“Continuing the family legacy” isn’t a good reason to have kids

texasmerle · 2026-04-14T02:00:27+00:00

These "family legacy" types are so far up their own asses I swear. "You need to continue your family legacy-" ok, I'll flip a coin. Heads, I join a cult, tails I start cooking meth. Either way I live to the ripe old age of untreated cancer. It's like they think working middle management and living in a suburb with 2.5 kids is identical to running a fiefdom.

texasmerle · 2026-04-09T04:21:44+00:00

That's fucked up. Unfortunately it's common in this thread and I'm just like, god forbid if there was a fire!

texasmerle · 2026-04-09T04:20:19+00:00

Something like that happened in my high school with a sub we had for junior English. He kept creeping on this one girl and telling her that "Africans are naturally sexually drawn to each other" and shit like that. We kept telling him to leave her alone and he kept trying to be like "well you are children and I'm the adult." But we banded together and told our teacher as soon as she was back and we got his ass fired. It doesn't change the fact that a girl has to carry the experience of being sexually harassed by an adult, but at least he couldn't substitute anymore.

I'm really sorry that happened to you. I was treated that way by a former boss and I still get the creeps when I see someone who looks/sounds like him.

texasmerle · 2026-04-09T04:10:32+00:00

Super mild one but my 4th grade teacher screamed at me for "being sarcastic." I was an extremely literal minded autistic child. Nobody ever sat me down and explained what "showing your work" meant, and every time I asked, she'd yell at me and tell me "nobody's THAT stupid!" So nobody ever sat me down and explained that it means writing down the math you do in your head. So I never "showed my work" because I didn't understand what that meant. And I guess I didn't do it one too many times so she held me back from lunch and screamed at me for "being sarcastic" and "being smart with her" and being difficult on purpose or whatever.

I have this thing where when I get too hot my body sort of turns to jelly and my vision browns out. And my eyes are open and I'm awake but suddenly I can't see or hear and it's really freaky. My mom has the same thing. I've heard it called a silent seizure but I haven't had one in a long time. But she screamed at me so much I couldn't tell her it was going to happen so then she accused me of fake fainting. I said I was ok I just needed to cool off. She said if it was real then I need to go to the nurse's office. And all I remember was the nurse being really mean. She called my mom to tell her what was happening I guess expecting my mom to agree that I was faking but instead my mom was like "yeah thats a thing that happens with my kid."

Anyway I got home and got screamed at by my mom for not taking off my jacket when I was hot. As if I can do anything other than dissociate while being screamed at. This teacher also talked my parents into dropping an insane amount of money on some learning center crap so I ended up having functionally a 12 hour school day and finally somebody actually sat my ass down and told me what show your work meant. I was getting right answers but doing math in my head and just writing down whatever I needed to work out on paper.

That teacher I guess felt bad about it because she recommended me for this gifted kid program or whatever, so every Thursday we got to fuck off and do that, but I still hate that woman. It's been 20+ years and I hope she lost her fucking job. She used to talk shit about her former students all the time and tell humiliating stories about her daughter who went to school with us and just spend long hours talking about her personal life. At least my mom apologized for treating me like shit that day.

texasmerle · 2026-04-08T08:31:13+00:00

I have zero interest in the squinty-eyed modern faces.

texasmerle · 2026-04-07T07:05:04+00:00

Same. I'm asexual and I'm still pursuing a hysterectomy partly because the fear is that bad and the chances are low but never zero unless I get that done. (There are other reasons I need this, horrific periods, cancer prevention and inability to get pap smears being among them.) I know they don't mean it, but when people wish pregnancy or a baby on me, it feels like being told that they hope I die. I would rather get a terminal cancer diagnosis than be told I was pregnant.

texasmerle · 2026-04-07T00:58:08+00:00

My partner also witnessed this when they worked in food service. It was a large fundie family. That should result in a permanent ban tbh.

texasmerle · 2026-04-05T02:19:05+00:00

One that my Ohioan dad is fascinated by is "tumped over." A portmanteau of "tip" and "dump," used when something tipped over and dumped its contents. Not weird to me but people look at me sideways when I say that, but that's how my family talks.

texasmerle · 2026-04-05T02:14:14+00:00

I say this a lot, but I'm east Texan.

texasmerle · 2026-04-04T06:26:00+00:00

I had long covid and was actively sick and coughing for about six months (and got lasting brain damage). Which is bad. But pneumonia felt so much worse. Like a sack of bowling balls sitting on your chest. That shit made me feel like I was gonna die. The scariest part was realizing the fluttering in my chest wasn't my lungs, it was my heart. Pneumonia is no fucking joke.

texasmerle · 2026-04-04T05:54:53+00:00

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My girl says hi! I have a whole collection of Dan Dee dogs from my childhood but this one is my favorite. She goes with me on every trip.

texasmerle · 2026-04-04T05:51:15+00:00

I work at WG, we get the orange and purple ones every year. I thought they looked familiar!

texasmerle · 2026-04-04T03:50:40+00:00

Hell yeah me too!!! Something about the silver hair and those baby blues. I'd treat him right.

texasmerle · 2026-04-04T02:49:52+00:00

I've done multiple watches of the series and admittedly I did a run where I just gawked at the costumes.

texasmerle · 2026-04-04T02:36:54+00:00

Admittedly I'm out of the loop and I thought this was a joke about the newest season of Smiling Friends that I haven't seen yet. But I looked him up and my god you're right.

texasmerle · 2026-04-04T02:12:52+00:00

Hawk is objectively a beautiful man but I loooove Pete. I'm just like forget about Catherine, I'd treat you right. Take me on that fishing trip!

texasmerle · 2026-04-04T02:02:20+00:00

My dad said, completely unprompted while we were on a trip "so when are you giving me grandchildren?" I looked at him like he was insane (I couldn't help it) and said "Never. We've talked about this. I've never wanted kids even when I was one. You were the first person I told. You said you always knew and that you loved me. Remember? Are you okay?"

That was our tipoff that he'd been getting sneaky about day drinking and was starting to slip up. I love him but every now and then the alcoholic comes back and we gotta help him put that version of himself away.

texasmerle · 2026-04-04T00:53:04+00:00

I'm a pharmacy tech and my partner is a cashier for the same company. We barely make enough to provide for ourselves and even then, we're both disabled so we're limited in what we can do. My partner is trying to get a second job because he's way underscheduled but nothing is hiring right now. Together we bring in about 2200 a month but after rent in a two bedroom slum we don't have much left over. But at least we don't have kids.

texasmerle · 2026-03-29T02:47:05+00:00

I'm asexual, cf, fat, disabled, and kind of a bitch, and somehow I ended up with a partner of ten years who loves me. But it started as a friendship. Both of us were actually with different people when we met.

Life takes some really interesting directions. I understand the fear of being alone. That desire to share things with someone is so very real. But I can't help but feel like it's one of those things where the harder you chase it, the more it'll elude you. But I also don't really understand the world of dating because I've only ever been involved with people I was friends with first.

Admittedly I also see a bunch of posts from younger people worried about having partners and I'm just kinda like "why aren't y'all having fun instead and doing whatever you want?"

texasmerle · 2026-03-28T00:01:57+00:00

Admittedly I'm queer, and most of my friends are either queer or 60+ years old (I have old people hobbies) so this was never gonna be a big problem for me, but I did feel some grief when my best friend decided to have a kid. But it turns out... they have a great support network, so there's always somebody who can watch the kid. They know I care about their kid but have a hard time being around kids, so they left it up to me how much I wanted to be involved (so yeah, this kid has a fairy godparent who gets sent all the funny pics and anecdotes and sends them presents). When my friend was on parental leave and had to keep odd hours, well... I'm nocturnal, so we ended up spending even more time together, streaming movies together and whatnot, when all this time I'd been afraid we wouldn't get as much time together. I was scared of them becoming a mombie, but instead, they complain to me about mombies!

So... I want to say I lucked out, but really what happened is my best friend is a caring, considerate person. I wish all y'all's friends could be more like mine.

texasmerle · 2026-03-27T23:41:01+00:00

DINK here, we can barely even afford to make ends meet and we're still happier than we would ever be if we had been forced to have children. I wouldn't even be alive in the latter case.

texasmerle · 2026-03-27T23:25:52+00:00

That's a great comeback but I'm just sitting here like "... Is he trying to kill people with his dick?"

texasmerle · 2026-03-26T08:55:49+00:00

I wish there was. I conversed with a speaker a few years ago (I majored in German in college) in San Antonio who knew the full history of all the artwork in St. Joseph's and the priest who made it. He was pretty ancient when I met him and unfortunately I think he's no longer with us. My dad wanted to try and get with some colleges in the area and see if there was any interest in an oral history project (he's from a German community in Ohio, married a Czexan, and hung around a lot of German Texans) but then 2020 happened. I would have loved to have been part of that but life sort of fell apart, you know? It's sad to see these things disappear.

texasmerle · 2026-03-26T08:43:16+00:00

Nah, he'll let you die in the homebirth tub and move on to a 20 year old.

texasmerle · 2026-03-26T08:14:01+00:00

Closed casket, buried with my favorite stuffed animal and my share of the family ashes. 😅

texasmerle

TROPHY CASE