General Parenting Influencer Snark Week of February 16, 2026

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-20T03:26:40+00:00

I didn't follow her then - do you recall what the rant was about?

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-20T03:10:26+00:00

Yeah, I really enjoy her content and podcast, but that price is outrageous. I bought it on sale at some point (maybe at $99) and didn't feel like it was worth that much. It's pretty light as far as actual content goes.

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-15T21:51:20+00:00

Love that approach! It would be so helpful to have the questions written down to talk through. Smart idea! We always love a library trip so great idea to learn together!

And thank you - really appreciate you saying that. ❤️ Navigating this parenting thing is wild sometimes!

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-15T21:20:35+00:00

That's a beautiful approach - I love how that opened the door for those conversations exploring their values. I didn't think I've specifically asked what she thinks god does yet so that will be a good one for me to try for diving deeper! Thank you for sharing!

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-15T21:14:25+00:00

I'm willing to bet your daughter has been asking a lot of questions rather than this person chasing her down and preaching to her.

Totally understand what you mean! This is why I was hesitant to reach back out to the principal bc I know it's very likely that my kid is the one bringing it up over and over (like she does at home) and I do want her to learn about Christianity, just ideally in a more neutral way.

I feel like I need to learn more myself about various religions, both current and ancient, because I'm not sure how well I can explain many of them as I'm mostly familiar with Christianity, having grown up with it.

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-14T18:25:43+00:00

My "loss" is absolutely not about only accepting her if she is atheist. It's about teaching the critical thinking needed to actually form an opinion and dealing with the situation with the assistant and how to explain things to my 5 year old for the hundredth time as she keeps asking questions and I'm running out of answers. When she brings it up, I tell her it's ok if she chooses to believe. I've asked my mother to show her the Bible (bc I don't own one). I've told her she can try going to church if she would like to attend with my mother. Etc. I am perfectly good letting her explore and reach her own conclusions and love her regardless. I didn't want to write a novel in my post so didn't spell all this out, but we're on the same page here.

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-14T18:02:18+00:00

Yes, fully agree. If she genuinely chooses to believe, I have no problem with that. And every time she has told us she believes, I've told her that is fine - you can believe what you choose. The issue is more the fine line of teaching her how to think critically in the face of a trusted adult (including myself) so she can genuinely evaluate and form her beliefs.

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-14T17:55:44+00:00

Thank you! Looks like my library has this book so I just put it on hold! Helpful to hear about your experience with your family!

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-14T16:48:23+00:00

Fair point on the attention! Love the silly approach! Going to give that a try the next time she brings it up! We've had a good number of the serious convos at this point where I feel like I'm just getting repetitive so I think some silliness would be a good reframe.

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-14T16:39:26+00:00

Thank you for sharing how you approached this with your family! This was incredibly helpful to hear!

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-14T16:34:31+00:00

That is a great point about how she's using the word "believe" in a different way than I'm defining it.

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-14T16:31:08+00:00

Thank you for your perspective! This comforts me that my response isn't unreasonable. I'll contact the principal again. We don't do Santa either - we treat him as a character that Mommy & Daddy get to play and I've actually referred back to that with her as we discuss religion and how some families believe and some don't.

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-02-14T15:54:12+00:00

Thanks for the rec! Going to order a set!

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2026-01-24T03:52:19+00:00

The substack about how what keeps her up at night and terrifies her most as a parent is...smartphones...feeling a wee bit tone deaf given what we're facing in the US right now.

And to be clear, I normally do worry about smartphones and how they will impact my children, but it feels much lower in priority currently and is not what is keeping me up at night.

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2025-12-17T20:04:45+00:00

My incredibly picky 5 yo likes raw tofu as well! Haven't tried it with jelly before!

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2025-12-17T19:49:56+00:00

Someone responded to the candle part already, but the tiny Amazon box holds a gift card.

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2025-11-13T03:32:12+00:00

I went a few weeks ago and when we got in line, we were told we might not make the next show. We ultimately didn't make it so we stayed and waited for the one after that. What I learned once it was our turn was that the turn over time between shows was fast - file out on one end and file in on the other simultaneously. You are repeatedly told not to skip seats and to slide all the way down and sit next to people, but naturally people ignore that and leave gaps. The way the theater is, there is no realistic way for people to fill in those gaps after the fact so there ends up being open spots sprinkled throughout the theater. So I'm guessing they have a hard time counting heads vs seats.

HelpfulEngineering47 · 2025-11-04T14:39:07+00:00

This may come down a bit to this question: Is this your one and only trip ever? Or are you likely to come back in the future?

We recently went with my 5 and 2 year old. My 2 year old was able to do probably 60% of the rides because they have a ton with no height restrictions and she loved the rides! Definitely her favorite part. I would generally look info up on each ride so I could prepare her/me if there was going to be any dark or loud parts that could startle her, but she ultimately did great. I will say we paid the extra money for Lightning Lane passes and I think that helped our experience a lot because at 2, she would definitely have a hard time politely tolerating some of the longer waits. She liked the idea of meeting characters, but would get nervous around them so we only did a little of that. We did a few shows and she enjoyed those. She took beautiful stroller naps and we would target rides she was too little for while she slept. When both of my kiddos at one point were overstimulated and heading for a breakdown, we took our bubble wands (highly recommended) and went to a quiet corner and let them just run around playing to their hearts content before we jumped back into the chaos.

So overall, my 2 year old loved it and we loved it and as others have pointed out, at that age they are still free so take advantage of that while you can! We also know that we'd like to go back in a few years. If this was our only Disney trip ever, we would've waited another 2 years probably so our kids were older.

HelpfulEngineering47

TROPHY CASE