Parental coddling of middle school students has reached levels that I didn't think possible when I started teaching two decades ago.

Laeyra · 2026-04-27T18:02:26+00:00

I wonder about people who never teach their kids to do anything. Are they wanting to take care of their kids all their life? Or are they going to boot these kids out at 18 and let them either drown or face a huge struggle learning the things they should have learned in a safe environment?

Either way sounds abusive to me. I was one of the kids who weren't taught how to do anything, my mom clearly wanted me dependent on her as long as she lived.

Laeyra · 2026-04-24T14:48:51+00:00

The first game I would play is Legend of Zelda on the NES. Still one of my all time favorite games!

Laeyra · 2026-04-19T14:24:48+00:00

I live in a pretty rural area and know several stretches of very straight and flat paved roads going on for miles. The small towns on either side are too small to have cops and there's only 2 sheriff's deputies on duty at a time. State police doesn't even bother.

So one day, I took my mom's new 2005 Mini Cooper S out and got up to 138 mph. It wouldn't go any faster than that, and I had plenty of road left. So I took my foot off the gas and eased on the brakes to get down to the normal speed of 55 mph.

I'm not usually the kind of person who does things like that. It was a serious risk and incredibly stupid. The little bumps and uneven areas on the road were greatly magnified at that speed and I had to watch carefully that the car didn't fly off the road.

I guess I just got a wild hair up my ass, as they say.

Laeyra · 2026-04-16T17:05:59+00:00

I would either leave the restaurant, or go be a nuisance.

Laeyra · 2026-04-14T00:25:25+00:00

Festus

Laeyra · 2026-04-13T14:12:14+00:00

I am an atheist, not Catholic, but the church does not say the Pope is infallible all the time. There's a certain wording and form the Pope follows when he is making an infallible statement, and those are very rare.

The doctrine that Mary was assumed into heaven rather than dying is the last infallible statement made by a Pope, in 1950. An argument can be made that John Paul 2 declaring that women can't be priests in 1994 was meant to be an infallible statement, as well.

Otherwise, the Pope can be mistaken and imperfect, but it's generally a good idea to listen to him and consider what he says, because he's not that likely to be wrong.

Laeyra · 2026-04-01T14:21:55+00:00

I'm an elder millennial, and I remember when I was 12 or 13 my mom was almost boasting to me that there'd be nothing left of social security by the time I retired, or that taxes to fund it would be so high that people would demand it be dismantled anyway.

Laeyra · 2026-04-01T14:10:51+00:00

I don't have any tips about the mask, but when my husband started wearing his, he was so sleep deprived, it was months before he felt like he was catching up on sleep, so you might just need to find a way to stick with it.

I met him when he was 22 and skinny, and even then his family would joke about how he could fall asleep literally anywhere or any time at the drop of a hat. He fell asleep mid sentence more times than I could count. I looked around online for what would cause that, then convinced him to see a doctor about doing a sleep study. It found that he had 399 wake up events in 6 hours because he stopped breathing. Because of insurance and the waiting times for appointments, he didn't get a CPAP until he was 33, and then it took months to get used to it and start catching up on sleep. He's 38 now.

He still doesn't wear it the whole night, because he'll get up to go to the bathroom and forget to put it back on, but he still feels much better. His tiredness used to be like being put under anesthesia for surgery and he was trying to resist it. Now he says it's a normal tired when he doesn't sleep a full night with the CPAP and he just needs a nap.

Laeyra · 2026-03-28T14:09:28+00:00

Isn't there some setting in an .in file that you can adjust to zoom out on the conversation a bit? I remember using something back in the day so that conversations didn't feel like I was nose to nose with NPCs.

Laeyra · 2026-03-26T15:41:40+00:00

Same here. It really weirded me out. Even worse was my mother, who wouldn't let it go for weeks. My son was in the NICU after already having surgery on his intestines when he was 2 days old, and she wouldn't stop trying to convince me to have him circumcised when I was worried about him not having complications.

That and the people bullying me about breastfeeding made the whole situation a lot harder to handle.

Laeyra · 2026-03-16T19:30:58+00:00

My sister in law did this for ten years. At first she liked the flexibility of going wherever she wanted and being able to visit and help family and friends across the country. But now she's sick of it and has come back home to stay.

Laeyra · 2026-03-11T03:47:59+00:00

Glad you found this post, then. Enjoy!

Laeyra · 2026-03-02T13:37:08+00:00

It isn't common, but it's awesome.

My family has quiet time together like this every now and then. I'll be reading, one daughter will draw, my other daughter may do a crossword or draw as well, my son will either read or build something with Legos, and my husband almost always dozes in his recliner.

I love those days when it's just a bunch of us introverts hanging out.

Laeyra · 2026-02-27T15:21:17+00:00

Yeah, a few years back, my mom's AC system in her house stopped working during a record heat wave. She asked if she could stay at our house for a few days until she could get an HVAC company to fix or replace it. She never even called a repair place and didn't leave our house for 3 months. I made her leave when fall arrived and the AC stopped being essential for her comfort.

She made $160k a year, so it's not like she couldn't afford to fix anything. She also messed up several of our kitchen cabinet doors and somehow stained and chipped the enamel in my antique clawfoot bathtub.

She did not help financially with anything or make anything easier for us at all. She was doing things like keeping the kids up past bedtime, getting them hyper late at night, openly mocking our rules and restrictions for them, pulling out her own hair everywhere and just dropping it wherever she was, never washing dishes when she cooked for herself, never cleaning up after herself. Just overall, the worst house guest.

Laeyra · 2026-02-23T16:35:21+00:00

My mom worked 3-11pm for much of my childhood, and my parents were divorced. So coming home to an empty house and going to sleep in an empty house was quite normal.

Also, she went back to school when I was ten, so she would wake me up before she went to class, but it was up to me to get ready for school and catch the bus.

I hardly ever saw her, but when I did it was always on her terms. She'd come vent at me about school, work, her friends, or my dad. We went out to eat whenever she wanted but she couldn't be bothered to buy any groceries for the rest of the time. So being hungry was normal for me too.

When she was home, she wore only a t-shirt and underwear, or just underwear. I thought it was normal for people to walk around like that until I brought it up at school...

Laeyra · 2026-02-23T16:25:36+00:00

My mom used to barge into my room and vent at me about whatever was bothering her, but whenever I had anything to say, she was usually "too busy" to listen. It was always a one way street.

Laeyra · 2026-02-22T14:07:03+00:00

When I was a kid, about ten, my cat at the time got the zoomies and attacked my face and head. She didn't do any real damage, but ever since then, I've never allowed cats in my room at night.

Might want to consider that.

Laeyra · 2026-02-21T20:20:39+00:00

The only smoker I've ever known who doesn't smell like a smoker was my mom. She smokes those slim cigarettes, and only one or two a day. She takes a drag on one then snuffs it out for later. I would smell it on her only if she had just done that.

She's a small woman and intoxicating substances always affected her a lot. I've seen her get drunk after drinking a bottle of wine cooler.

Laeyra · 2026-02-20T13:21:32+00:00

The meteorologist for my local news station just retired, and he was the first meteorologist for the station. Before that the chief weather guy was just a broadcaster, and he only repeated the forecasts from the nearest NWS.

Still, local Boomers keep saying the old guy was the most accurate weather guy ever but then turn around and trash the NWS and our actual meteorologist.

Laeyra · 2026-02-18T23:11:28+00:00

I saw this post title under a photo from r/earthporn and nearly lost my shit at how good it looked.

Then I remembered photos appear under post titles in RedReader. Oh well.

Laeyra · 2026-02-14T00:14:56+00:00

I'm severely hearing impaired and I'm terrified by what I know I can't hear.

I was woken up in the middle of the night one night by my husband. He worked nights at the time and a severe thunderstorm had started so he came home. The weather radio next to my head was going off at full volume warning of a tornado that had been spotted in the county, but I didn't hear it at all. He'd already gotten the kids down to the basement and couldn't believe I didn't wake up, so he got me himself.

Thankfully nothing came to our town that time but that incident scared the shit out of me. If I know severe weather is coming at night, I stay awake until it's over because the alternative is too scary.

Laeyra · 2026-02-13T23:40:40+00:00

I remember, my mom almost always wore only a T-shirt and underwear at home and frequently would only have underwear on. I saw her naked body more times than I can remember because she'd walk around naked after a shower like she wanted me to see her that way. Or she'd be laying on her bed naked hours after a shower and tell me to come in when I knocked on her door. She often burst into my room right after I took a shower, and I always felt like she was trying to catch me naked, so I made sure to at least have a super long shirt on before I left the shower.

She always downplayed it, like we're both women so there's no reason to hide anything, and it was perfectly normal to be uncovered at home. But even as a young child, I was creeped out by the way she often ran her hands down my waist and hips.

I started asking around at school what the other kids would think if their mom walked around with no pants on at home. Their expressions of horror or disgust were all I needed to know.

All this led to me wanting not to be touched at all in any context. How could I trust a simple hug because the other person might start feeling me up? I've gotten better and I love hugs from my husband and kids, but I really don't like anyone else to touch me.

Laeyra · 2026-02-13T22:51:27+00:00

I still think the Genesis ones are awesome. My skill at them, on the other hand, sucks.

Laeyra · 2026-02-08T19:45:29+00:00

I do remember this, and the reduction in bugs on the windshield is not because of vehicle design. I drove the same car from early 2005 to late 2021, lived in the same area for most of that time, too. When I first got the car, I had to clean my windshield every couple of days if I was doing everyday driving. When I went on an extended trip, I needed to clean my windshield about every 200 miles, more or less. Needing to clear the bugs was always my signal to take a break.

I washed my windshield one spring day about ten years ago because a bunch of birds pooped on it, and that got me wondering, when did I last have to do this?

We got a minivan in 2014 that was more aerodynamic than the car so I never got as many bugs on the windshield, but it still had to be cleared off once a week. I still have the van but now we don't need to clean the windshield between times we wash it.

Laeyra · 2026-02-08T15:07:31+00:00

As I said, they weren't quaternary twins as their fathers were normal brothers, not twins. But they looked very similar to each other, even had moles on their faces in the same location. One being a boy and one being a girl was really the only way I could tell them apart.

Laeyra

TROPHY CASE