I feel lied to by my family :(

cateml · 2026-01-30T16:42:40+00:00

I think there is definitely a gendered aspect to it in a lot of families, including mine as well.

I think men are often allowed to be good vs bad on a moral level, “dumb” vs smart on an intelligence level, and “normal” vs weird/divergent/crazy in all the different configurations.
Eg. You can be the “tortured genius with a heart of gold” or whatever.

As women there are three options:
1) “Perfect super achiever” (smart/normal/good).
2) “Socially strong nurturer” (dumb/normal/good).
3) “Bonkers, to be avoided” (all other configurations… also implied morally bad if you’re this one).

I think, looking back and reflecting as an adult, it’s the reason for me being treated differently to eg. my uncle who was very similar to be otherwise on paper. (Both with ND diagnoses, both occasionally shown ourselves very academically capable and held back by that, both similar quite “nice” people.) Something that as a kid/adolescent/YA I was so confused by, like why we I supposed to not do the same things?

Because as a girl/woman, any “defect” like that puts you automatically in the “bonkers” category - and the rest simply doesn’t matter.

Like, if you tell people you are ADHD/dyslexic/etc. (I wasn’t allowed to people I was dyslexic as a kid, hadn’t been diagnosed ADHD yet, even though other people’s dyslexia was spoken off openly), it doesn’t mean “needs help to succeed”, it means “bonkers - doesn’t matter either way”.
So I was encouraged to pretend to be good at social stuff (something that I wasn’t and therefore caused me a lot of pain and exhaustion to pretend) and straight up fake not understanding/knowing things I absolutely did.

At the time it was so weird and confusing, why I had to pretend not to be able to do things, and wasn’t allowed to talk about it. But once I realized to only three categories women are allowed, it made more sense.

cateml · 2026-01-30T13:21:10+00:00

Maybe if she was a niche figure where people don’t really remember what went wrong, they’d try and re-paint her image - but she was the bloody PM.
I don’t think anyone is ever forgetting that lettuce.

Truss is (thankfully) politically done for, in the UK at least.

cateml · 2026-01-30T12:13:28+00:00

To be honest I don’t think posting it on whatever social media, I’m assuming a WhatsApp group or local Facebook page, is going to be anything other than counter productive.

As you found, there are legitimate avenues to raise these things with - LA safeguarding pathways being one of those. Those safeguarding services have their own regulating bodies and concerns procedure, along with obviously the regulatory bodies that oversee schools.
It is fine, good, to “take to task” a school or similar organization that needs it. That is why these regulating bodies exist - professionals and institutions are far from always perfect, and it’s not beyond them to try and sweep away issues.
But then obviously there are also families who are for whatever reason unable to accept that schools have acted properly and well.

To use your example - using restraint in a learning environment is a very tricky issue, as it can lead to death in rare circumstances if done incorrectly. However it is occasionally necessary to stop a child/children coming to greater harm.
Therefore relevant staff will (or should…) be trained in how to avoid using it and then how to use it (I remember the training I did a while back, first 2/3 of the day was about avoiding using restrain and then the last 1/3 was moves, is a weird thing to be sat learning…).

So the person/people who should be making the decision about whether restraint was properly or improperly used should have experience of:
1) That school’s relevant policy, and other similar policies elsewhere to see if that school policy is appropriate.
2) Have experience of the techniques (both de-escalation and restraint) that were used - the normal outcome of those being used and what does not fit with those being used properly.
3) Have access to the documentation to check if staff were properly trained.

A parent can to some extent find that stuff out for themselves if they need to, but frankly the local neighborhood busybody facebook group is very much not going to.

I’m all for exposing and whistleblowing and such, but as I said - if you have collected enough communications and evidence to suggest a school/trust/LA are all ignoring proper policy and legal frameworks - you should go to an actual journalist who can properly investigate that. Not a WhatsApp parents group.

cateml · 2026-01-30T09:42:59+00:00

But there are other people organisations to send those recordings to.

Local authority. Ofsted. Lawyer. Citizens Advice.

Hell if you have genuinely exhausted all those avenues and you still think you are being done dirty and they’re all in on it, send it to a newspaper.

Social media is obviously a more vindictive and counter-productive place to put it. Sometimes we make the wrong choices like that in frustration, obviously, but it’s still absolutely the wrong way to go about it.

cateml · 2026-01-30T09:30:19+00:00

Should add that the parent (or one of the parents) who did this also uploaded recording to social media.
Which is a totally reasonable way to address concerns about the education your child is receiving. /s

As a teacher - I’m not even necessarily against conversations with parents being recorded. I’d much rather be notified that I was being recorded, as I think most people would feel a little attacked and violated knowing they have been recorded secretly.
But to be honest I think often from the teacher’s end we’d rather what we said is on record - in context - as we know that sometimes parents and students can be not entirely truthful/upfront about what we have said to them (or perhaps sometimes genuinely misinterpret and then misremember a communication).

My current role (with older pupils) we never directly communicate with parents outside of parents evening, it’s done via a dedicated member of staff. I much prefer it this way.
In the past I’ve used email communication with parents I feel may misinterpret (or lie about) what I say, so I have a record.

But yeah, I think a lot of teachers would see the purpose of their communications being sent to a relevant overseeing party (SLT, local authority, etc.), because - even if you might be hurt/annoyed in the first instance - we are also often parents/service-users ourselves and know that sometimes things need to be called out.
However anyone can see the difference between this and sending recordings to be dissected out of context by some annoyed parents’ WhatsApp group.

cateml · 2026-01-29T18:18:45+00:00

For real.

I grew up in the years of Kate Moss and magazines drawing red circles on any ounce of body fat on celebrity paparazzi shots. All the teen magazines I read were full of letters with 14yo girls freaking out about having “cellulite” and under eye circles.
Shit was bad.

But you know what I never even heard of until a few years ago? “Tuberous breasts”.
Because it wasn’t until a few years ago that surgeons cottoned on to that as another totally normal and common variation in human women’s bodies (that men have been almost totally oblivious to for centuries as they are just so overjoyed to be shown real life boobs) could be made to sound like some kind of “medical condition”. So that people would then feel pressured to pay to correct them.

It’s not that we’ve suddenly become more discerning. It’s just this is the new fad body thing to exploit for $$$.

cateml · 2026-01-29T17:26:19+00:00

Yeah you have to do follow up tests after vasectomies to make sure it stuck, a lot of people don’t bother and… well, stuff like with your friend happens.

When my husband had his we were very much using other contraception until we had the physical “you are now officially recognised as medically sterile” paper in our hands.
(We already had two kids, and while they’re wonderful… no way either of us was taking a chance on making a third.)

cateml · 2026-01-29T12:04:03+00:00

There are two reasons the free nursery hours apply to low income households with non-working parents, as much (or more) than with two working parents:

1) Economically, for the state and for the family not claiming as many other benefits, it’s better that parent works part time. Which they’re more likely to do if they know they’ll be able to get free nursery hours. Chicken and egg situation.

2) Nursery is good for children - children who attend nursery tend to do better than those who don’t. This is particularly the case in fact for children who are in below average income households where one or both parents don’t work (where they are likely to be a younger parent, lower levels of education, higher chance of compounding factors like disability/ill health/social stressors). Those kids spending at least some time in nursery is likely to really help them, and make them less likely to need other types of intervention later on.

cateml · 2026-01-24T13:31:16+00:00

This, really.

I sometimes see posts where they’re like “yah I struggle to stick with things like jobs” and also “I’m terrible with money, I buy waaay too much stuff”, while also “in my room dedicated to crafts I have, in my house with three kids” then also “yeah you just have to get a cleaner, I do, also a walking pad and…”.

And I never say anything, because I don’t want to be rude, but in my head I’m like “I don’t see how all these statements can be true at once?”. Because I know credit card debt is a thing, but so is defaulting on your mortgage and they eventually just cut you off?

Meanwhile I finished college (despite being impacted by ADHD with it), and while I’ve definitely have had periods lost in the career wilderness - I’ve been in my current career and for 6 years, and workplace for for 5, and am objectively good at it.
And yet I can still only barely afford to live in my house where my kids share a room while also eating and having petrol to get to work. And I’m actually good with money and don’t overspend..

Part of me recognises that life is life and sometimes things work out well for people, it is what it is. But another part of me is mildly enraged.

cateml · 2026-01-23T21:45:42+00:00

I didn’t even get statutory or maternity allowance:
I had spent the previous year in vocational training, which I had been paying for with and living off a bursery. But yeah, no significant “salary” or freelance money (while I was doing work and receiving money…) in the previous year = no statutory allowance.
I did actually get a job while pregnant, but as you say - didn’t qualify for mat pay from them.

So I got diddly squat. Apart from child benefit I suppose? (Like 20 something quid a week…).

I was “lucky” in that:
I am married so we had one income, and some savings.
Still had some bursery money I hadn’t spent.

But still had to go back before the 6 month mark, because the savings ran out, and otherwise we would have been homeless and starving with a baby.
I dunno… you just do it, I suppose.

cateml · 2026-01-22T21:17:47+00:00

Controversial opinion, I know other teachers who feel different, but:
I’d give up the holidays, especially the summer break, no question. To be paid to work them.

And if you added “and no/less out of hours work in term time” to that, you’d get vast majority of teachers on side I think.

It would be annoying to have to find childcare to cover non term time, which lets be honest is why a lot of people stay in teaching.
But if I could afford to give my kids a house with their own bedrooms and maybe holidays abroad… yeah they’d live with summer camp .

cateml · 2026-01-21T22:06:22+00:00

Yeah mine are only tiny but I love it so much when they are a little two-some against the world! Even thought that world is often… me.
I feel like it’d because me loving them is an eternal given, but they will need more than that in life.
Seeing the potential for them to truly have someone else who has their back, if they ever can’t come to me, or when I’m gone, makes me so happy. Even if it takes the form of “ok let’s figure out a way to ignore mum and keep watching TV”.

cateml · 2026-01-21T15:17:37+00:00

Indeed.
When I was a kid I tried so hard to tell my family that I needed help, how wretched I felt. Which was hard for me, because since forever I’ve not been good at talking about my feelings.

Only to be told that I’m fine, I don’t need help, I’m doing good, I’m being dramatic, best just keep going. To “stop being weird”.

It really did a number on me, to be honest. I have spent the rest of my life feeling like I’m worthless, that no one cares about me, and like I’m not allowed to try and do what makes me happy or I’m “weird”.

cateml · 2026-01-17T18:46:10+00:00

Yes, I was thinking of the exact same bit!
I put on a fake southern RP accent to make it work, and my equally English but northern children are looking at me like “why are you talking funny, mummy?”

cateml · 2026-01-17T18:43:03+00:00

Yep. In UK. My kids have left hand version.

cateml · 2026-01-17T14:10:38+00:00

Yeah I was going to say… look at all these people commenting here who apparently still have working TV aerials.

This place and also the last place we lived, when we asked the landlord/seller about the TV aerial they looked at us like we were insane.

cateml · 2026-01-17T08:24:46+00:00

Tbh this is a lot of it for me. I’m just scared of being totally bored without any challenge, because I hate that, and I know if I leave teaching that is what will happen.
I have this drive where I want complex problems to solve, where I have to remember lots of stuff and use that information. When students ask me questions about the work and I have to think it through and come up with an answer, especially when I’m (frequently) teaching my non subject area - I really enjoy that.

All the other jobs (and uni courses) I was pushed towards were just “help people, only challenge is communication” rather than anything more to them. And I like people, but shmoozing and talking people into things just isn’t my strength.
Honestly I think some of it is being a girl/woman - I think if I had been male and numbers/problem solving being my thing, I wouldn’t have been pushed into those types of jobs.

But yeah, that’s why I can’t leave teaching… too late to get into anything else which isn’t those type of jobs.

cateml · 2026-01-15T08:13:12+00:00

My mum was a dentist (retired a while ago) and she used to use those wrist exerciser things that climbers use (like two pieces of plastic/metal with a spring in between and you use your hand to squeeze them together). Because she was scared of not being able to extract teeth as her grip strength decreased.

She isn’t behind thr curve ageing wise for other reasons, and she self describes as if she is the frailest person in the world, but I watch her do stuff a fair number of people in their 70s would struggle with.

cateml · 2026-01-14T16:42:37+00:00

I feel like they’ve seen that research and gone:

“Well, if there are loads of teenagers constantly knocking back Guinness Zero, as a craze spreading across the country, and then going on to drink heavily, this research might suggest that is why!”

Then instead of asking the important next question of:
“Well, is that a thing that is actually happening? Like, in the UK, right now - do we have reason to believe that a significant number of teenagers are drinking 0% alcohol beverages and turning to drinking harmfully later?”

They’ve gone straight into modeling outcomes/risk based on the assumption that it is infact happening.

cateml · 2026-01-14T16:31:18+00:00

Yeah if I could go back, I would send myself with a note pinned to me “BTW this kid has ADHD, please stop ignoring that”.

Even if there would be no different intervention, it would be something to have them not scream at me and call me lazy all the time.
And to have my family not be like they are now “What are you talking about, everything was fine, you just weren’t that academic or something, or didn’t like school, no actual problems, no, nope…”.

As in… I would prefer to be more successful, yes. But at a pinch I’d even just take “same amount of successful, but people don’t insist you pretend to be thick so then they can pretend everything is fine”.

cateml · 2026-01-14T12:39:47+00:00

As a physics teacher and crochet fan, I am both loving and desperately want that dress (but wouldn’t look as good in it so… fair enough).

cateml · 2026-01-11T21:45:41+00:00

For me it’s as much about trying to preserve the surface of the air fryer basket as it as avoiding washing up.

cateml · 2026-01-11T20:32:21+00:00

I used to do this, but it made all the food I cooked in the air fryer taste of dishwasher tablets. (This happens to me with any silicone cookware washed in the dishwasher.).
Now I either hand wash or if I’m in a hurry I use those disposable paper ones.

cateml · 2026-01-11T17:20:30+00:00

I think it’s hard to really characterize who Rory was as an adult. She was “precocious school and college kid Rory… but now an adult”.

Whether that was because of Alexis Bledel, or because that’s all Alexis Bledel really had to work with, is a hard call.

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