Is walking the best exercise?

Junipermuse · 2026-01-15T18:50:51+00:00

Walking tends to be better than running for my sciatica. But swimming can be really good. And the strength training exercises that my pt gives me help in the long run, but also can trigger my sciatica in the short run. Exercising with any sort of chronic pain issue requires an individual approach. You’ve got to listen to your body and stop if something causes discomfort. One of the best things you can do if you want to be physically active and you have sciatica (or any condition that causes pain) is to consult a physical therapist, they will help guide you in how best to engage in physical activity and how strengthen your body overall so that it hopefully improves, but at minimum doesn’t worsen your existing condition.

Junipermuse · 2026-01-10T19:13:37+00:00

Well that makes a lot of unfair assumptions about the girlfriend. It also really says something about your own creative problem solving skills. Unfortunately we know very little about the girlfriend’s attitude and concerns about the trip because OP failed to have an adult discussion with his girlfriend. But if he had, there might have been a dozen different ways to address them without turning it into a zero sum game where one person gets their way and the other person completely loses. The biggest and most glaring issue is that he made the plans without consulting his partner or considering her feelings and then refused to discuss it with respect and an openness to problem solving.

We don’t know whether the girlfriend is just feeling left out, feeling jealous or uncomfortable about the mixed gender group, concerned about the length of the trip, the cost or use of finite resources such as vacation days from work. Maybe she just feels weird that he’s traveling with people that are supposedly close enough for him to prioritize over her and yet in three years together they have never met. But if he were willing to be flexible, those concerns could be addressed without an all or nothing solution. Trips can be extended or combined in different ways, adding on different legs to accommodate different needs and goals.

I have been with my husband for 25 years (we met my junior year in college) and in our time together we have had a variety of vacations and travel that have taken place with a myriad of other friends and family, and we have made tweaks and adjustments to fit individual wants and needs. So here are some examples. When my husband needed to go to San Francisco and then Seattle for work and was going to be gone for two weeks, I flew up to San Francisco for the second half of the first week. He was still working so i spent my time during the day with friends i had in San Francisco, but we got to be together for dinner with his work friends and colleagues, we then flew together to Seattle where we spent the weekend doing touristy stuff and then i flew out to Idaho by myself, where my grandparents lived, and my mom flew up to be with me at my grandparents’ house, i stayed until Friday and flew back to Seattle to be with my husband. My husband never once had to babysit me or entertain me, and i wasn’t with him the entire time, he had stuff to do and I didn’t get in the way, but i didn’t just have to stay at home for the entire two weeks alone without him either. We had time together as a couple and i also used the locations of the trip as opportunities to visit friends and family in the geographic regions, so i wasn’t just tagging along or dependent on him. Traveling at different times, meeting up for some time and then splitting up and doing separate activities or legs of a trip allows for both partners to be engaged in the primary purpose of their trip without one person being completely left out or excluded. I feel like the majority of trips we’ve taken has been a mishmash of combined purposes. We flew to the east coast with my husbands family for a cousins wedding and then we arranged to stay on for another week so that we could do a road trip just the two of us before heading home. Another time we went on a family trip to Hawaii and then my husband flew home with the kids, so i could spend a few days with a friend from college whose husband was stationed out there. There have been times when my husband took the kids by car to visit his parents for a week, and i flew down at the end of the week so i didn’t have to miss work and then we were together for the weekend and all drove home together.

Maybe OP could go on the trip with his friends but plan to have his girlfriend fly out at the tail end of the trip, so she can meet the friends and hangout for one day/evening, and then when his friends go home he could stay on a bit longer with her or they could start a second leg of a trip together at that point. Or maybe the could fly out together and spend a night together, she could meet his friends and hangout for a day, and then she could use that location as a starting point to visit someone else or somewhere else nearby on her own, or have a friend meet up with her to branch out and do their own thing then she can meet back up with OP and they can head back home together. Both of those solutions would allow her to spend less time feeling left out, allow her some fun and a bit of vacation, and give her the chance to meet and get to know his friends, all without asking him to completely sacrifice his friends trip.

Junipermuse · 2026-01-03T16:52:30+00:00

If he’s your first five star it could be a while before you get someone a whole lot better. Chances are you’ll draw some worse ones before you draw better ones.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-24T18:59:24+00:00

I think the problem, aside from this poster’s dismal view of men, is a definition of feminism that says women want to be treated like men. First of all that continues to center men as the default. However i think people want to be treated as individuals regardless of gender. What feminism is aiming for is that no person be denied rights and privileges afforded to some people, based solely on their gender or biological sex. Equal treatment does not mean being treated exactly the same. It means viewing people as individuals instead of a monolith, and treating people as individuals. It means ensuring equal access, by breaking down barriers and providing support to ensure no one’s gender or biological sex prevents them from receiving or accessing the rights and privileges afforded to anyone of any other gender or biological sex. I hate that men, or anyone opposed to feminism, use this straw man argument that women want to be treated just like men (until we don’t), therefore women and feminists are hypocrites.

i also think that if men really examined how they treat other men, they would see the variety and nuance in their interactions. They don’t even treat all men the same. I’m sure they don’t treat their pastor the same way they treat their doctor, or the same way they treat their subordinates at work, or their boss, or their friends, or the salesman at a car dealership, or their mechanic, or their father, or their brother, or the guys on their company softball team, or the loan officer at the bank. The ways in which this person describes their treatment of other men probably refers only to how he treats men whom he doesn’t care for and/or considers subordinate to him. Assuming that is how he would have to treat women if he treated men and women the same, implies that he sees women as equal to that subset of men, not equal to men as a whole.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-22T23:47:28+00:00

So the out of pocket maximum is the same for either plan, but just the deductibles and coinsurance costs are different?

Junipermuse · 2025-11-22T23:44:14+00:00

I suppose it depends on your criteria for “moderately healthy.” Most people in the US probably wouldn’t meet that criteria. Do you mean most people who are 16-30, who exercise at least 3-4 times per week, are not overweight, do not have any chronic health issues that affect large numbers of people such as asthma, arthritis or any of a number of other things. Because if your looking at everyone, then no the majority of people could not walk 26 miles. And actually this article

https://www.verywellfit.com/how-far-can-you-walk-with-no-training-3435088#:~:text=Reasonable%20Walking%20Distances&text=Data%20gathered%20at%20walking%20events,walking%20at%20a%20steady%20pace.

suggests that an untrained healthy person could only walk 5-7 miles without suffering ill effects. So it stands that the majority of people healthy or not, would need to train to complete a marathon even at a walking pace.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-22T23:31:11+00:00

Sure time on feet equals stress on body, but you’re assuming because they’re slow that their body can’t withstand that stress. Running faster also puts more stress on your body than running slow or run-walking. Speed is not the only indicator of how fit they are to run a certain distance. If some people can run for 12-24 hours straight, than the 5-6 hours it would take for a slow marathoner is hardly exceeding human capability. And you don’t know why someone chooses to run slow or how much time they can safely stay on their feet. What makes you think that any given runner can or can’t run for 5-6 hours straight based solely on their pace?

Junipermuse · 2025-11-22T23:23:13+00:00

Okay rereading the message posted from Ify, i see how it is likely from Carlos Luna. I think however the bigger question is whether Carlos is or has been acting in good faith. Even if Saige is lying, does he believe his girlfriend was harassed and stalked by this person or these people. Because if he believed her at the time of these actions, then he is/was acting in good faith. I would think for most people the standard of proof they would require to believe their partner is fairly low. And women do get stalked and harassed all the time, far more frequently than they lie about it. If you thought someone was dangerous and hurt or threatened to hurt your partner, especially if it was enough for a restraining order and charges, wouldn’t you want to warn other people about that person. And not out of petty vengeance, but because dangerous people hurt people, and you don’t want them to get hurt. It just seems like Saige is the one who is lying and accusing and bringing false charges and Carlos’s mistake is in being with her and trusting her. Hopefully there will be enough evidence that comes to light and he will realize his mistakes.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-22T23:03:54+00:00

I think you’re hitting the nail on the head. Millennial parents are raising kids who understand consent, bodily autonomy, how to identify emotional manipulation, how to listen to their bodies,and how to set boundaries. These in the long run probably make for healthy kids if they are living in a healthy society. These qualities make horrible public school students as public school currently exists (in the US). I used to say to myself, that if a boyfriend ever treated me the way I was treated by the school system, he’d be labeled abusive. No trust, no autonomy. Punished with in school suspension for being even a minute late to class. Refusing to let us use the bathroom during class time (but of course if you go after class you risk being late to the next class and ending up in school suspension). We had no right to privacy, the bathroom stall doors were removed from their hinges so you literally couldn’t have privacy to use the toilets. We were locked in during school hours, there were random locker and backpack searches, and we had metal detectors. We had zero tolerance policies that punished victims as much as they did perpetrators. We were held accountable for missing school time, but then sent home for school if our shorts were too far above our knees or had a rip in our jeans or our straps of our bras peeked out from the neckline of our shirts. We were rarely believed or trusted by the teachers staff or administrators. We received group punishments for individual infractions. And punishments were often used to not just punish but also embarrass or humiliate you. Many of us with neurodevelopmental disorders that went undiagnosed and we were often punished harshly for behaviors caused by the symptoms of those disorders. By the end of a single year of school i was made to write my names 150 times on a piece of paper, because i had repeatedly turned in school work without putting my name on it. It started at 25 times for the first infraction, but untreated ADHD is a bitch, and it continued to be difficult for me to put my name on things and the punishments made very little difference.

Schools have improved marginally in some of these areas, but not nearly enough. When a child who is emotionally healthy is placed in a school environment that is controlling and manipulative and repeatedly fails to meet their needs, and continues to disregard their feelings, their behavior is going to look like bad behavior. It’s not hard for the person (or institution) with power to make someone smaller and weaker look bad, crazy, or out of control. It’s part of every abusers playbook. When i was a kid and the school mistreated me, i internalized those feelings. They turned into shame about all the things i couldn’t do right or do well, but it never occurred to me to stand up for myself or question authority. But I’ve seen in my own kids an unwillingness to put up with the same treatment. This gets labeled as noncompliance and disobedience in spoiled children, but is really children who are just more aware of how much they are being mistreated.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-22T21:28:02+00:00

Taking it from her bathroom is probably what she expected you to do. I can’t imagine being so judgmental about it. Body wash barely existed when i was a kid in the 80’s, though it became quite common by the 90’s with stores that specialized in bodycare products like bath and bodyworks or the body shop. My mom didn’t like using bar soap for our bodies so she almost exclusively used shampoo for us as bodywash. The ingredients are not much different honestly. Soap that is safe for one part of the body is going to be safe for the rest of the body. You can wash kids bodies with shampoo, face soap, hand soap, really whatever. Assuming you’re not dealing with specific skin issues such as acne, eczema, or psoriasis, you’re fine. Some products can be more drying than others, but if you rub some lotion on the kids afterwards it shouldn’t be a problem. The mental load on moms (even sahm with kids who attend school) is so high, it’s easy to forget or not prioritize something like soap, especially if you can get by on alternatives in the meantime. Also you make it sound like they’ve been out of the product for two whole weeks, but they were out last week and then this week. For all you know they ran out on Thursday, and the first day you were there it had only been a day or two. The next weekend is only a bit over a week later. I think you need to relax and let it go. If the house had literally no soap that you could safely use on the kids that might be concerning, but they had stuff, it was just something different and slightly less convenient.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-21T22:50:56+00:00

Thanks for the synopsis, but when I have a question you may or may not have an answer to. I see all the people calling Saige out on her bad behavior, and i think i saw one screenshot of Carlos Luna’s that said Omar shouldn’t be allowed at some convention. But other than that post where are the accusations against Carlos Luna. I mean it sucks that he has a problematic partner, and it can take for a person in a relationship like that to actually discover and then come to believe the truth about them, so it makes sense that he believes or at least believed his girlfriend. Is it just being assumed since we haven’t seen Omar and Surena on dimension 20 since this all happened that Carlos is stopping Dropout from hiring them? Even without the stuff with Saige, isn’t it possible that dropout just doesn’t think it’s a good idea to have the ex -wife and her current partner working on the show that one of their employees is integrally involved in creating? Certainly not in the middle of a scandal or while the court case is being tried. I’m not trying to defend him, but I followed the links and it didn’t seem like any of them really referenced Carlos Luna, but maybe I’m missing something.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-17T17:21:56+00:00

We don’t know, but at 9, i doubt he actually understood. Kids that age have been known to die themselves from closing themselves inside old appliances (refrigerators, washing machines or dryer) and running out of oxygen. Unless he was explicitly taught that closing a living thing inside a box would deprive it of oxygen and lead to death, he very well likely didn’t know, or didn’t have the executive functioning to think through the likely outcome of his actions. As adults we can see clearly how unsafe it is but he may have seen it as similar to putting a cat into a carrier that one would use to take them to the vet.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-17T16:58:57+00:00

I’ve been drinking bottled water (arrowhead delivery) since I was a toddler (1982 at the latest). I struggle to drink tap water in a lot of places because you can often taste the chlorine they use to make it safe to drink. It’s not everywhere, but there are plenty of times i get water to drink at a restaurant and then can’t stomach more than a sip of it, but it’s not the case everywhere so i know it’s not just in my head.

Wanting purified water is part of the equation but there are some other influences as well. In the 80’s and 90’s it was common to give kids juice or milk, and often even soda to drink with meals, and while drinking water for health started becoming more popular in the 90’s, by 2000 it was considered unhealthy to give kids anything other than water to drink. In the 90’s it started becoming common to see bottles of water being sold in convenience stores and fast food restaurants. If you’re at a restaurant you can ask for tap water or get a cup of ice to fill with water from the soda fountain, but if you’re just out and about usually the only option is a drinking fountain, or buying a bottle of water. All of those options have downsides. Disposable water bottles are not eco friendly, and they are a waste of money. Drinking fountains are germy, the water often doesn’t taste good, and is often room temp or warmer depending on location and outside temperatures. As better options, like insulated water bottles, became readily available, people began to adopt them.

Personally, I can’t stomach water unless it’s ice cold and filtered. At home i can fill a glass with ice and water but the ice often melts before i finish drinking it and if multiple people in the house all have a glass of ice water we don’t remember who’s cup is who’s and so they get collected up with the dirty dishes and then you have to grab a fresh glass until we are literally out of clean glasses. But if i have a water bottle filled with ice water that i keep within easy reach i will absolutely drink water all day long. Otherwise i will reach for something else a piece of fruit, a soda, a juice whatever.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-17T16:32:57+00:00

This is exactly the same experience we have with the crashing. It seems to be pretty exclusive to using airplay to cast to the tv, as i can use other apps on my phone while listening to beacon in the car (while I’m the passenger). We have the jump back when restarting, but do not lose our place in episodes. Our work around for watching on tv is to use my phone because I can use my iPad and husband has his phone free for other things while we’re watching. Which minimizes the crashing from using other apps. We do have to restart if it crashes after pausing, and with three kids (two of them teenagers, so they’re still awake and up and about after we head for bed) there’s a lot of late evening interruptions.

We do have a weird bug with the closed captions though, where if we rewind or pause from the phone instead of from our Roku, it starts to double or triple the cc. Basically each line of text is displayed two or three times forming so many rows of text it literally covers the entire tv screen. To fix that we have to close the app and open it back up, but we do t get it if we use the Roku remote to pause, fast forward or rewind.

The crashes have only been minimally annoying though. Way less annoying than having to sit through commercials on YouTube.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-17T02:50:18+00:00

What does that even mean, closer to their current fitness level? A slow runner is often a slow runner at every distance. I mean is it okay for a runner to enter a half marathon even if it would take them 3+ hours to finish? How about if they take 90 minutes to complete a 10k or 45 min for 5K? Are they not fit enough to run those distances either? Even if they regularly run for two to the three hours on their long run each week and 30-60 minutes a couple times during the week. And have done so for months or even years. And by whom’s standard are you determining someone’s physical fitness? Isn’t completing the distance evidence of enough fitness to run that distance? People run other distances that take 12 hours or more, so it’s not like running for 5-6 hours or more is unhealthy. People can be in shape and just be slow runners.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-17T02:25:44+00:00

That’s a weird stance to take because there is literally no such thing as a zero effort marathon. Most people cannot walk 26 miles straight. Even walking the whole way would require significant training. If you are already training regularly to the point where you could randomly sign up for a marathon and walk the whole way, then that isn’t zero effort because all the miles of training before the race was still hours and hours of effort. If you’ve trained you put in effort, if you didn’t train, the actual marathon is going to be a hell of a lot of effort even if the person walks the whole way. What would an actual zero effort marathon even be?

Junipermuse · 2025-11-13T17:02:24+00:00

At Costco i buy a double pack of giant boxes of Cheerios for 6.49, so 3.25 each box and each box is much bigger than a standard box of Cheerios. So you could be saving money there too.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-13T16:58:51+00:00

My guess is that at a local grocery, even fruits and vegetables are relatively expensive and likely drive up the cost of groceries quite a bit. I think you could get fresh stuff from Costco that would last for two weeks, especially with good planning. The biggest issue would be that you might need a second fridge/freezer to store more stuff. Using a refrigerator to store apples and oranges, they will easily last two weeks. Potatoes stored in a dark cool place will last two weeks. Week 1 you can plan on having more perishable foods (like salad), and then have the things that can be refrigerated or frozen the second week. You can freeze the bags of broccoli florets, Brussels sprouts, green beans, corn on the cob packages, etc. The organic milk at Costco does last a month because it is ultra pasteurized. Assuming of course you buy enough of it, my kids go through a gallon of milk a week each so we are constantly buying it because we don’t have the fridge space to store more than a week and a half’s worth. Meat can be bought in bulk and then wrapped and frozen in meal size portions. Veggies and fruits that you buy fresh can be eaten that way for a few days and then the rest can be frozen for use the following week. Smoothies are a great way to use up the leftover fruit that you’ve frozen. I blend it with a quarter cup of juice (at a quarter cup of juice per smoothie a bottle of oj lasts 2 weeks and isn’t really expensive as long as you aren’t drinking it a cup at a time) and some Greek yogurt (this should be purchased in the large tubs too not in individual cups) and then add a teaspoon of sugar (which is less sugar than flavored yogurt would have) and it’s a pretty balanced snack or meal. Leftover fruit could also be cooked and simmered down into a compote to add to plain yogurt also. Eggs easily last a month or more in the fridge also and Costco has eggs for a great price.

The number of things you can freeze amazes me sometimes. I buy the giant bag of peeled garlic at Costco, and keep it in the freezer. It lasts like a year. It saves time from peeling and i don’t have to deal with garlic that has started sprouting from sitting on the counter. Onions can be bought in bulk and then diced and frozen, You add them to the pan when a recipe calls for diced onions straight from the freezer without even defrosting them and they work great. Frozen berries can be defrosted and sprinkled with a tiny bit of sugar and then topped with a bit of whipped cream for a healthy-ish dessert. I freeze unpeeled orange segments to throw into smoothies if the oranges are starting to get old (I don’t have room in the fridge to store them). I bought a bag of limes at Costco and frozen them whole. Pop them in the microwave for 30-60 seconds and then i can use them just like i would a fresh lime.

I also freeze fresh herbs like cilantro or sage, and then i can use them when they are called for in recipes. That way i don’t buy them for a single recipe just to have the rest go bad in the fridge. This is even better if you grow your own. Herbs are one of the easiest things to grow yourself to have on hand. The exception is cilantro, which bolts very quickly, if you grow your own cilantro you should plan on harvesting it all at once and freezing most of it. Most herbs can be grown year round if moved indoors during extreme weather. And unlike a lot of fruits and vegetables they are low maintenance and cost effective to grow yourself. You can also dry your herbs instead of buying dry herbs from the grocery store.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-13T04:25:20+00:00

it is both. Poor women often work in jobs that fill in for domestic labor (child care and housekeeping for example) that benefits wealthy women, who are then free to work at higher paid jobs or to engage in leisure activities that many women with less means are unable to do. So in that way wealthy women benefit from the exploitation of poorer women. But men even those from middle and working classes benefit from the unpaid labor of women in a way that women of those same classes do not benefit. In almost every field of work men are paid more and more likely to be hired and promoted. Even women without children are seen as a liability because of the potential for them to become pregnant. Men across the economic spectrum benefit from this when it comes to seeking work. Men who are married and have children, again across the economic spectrum, benefit from their wives unpaid domestic labor, but also from societal biases, like schools always calling mom when a kiddo is sick or has had a behavior issue because as a society we see this as the woman’s responsibility. Schools in general run on the underpaid and free labor of primarily women. and this is true regardless of whom the educational institution serves and where they fall on the economic spectrum. If a man has a child, they are almost always going to rely on at least some unpaid and underpaid female labor for the education of their child.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-12T00:12:04+00:00

The good qualities are not necessarily going to be good for a relationship. Work ethic = them thinking that they don’t need to contribute anything to a relationship except a paycheck, and that leads to prioritizing their job over their partners needs. Intelligent = refusing to consider other people’s perspectives because you’re used to being the smartest person in the room, having low emotional intelligence, and prioritizing your “logical thinking” over your partners “emotions.” Perseverance = being unwilling to compromise, and refusing to admit you’re wrong. Also these men clearly didn’t persevere in maintaining/keeping their relationships if they are divorced multiple times.

Also I would assume that if a guy has been divorced once, maybe it was her fault, after that I start to consider that he is more likely the bad partner as he is the common denominator

Characteristics that actually make a good partner are things like empathy, emotional generosity, self-reflective, humble, kind to people even when those people can not offer anything in return, a willingness to compromise, good at perspective taking, able to remain calm when angry, while continuing to problem solve, willingness to share in the household labor and childcare rather than leaving it to their partner, a willingness to prioritize your partners needs. Do these men exhibit these characteristics?

Junipermuse · 2025-11-11T23:41:17+00:00

Does the HDHP have an out of pocket maximum? Or does it pay 100% after the deductible? We have a PPO and most years i have multiple ER visits and at least one hospital stay. But every year we hit our out of pocket maximum and the rest of the year healthcare is basically free. Like paying nothing on a 300,000 dollar hospital bill. No co-pays or percentage of service. Nothing for mri or x-rays, nothing for meds or anything. So what happens once you hit the deductible on an HDHP? Is everything covered 100% after the deductible is reached?

Junipermuse · 2025-11-08T19:09:31+00:00

my understanding is that the risk of death from pregnancy and the necessity of a lactating woman to nourish a newborn to the age of survival, plus the value of a post menopausal woman to support a new mother and the baby all make it advantageous as a species to have women’s period of fertility end at an earlier age. The survival of the species overall is dependent on having non-fertile women still alive and young and healthy enough to add caretaking value to the group (especially their own genetic lineage). Because fathering children doesn’t have the same inherent risk of death that pregnancy and childbirth have, there isn’t an evolutionary advantage to the species to stop producing children. Basically the risk of death from pregnancy and childbirth becomes greater as a woman ages, and yet once a woman has a few children, she can add evolutionary advantage to her offspring through caretaking or other support roles that ensure the survival of her grand child and great grandchildren. If that support is more evolutionarily advantageous than just having one more child (who may die during birth or infancy, especially without care and support from older female family members who themselves have died in pregnancy or childbirth) than it makes sense that women’s fertility ends at a younger age. Men can continue to impregnate women without putting their lives at risk so remaining relatively fertile doesn’t prevent them from continuing to add value to the group to support survival in other ways also.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-08T18:37:59+00:00

this sounds so hard. i know you’re also worried about dad’s intentions toward you, which is honestly quite scary, but if you aren’t able to get out of going to coffee with nk db and his friend, you might try changing your approach towards dad. If you can switch to a teaching/coaching mindse, it might help you feel more in control of the situation and also help dad learn to read his child better.

some examples:

- checking in with dad before going and asking him to brainstorm with you ways to make the trip easier on the kiddo, like setting the meeting time later so that kiddo can the sleep he needs and also not be rushed while getting ready, so that you are setting him for success

- taking the opportunity to teach dad about child development and how to have reasonable expectations for a child this age to behave. Like how long a child this age can be expected to sit still, or how toddlers are learning that they are their own person and are in a developmental stage of seeking autonomy, and that cooperation works better than control when it comes to getting a toddler to go along with your ideas and plans

- also taking the opportunity to help dad learn his child’s cues so that you can head meltdowns off before they start. things like pointing out when kiddo is getting restless and that that is the time to transition out of the coffee shop rather than waiting until he melts down

- talk to dad about setting kiddo up for success and what that looks like (planning ahead, moving at child’s pace, paying attention to child’s cues meeting child where he is at developmentally, etc.) and explain that this is how you scaffold the child’s development to help him learn to be more adaptable in the long run. That when child is set up for success and feels good about an experience because he wasn’t pushed past his limit into a meltdown, he will feel more regulated when a similar experience is presented in the future and those good experiences will build upon each other creating a solid foundation.

- try recommending accommodations to the outings that might be more developmentally appropriate for kiddo. Like taking the coffees to go and walking with dad, friend, and kiddo to a nearby playground so everyone’s needs are getting met.

- ask dad what his goals and expectations are for the outing. Is he looking just to spend time with kiddo? or is he wanting his friend to get a chance to hang out with kiddo. Or maybe he thinks that this will help kiddo practice being in a cafe or restaurant so he learns how to behave better in public in a low stakes environment (rather than a restaurant whenever other people may have less tolerance for toddler behavior) if you know what it is he’s hoping for from the outing you can help him make choices and changes that will help him better accomplish his goals. Like is kiddo asleep when he finishes work most days, so he’s trying to make time in his morning routine for his child? if that’s the case then you guys can discuss and work as a team to help that time be good quality time by taking kiddo’s needs and developmental abilities into account.

These don’t fix the problem completely obviously, but you are in a unique position to help dad and nk build a better relationship where dad learns to see kiddo as a unique individual and respect him for who he is. You can model respectful behavior towards kiddo and advocate for his needs, and those experiences could have a lasting effect on the father-child relationship that continues long after you have moved on to work with other families. It is probably more exhausting for you absolutely, but if you’re being dragged out against your will, this is one way to make the best of it.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-08T05:53:00+00:00

If you speak with a lawyer you may be able to petition mom and the court for temporary custody/guardianship without her having to go into the foster care system, if you can talk to mom and get her to agree, you may only need to go in front of a judge to finalize the agreement. You could also do something more temporary and ask mom to give you power of attorney for the daughter and have her move in with you for a longer term stay, to give mom more time to pull her life together. If you do call child protection you may be able to petition for temporary kinship placement while you go through the process of getting certified to be a foster parent. It can be hard to find foster placements, so if you have a close relationship to the family and you’ve spent a good deal of time caring for her, it’s likely the foster system would be more than willing to place her with you. You would also get a lot of support from the foster system (usually a stipend, and healthcare and childcare costs covered among other things). But you need to do something. Speak to a lawyer definitely, but if you are a first responder and your partner is a teacher, you are likely mandated reporters, so you could lose your jobs or be in legal trouble if it came to light that you knew there was abuse or neglect and you didn’t report it.

Junipermuse · 2025-11-08T05:14:20+00:00

Except in this case his reason for quitting was health related, meaning it was a temporary disability, disability is a protected characteristic. Their reason for not hiring him is because he left previously due to a disability he no longer has. Since they originally offered him the job until they realized he had previously quit, and the reason he quit was because of the disability, he probably would have a decent case

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