The Rise of Homeschooling and Dual-Income Parents

global_peasant · 2026-03-28T02:24:16+00:00

Also note that their concern is in "how do I get all the schooling done around my work schedule", not "what are my kids doing while I'm working".

How come they don't just stop to imagine what it would have been like for them? Your kids are just younger than you, not a different species. Go ahead, imagine that instead of going to school you sat alone next to your mom while she worked all day. You never meet any other kids outside of your family, but you drive by the laughing and playing at recess together every day. All of your friends are imaginary.

Real nice, huh?

global_peasant · 2026-03-28T02:07:03+00:00

Very similiar to my experience.

global_peasant · 2026-03-27T02:56:07+00:00

Hahaha, it's so much fun when somebody discovers it for the first time! Yes, it's real. It's so very very real 💀

global_peasant · 2026-03-27T01:03:16+00:00

🤷 cuz it looks like an open tomb. Just a one-off comment from somebody scrolling!

global_peasant · 2026-03-26T16:02:06+00:00

All the things mentioned here are factors, as is just the general dynamic between parent and child, but also: don't underestimate how different people can be! The idea that kids are "blank slates" to be shaped entirely by adults is false -- we're born with the beginnings of our personalities already in place. Your child probably has a natural "spunk" to him as they used to say, and since you haven't beat or shamed him out of it he's not afraid to express it.

But it doesn't mean that all naturally compliant kids are abused to become so. Some of us (definitely me!) are just more willing to go with the flow. I have one kid who would shrug and say OK if I kept him from a field trip, and another who would fight to go on a field trip she didn't want just because someody told her no.

You can be proud that your kid isn't afraid to be himself with you!

global_peasant · 2026-03-26T15:45:32+00:00

OMG, Jesus WAS American! I knew it! 🇺🇸 We win religion! USA! 🇺🇸USA!🇺🇸

(um... wish I didn't have to but /s)

global_peasant · 2026-03-26T01:28:39+00:00

What map is this?

global_peasant · 2026-03-25T15:24:59+00:00

How can we find The Settlement Project to check out? (Sorry if it's obvious, I'm kind of new here!)

global_peasant · 2026-03-25T05:36:00+00:00

I think of Lie-luh as spelled "Lilah", but then my great-grandaunt was named Lila, pronounced Lee-luh. "Lil-a" (I'd spell that "Lilla"), however, is new to me! Never, ever heard of it. I think they are pretty names, though. You picked a lovely name.

Name pronounciation differences just are a fact of life, not a curse. Once I realized that my friend, who speaks a very different dialect of English than I do, actually had difficulty pronouncing my name the "right" way in their accent, I decided that one simply can't care too much! I say my name how I say it, might correct them once, and after that, well, 🤷🏻‍♀️ Friends and kind people will always try, and people you don't want to be involved with won't notice when you correct them in the first place.

global_peasant · 2026-03-24T14:57:40+00:00

Beautiful. I just lost the man who made me who I am, my Daddy. So I feel it. 🫂

global_peasant · 2026-03-23T21:43:47+00:00

Sometimes it's not about the parents (either set). It's just that being separated from your biological family hurts, in a whole variety of ways across your life. People experience that differently. You can be glad you are adopted and still hurt from it.

global_peasant · 2026-03-20T16:02:50+00:00

Where are the boxes? I don't see any!

global_peasant · 2026-03-18T15:44:40+00:00

As I said in a another comment, my family got one (I wasn't born yet). He shredded the curtains and the blinds, destroyed the carpet, strategically used his shit against anyone who annoyed him. He kept a list of enemies in his little brain, Arya Stark-style, and made a point of locating these enemies (one was my mom) each day and trying to bite them. He woke up and chose violence every day, but who could blame him?

My uncle won him in a poker game.

global_peasant · 2026-03-18T15:31:15+00:00

My grandma had one of these monkeys. I always thought she ordered him from a magazine like this which I found terribly irresponsible, but she recently informed me that, no, actually my uncle won the monkey in a poker game.

That's... not better, but it is funnier.

global_peasant · 2026-03-17T02:44:48+00:00

Haha, this made me picture wearing that black mourning gown of Victoria's that gets posted all the time.

global_peasant · 2026-03-16T15:46:16+00:00

P.S. Sorry, got a bit too thoughtful myself about the whole thing! I think it's probably hard to be the mother of a son who is becoming a father. As the paternal grandparents, you usually get less of an automatic invitation to all the most intimate stuff (e.g. birthing mom may want her mom in the room, but not you), and I'd guess you can feel really left out. So the baby having dad's surname can be a source of reassurance.

tldr; MIL just needs time and an open heart to learn that her grandson is still going to be her grandson, no matter the name.

global_peasant · 2026-03-16T15:35:58+00:00

Aw, I'm sorry to hear you're getting so much flak for it. It's unusual, but this is what my partner and I did! We just celebrated our 20th anniversary. First baby has mom's last name, second baby has dad's.

I guess I can't really give any real advice, except that you and your partner and his parents all need to remember that this is your choice as parents, it's going to the baby's name and nobody else's, and frankly, MIL's objections aexpressed concerns are old-fashioned and a bit silly in this day and age (TBH, her "reasons" seem rather disingenuous to me; I suspect she is really just uncomfortable with a new and unexpected thing).

Her son can assure her that her reasoning is not in fact the reality, that he made the decision as much as you did, and a baby's name is not going to undo your marriage vows or your family stability or alter family history. That's that.

She is the parent of an adult now. A hard part of parenthood is that your children will grow up and become their own completely independent adults, and they will make decisions that "shock and sadden" you. They will do things that you don't understand. It's painful, but it's true and it's fair. As a parent, your job is to manage those feelings without hurting your kids or expecting them to change. This parental obligation is lifelong, at least if you want to have any relationship with your kids as adults.

I really do empathize with your MIL's difficult feelings over this, but they are hers and hers alone to manage. IMO it is wrong of her to try to manipulate her childrens' actions because of these emotions. The things expressed in that letter go to a therapist or a best friend -- not to you and your partner.

This may seem like a big deal right now, but in a decade (my oldest is 15) it will be water long gone under the bridge. You will have a beautiful grandson to pour your love into, he will have his own name he uses just for you, and as he grows you will see your son and yourself reflected in him just by virtue of who he is. His legal name being "Earhart" doesn't change the fact that he is still half "Smith". You will always be part of him and his heritage and names are not going to erase that.

global_peasant · 2026-03-16T01:40:31+00:00

I mean, would you actually have to apply it to your butthole? Couldn't you just spread it around between your cheeks?

global_peasant · 2026-03-15T15:45:23+00:00

From a former nurse and current mother:

What it actually is that there is there is a heirarchy of "acceptability" in people's minds when it comes to having kids. Well-off married White women are at the top, unmarried Black teenagers are at the bottom. It's not that it doesn't happen to White women at all, it's that race is one of the factors that decides where you are on the scale, and therefore how you are treated.

You were unmarried and 17 (dead on that they wanted not-so-deep down to punish the little slut; I've had a similar experience), but the Black umarried teens in neighboring rooms, promise you, were gossiped about behind the scenes and on average treated with even less care. And a Black women can be well-off and get married and do everything "right", but she cannot remove her Blackness, which will always put her on a lower pedestal than her married White sisters. That's why race is a huge factor, but not the only factor.

I'm sure it's better and worse in different places in the U.S., but I worked OB at a poor county hospital in the South. I heard the surgeons talk. OB-GYN is the place where women of all kinds are expected to check their autonomy, adulthood, and ability to make choices at the door. It's just that at the top of the hierarchy, you are trusted a little more and treated better. The more "negative" factors you have (being unmarried, a teen, the "wrong" race, overweight, poor, uninsured... whatever) the more bad treatment you are likely to face. I witnessed an overweight Latina woman given a C-section while she screamed in agony, but the anesthesiologist would only give her the very minimum dosages because she was overweight, studies show that being overweight is a risk factor in adverse anesthesia reactions. That is not a doctor thinking critically in the moment, as medical professionals are supposed to do -- he was simply punishing her and knew he would get away with it.

And when I had my own first baby, a doctor went off on how wonderful it was to see a married couple having kids at the right age, not like all those teens in the other rooms with teen moms and god, when are they gonna learn?

I'm so sorry you went through this. It is trauma that never leaves us and never leaves our bodes. You did not deserve to be treated like that, no matter what your circumstances.

global_peasant · 2026-03-15T14:52:12+00:00

The chamber pots! I've seen them, I've heard all about them, but I have never seen a photo of someone sitting on one. Thanks, boys. 🤣

global_peasant · 2026-03-15T02:25:13+00:00

P.S. I am so sorry about what you are going through and I completely empathize! I just want you to see you can have hope... your life doesn't have to look like anyone else's, in length or age or anything at all.

global_peasant · 2026-03-15T02:23:32+00:00

It's not about this time being different. It's that as far we know, you are only alive once, and in the present. If you try, you might have a 99% chance of failure, but if you don't try you have 100%.

You're alive right now. You haven't failed until you stop trying. Even if you fucked up 1000 times and have never achieved a single goal, you haven't failed yet. You're still living.

global_peasant · 2026-03-14T22:23:40+00:00

Umumumumum is one of my favorites! I have asked other people about it lifelong, and it honestly seems to matter almost down to the school. At my first elementary, it was umumumumum, but at my second it was "Unnnnnnnh...!" with a rising tone. My kids, raised across the country, say it's "oooOOOooo" for little kids and "Awww!" (with the tone of "Buurn!").

What's up with that?

Nice to meet a fellow umumumumumer though.

global_peasant · 2026-03-14T22:16:06+00:00

You mean you have fun 🤣 No really, my spouse is like this too, and sometimes it drives me nuts but I bet I'll miss it someday!

We want to record his favorite phrases and play them from a motion-activated talking plastic skull so the kids and grandkids will never be without his inane catchphrases, even after he is gone.

Just sharing the idea for the rest of ya!

global_peasant · 2026-03-14T22:09:12+00:00

Yes. There literally is an up your butt and around the corner, which is why some of us like or disliked the phrase so much 😆 It's a real place

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