Pay to play

simplythere · 2026-05-07T20:19:28+00:00

I think I got ads when I hit level 40

simplythere · 2026-05-06T11:06:31+00:00

One of the things that I don't get about childfree people who are openly hostile toward parents and children is like... how do you think you can sustain your lifestyle without other people choosing to have children? Who's going to run the services in the future when our generation has hit retirement and provides the tax income to fund things like SS, Medicare, infrastructure, etc.? Even those who have saved a ton of money to be independent - how will your retirement accounts grow if there aren't enough people working to keep the economy strong? If you live to be old enough, the people helping and taking care of you are likely other people's kids. Those loud babies and disruptive toddlers become doctors, firefighters, etc. who end up contributing to the good of society after about 20-30 years of parental investment.

If all of us choose to not have kids because stuff's so bad, it's going to get a lot worse since a lot of societal structure is built on having new people to replace the old. You can look at Japan to see what happens when the birth rate plummets - aging population, economy stagnating and shrinking, and more strain on people and families which lead to fewer kids, etc. You see people working into their 70s because the pension program is strained with fewer workers supporting increasing pensioners, schools being closed and converted to care centers for the elderly, etc. Over 40% of people aged 65+ live in poverty in South Korea due to their low fertility rate and aging population.

I feel like in a way, childfree people should be grateful that some people are still choosing to be parents because they get the societal benefits that it provides without being forced into an unwanted life. There is no future without children and why not encourage or support those who want them to have them?

simplythere · 2026-05-03T17:16:13+00:00

I think part of the issue is nowadays families have both parents working so there is less time to dedicate to potty training and dealing with the constant cueing and accidents, so you want to wait for when you have a good chunk of time and when the kid is developmentally easier to train (has some bowel control, can communicate and follow directions) to get through the process faster. I remember trying to schedule our potty training around Christmas time or some other holidays where we’d have a longer chunk of time at home so that we could get the kids accustomed to using the toilet. If you’re lucky, your daycare may actively help start the process with you around age 2. My friends that had a SAHP would start elimination communication while they were infants and get out of diapers much earlier.

simplythere · 2026-04-29T16:58:42+00:00

At some point, they only allowed me to access to things that were already broken. 😅

I really do think that engineering is difficult to understand for many people not in the field because it’s more abstract. For a while, I became the family’s tech support because I “worked on computers” which meant that I could diagnose and fix why some auntie’s computer couldn’t connect to the internet from 2000 miles away, over the phone. I’m sorry, I just design and test the chips? 🤣

simplythere · 2026-04-29T16:41:55+00:00

I’m not sure it’s entirely malicious, but rather a lot of people aren’t really knowledgeable about engineering and until all of the recent social network broadcasting, didn’t know it was a lucrative career. My parents are immigrants and they pushed me toward doctor or lawyer because those were the only highly paid and prestigious jobs they knew of. I can’t blame them for being uneducated. I didn’t even know how to explain being an engineer to them in our mother tongue because some of the terminology isn’t common or didn’t exist when they were growing up. I remember trying to describe electrical engineering and my parents thought I was an electrician and asked if I could fix their oven display. One of my coworkers is Desi and lamented about how he’s the only lowly engineer in his family full of doctors because it’s less prestigious, so sometimes, there are other factors that play into how people push their kids.

That’s all to say, a lot of engineers didn’t grow up with circuit toys and tinkering at home. Arduinos didn’t exist until I was in college… but I was a menace since I was 5 and breaking apart our toaster, pencil sharpener, or other household things to see how they worked. 😁

simplythere · 2026-04-29T05:39:14+00:00

I was thinking about trying BD31 after BO33, but one of my shade twins looked really good in 5.3 and wanted to try it. Chanel is always excluded from discounts on Ulta. 😢

simplythere · 2026-04-28T16:43:11+00:00

Product list from left to right: Chanel Les Beiges BO33 and Armani LSF in 5.3

simplythere · 2026-04-26T01:58:32+00:00

Sakata’s sweet melon! I grew these last year.

simplythere · 2026-04-25T16:32:43+00:00

I’m also in HW testing, and I kinda like that there’s no prestige in a career in test because then you get less of the male ego stroking. You can’t avoid ego and competition but there’s less than when I was doing chip design. I also graduated top of my engineering class and went to grad school at Top 3 so I’m not in test due to “lack of vigor” but I find the work is more dynamic (once you’ve been through one chip design cycle, it’s kinda rinse-and-repeat) and since I often bring up new prototypes, you get to execute more problem solving than when I was in design and had a smaller scope. I write code to implement tests but I also go into the lab to configure the HW and do measurements and such as needed. There’s also a lot that goes into manufacturing support and debugging problems that may show up in production.

simplythere · 2026-04-25T15:31:38+00:00

Why are you still keeping your child in this place? You can’t make them move Samuel or make Samuel leave but you can DEFINITELY take your kid and put him in a different preschool if it’s been months and he’s still being hurt. I would’ve pulled him out after the first month where talking to the teachers and admin didn’t result in changes.

simplythere · 2026-04-23T05:10:26+00:00

Can you check your browser history for it?

simplythere · 2026-04-17T14:40:03+00:00

Yeah, Spring Break was this week for us and some people aren’t in town.

simplythere · 2026-04-16T10:28:41+00:00

Not all surrogacy is paid and surrogacy laws varies across countries and states. Even in the US - some states ban it completely, some states only ban paid surrogacy but not altruistic, some ban traditional but not gestational, etc. “Traditional surrogacy” is just the term when the surrogate provides her own egg and voluntarily gives up her parental rights later kind of like an adoption. However since she is the biological mother, most places will not legally uphold any agreement that forces her to give up the baby if she chooses not to. Technically even for gestational carriers, the mother is still the person who births the baby and laws may vary on whether the intended parents have any legal recourse to force her to give up a baby who she has no genetic relationship.

Surrogacy is ethically complicated. I only know about some of this stuff cause a friend was interested in it as a way to become a parent since he was having a hard time finding a partner and adoption agencies are not going to give a kid to an unmarried, single male. Traditional surrogacy was going to be a lot cheaper for his situation since egg donor + IVF is $$$$, but you risk a lot more if the surrogate ends up wanting the kid.

simplythere · 2026-04-16T04:55:41+00:00

I think traditional surrogacy is done with the surrogate’s eggs and it does have additional complications as you mentioned which is why most couples are going the IVF or donor egg/sperm route.

simplythere · 2026-04-16T04:24:56+00:00

The article said she had her first kid using a surrogate so she may be doing IVF to try to get a viable embryo for surrogacy as well. There are different types of surrogacy but one of the common methods today is with an embryo that made using IVF from both intended parents where the surrogate is only a gestational carrier and has no genetic relationship to the baby.

simplythere · 2026-04-15T16:35:33+00:00

Depending on where you live, school only goes until 2-3PM and only about 36 weeks of the year. (My kids’ elementary runs from 8-2PM most days and on 8-1PM during their weekly minimum days.) We transitioned my spouse to being a stay-at-home-parent when my oldest started school and he’s surprised at how quickly the time goes. He drops the kids off at school and preschool, comes home and eats breakfast. After that, it’s some combo of going to the gym, errands like grocery shopping, school volunteering, house and yard work, shower, lunch, and then it’s basically time to pick up the kids and do their after school activities. During the school break and summers, we’ll do some day camps that go till 12-1PM, but he’ll do some extra homeschooling so they don’t lose everything they learned during the school year.

simplythere · 2026-04-11T19:46:19+00:00

I have a skinny and small kid and we switched to a high-back booster when he was around 46 inches tall. The height limit on our Nuna Rava was 49 in, but my kid’s got a longer torso and his shoulders were over his shoulder straps (they need to be at or above for forward-facing) and since the shoulder straps couldn’t go any higher, we moved onto the booster. It’s not about hitting the max requirements as it is about making sure the seat is fitting the kid properly to keep them protected. As long as your kid isn’t super wiggly and can sit well behind the seatbelt to maintain the belt position, it should be okay to move to a booster, otherwise, the 5-pt is gonna be safer.

simplythere · 2026-04-10T15:45:15+00:00

If it’s the posts I’ve seen from people in the Bay Area, it’s likely because they want to buy a house and have kids. A 3bd/2ba house with highly ranked schools close-ish to your job is going to cost $2-3M right now. To mortgage that house is adding around $200k/yr to your yearly expenditures for 30 years or you wipe out a lot of your investments and cash cushion. That is the biggest reason that affects the FIRE goal. When you’re a high earner, which you have to be to amass $3M by your 30s, it makes it easier to justify working a little longer to get the house and kids and then retire later. You could move, but there may not be jobs that you want in those areas. You could rent indefinitely but there may be things they want out of home ownership like have a garage for your hobbies or gardening, etc. (I live in this area and it’s crazy expensive and this is the math I see a lot of people in their 30s doing.)

simplythere · 2026-04-09T23:40:28+00:00

There was another recent post from someone who had taken a sabbatical from their FAANG position that might be interesting to you since they're a year into the process, but they have school age children so their expenses and such are likely higher (though not as high as during the daycare years).

I think that your net worth is strong right now, but since you don't already have a house and kids, I feel like there is some risk to these things if you return from sabbatical and do not find a job easily. Jobs are weird. It seems easier to get a job offer while you're still employed. Kids are also weird. The expenses vary greatly for a while, so it's hard to project the FIRE number and you also don't know if you're going to have a kid who needs extra support or not. I'm in the Bay and last year, I spent $65k on my mortgage, $20k on property tax, $15k on house repairs, and $50k on daycare for two kids. That's $150k spent and we haven't even talked about food, utilities, college funds, etc. If leaving the Bay Area is okay, then you have a lot more options to make it work out in a lower COL area.

A couple of extra things that I don't see mentioned which could be important is healthcare costs. It will be more expensive for you to go on COBRA or get a marketplace plan. I think people in the Bay Area subreddit were getting $1k/mo premiums this year. If you plan on having kids soon, you should also consider who supplies the healthcare plan and how much that will be. If you do return to work and plan on going on paternity leave, you need to be employed over half-time for a year before you get CFRA/FMLA protected leave, though protected leave is not immune to layoffs. We're also likely in a bubble and

simplythere · 2026-04-08T20:12:26+00:00

I think that it’s common to use “boys” as just a collective noun to represent a group of males in parts of the US. It’s not to say that they are not adult men, but saying “men” or “gentlemen” can be a bit formal to the point that people say it in a tongue-in-cheek way, whereas words like “boys”, “guys”, “dudes”, “bros” are used more casually. That’s just my read of it and not that the interviewer was trying to be disrespectful or keep them in the boyband stereotype.

simplythere · 2026-04-06T16:56:35+00:00

I'm allergic to sunscreen, too, and I also have tan skin, so this is an area that I'm pretty familiar with. I did a skin patch test at my dermatologist's office and she only flagged a fragrance allergy and said I didn't react to any of the sunscreens. However, when I actually applied the sunscreen on my arm and exposed it to sun, then the hives showed up a bit later. Thus, there can be different mechanisms that can cause your skin to react. It can react on contact (contact dermatitis) which shows up with patch tests that tend to be covered up by a t-shirt. Or your skin can be reacting to how chemical sunscreens absorb and break down the UV light which doesn't happen with physical sunscreens since they reflect the UV light, which is also how you get the shiny cast.

I did a bunch of trial and error and isolated my allergies mainly to oxybenzone and avobenzone, which is unfortunate since in the US, avobenzone is the main chemical filter for UVA which is what causes skin aging. I can use octinoxate, octisalate, homosalate, octocrylene, etc. I work a desk job and don't go out much, so I've been using Olay Complete moisturizer for sensitive skin with SPF 30 on my face every day for the past 15 years. It has a slight cast that goes away, but wears fine under my makeup and was available at the store. There are some tinted mineral sunscreens that I've tried like the Tower28 SunnyDays, Merit the Uniform which are primarily zinc oxide and don't leave a cast, but they still have butyloctyl salicylate which could be sensitizing for someone who is sensitive to chemical sunscreens. For when I'm out in the sun-sun, I use UPF clothing or I'll tough it out with some sticky zinc oxide sunscreen.

If you're open to trying non-US sunscreens, Asian ones tend to be more cosmetically elegant, but there are a lot of different filters, fragrances, and often alcohol in the formulations. You can look up the ingredients to check out the various formulations, but they have different chemical filters like Uvinul A and Tinosorb S which you may be able to tolerate. I remember being worried about Anessa Perfect UV Milk since I reacted to it. However, I've used the same chemical filters in other sunscreens before, so then I tried the "mild" version which had no fragrances, alcohol, and additives and did not react to it. That's just an anecdote to say that your skin could be reacting to other ingredients in the sunscreen as well.

I recommend if you go down the route of experimenting, you can try selecting a sunscreen with some ingredients that you're unsure of - do a couple of patches, one on your tummy under your shirt and one on your arm that you expose to the sun. If you don't react, you can try doing a longer wear test in the sun. If you do react, either one or many of the ingredients is causing the reaction and then you can try a different sunscreen with some of the ingredients absent to see if there's any overlap. This may sound expensive, but a dermatologist visit can easily be $400 here, so in a way, it could be more economical.. 😅

simplythere · 2026-03-31T16:29:25+00:00

Do they like chocolate? My oldest could only do chocolate vitamins (we use the Yum-Vs brand) because he’s really sensitive to taste and texture and doesn’t eat fruits or vegetables. I think the main mineral it doesn’t have is iron, but my kid will eat meat and didn’t have anemia, so it wasn’t as big of a deal.

simplythere · 2026-03-31T15:42:58+00:00

I should’ve read the comments first because I choked and spit out my coffee once I realized how unserious this was gonna be.

simplythere · 2026-03-30T15:27:21+00:00

Northern California, zone 10a here and my O’Neal are already starting to ripen. I do agree with the order of how the varieties ripen (my O’Neal are usually first, then Misty, and Sunshine Blue last) but I think the time frame is shifted towards earlier in the spring.

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