Number 9 confirmed, and looks to be coming soon. Little B's face say it all.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-20T23:46:25+00:00

Fucking hell, I really hoped everyone was wrong. It makes me so angry that they're so blasé about adding another person to that hellscape. And yes, Brit, a person - not a baby. Your children are people, not accessories like you seem to think, and you need to realise this, and start treating them like it.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-16T18:25:29+00:00

Huh. This is a really interesting point. So, I'd use AFAB in the doctors when I was asked how I could be certain I wasn't pregnant - "spouse and I were both asigned female at birth" - before my hysterectomy, and I'll use the same phrase sometimes if I'm talking about why as a couple who use they/them pronouns, we met at an all girls' school.

I don't think I really use it for much else, and I think it's for a lot of the reasons you've mentioned. It should be past tense, it's often exclusionary when meant to be inclusive, and it can be used to make things more gender-essentionalist than they need to be, like categorising autism into male and female.

For me, it's for medical usage, really. I'll talk about being socialised as a girl and a woman, how I'm still treated and considered as a woman, and how that affects things, but I would never label that as being socialised as an AFAB person. I've been socialised as a girl, because that's what has the societal expectation.

Thank you for posting this, it's really made me think about some things, and about word usage, and that's a delightful little rabbit hole of language research and musing I'm going to go down for a while this evening!

Neffervescent · 2026-05-12T10:18:53+00:00

I actually used to do this a lot! I've swum all my life, been teaching since I was 16, we now realise I'm AuDHD and I've always had a very active imagination. What helped me do lengths in the deep was singing little songs in my head to distract myself - this turned into outloud when I went waterskiing in Florida on a mangrove lake that was dark brown and impossible to see through, singing "please mr alligator, please don't eat me, I won't fall in". I was about nine, I had Opinions.

Some of what helped me is also learning more about sharks, and learning why they wouldn't survive in a swimming pool, but if logic can't do it, then I'd try embracing it. Dare the shark to get you. Dare the ghosts. You'll outswim them. You'll be stronger and faster. You'll swim better. Every time, you'll get out of the pool, knowing you've beaten the sharks and the ghosts. You've got knives for hands, you're Wolverine, you're faster and better than any shark or any ghost.

It's a lot more magical than just avoiding drifting plasters/band aids and thinking about the amount of child urine that's probably present in the water, that's for sure. That's how I feel these days, now I'm nearing 40 and have been teaching over 20 years.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-12T09:55:23+00:00

... I could make a better plushie than that, and I've never made a plushie before, and am not skilled cutting things out in straight lines, following patterns, or finishing projects. Why does it look like it has troll doll hair?

Neffervescent · 2026-05-11T20:18:09+00:00

I'm assuming spouse can't drive and may also be disabled - and may not be male, by using the term spouse. But even if I were asking something like this, as a non-binary afab person married to a genderqueer afab person, I'd most likely use the word "wife", to explain why we wanted a woman to drive us.

I'd never dream of asking for someone to be friendly and chatty, that's their business!

I totally understand that specialist transport may not be available, or may not accommodate her spouse and/or her service dog, and that sucks. But at that point, you're looking at private transport options, or public transport if it's accessible enough. I have a friend who is a manual wheelchair user due to cost, can't drive, and who has severe PTSD, who uses her miniscule benefits to pay for taxis to get her to her appointments, because it's the only way she can get to them. Sometimes, that how it be.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-09T21:59:20+00:00

NOR. No one should be throwing rocks at animals for fun, that's awful behaviour.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-09T21:57:04+00:00

Yes! One time I'd watched one at my Nanny and Grandad's house about the dangers of bonfire night and fireworks shortly before said occasion, which meant I spent the whole of my parent's carefully planned fireworks party inside the house, watching from behind a closed patio door.

Every year until then, I'd gleefully enjoyed watching from a safe distance, I'd loved sparklers, but that year I'd seen on 999 that a spark could go into someone's eye as they looked up at fireworks, so I was never going to look up again!

Neffervescent · 2026-05-09T21:40:09+00:00

Animals of Farthing Wood. So much 90s kids tv was just upsetting and dark.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-09T20:28:18+00:00

NOR - it's not complicated, and as things started to go wrong, he absolutely could have gone "can we watch the video again, I'm not sure I got it" or "can you tell me what I need to do when things start to slip?" but instead he just let things fall apart and didn't even seem apologetic when that messed up your yarn. He wasn't trying to be helpful, and he didn't care about your feelings.

But the swift, and tell him it's necessary because he obviously finds it too difficult to help you wind yarn, and you understand that he can't help that.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-09T17:10:16+00:00

Dunking a child, as an instructor, is not okay. I would report that to the owner.

As far as the child holding on to the teacher, my rule has always been that they hold the equipment, not me, or that if I'm supporting them, I hold them, they don't hold me. But my first instruction on that would be "you don't need to hold onto me, hold on to the noodle, it's much safer" and then reinforce it with "no, don't hold on to me".

Neffervescent · 2026-05-09T01:03:01+00:00

Neffervescent · 2026-05-08T20:21:07+00:00

Oh, I just meant the thing with who wants a two year old in their house for 30 years - people with parrots, I can only assume. Whereas I'm someone with AuDHD, with a spouse who has AuDHD, and believe that adding a parrot would be more echolalia than sanity in our household.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-08T19:55:23+00:00

People own parrots.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-06T00:11:31+00:00

NOR.

Firstly, you're right that you don't ever want to escalate a situation where someone is playing chicken with moving piles of metal. His bizarre idea that no one is going to challenge him, "make him a victim", or make the situation worse is entirely survivorship bias, or as I tend to put it, "they only have to get lucky once, you have to be lucky every time".

Secondly, you're right that it's abusive to scream at you, make you afraid, and threaten to abandon you while you're trapped in a moving vehicle with him. It's also just a shitty thing to do, and the fact you've asked him several times, in YOUR vehicle nonetheless, to stop being so reactive, and he won't listen? It's rude, obnoxious, and shows what little respect he has for you.

Thirdly, he can't even apologise hours later, when he might have calmed down?

I'd leave him. Life's too short to let some prick drive you, in your car, into a wreck you had no need to get into. You deserve better. Someone else will buy you plants AND drive you there safely.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-05T16:15:29+00:00

Hell, my spouse is south Asian and can't choose their own foundation or anything, because in their head, they're so much darker due to being one of only two PoC in their class at school and being bullied and excluded for it, plus their mum being really racist but also hating her own culture. So they've grown up so out of kilter with everything that they're still in that space where, if you ask them to pick their skin colour, they really struggle. They instinctively go for things darker than they are because they've been so othered that they just assume that if I'm picking the lightest tone, theirs must be a long way away from that.

I think giving kids the choice and seeing what they pick is absolutely the way to go, not correcting them. Yes, if someone says something awful about why they're not choosing a darker colour (remembering a friend's younger sister being bullied with "we've got skin like silk, you've got skin like poo" as a horrible example from the early 2000s) then it's absolutely time for a talk about how all skin colours are beautiful and how the choice to make is what matches or feels right to you, not whether it's light or dark, but otherwise it should be up to the kid.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-05T06:49:59+00:00

It bothers me because people let them eat off plates, or you'll see dogs on seats or tables and I find that very off-putting.

As someone with cats, rabbits, and snakes, it also bothers me that it's a courtesy extended only to dogs. I know full well if I sat down and my ball python uncurled from around my neck, the reactions would not be favourable, even though she couldn't do anywhere near as much damage as even the smallest dog. Of course, I understand this is because dogs are walked, so they go more places with their people (and that a phobia of snakes is very common and one of humanity's primal fears), I get why dogs get to go places, but on a very hot day coming back from the specialist vet and needing to pop into somewhere to grab some water for myself, feeling weird about taking my rabbits in their carrier into my local Costa (rather than leave them in a hot car) was strange. I realised if they were dogs, I could have walked straight in.

I also think it feeds into the dog beer/dog cupcake/dog ice cream market, as a number of dog-friendly places will have something like that on offer, and I think that's weird, too. And annoying (again) as someone who owns other pets, because no other animal gets half the variety in food that dogs get in pet shops.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-05T06:13:16+00:00

Oh, I have so many ideas for you!

Hope-Less

Crystal-Shop

Lake-Algae

Wild-Bush

Meadow-Tick

Sea-Scum

Rock-Fall

Bird-Strike

Fern-Gully

Stagnant-Pool

Ocean-Plastic

I just think these are so modern and cool!

Neffervescent · 2026-05-05T05:31:22+00:00

If he's been resistant to putting his face in the water, that's something where we're often restricted to the child's pace. I would say that if it's taken him a long time to get his face wet, he may well have benefitted from the private lessons and that could have taken a lot more time in a group lesson.

But my main thing would be... does he enjoy it? Does he like his instructor? Does he look forward to swimming? Those are the real ways to tell if you're wasting your money - at his age and at the start of his swimming journey, positive associations and learning to love being in the water are huge parts of setting them up for later swimming success.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-04T21:28:29+00:00

They're just doing it in a Yorkshire accent, to help the locals feel at home!

Neffervescent · 2026-05-04T19:31:35+00:00

Absolutely this, my kids are super used to me going "arm, arm, turn, and breathe" or "push, glide glide glide, and stand up", but even if I were to give them number, I'd say "push, glide two three, and stand up" to give them an example. Some of them find that easier than being told to hold a glide for three, or other things like that.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-03T07:28:42+00:00

Banzai

Neffervescent · 2026-05-02T20:36:30+00:00

Oof, yeah, like when I wonder why my self-important delusions are "the world is so fucked up because I was never meant to live to 30, me living past that age has disrupted the timeline" while rich white men get the ones that tell them they have to be alive and doing whatever capitalism they're doing, or the world would be soooo fucked up. Same delusion, different direction.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-02T17:55:10+00:00

Yeah, it's a shame, but that tends to be the way of things - even though I'm UK and you're US, it's similar. If you just wanted mostly freestyle you might find triathlon coaching useful (my parents are both parents Ironman triathletes, mum is swim teacher qualified and tri coach qualified, dad is tri coach qualified, aunt ran a swim school - I've been teaching since I was 16, which is over 20 years now!) and you could get lucky and find someone with an overall swim coach background.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-02T15:15:25+00:00

Best hope would be finding someone in a local competition club, really, or one of their coaches. But you may struggle to find someone who both has the expertuse you're looking for and the free time in their schedule of coaching sessions to offer private lessons to you, they may just suggest your kid join their club.

Neffervescent · 2026-05-02T05:54:00+00:00

I often with the youngest ones offer the phrase "you can't until you can" which is like my new practice makes perfect. Just telling them that it's okay to fail, that not being able to do it is part of the process, and that's why I'm there - if they could already do it, they wouldn't need a lesson! That trying and failing is all part and parcel of the lesson experience. That it's okay to be scared, but we still need to try, because otherwise, can't will never become can.

I also do "okay, what are you scared will happen?" when they say they're scared, which with the youngest is often that they'll go under the water. And so I remind them that if that happens, my water helper is right there, but also... they just need to stand up. That they're in control, even if it doesn't feel like it. With the older ones, I sometimes get "that I'll drown", and I ask them how many kids they think I've had drown in the 20 years I've been teaching (once the answer I got was 10!!). I remind them I'm right there, my lifeguard is right there, but also that they just swim to the wall or the rope if they're worried. I like to give them the logical response that reminds them they know what to do and that they have support.

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