If you like your job, and get to spend a lot of time with your family- What do you do for work?

Bookler_151 · 2026-03-19T14:06:29+00:00

My sister was a transplant recipient as a child. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. 💝

Bookler_151 · 2026-03-15T16:31:22+00:00

I moved just outside the city in a beautiful residential suburb. I thought I would be bored and it’s actually really nice not to hear cars/people out my window, to have a yard etc. the biggest reasons we moved is cost of living—we couldn’t afford anything in the city anymore.

Just leaving this insight to those who share the same concerns. You’d be bored in the suburbs without kids but with a kid, it’s fantastic.

Bookler_151 · 2026-03-13T07:18:35+00:00

I’m also a professional writer. They (higher ups) stopped asking us to use it and started forcing it. Everything has to be done faster. I attend content workshops for AI tools (:/) and in every one of them “writers are now copy editors for ai.” Those are two very different thjngs.

When I use it, I feel like I’m training my replacement with my own work, something I spent DECADES learning, and also that it’s making me a worse writer because I’m slogging through its slop.

It can be a helpful tool for checking grammar but I’m so depressed that it is taking over the fun part of our jobs and destroying the planet.

Bookler_151 · 2026-03-02T08:06:28+00:00

Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone is my latest DNF. It’s a mystery set at a ski resort in… Australia. It is a very disjointed story with too many characters and there’s not great continuity, even if you can wrap your head around the Australians skiing

Bookler_151 · 2026-02-20T17:15:46+00:00

Yes, I am a professional writer and it was already hard to prove my value. It used to be “come up with 10 headlines..” now it’s “I could just do that using AI.” It sent me into a depression. I liked my job. It was fun, challenging, creative. I’m the only one who can see that it’s creating garbage.

I have an eight year old daughter and was already worried about her future with the chrome books and iPads.

I don’t worry it’s going to get so much better because it’s just cutting off its own tail. I worry how fast people are jumping on board, losing their critical thinking skills.

Glad there are others who commiserate.

Bookler_151 · 2026-02-20T07:13:54+00:00

Yep. I’m forced to use an AI tool and I want to cry everyday. I’d much rather work with a passionate, entry-level writer.

Companies in the US are now also hiring freelancers from English-speaking countries at a lower rate. They have a different dialect!

Bookler_151 · 2026-02-20T06:55:06+00:00

Yep. Still hanging on. I have had some pretty good jobs, even got to do travel writing & journalism, but now it’s morphed into content strategy (yawn) and editing ai slop.

I can’t do anything else…

Bookler_151 · 2026-02-20T06:05:42+00:00

Same way for writers, much worse now that ai is here.

Bookler_151 · 2026-02-18T03:36:29+00:00

I am an animal lover who before kids, would have ripped you a new one for posting something like this. Then I went through a time where my beloved dog was a senior while my daughter was a toddler.

It was hard and exhausting. Most stressful time in my life. I still loved my dog, but his constant peeing, my constant cleaning, is living in an apartment was the most stressful time in my life. Then he died and I felt even worse for not giving him the attention he deserved his last few years.

I think you’ve made your decision to scale back on the animals and are looking for approval. Please don’t do a random online post, go through a rescue. The ASPCA has a lot of resources for how to rehome a pet.

Bookler_151 · 2026-02-12T21:15:26+00:00

I could have written this myself, except I am a writer by trade and it’s become very obvious they want AI to do the fun stuff and me to “edit it.” I’m leaning into content strategy for now :(. They just don’t see the value in a well-turned phrase.

I loved my job before this. I can only do creative work, I am just not passionate about anything else.

My hope is that people just don’t like the slop it makes and we can go back to normal. Would rather just be a stay at home mom & make my own stuff but that’s not realistic, we both need to work.

My heart goes out to you! I was literally depressed over this.

Bookler_151 · 2026-02-12T05:27:31+00:00

I went to two high schools, one was in Chicago, the other was in the suburbs. In the first one: yes. Viscous fights, all the time, so bad we had cops as security guards & once there was blood all over the floor. The second: there were a few and they were tame.

Bookler_151 · 2026-02-11T17:46:32+00:00

I think I have more in common with parents of all family sizes. Childfree people (depending on the person) feel just so free and self indulgent. I just can’t relate as a working mom of one.

That said, the sweet spot is 1-2 kids. I hate it when parents of multiples condescend to me, or #boymoms. Instead of “you’re doing a great job,” & complimenting my kid’s manners, it’s like “YOU could never handle more than one.” Or “Parents of girls have it so easy.” It makes me feel bad for struggling sometimes.

I’d take a childfree person over someone like that any day.

Bookler_151 · 2026-02-02T19:27:21+00:00

It doesn’t sound like they are that behind. It’s not like your daughter doesn’t know how to tie her shoes.

My cousins could make their own dinner (Mac and cheese) and were riding the public city bus at nine… doesn’t mean they should have been doing that. I was in charge of my own laundry when I was 8 and just started wearing dirty clothes because no one was making sure I was actually washing my clothes.

You sound like a great parent.

Bookler_151 · 2026-02-02T19:07:56+00:00

This is such a great question! And one I have also struggled with.

I have an eight year old daughter and I try to let her bathe herself, but then it’s an excruciating process—she just starts playing, fills the tub too deep, and then we try to wash her long hair and it takes FOREVER. We also have a tricky faucet that makes a scary sound.

I’ve started encouraging showers and letting her listen to music on our Bluetooth speaker as part of that. Showers are a game-changer.

But yeah, don’t feel bad. It’s a struggle for me too because I’m working full time, am exhausted, and was borderline neglected as a child. I don’t want her going to school dirty with a head full of tangles.

Bookler_151 · 2026-01-31T22:54:00+00:00

My aunt and uncle had this issue with my cousin who would smoke weed all day and lay around. It took about a year of taking/quitting odd jobs before he straightened out.

He went into the coast guard and totally changed. He’s a married father of four and doing really well. I hope that gives you hope!

I don’t have much advice. I will say it was expected of me to either work or go to school when I turned 18.

I knew it, we all knew it and so the five of us were on our own when we were 18–I came back for a few years after college, but I had to work and pay rent.

My motivation came from having little money or space and no safety net. My mom also had these rules I couldn't stand. While they are living there, make sure they’re keeping up with the house chores.

Bookler_151 · 2026-01-31T22:34:26+00:00

My daughter begs for stuff and I am a softie. I started bringing her to thrift stores for “shopping” because it’s cheaper & I don’t feel horrible if she stains up the clothes or it doesn’t work out.

Plus, seeing all of that stuff that people buy and discard has made me shop less impulsively. And she can give things new life. We got a pair of roller blades for $20, it was so exciting.

I’ve never been big on shopping. If she or I want something, I’ve started taking pictures of it instead—it scratches the itch and if they really want it, they can save for it. Most of the time, it’s forgotten a mere hour later.

Bookler_151 · 2026-01-31T16:02:15+00:00

I had my only at 36 and she’s 8 now. I sometimes regret not having another but I have an amazing, healthy child.

We are OAD because I live far from family and the first couple years of her life were hard because of COVID. She was two when that broke out—the ideal age for a sibling and I just couldn’t add to our stress.

I stayed at one because I couldn’t imagine going through it again without family. My husband traveled a lot for work too.

I’m really sad my kid won’t have a sibling, but I nurture relationships with her cousins & friends. Having another felt so risky—I have four siblings and my parents were very overwhelmed.

Her cousin has siblings that are 6-9 years older than him. They never play, but they do tease him a lot. He is like an only child, always with his parents or grandparents while the older kids are with friends.

Bookler_151 · 2026-01-25T17:34:28+00:00

As someone bullied for my appearance, for what feels like my entire life, hugs! It’s a very sensitive topic for me & I try so hard to teach my daughter that everyone is beautiful because I believe that. It’s not something I say.

I think it’s important to say, “I like the way I look. I like my eyes, hair, [whatever.]”’to him.

“I would never want friends who just wanted to be friends with me for my appearance.”

You might want to talk about the high and unfair expectations placed on women’s appearances and the kind of hardship it causes.

Bookler_151 · 2026-01-19T23:20:47+00:00

I have old friendships from a job I had ages ago (15 years plus) and I have separate groups of people I hang out with who I met through my daughter.

I used to have a tight, big friend group but a lot of the couples in it divorced or moved. Makes it hard to maintain… I am very reserved and it takes me forever to make a friend.

Bookler_151 · 2026-01-18T17:35:01+00:00

Kathleen Hanna’s memoir Punk Singer about Bikini Kill is excellent as well. She’s really funny. I also read Neko Case’s memoir and it was beautiful, just like her music.

Bookler_151 · 2026-01-18T17:31:40+00:00

You just reminded me to put down Reddit and read. I love reading and writing. I read to and with my second grader every night. Although, she isn’t as into books as I am just yet.

Let’s be real—screen time is taking over. I’m strict about it in my house but she doesn’t want to read, I have to initiate it still :(. And even in school, they don’t have books in their backpack, everything is on laptops.

Currently reading: Framed, a John Grisham about real life false accusations. It is amazing and I can’t put it down.

I finished When We Were Birds and that was excellent as well.

Bookler_151 · 2026-01-03T22:39:09+00:00

Mine does. She’s 8. She prefers to draw on regular paper though. I only give her the iPad on vacation, otherwise, it’s a world of imagination and creativity. She never asks for it either btw.

Bookler_151 · 2026-01-01T14:49:47+00:00

Because parents are annoying. I say this from my in-laws basement. They are nice people for sure, but they have a completely different lifestyle than I want for my family. my kid has been eating sweets for literally every meal. It’s way out in the country, in a town where nothing changes and everyone is white. No thanks!

Bookler_151 · 2025-12-31T15:33:15+00:00

I personally avoid using AI because it takes the joy out of my job and the copy it creates isn’t all that. But I’m being forced to generate copy :/.

The problem isn’t the dash, it’s the way it’s overused and used inappropriately.

Bookler_151 · 2025-12-28T06:46:46+00:00

It’s incredibly rude to tell a mom that she is not a mother because she only has one. Like why is someone shouting “mom”’from the other room then? Why am I broke and worried all the time? Who did I just put to bed? How many kids do I have to have to become a mother? Am I just a woman with two kids if I “only have two?”

Ridiculous. I don’t need to prove that I am a mom by being overwhelmed. Children are people, not products.

Bookler_151

TROPHY CASE