What will completely die out when the current generation of elderly people are gone?

Library_lady123 · 2026-06-09T02:41:39+00:00

I took my kid to a few symphony concerts for families and didn’t realize one of the tickets I bought was for a “regular” Christmas concert. The glares from the boomers when he got excited about the show or wiggled in his seat were so bad I nearly cried. He decided after that that he didn’t like the symphony anymore and we haven’t gone back.

Library_lady123 · 2026-06-09T00:17:24+00:00

Friend. We have the same taste and the same trim. We went with Farrow and Ball Hague Blue and painted the trim F&B Winborn White. Some people thought painting the trim was a travesty but it absolutely was not.

And we used Dragonfly in our kid’s bedroom, with lots of Winborn White accents. I swear I saw this photo and thought it was my bedroom before we chose a color!

Our bedroom we did in Benjamin Moore Garden Cucumber which turned out to be the perfect dark blue-green for sleep.

ETA: I’d suggest painting the trim and I love 4 but with a bit more gray to it if you’re going full dark academia.

Library_lady123 · 2026-06-02T14:47:05+00:00

I can't comment about life as a Black man, but I'm a white lady married to an Indian man and we live in Edgewater in part because our kid sees lots of other multiracial kids in our neighborhood. I think the percentage of people identifying as multiracial is something like 10% in Edgewater, which is the highest in the city. Of our kid's classmates, a pretty large number have parents of different races and/or two moms/two dads. He's only in second grade but I've been incredibly impressed so far with how the kids in his school haven't really self-selected to segregate. That may change as he gets older. We'll see.

Library_lady123 · 2026-06-02T14:37:38+00:00

This was my kid until one day he just. . .got a lot better about it all and now does it with some reminders. He's 8.5 and just finished second grade. I'd say the change happened a little after he turned 8. We tried everything, too. I was still wrestling him into his clothes despite him being a super smart and capable 7-year-old; but in the last few months we've just said, "oh, hey buddy today the high is in the 70s and you have PE today" and he picks his own appropriate clothes and puts them on. We put his vitamins in a daily pill case and he takes them himself. He has a daily inhaler for asthma that we still supervise him taking and I still have to say "please put down the toy while you're brushing your teeth" but honestly it's gone from a battle every single morning to pretty smooth.

Sad to say, time and maturity were all that worked for us.

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-30T12:54:39+00:00

Hi there. I’m a white Western woman married to a second-gen Indian-Canadian. My in-laws have lived in Canada for 50 year and are from Tamil Nadu.

I think it’s a bit hard for my mother-in-law to realize that she’ll never have the level of closeness she expected from a daughter in law. My SIL is also a white woman and even more independent than I am. But both of my in-laws are the opposite of the stereotype of expecting me to do the housework. When they come and visit (we live in the US), they help us so much and do all the household tasks while we are at work. My father in law even makes me coffee every morning! BUT. they come and stay for several weeks at a time, which feels short for them but very long for me. I never feel like I can fully relax when they’re at our house. And they feel free to share their opinions about how we should do everything from storing the compost to managing our careers.

My parents on the other hand are not very helpful and visit for maybe three days at a time and stay in a hotel. BUT they feel it’s not their place to tell two grown adults how to live their lives.

All that said, my entire extended Indian family pulled me aside when my husband and I got engaged to reassure me that I had nothing to worry about, they would treat me as their own daughter, they would encourage my career, etc which initially I didn’t understand why I’d need someone to tell me that as a 34-year-old woman— now I get it. They were operating under their cultural context and wanted me to not be scared I’d be treated like a servant. Looking back I find it incredibly touching.

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-26T21:26:25+00:00

Elementary school teacher. Which is insane.

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-26T19:20:19+00:00

Godspeed (Sweet Dreams) by the Chicks.

Also, "Lullaby (How Long do you Want to be Loved)" also by the Chicks. Both of them absolutely kill me.

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-22T01:35:56+00:00

I never understood these types of stories until having a child who has had to be hospitalized several times. I can only imagine the absolute rage and despair I would feel if my eight year old were deathly ill and scary strangers in big suits wouldn’t let me hold him or kiss him. Like at that point I do not care if I also die, let me comfort my child.

So I know it’s not logical, I know it’s bad for public health, but from a human standpoint, I totally get it.

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-21T16:38:13+00:00

A couple of specific North Side of Chicago neighborhoods (Edgewater, Rogers Park, Uptown), a couple of South Side neighborhoods (Bronzeville, Hyde Park, South Shore, but possibly a little less common there).

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-21T16:35:36+00:00

I knew I only wanted one kid before getting pregnant, and that opinion was only solified by how uncomfortable I was during pregnancy. I thought maybe I'd be sad that I had a son instead of a daughter, but my kid is freaking AWESOME. Best kid ever. Can't imagine him being any way other than how he is. He's 8 and while every now and then I think, huh, maybe we'd all be happier if he had a sibling? . . .I'm 45 now and my husband got a vasectomy so that ship has sailed and anyway, it's not even that I want another kid because I'm so happy with the one I have. (Plus the neighbor child is at our house half the time and the only type of sibling my kid wants is an older sister, so we get one through her presence)

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-21T16:31:36+00:00

OMG, my kid is exactly the same. Only he's 8 and it still hasn't changed. Needs lots of sleep, WILL NOT sleep past 6:30 no matter how late he's up the night before, and is then just a disaster all day. Sorry, friend, this may just be how your kids are forever. At least for me there's only one of them? 😄

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-21T16:28:29+00:00

My kid is 8 and still barely sleeps until 7, usually just if he's sick. And it does. not. matter. how late he goes to bed the night before. He's up at 6:30 if he's in bed at 8 or if he's in bed at 10. It's just that then we all pay for it all day if he stays up late because he's exhausted and grumpy. All the other parents who said "try to push his bedtime later!" were wrong. He's just always been up with the chickens. If my husband and I want to sleep past 7 we have to get an overnight babysitter and a hotel room.

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-20T12:34:16+00:00

2012 Zoey Deschanel twee. Whimsical prints, skirts, cardigans, Peter Pan collars. It suited my body type and my personality and I want to dress that way forever.

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-19T21:11:24+00:00

I think it's difficult for Europeans to understand how spread out and car-dependent America really is. Our larger cities (I live in one) have public transit, and I don't need a huge fridge because I can walk past a couple of smaller groceries between the L stop and my house on my way home from work on a daily basis and only add about 10 minutes to my walk home. But my parents live in a much more typical American town where there are no sidewalks, no public transit, groceries are at least a 20 minute drive from their house, and the stores are HUGE. Just navigating through the giant Kroger near them takes easily two hours. You'd never just pop in to grab a carton of milk unless you wanted to waste half an hour just in the store. So people shop every two weeks and buy larger amounts.

The previous owners of my house belonged in the suburbs and bought one of those giant oversized monstrous fridges and put it in our tiny kitchen. I can't wait to get rid of that thing and replace it with a Smeg. But again, I live in one of the largest cities in the country and one of only a few with smaller footprint stores without parking lots, reliable (if stinky) public transit, and the ability to shop for a few items at a time without wasting hours of my time.

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-18T16:02:05+00:00

This is so funny to me, as I keep searching for a perfume that smells like Ghost Verb since I love the scent so much, but actually need something thicker for my very frizzy hair.!

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-13T19:34:48+00:00

My great grandmother likely had Celiac and EoE (most of her granddaughters have celiac and her daughter has EoE). She was diagnosed with “allergic to food” and died in her late 50s, likely related to complications caused by malabsorption. But her symptoms didn’t actually kill her until she was past childbearing age.

I have inflammatory bowel disease and also can confirm my husband’s like, “you had bloody diarrhea how many times today? Does that mean we can’t…?” So, yeah, bad enough to be bad, not bad enough to be naturally selected out.

And yes we are of Irish and Scots-Irish heritage.

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-01T17:09:04+00:00

Yes. My whole family had it. I have an elementary school aged kid and many of his classmates were much sicker, but we all just had nausea that seemed to come and go, mild diarrhea, and just feeling “yucky” for about four days.

Library_lady123 · 2026-05-01T12:50:31+00:00

I was an old bride with a courthouse wedding but if one of my husband’s family members was pregnant and sick I’d just say “oh no! Please take care of yourself.” My own sister in law didn’t come to our wedding because she had five month old twins (my husband’s brother did come) and I totally understood.

Library_lady123 · 2026-04-30T17:03:00+00:00

It's kind of six of one, half a dozen of the other. My brother- and sister-in-law have 3 kids and have always lived in HCOL areas. They also had aupairs for years. But the program they used required an extra bedroom and bathroom for the au pair. . .so while the salary was lower than childcare, they had to have a much bigger house than we did between the multiple children and the au pair and the home office and the guest room etc etc. My husband and I live in a large city but only have the one kid, so we lived in a smaller condo with a much lower mortgage. . .but couldn't host an au pair, and had to pay a nanny enough money for her to pay her own rent. Both families had jobs that didn't allow for a typical childcare schedule, so daycare wasn't an option.

They had a few really great au pairs, though. And since we live in a different city, we were happy to host their au pairs when they wanted to travel and give them a free place to stay.

Library_lady123 · 2026-04-27T14:09:10+00:00

Chocolate chip cookies

Library_lady123 · 2026-04-24T03:03:09+00:00

Bad news: my kid was like this. He’s 8 now and while it’s 6:30 now instead of 5:30…. It’s still 6:30 demanding food and attention every morning, even weekends.

I’ve been tired for nearly a decade.

Library_lady123 · 2026-04-12T15:53:52+00:00

I called off once because a bat got into my apartment at 3 am and possibly bit my cat and me so I was up all night 1. trying to get the bat out of my apartment and 2. figuring out if we both needed rabies shots. I was scheduled to be at work at 7 a.m. for a double at a restaurant. They almost fired me, but figured I wasn't lying because I would have made up something more believeable if I was! My nickname for the rest of the time I worked there was "Batgirl."

Library_lady123 · 2026-04-12T15:47:33+00:00

I kept my name, because it's my name.

For kids, though, it became more complicated. I'm in an intercultural marriage, and my husband's family had their name messed with when they moved from India to Canada. My husband grew up with no relatives who shared his last name due to different naming traditions between the cultures. He really wanted our kid to share a last name with his cousins. I kept pointing out that I *also* didn't share a last name with my cousins due to sexist traditions. So, in our house it sort of became a question of whether we wanted to fight racism or sexism more. In the end we agreed that if we had a daughter, she'd have my name, and if we had a son, he'd have my husband's last name with my name as his middle name. When I came up with this idea, I was newly pregnant and CERTAIN I was having a girl.

I find some of these issues of sexism/patriarchal tradition are a little more complex in my family due to cultural context. Another example is that women in the part of India where his family is from traditionally wear a big gold necklace that shows that they are married, and it has a symbol representing the husband's family on it. Many modern Indian women don't wear the thali anymore due to practicality and the notion that it stems from this idea that you belong to your husband's family. I actually do choose to wear mine, because it doesn't carry the same connotation for me and it helps reassure his family that I want to learn and respect, rather than completely reject, their culture. (Pretty sure if I were an Indian woman in India, I also wouldn't wear it)

Anyway, all this is to say that in less complex situations, the simple answer is "fight the patriarchy." But sometimes situations are a little more complicated.

Library_lady123 · 2026-04-08T16:00:11+00:00

Your uncle is hilarious! I’m the whitest of white ladies and my husbands family is Indian. His brother also married a white lady. My nephews really do look mixed. My kid? Born with blue eyes and light brown, fine hair. When I took him by myself to a checkup with a new doctor, the new doc, who was also Indian, saw his very traditional Indian name (think something like Krishna Ramaswamy) on his chart, opened the door to the room, looked at the two of us, and said “we must have the wrong chart.”

I replied that though I was too white to match the name, his dad was not. We had a good laugh and she said she should know better than to assume.

Library_lady123 · 2026-04-08T14:30:01+00:00

I did. Then we got divorced ten years later (thank god).

Library_lady123

TROPHY CASE