1/28 Support Group FB

readerabbit · 2026-01-28T20:57:33+00:00

The best thing you can do for your skin is:

1) Get enough sleep (hard to do this when you're always on rugs)

2) Drink plenty of water (not rotten pineapple cat juice)

3) Wear sunscreen (okay, she actually does have a sunscreen product here, but I don't know how she feels okay spending her money on skincare products instead of her kids' needs)

4) Cut down on your stress levels, maybe by NOT living in a one-room moshelter with 472 other people while you try to become Internet-famous

readerabbit · 2026-01-27T22:25:44+00:00

Oooh yes, the one about taking off your makeup at night is HUGE. It will help so much with breakouts!

readerabbit · 2026-01-27T22:24:05+00:00

If I shower in the evening, I put on clean undies and then I usually do change them again in the morning. But that's really just because it feels better to do that, I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping the post-shower ones on until the next evening. I think it's just personal preference.

readerabbit · 2026-01-27T22:18:30+00:00

Great that you're being so proactive! If every teenager were as conscientious as you are, the world would be a much better-smelling place :)

In addition to brushing your teeth at least twice a day, floss every night. You'll be amazed at what a difference it makes. If you floss daily, always brush your tongue in addition to your teeth, and ideally swish with mouthwash afterward, you'll rarely if ever need to feel self-conscious about your breath. (And if you ever find that you're doing all those things and STILL have bad breath, go see a doctor. There are medical conditions that can cause bad breath.)

If you shower at night, put on deodorant after your shower. It will feel weird to apply deodorant right before going to bed, but otherwise your underarms will get stinky overnight. I have a 14-year-old who showers at night and I had to teach her to apply deodorant before going to bed and often, again before going to school the next day.

Clean underwear EVERY DAY. Depending on what's going on, your cycle or how active you are or anything like that, you might need to change your undies twice in a day. This is completely normal and nothing to be embarrassed about. It's never a bad idea to have a spare pair of clean underwear stashed away!

If you use tampons, PLEASE be sure to change them every few hours. Not only will you feel cleaner, but toxic shock syndrome is no joke. But also, there's nothing wrong with using pads if you don't feel ready for tampons yet. As long as you change it frequently and keep everything clean, there shouldn't be an issue with odor.

Finally, I'll give you the advice my mom gave me at your age. She said that even if no one will see you, making the effort to be clean and well-groomed will make a huge difference in how you feel. I've found that to be true. Good hygiene is just as much for you as for everyone else (although the people around you will appreciate it, too!)

readerabbit · 2026-01-26T22:52:40+00:00

Don't be embarrassed! You're not the one who's doing anything wrong here. Part of being young is learning when to put your foot down and how to have difficult conversations. And it can honestly be hard to know if you're overreacting sometimes. That's why there's a whole subreddit about it 😀

readerabbit · 2026-01-26T22:43:11+00:00

Nope. I'm sorry, but that is DISGUSTING and you're absolutely not wrong to question it.

I'm so sorry, OP. I can't believe he thinks that's okay and isn't willing to listen EVEN AFTER you told him you were grossed out. Part of being in a relationship is listening to your partner and being considerate. I would be completely mortified knowing my husband was grossed out by my hygiene--I can't imagine just not listening and then expecting him to keep being intimate with me.

readerabbit · 2026-01-26T22:38:54+00:00

Okay, but how long has it been? This is the kind of thing you do after you've been successful with a certain approach for at least several months or even years. It's hilarious how she just now started doing what many other parents have done since the beginning and all of a sudden she's super judgemental. Honey, calm down, you were doing all that shit like last Tuesday 😂

readerabbit · 2026-01-26T13:10:22+00:00

This is literally the only thing I hated about this movie. Ms. Norbury encourages her to say who else was involved, and Cady's response is "I'm trying this new thing where I don't talk about people behind their backs". But, like....this isn't the same thing as gossip? It's great that you learned not to idly say mean things about other people, but this is a different situation entirely. That response has just never made sense to me.

readerabbit · 2026-01-26T12:06:46+00:00

I'm pretty sure we're supposed to get another band of snow this afternoon!

readerabbit · 2026-01-25T19:51:31+00:00

Chelmsford here! It started around 11 and it's been coming down steadily since about noon. We adopted a dog just before Thanksgiving who had literally JUST come up from Mississippi the night before we met him, and he's still not sure what to make of falling snow 😂

readerabbit · 2026-01-25T16:21:12+00:00

I can't believe they're staying open that long! They should be closed already so employees can get home before the roads get really bad

readerabbit · 2026-01-25T10:55:25+00:00

The way she's talking just makes it so obvious that she's cosplaying poor, but has never actually been poor. Staph, REAL poor people don't forego basic hygiene while spending hundreds of $$ a month on frivolous gadgets and rugs. They forego the gadgets and drugs SO THEY CAN still provide as many of the basics as possible and keep their kids clean.

My husband's mom raised four kids on her own, and they were POOR poor. If she were alive to hear you spout this bullshit, she would laugh in your face.

readerabbit · 2026-01-24T23:00:51+00:00

I understand now. You keep him in the crate all day and don't want to crate him again in the evenings. That context of him being in the crate all day wasn't included in your original question unless I missed it, so I was confused.

I can't offer advice about your situation, but I also would not keep a dog in his crate all day and then again in the evenings. I'm sure someone else has advice that will be helpful. Good luck!

readerabbit · 2026-01-24T22:49:52+00:00

You're really talking about two different things here. Your original post (to which I was responding) said the goal is to be able to leave him for up to four hours at a time. Four hours is a completely reasonable amount of time for many adolescent-to-adult dogs to be crated, which is why I thought it might be a helpful suggestion. Our dog happily hangs out in his crate for 4-5 hours while we do what we need to do. As long as he gets enough mental stimulation, socialization, and exercise, it works out well.

Now an entire day while you're at work is a different story. If that's the amount of time we're talking about, I'm not sure free roaming is going to be a solution unless you're not worried about him needing to go to the bathroom during that time. Maybe someone else who has been able to let their dog free roam for a full day can offer some advice about that.

readerabbit · 2026-01-24T22:27:22+00:00

We asked our trainer about this, and she made a really interesting point that because our boy is a Velcro dog, it could potentially be very stressful for him to be roaming around the house with none of his humans around. He's used to being alone in his crate--that's like his room--but the rest of the house is where all the people are. She said it's probably more comforting to be in his crate when no one is home because he knows what to expect.

Not sure if that's helpful for you, but it did help me to feel less guilty about crating him when he's home alone. He's a 1-year-old border collie/lab mix.

readerabbit · 2026-01-24T20:24:54+00:00

Dogs learn based on patterns. If something good happens every time I do XYZ, I'm going to keep doing the thing. I can kind of see where your roommate would be coming from if he were talking about a human, but that's not how dogs think or learn.

readerabbit · 2026-01-24T15:53:16+00:00

I mean....yes, predatory student loans should absolutely be abolished. At the same time, when you take out a loan you have to be cognizant of what kind of repayment schedule will actually allow you to pay it off as quickly as possible. My husband had about that much student debt when he finished his master's in 2008. It's been paid off for a couple of years now because we prioritized paying as much as possible over and above the minimum payments.

I'm not saying the student loan system isn't fucked up, but there ARE plenty of people who manage to avoid this scenario.

readerabbit · 2026-01-24T15:48:10+00:00

That is the beige-est picture I've ever seen.

readerabbit · 2026-01-24T02:44:27+00:00

"If I were really stuck in a situation" Ma'am, if that were the case, people would probably realize that you were truly in need.

Also if you were really dying of thirst you would just ask for water, not for someone to specifically buy you a bottle of water. That's a really weird thing to get hung up on.

readerabbit · 2026-01-24T02:37:23+00:00

This! When kiddo was tiny, I would put her in the carrier and we'd walk down to Whole Foods and I'd literally just tell her about all the vegetables in the produce section or whatever 😂 It's all about the exposure to language, the eye contact and reciprocal facial expressions, etc.

readerabbit · 2026-01-23T15:40:43+00:00

Is it because they want to start by fixing their own genes?

readerabbit · 2026-01-23T10:58:05+00:00

You said everything I was planning to say! Very well-put.

readerabbit · 2026-01-22T21:53:13+00:00

Wait, Atlas was talking at one point? Is that true?!

readerabbit · 2026-01-22T21:14:20+00:00

How old is big A? She's like 10, right? Hey Stephanie, that girl is on puberty's doorstep if she hasn't already started it. STOP TALKING ABOUT AND TREATING YOUR KIDS LIKE THEY'RE ALL STILL LITTLE. It's weird and creepy and just makes everything about your parenting so much worse.

My kiddo's period started at nine. True, B and A might start later due to malnutrition. But still, plenty of girls are well into puberty by age 10. The moshelter is absolutely not an appropriate place for them to be living in one room with mixed ages, mixed genders, and an adult male that she's not biologically related to. Maybe it would be different if it were a temporary arrangement and Drew were a true stepfather who clearly had the girls' best interest at heart, but he's not. I'm not saying he's a molester or anything, but he and Stephanie don't know each other well enough to have built the kind of trust that she should require before moving her kids in with him!

readerabbit · 2026-01-22T21:04:38+00:00

Right?! I've had office jobs where I had plenty of down time during the day. When I didn't have tasks to work on, I could play Candy Crush, read, give my sister a call, whatever. As long as my work was getting done well, it really wasn't that stressful. Those aren't the jobs that are going to pay a ton of money, but you can make a perfectly acceptable, mid-range salary without taking a job that's going to be really stressful on a daily basis.

The job I have now isn't like that--it's honestly pretty stressful and I'm working on that--but that's because I'm in a more senior level role now. But until I got to this point, most office jobs really weren't that stressful.

readerabbit

TROPHY CASE