling with a small-bore gun. I had grandfolks and associated kin who kept–and keep–guns in the house, though as far as I knew the weapons were always locked up in a case we were warned against so strictly that I vaguely thought that the case was radioactive.
But at a certain age, Designated Adult Cousin (a hunter who knew his stuff, not just the closest grown-up) took us out with .22s and small targets to teach us safety, including why we were to put our guns down if we could even hear a car, let alone see it, and how to always treat guns as though they were loaded. It was fun, we got quite good at pinging cans, and that was the only time most of us ever bothered, because DAC was so strict about safety that handling guns seemed like a big pain in the ass; only one out of five kidlets in our generation grew up with any interest in hunting, and the rest of us are filthy urban-dwelling liberals who read statistics and refuse to own guns.
My dad has had guns since I can remember. I REALLY wanted one, and my parents said I agreed that I had to wait until I was 12. By then, I wasn’t interested in them much anymore…I did, however, get very into archery for a while, and did that with my dad. We had a good time shooting targets and even hunting a few times! So, this could maybe be a compromise you suggest?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot too. We lived in Illinois, Georgia, and North Carolina, all of which are/were relatively pro-gun states. My father was a card-carrying member of the NRA, owned guns, had them in the house, went hunting occasionally (like, maybe once a year, if that). I to this day have no idea where those guns were kept. I just texted my 4-years-younger brother to see if he knew where they were kept/if our father ever let him handle them. I grew up feeling fine about guns – not rabidly pro-gun like my dad and one of his brothers were, but fine with them being in the house as long as they were kept safe and away from me and my brother.
I personally have shot bb guns on occasion, mostly at summer camp or whatever, and am contemplating going to a shooting range just to see what it’s like to fire a real gun and if I am comfortable enough to become proficient. If I do become proficient in shooting and gun safety, I will MAYBE have a small revolver in my home someday – assuming I ever own a home and have a family with children – and that gun will be in a locked safe that only I know the combination to. MAYBE my husband. But my children will NEVER know that I have a gun unless I have a legitimate reason to use it or until they are adults, whichever comes first.
HOWEVER. I think normalizing guns, especially with boys and young men (who are clearly more exposed as a group to violent media and are statistically more likely to have a mental illness that manifests violently), is extremely dangerous – especially now in this racist, xenophobic environment we find ourselves in. If you live in an area where hunting game is very popular or essential, I’m not going to judge you for being part of that and having hunting guns. But what I cannot comprehend is this insistence on owning assault rifles. What the actual fuck is anyone going to do with an assault rifle other than kill other people?
they’re fun as heck and do pretty much everything better than stuff that was the cutting edge of technology a hundred years ago, just like everything else that’s technically improved in the past hundred years, if you’re gonna use a gun at all it’s like asking why you really neeeeed an iPhone and not ENIAC
… just making sure you are being facetious/sarcastic?
My dad grew up with guns and is now the biggest hippie in the world.
That said, I agree with you — guns aren’t toys, so don’t have toy guns. If your husband wanted to teach your son how to shoot, like go to a shooting range and learn those skills/safety, but OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE, I think that’s different and possibly ok? But I’m generally of the mind that unless you have a gun for your job (cop, military) or because you hunt for the food you eat, you don’t really need one.
My partner grew up with guns, I did not, and we both have different ideas about gun ownership, which haven’t been an issue yet, but I do expect it to be a difficult issue at some point.
I think that one possible piece of compromise might be that your husband and son go to some sort of gun safety class together, separate from your son having his own gun or gun-like object. With your husband and his family coming from a culture with more guns than you and yours, your son might be more likely to come in contact with a gun of some sort than he’d be otherwise, and it can only help if he learns the rules— that way if a cousin or someone ends up grabbing a BB gun at some family reunion when your back is turned for 15 minutes, your son has some context to be able to say “this isn’t just how things are done here, this is breaking important rules, I need to get out of this situation”.
Your son wouldn’t have to have his own gun or gun like object to learn this stuff, that could be a separate choice. This kind of class wouldn’t necessarily have to be part of an ongoing activity. And it can also be a test balloon to figure out how to handle other choices- it he’s interested, if he’s mature enough to handle things safely.
I lean no for the reasons you lay out. I think tabling until he’s 13 is good. If at 13, he really really wants to do it, I think a BB gun is the least bad option of letting him make choices, and your husband sounds smart and responsible, so it might not be the worst idea. But if at 13 he has no interest, then you can make your case more easily to your husband.
I know a family like yours. He grew up with guns, helped feed his impoverished family by hunting for meat as a teen, served in the US Marine Corps. She did not want her children exposed to guns in any way.
Their compromise: children would be taught safety, but only safety.
Children were quizzed regularly from very young to answer:
1. Where are Dad’s guns? (Locked up where no one can touch them.)
2. Where is all of the ammo for Dad’s guns? (Also locked up, but far away from all the guns, where no one can touch it.)
3. What do you do if you see a gun? (Get away and tell a grownup. After I am old enough and Dad teaches me how, I can decide if I should unload it, like when there are other children nearby and the gun is not secure.)
Then when kids demonstrated sufficient maturity, around age 12, Dad took kids target shooting. But only once. Kids were all required to shoot each gun once, to know how it felt, and to look at the shattered target to appreciate its power: a shotgun, a revolver, and a small-bore rifle. (Dad provided physical support for the kickback, hands on kid’s shoulders, kid sitting with back against Dad’s chest.)
Kids were required to learn to *unload* every type of weapon. After all that, kids were never to touch a gun again.
Unless a kid begged and spent considerable energy convincing Mom they were old enough and careful enough and had chosen a responsible enough adult to supervise them. This mom relented for two of her kids, but not until they were 15 and 16.
I support any decision you make, Frumiosa. I trust your judgment. Just here as a witness to what worked for one family.
We personally do not have guns in our house, and I plan on keeping it that way, but we have lots of friends and family who shoot competitive high-power and hunt and do have (secured) guns in the house, and my husband and I have both hunted on occasion, and plan on having our kids take gun safety classes.
It seems likely that my kids will go hunting and/or target shooting as older teens, with intense supervision from trusted people and I am okay with it. I have the utmost respect for people who would be not be okay with it! No Guns In The House is my personal boundary, but many different personal boundaries make equal sense to me.
I grew up in houses with shitloads of guns treated with varying degrees of care and this has led to me being very, very firm about No Guns Around Me Ever. The unexpected sound of a gunshot can cause me to have sobbing breakdowns. I cannot be around guns without getting shaky and upset.
I appreciate shooting as a skill but it is a skill I wish I didn’t have and a hobby I don’t really like other people around me having. One, because accidents happen. And two, because bad intentions can also happen. To me, even having a locked-up gun in the house provides the potential for a situation to escalate. It doesn’t matter if someone doesn’t know where it is, if they have enough motivation to keep looking. And even a BB gun can do an awful lot of damage at close-range. Like, I don’t want to say scary shit here, but I just think it’s a huge risk not worth taking in a lot of ways.
Oh are any twitter toasties following along with the #trumpfacts hashtag? I got swept up and then had to tune out because Trump supporters were flooding back with terrible things that I couldn’t figure out how to filter away. But there were some great ones, summarized here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/alanwhite/trump-facts Also, forgive me if this is old news or has already been linked. I’m usually several cycles behind on internet things.
There’s also apparently #DumpTrump now which I think is fantastic, rhyming ftw
I also like that it’s sort of like Dump Truck, which is pretty fitting, since he says garbage things all the time.
Thank you for the much needed giggles. My favorite:
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Britain is so radicalised one of its favourite actors is Syrian McKellen. #TrumpFacts— Alexander J. Martin (@lexanderjmartin) December 8, 2015
<script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
That was my favourite too! And then I tried to tell it to somebody, but it’s definitely a visual pun.
That poverty article, yish. I read it a few days ago and it brought up so much of my own unresolved shit, which I am still mulling over. I’ve been really, super poor my whole life, and when my son was small I desperately needed more money than I had. I ended up nannying for a friend — it was supposed to be three hours a day, weekdays only, $250/month. Somehow, six months in, I found myself watching her kid from 5:00 or 6:00AM to 7:00 or 8:00PM, every day, with usually not even weekends off. She’d slowly changed how she paid me so that by the time I was watching her kid 14 hours a day she was only paying me $200/month, and half of that was in food she selected and bought and brought over. This all seemed totally normal to her, and I felt like I had no way out because we needed that paltry money and I had no other way to get it. I spent two years like this, exhausted and miserable and ashamed and enraged, and then I started a job working nights and it was even worse. It all culminated in this woman’s kid kicking me in the face while I changed him (kid was six, still in diapers, you do the parenting math), fracturing my orbital bone, and almost costing me my night job. The mom didn’t even apologize. Not a word. Just asked if she could drop him off at the same time the next day, while I sat there with my entire eye swollen shut and an enormous strawberry-speckled black lump on my cheek.
I wish I could say that wall o’text is the only time I’ve experienced what the author of that poverty article did, but it isn’t. Being poor makes you desperate, and being desperate opens you to being taken advantage of. Until I read that article I thought it was just me — just my bad luck, just my bad judging of characters — and I’ve been unable to shake my feelings about all of this ever since. I would have posted about this on Facebook like a normal person (sorry, Toasties), save for the fact that too many people who have used my poverty to get ahead are on my FB and I don’t feel like arguing about it.
And that’s one of the worst aspects of the way we treat and perceive poverty (at least in America). Since we’re a merit based society, we all think of ourselves and each other like people engaging in a risky business venture, except that business venture is our whole lives: all risk and reward is yours and yours alone. When we are poor, we blame ourselves, and other poor people probably did something to deserve it. And on the flipside, people who are wealthy or otherwise privileged earned it.
It’s horrifyingly common – there are a lot of scummy people who seek out desperate folks and get tens of thousands of dollars worth of labor just for providing a (shitty, leaky) roof over their head, and because the desperate person can’t earn money, it’s nearly impossible to leave.
I have a lot of sympathy for the so-called “Nightmare Nanny” from last year. The homeowners wanted a full-time nanny in exchange for room and board and zero pay, and were upset when she wouldn’t immediately leave on being fired. Because clearly she was going to have enough for a security deposit on a new place with the ZERO DOLLARS they gave her.
Holy shit, this puts that story in a whole new light… That’s basically the same thing that happened here.
Oh my God. That was so evil of her. I am so sorry.
I nannyed for a woman who slowly tried to increase my hours while reducing my pay and got more and more emotionally abusive and entitled as the job went on until a trusted friend convinced me to stop feeling guilty about the kids (Mom had…Problems) and save myself.
Were there any resources that were really helpful to you in that time we could maybe help support?
I wish I could say there were, but we honestly just got through with gritted teeth and… really nothing else. Because I wasn’t working for minimum wage we couldn’t get state benefits (food stamps, Medicaid, TANF), and at least in my area there simply aren’t other options. I do want to give a shout-out to The Bloggess, because she started running a Christmas gift program through her blog; she and her readers made Christmas happen for my kid, which included things like a winter coat I couldn’t afford and good books for his little mind. Those years were a nightmare of robbing Peter without paying Paul, and I’m still digging myself out of that hole, but I was constantly surprised by small graces.
I’m sorry, I hope things have got better for you and your son.
Also I don’t want to tell you how to live your life, but I’ll just say that I have been making judicious and unrestrained use of Facebook’s “acquaintance” feature for people I don’t like but don’t want to confront, and it has significantly improved my quality of online life.
Thank you, things are getting better. I went from the aforementioned night job to five years in the corrections field (as a contractor), to the final holy grail: an office job at a university. Its still only part-time and paltry in pay, but it has promise and gives me the flexibility to continue working as a contractor to fill in the gaps.
As far as FB’s acquaintance feature… you have shared valuable knowledge with me today and I am about to Change Some Shit. Thank you!
Nicole, please go on Can I Pet Your Dog to talk about Sansa. It’ll put you one degree of separation from Lin Manuel Miranda!
I’ve never liked Roald Dahl’s books, and I was completely unsurprised when I first learned he was a total garbage person — I feel like a lot of that hatefulness and misery bleeds through his writing in a way that I guess is supposed to be charming or edgy but always kind of creeped me out.
Same! I think it’s one of those things you have to read at juuust the right age to find them charming? I never read them, though, and spent my childhood terrorized by the movies. I remember I made my entire family leave a showing of James and the Giant Peach about halfway through.
I love his books, but James and the Giant Peach gave me nightmares. I didn’t even watch the whole thing!
Yeah, I remember enjoying The Witches quite a bit as a kid, but in retrospect, the fact that the happy ending consisted of the main character being pleased that he was turned into a rat as a young child, because that way he wouldn’t outlive his grandma was SUPER fucked up.
The Witches is one of the rare examples of where the movie is better than the book and a big part of that is because of the changes the movie made to the ending.
The only book I ever liked of his was Matilda, and looking back on why I disliked a lot of his other stuff… yeah, I see that.
I read Matilda over and over and over and over again, and it’s actually news to me that Roald Dahl was terrible and kind of breaking my heart.
Same here. Maybe I wasn’t young enough, or impressionable enough to be captivated by them in late childhood or early adolescence. The writing is good and I liked some of the funny parts, but overall they seemed mean-spirited.
His adult short stories are even worse – some are just straight entertaining horror like ‘The Landlady’, and there’s an enjoyable one called ‘William and Mary’ which is more misandrist than I’d expect from the old grump; but anything touching on sex is bizarre.
(‘Switch Bitch’ is a collection of his Playboy stories, and it’s legit insane, the worst one is just this dumped guy meeting up with his old sweetheart and gaslighting her into killing herself by describing from his expert position as a gynaecologist how disgusting older women’s vaginas are.)
But then I always agree with Ursula LeGuin in finding the Harry Potter series similiarly mean-spirited to Dahl’s childrens book characters; and yet I’ve read all of them and all of Dahl’s stories, so idk, clearly there’s something interesting there…
I read Roald Dahl’s Ghost Stories this past Halloween season (which was a collection of ghost stories by other people collected by him into one volume) and the intro was a bunch of gendered bullshit about which gender writes which type of fiction best. For example, did you know that women are terrible at writing short stories (don’t tell Alice Munro!) which is what makes it so surprising that he actually came across some good ghost stories written by women. Crazy! I didn’t know the other stuff about him so it just seemed weird and disappointing.
Is anyone else confused by the way Slate organizes Mallory’s posts? I click on the “Dear Prudie” header, and it takes me to a page where everything seems nicely gathered together so I can make sure I didn’t miss anything, but then I start reading the posts, and it’s like…. they chop them up weirdly? And also sometimes double post them? Sorry if I’m just not Getting It – it seems oddly organized and I wonder if it’s just me or if there’s a trick to following the Dear Prudie column that I don’t know about.
I’m confused by the way Slate organizes/presents basically all their content
Sometimes I think that’s the goal. Like how grocery stores change where things are from time to time to drag you into aisles where you might buy something out of the ordinary?
Maybe!! There’s things on there I want to read but it’s so chaotic and at any given time every 7th article heading seems like it will lead me to some sketchy spiel about How To Lose Belly Fat Eating Just This One Magical Food
Haha! I suspected that might be the case, but I don’t spend time anywhere else on Slate, so I wasn’t sure.
Same here. I just read pieces that are linked because otherwise I’m just like “???”
Yeah, it’s really dumb. The live chat happens on Mondays at noon, and you can follow along in real time, but then I think they chop it up into two posts when they post the transcript. The actual column is published on Thursdays, and I think they post a video question on Wednesday. Not that I pay close attention to that stuff or anything.
I would like some advice from fellow teachers, activists, toasties in general.
I am a high school lit. teacher, and I teach a range of students from 9th graders to 12th graders. I’m in the US, and totally freaking out about the state of our country. Most of my students are from fairly liberal, but upper-class and insulated families. They don’t really get out much. This is in an affluent suburb of Boston (like, pretty far from the city).
Even though it’s not really within my purview as a teacher of literature, I feel like I’d be dropping the ball if I didn’t spend at least a day trying to help these bright young minds understand the very real and immediate dangers being posed by the bigots gaining political traction in our country right now. I want to spend a class period or two leading some discussion and providing some resources regarding recognizing and fighting back against social injustice.
That’s where you come in– I’m experienced in the discussion-leading thing, but I don’t really know where to begin in terms of introducing this to them as a topic of importance (like, where do I even start? Trump? Scalia? Police brutality? Pro-life terrorism?), and I want to be able to give them some options of things to DO, not just things to get upset over. That’s tough because I don’t even know what to DO myself.
So, how can I do this?
(If there’s a way I can do it without using the Martin Niemöller poem, I’d also appreciate that, because I think it’s a bit overused, and it’s already hanging on posters all over the building.)
My first instinct would be to use Persepolis as a starting point. I don’t think you’d need to teach the whole book (because I know that’s expensive), but maybe a chapter or two? I think there’s a lot in it that can relate to what we’re dealing with now (police brutality and why you shouldn’t militarize your police especially comes to mind) AND there’s a fair amount in there that shows sort of why so many countries in the Middle East are not so great right now.
It might be hokey, but using Humans of New York and their stories with refugees might also be a great way to get a dialogue started. (It’s an excellent example of a sort of modern oral history and it’s absolutely heart-wrenching and as a former Historian I think what’s being done is important.)
I hope this helps, even a little!
I was thinking of showing Persepolis, the film version, but I feel like it doesn’t focus as clearly on those issues as the book does (it deals more with her coming of age and all, which is great, but not for my purposes). The Humans of NY is a good idea, though! I’ll keep that in mind!
Oooh, if you’re up for showing films, Pride, which is set in the 80s during the Miner’s strike, is a great one about the power of intersectional activism.
I’m actually trying to figure out how to do this myself, but with a complete opposite population (black and brown, lower middle class to extremely poor kids, often undocumented immigrants learning English as a second language, with all the trials and travails that come with that background)
To me, the best thing to teach kids to DO is how to critically engage with the issues and use their voices in a constructive and positive way (which, in itself, is still a huge task). While that might not be as satisfying as giving them concrete activism, really focusing on critical analysis and rhetoric will give them tools that can help them dismantle the current extreme polemic that relies on a lot of fallacies repeated loudly and emotionally. I think one of the best ways for them to do this is to leave the canon and focus on non-fiction, having them read and synthesize to high quality texts about the issues, then wade in with their own voice and “talk back” to the text.
Although all of this is just theory right now, as I’m just now about to leave the prescriptive teaching my district has been pushing and go my own way. I don’t know if any of this helps, but that’s where I’m coming from.
I totally agree about the importance of critical thinking and engagement… which I do spend a lot of time on. I just feel like I’m not doing enough in terms of saying “hey, there’s stuff going on that we need to talk about,” since I don’t think anyone else is talking to them about it, and, unlike your students, they aren’t experiencing any of it directly.
Have them read A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood? Discuss how likely it is for something like this to happen in real life, see if students can point out real-world parallels to the events of the book?
I love this book and I wish I could use it this way, but it’s already been claimed by another class!
The Handmaid’s Tale is GREAT to read with Persepolis. The Iranian revolution makes The Handmaid’s Tale feel scarily believable.
Could you structure it as a lesson about rhetorical strategies? Like, X Garbage Person says something, and people get angry, or scared, or totally bonkers. Why does that happen? What are they saying that inspires those reactions? And they see that language is really powerful and that people wield words dangerously, so it’s good to think critically about what public figures say and keep our bullshit meters on HIGH.
Yes, I think this is what I’m leaning toward!
My high school sophomore english class did something like this. We split into pairs, and had to give short persuasive talks (~3-5 paragraphs), one pro, one con, on a topic of our choosing.
I really wanted to argue we should eliminate the penny, and the teacher wouldn’t let me for reasons I still don’t understand, but he did let me argue that we should change the national anthem to Styx- Suite Madame Blue, so….. yeah. I was sort of bored in high school?
In any case, talking about what makes a persuasive speech, talking about how that’s different than something being a good idea, reading persuasive speeches from people we all agree did good things versus those that did bad things….. I think if I was giving the assignment, I’d have each student pick a topic and write BOTH persuasive essays. As in: Here’s a list of topics, write a 3 paragraph essay either pro or con for each one. Not give them a lot of time for it, not grade it harshly, but maybe discuss them in class, or workshop them, or whatever you do. THEN, assign them a bigger/more important version, where they now have to argue the opposite direction, persuasively. Because you gave them the free choice first time around, many of them will have to use techniques recently learned to argue for something they don’t believe in! (but the list of approved topics should hopefully limit it to things that won’t be terrible— so, raise budget of x vs lower budget of x rather than rape is bad vs rape is good).
I’d like to second (third, fourth) the suggestions about critical engagement/reading. I am a librarian/teacher in an upper midwestern state with a horrible governor/failure pile of a Presidential candidate who was being particularly horrible about fourish years ago. At the time, I was teaching a research skills class for at-risk and minority undergraduates. My students were walking through protest marches and rallies to get to my class, asking me questions about when the university was going to be shut down because they heard…
So. I cancelled class one day and held a teach-in. I made a quickie workbook with a number of examples, all centered around how one finds accurate/reliable information about an ongoing, controversial issue. I told the students they were not required to come, but most did. I explicitly stated up-front that I was not there to make a partisan argument, though, given that reality has a well-known liberal bias, the classroom discussion basically did my work for me.
It was great. A good time was had by all. And we learned how to contact our elected representatives!
If you’re willing to share your quickie workbook or how you structured it, I’d love to know more! I think this is a great idea.
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely is an interesting, if not perfect, recent Young Adult novel about police brutality and activism. Maybe not this year, but I don’t know if you are able to read books like that with your classes in the future.
I read “Farewell to Manzanar” as a teen – it’s about the Japanese internment camps and is a short book centered around a child. Here’s the publisher’s summary: Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp–with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Along with searchlight towers and armed guards, Manzanar ludicrously featured cheerleaders, Boy Scouts, sock hops, baton twirling lessons and a dance band called The Jive Bombers who would play any popular song except the nation’s #1 hit: “Don’t Fence Me In.”
Farewell To Manzanar is the true story of one spirited Japanese American family’s attempt to survive the indignities of forced detention . . . and of a native-born American child who discovered what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire in the United States.
I was assigned to do a report on this book in the fourth grade, and it FLOORED me, because this was never something I had ever, ever heard mentioned in any history class. I think it could open things up for a really solid discussion of citizenship and prejudice and what happens when people prioritize “feeling safe” over “allowing everyone to retain their rights.”
In happier news, I was listening to the Hamilton cast album and singing along in my head (as per usual) when I realized that I was actually singing “Hannibal” instead of “Hamilton.” So I started imagining what that musical would be like and now evieskye and I are on Twitter discussing the concept with great enthusiasm. (Sidebar – idk how I would get through the day without Twitter conversations with her.)
Here are some rough drafts of songs, please share your thoughts:
Hannibal’s pace is relentless, he wastes no time (in killing people and eating their corpses)
What is it like in his shoes? (I have a fairly good idea because of my super empathy powers)
Hannibal doesn’t hesitate
He exhibits no restraint
He takes and he takes and he takes
And he keeps winning anyway
He changes the game
He plays and he raises the stakes
And if there’s a reason he seems to thrive when so few survive (and are later found in disturbing murder-tableaux)
Goddammit I’m willing to wait for it!
There’s a million recipes to tryyyyyy but just you wait!
(What’s your name, man?)
HANNIBAL THE CANNIBAL!
Everyone give it for up America’s favourite tabloid journo!
FREDDIE LOUNDS!
Hannibal writes me a letter every day
He’s imprisoned but he still won’t go away
It’s on really fancy paper, no clue how he gets that in jail
Wish I could have a drink without worrying there’s people in my ale
we have resorted to eating our corpses
I burst out laughing when I got your comment in my inbox, thank you for that!
Haha! I wasn’t sure if it was going TOO FAR, but I kept imagining Hannibal in a frilly apron at Valley Forge, not at all upset about all the corpses about to get eaten, and it was too good not to share.
I’ll never forget my sister’s taste, that was real
When you’re gone
I’ll go mad
So don’t throw away this thing we had
Cuz when push comes to shove
I will kill your friends and family
To remind you of my love
I have never seen Jack Crawford more despondent
He’s been getting some unwanted correspondence
Hannibal writes “I’m so sorry about Bella”
I shoot back “We’ll catch you and put you in jail, fella”
I have never been the type to shy away from the spotlight
I was at a crime scene with some agents on a hot night
Watching Jack Crawford analyze the blood-filled room
Then you walked in and my heart went boom
Tryin’ to catch your eye from the side of the corpses
It’s kind of awkward that you work in law enforcement…
The first time in my life I decided not to consciously consume something was Roald Dahl books, after learning about the anti-Semitism thing. I was 7. I’ve stood firm on it since.
But the Gene Wilder movie is still the best thing ever created.
The Matilda musical is enjoyable, too.
I work next door to that theater and I refuse to spend one more second in Times Square than I have to! Unless someone were to give me tickets to Hamilton, of course…
I LOVED the Matilda musical, and not just because I had seats one row in front of Mara Wilson when I went during previews (she was delightful and we left her alone to have fun with her friends but my bestie and I were like !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the entire time).
Hey Toasties, I need some roommate advice. My current roommate (who I love, have lived with for 4.5 years, have known since college) is getting transferred to a different city, so I’ve been doing the craigslist search. So far the most credible offer has come from a guy. I’m going to meet with him this weekend and see if he seems sketch, but for the moment I’m getting really anxious about it. I’m trying to keep an open mind–I’m sure there are plenty of men who make wonderful roommates, but my ambient anxiety levels are higher than normal (for PMS-related reasons) and I can’t tell how much of my fear is realistic and how much is crazy. (I’ll post the rest in a reply because it’s apparently too long for IE)
Does he think he’ll be getting a live-in maid? Will he do his share of the housework? Will he do that stuff guys do when they’re trying to flirt with you but it’s not overt enough that you can point to anything and tell them to staap? Will he agree to sit down like a decent person when using the toilet?
(I know this stuff is crazy, I know you’ll say I should just say no if it would make me uncomfortable, I know I should just wait until I meet him and go from there, I know, but none of it is helping right now and I’d like to get a roommate by January so I’m running out of time and any pro or con anecdotes you have would be majorly appreciated.)
Pro/con anecdotes aplenty! I am more than average messy. For the sake of this story let’s say I’m about 8/10 messy by nature and can with great effort pull myself into the 6/10 messy range. I’ve had guy roommates who were more messy than me and much, much less messy than me. The deciding element from my anecdotal handful sampling seemed to be drugs: the messier roommates were often addicts with messy addict habits, like half making a sandwich in the kitchen and then passing out with stuff strewn about, or pouring a bowl of cereal and missing the bowl, which is sort of like a lucky charms version of the bathroom problem. But! The clean guy roommates I’ve had, which account for about half of the sample, have been amazingly clean. Like 1s and 2s on the messy scale. I think maybe it’s just that some people are fastidious and notice when they are being messy and other people, myself and very high folks I guess, just sort of make a mess and don’t notice.
For a screening question, maybe: “Which robot do you most identify with in Wall-E?” The super clean person’s response would be that one with the roller arms. A 5 on the clean scale might say Wall-E because they like picking stuff up, but not necessarily scrubbing surfaces, etc.
And an anecdote about a female roommate who was an incredible slob, who is not me I swear, although I’ve done stuff just as bad: she left a bowl of milk in her room with a spoon in, and by the time it came to light that the bowl was missing, and we as a household tracked it down, the spoon was so fused to the bowl that it just couldn’t be removed and had to be soaked and then kind of chipped at. Oddly it didn’t really smell bad. Maybe it was actually glue? Hmm.
the spoon was so fused to the bowl that it just couldn’t be removed and had to be soaked and then kind of chipped at. Oddly it didn’t really smell bad. Maybe it was actually glue? Hmm.
I am about at the same level as you on the messy scale, but that story is just…internal screaming forever.
Yeah, I was secretly kind of impressed.
Haha, the Wall-E test! Thank you for the anecdotes. One of my friends says her boyfriend is neat–he doesn’t like to clean, so he just doesn’t make a mess in the first place.
I think there are plenty of men who make great roommates, and plenty of men who make horrible roommates. There’s nothing wrong with talking to him and seeing how you feel about him. He could be one of the awesome ones! If you can communicate with him and he seems respectful and talks about being a clean person and doing chores, that’s a great start. If you get bad vibes from him, that’s a bad start.
But also remember that even if he seems amazing and like the perfect roommate and you’re still feeling anxious and worried about living with a guy and not sure you can do it, you also don’t HAVE to pick him. You can just decide that, even though plenty of women are slobs and plenty of men are neat freaks, that you don’t want to have a dude roommate, and that’s fine.
Thank you for this! I think part of my problem is a couple of especially mansplain-y coworkers who have recently made me bearish on men. It’s good to keep in mind that women can also be awful.
My brother and I are roommates, and he is definitely tidier than I am. I don’t know if he sits down to pee – I haven’t ever asked – but I have never had problems with the toilet seat being left up, or with stray droplets, so I don’t really care which way he goes because he’s not causing a mess either way.
These are wonderful questions! I have lived with many a male, and boyfriend (with whom I currently do not live but have in the past, and who currently has a female roommate) is definitely NOT the exception to the rule in that is he cleaner than I but does not impose his tidiness on the people he lives with and will in fact devise ways for robots to do the chores (he owns two types of roombas! AND has a biweekly housekeeper! He is not the first male I know who has employed this type of outsourcing genius!)
-He should not expect you to be a live-in maid. No male I have ever lived with has.
-He will do his share of the housework, and perhaps moreso, but especially if you make it clear what his share of the housework is and when he is expected to do it.
-Re flirting: maybe or maybe not, but that is not something to fret about before it happens
-Sitting: I have known many a male to sit when peeing, and if not, you can make daily toilet wipe-downs one of his chores.
I’ve had a few male roommates and it was always fine, but they weren’t Craigslist strangers but people I already knew. Also it was a situation where there were like five people living in the house together so there was no awkward one-on-one factor.
In terms of cleanliness, I actually generally had better luck with guy roommates than lady roommates but that really came down to different people being different. I was probably messier than most of the guys.
I think the more nerve-wracking aspect would be sharing your home with a strange male because there’s really no way you can know if he’s a creep or not until you live with him. It’s as likely as not to be totally fine but I get why you’d be hesitant about it.
I’ve had many craigslist roommates over the years and I’ve done really well with trusting my gut. If at any point your gut is not completely, 100% sure you’d like to live with the guy, do not live with the guy. If your brain tries to say “well he’s probably fine” do not live with the guy. You can also ask for roommate references! If a guy only gives close friends as references do not live with the guy. If the guy only gives male references do not live with the guy.
Ooh, roommate references is a good idea. I might try that.
I’ve been in shared living situations of all kinds for like a decade and I can tell you that, male or female, black or white, old or young, smart or dumb, sketchy or cool-seeming, the only thing that consistently affects how your roomates turn out is if you arrange in advance to have all the power to boot their fucked up ass out on the curb if they get obnoxious, and they know it.
How does arranging all the power work? I’ve never had to boot someone and yeah, part of my anxiety is over whether I’ll be able to get rid of him if he turns out to be awful.
Don’t split the lease, become the sole leaseholder and take on sublets on a month-to-month basis. Specifics depend on state but generally with no lease or other contract you can boot folks out with something like 30 days notice no question. Or split the lease if you really couldn’t qualify for the owner’s income standards on your own otherwise, then bury the other leaseholders under the begonias as soon as they decide they’re too special to pay rent and you should do it for them instead.
I’m pretty confrontation-averse myself and willing to be live-and-let live about some pretty wild stuff rather than push the issue, but when I’ve really been forced to Do Something it’s never really been too hard to get people gone if necessary. Lease or no, most bad roommates are lazy and cowardly and not willing to stare down months of living in close contact with someone who fucking hates them out of sheer stubbornness.
Ok, but if they’re the kind of people to stay beyond that 30 days, you can’t actually kick them out without evicting them (whether or not they’re even paying rent!) I learned this last year when a friend wanted to kick an ex out of the house she owned and he was smugly like “I’m gonna stay an extra couple of weeks cause it’s more convenient for me and fuck you” and all of her friends were like “he can’t do that!” and then did some internet research and were like “welp, guess he can after all.”
For the record, never let someone crash at your place for more than 30 days unless you damn well know they’re the kind of person who will leave when asked cause otherwise, you have to deal with an expensive, pain in the ass eviction to get them out.
Yeah, and you also can’t preemptively stop them from getting weird stains all over the walls and skipping out on their last month’s rent, but you have way more recourse to get them to get the hell out in a prompt and peaceful fashion than you would otherwise, whereas if everyone’s equal and doesn’t wanna leave you’re pretty much stuck trying to negotiate your way out of your lease with a landlord who doesn’t give a shit about your drama and wants to get paid, and clearly establishing that relationship all signed and on paper beforehand I’ve noticed kinda motivates dirtbags to behave better in the first place than they otherwise might. Most of ’em want a place to live more than they want 4AM unannounced ragers or to store their piss jars in the linen closet or whatever their damage is.
Definitely get whoever moves in to sign some sort of agreement with you, even if you’re both on the lease. Your landlord won’t care which of you pays the rent so you can’t count on a lease! When I’ve rented out rooms (or put someone else on the lease but it was still “my” apartment) I would have them sign something covering how much rent and utilities we both would be paying, to who, and by when. Also penalties for late payment and what the acceptable terms are for kicking someone out. You’d have to check the laws in your state to see if that’s legally binding but I’ve found out that people mostly don’t know so they assume it is and will go along with it without a fuss!
a contract is only as good as your willingness to actually go through a lawsuit over defaulting, possibly including tracking them down when they skip town without notice rather than pay their back rent. On the plus side, I used one once to get a toxic roommate to skip town without notice rather than pay his back rent.
I was the craigslist stranger male roommate all spring – I’m in a different city now – but the woman I lived with for a few months and I didn’t have any problems and we’ve stayed in touch. It can be fine!
Thank you for reporting from the other side!
I’ve had two male roommates from Craigslist before. One was gay, both were younger than me, both were completely fine humans to live with. We each had our own bathrooms, though, so the only shared spaces were kitchen, living room, and patio.
Also, I feel like I know more compulsively-neat guys than messy ones. This is probably unduly influenced by my brother-in-law, who can’t be left alone in my apartment without cleaning at least one entire room from top to bottom. Needless to say, I frequently arrange to leave him alone in my apartment.
My roommate’s a guy and he’s totally fine. Neither of us is particularly clean, but he clearly makes an effort to do half the housework, and in fact occasionally I’ve started feeling guilty when he’s the one who takes out the trash/starts the dishwasher/cleans the stovetop multiple times in a row and I haven’t done anything, which is when I always decide to spend a day sweeping and wiping and vacuuming to even it out. It’s worked out well. My advice would be, see if you’re comfortable with him as a human being generally, and then, if the answer’s yes, assume he’ll be reasonable until proven otherwise, like you would for a female roommate.
I had an excellent experience with guy roommates, personally. I didn’t actually even meet them until I moved in, but they were both great (and, TBH, much tidier than me).
I did compromise on the toilet seat being up a lot of the time. But I thought it was fair, since there were two of them and one of me.
I don’t think women (as a group) are necessarily tidier, especially when it comes to bathroom cleanliness. Some of my messiest and most horrible roommates were other girls.
This is secondhand advice, but a friend recommends asking if he’s had female roommates before, and just kind of. . .listening to how he talks about them if he has, for red flags.
I’ve lived with guys and its fine. Trust you’re gut. If he has a steady/adult job then he’s probably fine, avoid anyone who seems like a party animal/stoner/heavy-drinker.
In general I’ve found guys tend to be much quieter housemates, they stick to their room and keep to themselves. Most of the guys I’ve lived with have been average cleanliness wise in the communal spaces (their rooms are their business, but I’ve seen some horror shows), some guys might not clean as often as you might like (as in hoovering/washing floors, cleaning the bathroom), but when they do, they do a pretty thorough job! They will also step over things for *years* without noticing/picking it up, so hinting doesn’t work (I left the hoover in the hall for a few months to try and get someone to hoover the stairs, it just got kicked around), but they do their own dishes/laundry/picking up their stuff
You might not get the same level as friendship out of a guy roommate (depends on the guy, I tend to be a bit distant from all my housemates), but if he seems like a nice guy that you could get on with then you shouldn’t have problems
RE: Passports: If you have Ancestry.com, the National Archives has started to scan in passport applications from the early 20th century. I found my great-grandmother’s application when she went to Belgium after WWI (to help them rebuild their silk factories), and it helped me find out who my grandfather’s father was! (A literal family mystery – my grandfather didn’t even know.)
And if you don’t have it, you can get a free two week trial and learn everything! It’s the best!
Re: the Dear Prudence question about asking for job advice, getting declined, and now worried it hurts their prospects at the job: it definitely does not. I bet the guy they know doesn’t say a single word about it to whoever’s in charge of hiring for the position.
I think you’re right. It’s weird that he didn’t respond himself (I wouldn’t count on him as a friend if I got the job), but it’s not weird that he referred the letter-writer back to HR. That’s common policy in many places.
Depending on how senior his position is, it’s possible he never even saw the e-mail and his assistant just saw “applying for a job” and “haven’t spoken for fifteen years” and decided they could handle that response themselves.
I wouldn’t count most vague acquaintances from 15 years ago as friends but who knows, maybe they are both Ents and a century here or there might as well be only yesterday.
The article about long-haul trucking was very emotional for me.
My dad was a trucker my entire youth and young adulthood, and died a year after he had to quit trucking for medical reasons, at age 60. Reading the article reminded me of how lonely and isolated from the mainstream of life he must have felt. He basically had to abdicate himself from normal family and society to do a job that was vital but kind of ignored or invisible in many ways. He missed so much of my childhood and suffered so much physically (bad food, injuries, overwork) and emotionally (loneliness, untreated mental health issues) for a career that ended up treating him as if he were disposable.
But it also brought up a lot of my class rage issues. Trucking, over the time he drove (from about 84-05) degraded from something where a Vietnam vet with a GED could support his family to us being in near-poverty unless he was gone all the time in my teen years. The focus on “labor in its cheapest, least skilled form” built to make the big companies bigger and the rich owners richer at the expense of the health, safety, and well-being of their workers makes me so angry on both personal and systemic levels.
I don’t know how to end this post other than I’m a tangle of emotions right now, and one of the worst ones is of being a fake. The middle class life I have only acquired in the past few years feels more like a facade after reading that than it already does most days.
My dad was also a trucker and a Vietnam vet with a GED. He drove in the 70s after getting out of the army and started back again in the early 90s until ’08. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. Like you said, in the early days it was a great way to make a living (especially for a single guy without rent or a lot of bills) and at the end he was barely breaking even. I remember when I was applying to colleges he tried to temper my ambitions by telling me that he was sorry he wasn’t successful enough for some of the schools my advisor pointed me to since he didn’t think they’d want ‘a poor trucker’s daughter.’
So many people over the years have romanticized long haul trucking and yeah, my dad loved it. But it was hard and screwed up his health and family life. So when a guy in my office who walked out of college into a six-figure job tells me how he always wanted to walk away from it all and drive a truck for a few years? I want to throw my stapler at that guy.
I completely relate to your college experience! My dad basically told me point blank, “You deserve to not have to work for college, but your mom and I just can’t help you.” So I was on my own from high school graduation on, college or no (except during for a mental health crisis I had, and then we had to quickly scramble to get me on government assistance because my parents couldn’t afford the extra mouth). It was a rough road that involved me not starting college until my mid twenties, and I now have some fairly major student loans, but I’m a stronger person for having gone through it. Still, I know it was hard on my dad’s emotions not to be able to help me.
But the romanticization would absolutely infuriate me, too. It’s also so classist, as if someone else’s job they can’t escape deserves to be someone else’s recreational fantasy they could afford to put on and take off at whim.
I have been seeing nonexistent Hamilton references everywhere these days, like some weird Hamiltruther, but yesterday this happened (2 toastie spheres collide):
It WAS a reference! I am SO HAPPY TO FIND THIS OUT. You have made my day!
Yes! I spotted that one this morning and grinned
The trucking industry is weird and fascinating. I worked as a dispatcher for about 6 months when I was 21. I was terrible at it. They gave me all the terrible drivers and I was just awful at the job itself. One of my drivers spent most of his time hot boxing in his dad’s truck. He was usually too high to take any loads I found for him. Another always wanted to pick up loads that didn’t have proper paperwork (drugs, right? probably drugs). One day we got a call from one of our customers letting us know that one of our drivers was (a) living out of the company’s truck because his wife had kicked him out months before and we didn’t know and (b) had picked up a teenage girl at some point and she was living with him.
My boss liked to have business meetings at strip clubs (he preferred pregnant strippers) and when I left he had 2 human rights complaints filed against him by female employees. But he’s still in business. Last time I went home, I saw one of his trucks waiting at the border. Rumour has it, the company is a money laundering front for bikers. I believe it because we never seemed to make any money, yet the boss always seemed to be doing well.
Dang, you gathered some fascinating experiences.
Look! It’s another article to hate read on that pseudo Victorian couple! I don’t know if any of the pictures are new because I never read the CW article for fear of combusting in rage. http://www.messynessychic.com/2015/12/09/keeping-…
Check out the DeLaurean in the last photo!
Right? Totally bananas.
i think i would’ve felt much differently about the original article if it turned out Gabe drove a DeLaurean instead of a ’93 pinto (or whatever.)
(and also if they weren’t both pretentious ass haberdashers. why couldn’t they have FUN with this whole thing?)
According to my sister, who lives in PT, that IS (or was) their car–although the other article said they drove a ’93, and DeLoreans were only made in ’83, and another commenter said they had sold it and bought a truck. Maybe it’s a Back to the Future reference? But that’s a very expensive (and anachronous) joke.
I agree that if they seemed to be having fun their whole schtick would be much easier to take. The guy in particular seems very pleased with himself in a way that positively screams of Not Fun…
Here’s an interesting tid-bit from that article: “Aside from her corsets, Sarah makes all her everyday clothes myself.”
What does this mean? Did the Victorian lady write the piece in the 3rd person and forget to change this sentence? This is baffling.
TOASTIES.
Today is a good day to call your senators. Yesterday, the house passed HR 158, the “Visa Waiver Improvement Act”, which would essentially complicate travel for American citizens and visa waiver country citizens who have in the past five years traveled to a handful of countries (Syria, Iran, Sudan, etc). THIS IS A BAD BILL.
Personal story:
American citizen, me. Travel a lot. Married an Iranian (who is amazing!) whose parents live in Iran. Family in France. Family in other European nations. I have been to Iran. And Syria. And other places. If this passes, now, if I want to see my best girl in the UK, my cousin in Germany, my extended in-laws in France or Australia or wherever, I apply for a visa. If they want to come here, they who are passport holders of France, Germany, Australia, etc, they will have to apply for visas that previously would not have been needed.
This is ridiculous. My coworkers travel to some of these countries for our job, my friends who are academics/non-GMO workers/filmmakers/former Peace Corps volunteers/etc etc etc are all going to be impacted.
Please call your senators. Only 19 reps voted against this and I am seeing red. Fear divides and separates and creates more Islamophobia, more xenophobia, more racism, more bigotry of all stripes. I refuse to allow it on my watch.
http://www.niacaction.org/dont-let-house-pass-dis… << a petition you can sign
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members << here’s a handy-dandy list of contact information for your congresspeople
I missed a lot of the performances in that classical music link, sad to say — but I did see Written on Skin when it came to Lincoln Center, and it was fabulously disturbing. (Also I think the only time I’ve ever heard a glass harmonica live, much less as part of an orchestra.)
totally OT but this is the only safe place i have to fume about such things.
i’m listening to NPR and someone had the gall to liken Trump’s refusal to back down from the shitbag things he’s said about Muslims to MLK’s refusal to stop marching for civil rights. i look calm on the outside but I AM FULL OF RAGE AND SCREAMING INSIDE! not burning down everyhting is really hard right now, you guyz.
remeber when he was a joke candiadte? now people take him for realsies. this is getting scary.
THOSE ARE NOT THE SAME THING, ICKY PERSON WHO WAS ON NPR!
I COULD NOT SADDLE UP MY ‘PUS FAST ENOUGH. i am now safely inside my iPod where dirtbag dudes don’t say repugnant things in support of shitbag dudes.
My alarm clock wakes me up by playing NPR, and yesterday I woke up to an interview with Ted Cruz saying lots of crazy very, very vehemently and I’m still horrified by it.
that was on when i got in the car to go to work! i came in on it when he was talking shit about climate change science and the interviewer asked, “so do you believe in evolution?” and his reply was something like, ” a good scientist questions everything”. i turned my radio off and rode to work in silence. i just can’t.
Wow, one look at Schuyler Mansion and I am transported back to elementary school field trips. It paled in comparison to the lightning show at the Boston Museum of Science (I still can’t believe they drove us all the way to Boston), but let me know if I should give it another chance as an adult!
The Hater’s Guide to the Williams Sonoma holiday Catalog is up! Check it out.
*muppet arms* Yaaaaaaaasssssss!!!!
I know this is super late in the day, but I could use some boosts/maybe reassurances? I know, a lot to ask. I just feel pretty torn up right now.
– my husband recently got in a car accident when he hit a deer – he was okay, the car was not. post-insurance: $500 down the drain.
– I missed work for 2 weeks due to not having a car, thanks to the car wreck
– paid my non-refundable down payment for a trip to Ireland for a spring break study abroad program, then
– incurred over $5k in debt when our cat got mega sick – the third time she’s cost us that much – and then lost her
– received many angry medical bills after discovering I ve hypothyroidism, insulin resistance, and PCOS – my PCP had told me *everything was fine*
– started dealing with the mostly-expected emotional swing downward and the increase in fibro flares that come with the cold weather
– had one set of term finals that went okay then started barreling into finals for my 2nd term with my capstone course that *if I fail, I fail my major*
– received a call about an awesome job at my husband’s office (!!), did a phone interview, and… no second call
and I am just. so. tired.
Oh no. It’s all too much. So unfair. You don’t deserve so much trouble. Wishing you subtracted stress and growing rest, daily serenity. ::Toasthugs::
Hugs are so appreciated! Honestly, thank you so much.
That is too much, you are clearly juggling the shit of at least five different people right now. Hugs and hopes that it will get more fairly distributed soonest.
Thank you so much! Many hugs. I appreciate the support!
I’m so, so sorry. I’ve had some of those everything hits at once times in life and it’s so hard to deal with one thing at a time when so much is piling up on you. I’m also really sorry about your cat.
By the way, in those moments, I always remember Tig Notaro shitting all over the phrase “God never gives you more than you can handle” in Live and enjoy a moment of humor in the midst of the shit. If you haven’t heard it, I recommend.
Thank you so much. And thank you, especially, for the condolences. Losing Sif (cat) was incredibly, incredibly hard, and we have never had to make The Decision before and it’s still very heavy.
Tig Notaro is amazing. My husband has Live hanging out on our Amazon account – I should listen to it.
As a woman and liberal arts major who now works as a software developer, THIS:
‘Moritz himself is a great example. In the interview, he suggests the pipeline of women in tech is the problem. But he was a history major and journalist when hired by Sequoia. They “took a risk” on him; at the time he was hired, he says, he “knew nothing about technology.”’
I think we need to improve education and outreach for young girls too! But if I have to listen to one more tech guy regretfully state that they can’t have a diverse staff because of “the pipeline”, I am going to lose my mind. This always seems to me like an intentional way to defer the issue to Future Generations and to blame schools instead of looking at your own role. And the argument is often made to a room in which there are *women interested in tech trying to break into the field* mulling around trying to learn new skills in their free time (I hear this at conferences and user groups/meetups A LOT).
YES! This is infuriating! I’m trying to get into more of a developer role here and they won’t give me access to training/the system because I don’t have experience, but almost all of them kind of fell into their roles at one point.
OMG! I also remember my ex-husband who was a project consultant telling me that I wouldn’t be a good one because I don’t have a good background for it… right after he told me that he didn’t know anything about it when he started at the company he worked for.
THE RAGE IS HIGH TODAY!
Ack! The first software company I worked for was like that; they ignored my requests for access or training while usually granting the same requests from my male coworker. (He was actually a really great colleague, because he would immediately turn around and teach me whatever he had learned.)
I hope they eventually give you access, but if they don’t, what worked for me was getting a lot louder about what I could and wanted to do while applying for ALL THE JOBS and dropping ALL OF THE TECH JARGON. Which sounds like generally good job-hunting advice, but I think you have to be way more aggressive about it as a woman which is also socially more difficult.
Then when I left for a new job, I made it very clear why I was leaving. They were sad to lose me, since I was apparently the only person who was capable of speaking to customers over the phone.
Loving Mallory’s snappy and honest advice as Prudence! Also, WOW is Slate comment culture different from The Toast! Jeebus.
Man, that “When The Poor Get Taken Advantage Of By Friends And Family” piece really resonated with me. And it doesn’t even have to be in a major way, either. When I graduated from college, one of my brothers offered to buy my stereo system from me for $300; I had bought it a year earlier for $500, but I knew I’d need the money, and I let him have it without even a down payment because I thought he’d be good for it. Come the end of the summer, I didn’t have a job or a place to stay, and he offered to let me sleep on his couch–but said that he was knocking $100 off the price of the stereo. A couple of months later, within days of me getting a part-time job, he kicked me out, and told me that he had unilaterally decided that two months of couch-surfing equaled $200. (He also “borrowed” a typewriter that I had gotten as a high school graduation present, and when I asked about it some months later, he seemed surprised that I thought that it was still around.) I’ve also had “friends” exact the non-monetary tribute of boosting their own ego by telling me that my being poor was my fault, that they were sure that I could get a decent job if I really tried. (Even when my clothes were hanging off of me because I was getting to and from job interviews and appointments by foot.) I’m not saying that I enjoyed the schadenfreude when some of these people had problems of their own later–ah, fuck it, I totally did.
When I was about 12, I was camping with my dad and my future-stepmother I was reading a detailed feminist book called “The Women’s history of the world” and I yelled from the tent “Dad! What is a labia majora?” and there was a very awkward silence followed by my dad saying “the outer lips of the vagina”. Even now I cringe.
Thank you! Hugs! The thyroid thing is a mixed thing, like, yay for treatment! and yikes for like, the treatment and the cost of all of the visits and it's just exhausting. I'm SO LUCKY I have health insurance that is pretty great, otherwise I'd be screwed. My PCP I was under was the one who literally said I was fine and had no issues when she saw the results with all of my numbers, and then I saw the specialist who was like "what the hell?!" and this is like the third thing my PCP has missed or ignored, so I am switching to a PCP in the same office building as my specialists for now. Hoping it will work better! (This is the new PCP who, upon seeing that I was having issues, immediately referred me to the three specialists I'd need to talk to, and effectively saved me from a long, confused experience of no diagnoses.)
Not quite the same but it delights me to know this is a thing in the world:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence!_The_Musi…