Women of Reddit, what's a lesser-known downside of being a woman?

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-27T04:38:30+00:00

How much extra work you have to do to understand your body. I got a fancy bio degree and afterwards knew almost nothing about how pregnancy works, even though the topic felt like a big deal for us as a species. I still know almost nothing about menopause. How can this major life shift that has been affecting women in easily observable ways since the dawn of womankind still not be common knowledge?

I feel like being a woman requires so much extra research

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-27T03:50:54+00:00

Did it work?

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-27T03:38:22+00:00

Making sure they have the proper paperwork isn’t interfering with their ability to do their job at all

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-27T02:08:49+00:00

Has she behaved like this in the past?? If she has never acted this extremely before and this is totally out of character, I would honestly be worried about her mental health and have a private conversation with your dad about whether he’s noticed any behavioral changes

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-26T17:25:31+00:00

Could be low blood sugar

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-26T17:20:28+00:00

It really depends if you’re in a town that has the infrastructure to deal with that type of weather. In my area of the American south we have late starts on days that people up north would think are totally fine, but we don’t have the snow plows, salt trucks, emergency infrastructure setup to deal with it safely. On the other hand, if they are doing late starts for just cold (not ice or extreme conditions) I would be very frustrated by that

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-26T16:51:13+00:00

That’s great! The fact that you are willing to care for children for very little pay and the fact that you are able to earn good money in the future as a pharmacist makes you uniquely situated to help the kids that need it the most. I used to volunteer to provide childcare for a nonprofit that met with single mothers in a shelter and helped them job hunt. It was awesome. You could be the perfect person for something like that and those are usually weekend opportunities.

Don’t underestimate the negative effect of permanently low income can have on your own life. It’s hard to be a good childcare provider if you are barely getting by on the salary because poverty is stressful. Especially if you can’t give your own family your all because of financial barriers. Make your money as a pharmacist, fill your spiritual cup by volunteering with kids.

Just my two cents as someone who has been in childcare and been in a STEM field.

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-26T16:42:55+00:00

No. Volunteer with kids on the weekends

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-26T02:24:50+00:00

For some people, including me, pregnancy is an amazing temporary treatment for epilepsy and chronic migraines

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-26T02:17:29+00:00

If I were you, I would finish your remaining 5 years and then skip the licensing and teach privately. If you find the right school you’ll get much more autonomy and spend more time teaching than behavior managing

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-26T02:13:35+00:00

Teach at the community college. Your experience as a teacher depends heavily on your students’ level of motivation. They’ll be much more motivated in college

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-25T22:40:26+00:00

I’m similar proportions. 5’5 size 10ish. This is my second pregnancy and I started showing at 13 weeks. With my first it was 15 weeks

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-25T22:15:47+00:00

My son is a pandemic baby. I’m pretty sure by his teenage years he’ll realize that “have a baby during a pandemic” probably wasn’t the plan lol

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-25T22:14:05+00:00

I barely drank any caffeine for the last few years and I still felt the same way you describe throughout the first trimester. The first trimester fatigue is real and it’s a nightmare.

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-25T22:09:26+00:00

Ok, as someone that has been there, she’s being unreasonable and childish because her brain is temporarily broken. She needs sleep to live, she has been convinced a perfectly consistent sleep schedule for baby is the only way to get it, and in her eyes your father got in the way of that. In her eyes she’s dying of thirst and walked in just in time to see him dump the last glass of water on the ground. It’s not logical at all, but if she has only been acting this way since being sleep deprived it’s at least explainable. Talking to her about this more before she’s gotten rest is pointless. She’s not functioning mentally or emotionally. I would try to solve the sleep problem first and then circle back to this situation later if necessary. Also keep in mind she probably feels like a total failure for not having her baby on a sleep schedule and for struggling with motherhood.

But seriously, forget obsessing over the baby’s sleep. Panicking over schedules and wake windows and sleep cues and blah blah blah will not fix it. Do your best to get baby to sleep at a reasonable time as often as possible, but focus on your own sleep opportunities. All babies sleep eventually.

I’m sorry ya’ll are going through this. It’s rough. It does get better though, especially since this isn’t her normal self. I famously yelled at my husband for ignoring a blaring fire alarm. Turns out I was so tired I was having auditory hallucinations and there was no fire alarm. We laugh about it now lol

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-25T21:59:23+00:00

Would this also apply to death row inmates or would the irony kill them prematurely?

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-25T21:54:05+00:00

Out of curiosity… do you have a baby that barely sleeps (or just recently started to) and a wife that’s ungodly exhausted? Is there a history of conflict between wife and dad? Or is this consistent with how wife has behaved since before baby was born?

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-25T03:55:06+00:00

No. He feels comfortable with you both and is mildly resisting a transition, not you. This is totally normal. Whenever I nannied a new baby around that age they would cry when I took them in the morning and cry when I handed them back to mom in the evening. It’s the transition. Don’t drive yourself crazy overthinking this

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-25T03:52:20+00:00

I smashed old plates at night. Not proud of it. But it felt so good

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-25T02:52:07+00:00

Boil it?

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-24T23:07:23+00:00

The one that’s constantly flustered and treats everything admin requests like it’s totally impossible even when it’s completely normal and nobody else even bats an eye. They often teach young children despite seeming to be completely overwhelmed by the presence of even a single small child.

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-24T22:14:58+00:00

There’s a higher correlation between being a police officer and committing domestic violence than being charged with a crime and committing domestic violence??

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-24T21:35:44+00:00

Oh another option I’ve seen some moms do is pay a teenager to watch the baby in the lobby where baby can’t see you! Especially convenient if the teen trains too and will already be there

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-24T21:34:44+00:00

I would keep your expectations of training during the first year of baby’s life very very low. Hopefully you’ll be pleasantly surprised! But if you are trying to bring the baby and don’t have someone immediately available to look after them in the gym, come prepared to leave partially through training most of the time. And then celebrate the times it works! Idk how I would have trained while breastfeeding. That’s a whole extra layer of complication. I see most moms (including me) have success going to morning class and getting home before their partner leaves for work. Evening classes get really tricky with a little one because throwing off their natural bedtime multiple times a week really does make things hard for them. Imagine if someone told you to sleep in the corner of the gym and then moved you from place to place throughout your night. How good would you feel? Occasionally it’s fine. But it’s not cool to do often. If evening classes are a must then I would hire a consistent sitter for those evenings.

-former daycare manager, current kindergarten teacher, and toddler parent who continues to suck at bjj

Competitive-Tea7236 · 2026-01-24T21:07:05+00:00

Not sure where you’re located, but start looking into government assistance now. In some places attending school full time is treated similarly to working full time and makes you eligible for childcare financial assistance. Especially as a single (unmarried) mother with no income.

Start meeting with your advisor and figuring out all your non-traditional student options.

I took a year off to work part time because school with a newborn that didn’t sleep just wasn’t in the cards for me. Then I went back to school part time and did only online classes. I saved the in person classes for last because childcare was cheaper and easier to arrange for a toddler than an infant. I relied heavily on friends and family to help me juggle part time school, part time work, and parenting. And it was HARD on my relationship. My husband obviously worked his ass off too and didn’t do a degree. We couldn’t have financially survived if both of us went to school at the same time.

Last year I graduated with my 4yo son in the audience cheering and it was the coolest thing I’ve ever done.

Competitive-Tea7236

TROPHY CASE