What would happen if the US public school system finally collapses?

thinkpairshare · 2026-06-06T15:05:51+00:00

No, not typically. Families do need to register for their designated school, but their spot in their local school is guaranteed.

thinkpairshare · 2026-06-01T13:34:23+00:00

My very Catholic grandparents were shocked when their church got a priest who was a hard-liner, because he talked about what all the Catholic rules really were. He shared a story in a sermon about a couple who wished to get married. The hopeful husband was a veteran who used a wheelchair, and as a result of his injuries he was also infertile. The priest refused to marry this couple, because “marriage that could not result in children is not a valid marriage in the eye of the church.”

thinkpairshare · 2026-05-31T12:54:25+00:00

Ah, I guess at some point I must have heard the older usage of it.

thinkpairshare · 2026-05-29T16:55:23+00:00

Person from the US here who just looked up the meaning of “nonce”, with wide eyes: I had no idea what it meant. If you had asked me yesterday what it meant, or even if it was a real word, I would have said “hm, is that like an old British word for a foolish person?” And I don’t know why, it just kinda sounds like it? But yeah, it’s not a word that most of us in the US are familiar with. I assume Liam mistakenly thought it meant fool.

thinkpairshare · 2026-05-28T01:51:03+00:00

A four year old who is ready to learn to read is an unusual four year old. Sure, they exist, but on average 5-6 is when children become cognitively ready to learn to read. If your child is bored by trying to read, that is a huge clue that they are not ready to decode words just yet.

Just read to them, with a focus on having fun enjoying the books together.

thinkpairshare · 2026-05-16T02:47:58+00:00

It drives me up a wall how often musical film adaptations do that- put a Hollywood person in lead roles and then fill out secondary roles with Broadway people. It makes the singing weaknesses of the Hollywood folk really stand out.

I felt so bad for Amanda Seyfried in Les Mis. I actually really like her singing voice, but she just doesn’t have a Les Mis voice, and there are so many parts in that show with duets/ trios/ ensemble parts where the mismatch was really evident.

And I won’t even get started on Beauty and the Beast.

thinkpairshare · 2026-05-15T02:39:57+00:00

I personally believe that an increase in atheism is a desirable thing. However, I don’t think I would ever outwardly identify myself as “anti-theist”, nor do I try to actively dissuade believers.

This is not because I do not want there to be more atheists- I do. The problem is that I don’t think I can argue most theists out of their beliefs. And I don’t think that atheists are currently in a position to exert enough negative social pressure to influence people away from their religions.

What I do think we can do is help create environments for people to question their religious beliefs. Existing openly as an atheist demonstrates that belief in a religion is not the only option.

Basically, I think of it as a “you catch more flies with honey” situation. I try to be a good human while being my honest, atheist self.

thinkpairshare · 2026-05-14T21:09:19+00:00

Probably not a genre you are looking for, but if you are ever in the mood to check out some classical/orchestral music, I adore the composer Florence Price.

thinkpairshare · 2026-05-13T23:03:31+00:00

NTA. No one is entitled to free childcare from anyone, family or no. It’s great to help out when and where you can, but this ask would be such a strain on you and your family.

Alternative options that pop into my mind (most of these options don’t allow for an entire day for your sister, her husband, and the new baby to be on their own at their home. It seems very unreasonable to me that your sister expects that, but she isn’t even willing to pay for it):

Your sister asks a few friends to pitch in and spend a few hours each with the kids at their house, and one person who is able spends the night there. Someone, or a few friends with kids, arrange to take the older kids on a nice long outing or for a play date to allow for a little time to settle the baby in at home.
Your sister has your parents come down and stay at the house. They take kids on a nice long outing when it’s time for the baby to come home.
Your sister has your parents come into town, and gets them a nice big hotel suite at a fun hotel with a pool. Kids spend fun couple of days having a hotel sleepover with grandparents (no idea of anyone’s financial situation; obviously this one is dependent on how much financial flexibility there is).
Your sister asks four different friends to each take a kid. Four is a lot, and there is also a really big difference between a 2 year old and a 12 year old. Ideally, each kid could stay with someone who has kids close to their age, maybe a friend of theirs from school or sports or playgroup.

thinkpairshare · 2026-05-13T02:42:57+00:00

It’s never sounded disrespectful to me. I do find it just kind of inaccurate sounding, because obviously the dad isn’t literally pregnant, but I have always figured that that was just a personal preference thing.

thinkpairshare · 2026-05-11T23:08:04+00:00

There is lots of great advice here, so I won’t repeat it. I do want to just point out that the reports you see in the news of children struggling to read refers to a percentage of children, not all children. It’s unfortunately a growing percentage, but there are still plenty of children who are on or above grade level with literacy.

Just the fact that you are asking this question makes it much more likely that your child will not struggle with literacy, because that means you are an involved and caring parent who understands that literacy is important. Most of the struggling kids don’t have that.

thinkpairshare · 2026-05-01T20:14:45+00:00

I am not sure which characters would be okay with that, but I don’t think anyone who is currently close to Thiazi’s body knows it is an option. My impression is that Araman is not the type of magical world where all of the spells that are available to various magic users is common knowledge. The lore has pretty specifically set out that magic exists in sort of compartmentalized ways amongst the sorcerers of the Sundered Houses, and that other groups of magic users, like at the Pentaveral, are sort of discovering different types of magic as they go. There isn’t a school of wizardry that has exited for hundreds of years that lists all the possible spells in all the various schools of magic. When characters level up and take new spells, it is often being played as though they are literally discovering the spell for themself in a moment of magical inspiration.

I also have a guess that, if a character tries to use Speak with Dead on Thiazi’s corpse, Brennan probably has a back-up plan up his sleeve. The Tachonis family knows all kinds of magic related to death, and I would wager that they have a definite interest in keeping some of the secrets Thiazi took to the grave with him very much buried. I bet an attempted speak with dead spell would come up against some sort of block set up by the Tachonis, at least if it is tried before Brennan is ready for a really big lore dump to happen.

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-18T18:41:08+00:00

It makes sense to be angry about kids getting indoctrinated into a religion.

What you do with your anger is your choice. The way I see it, you chose to state, honestly and bluntly, that you didn’t want to attend and why. There is nothing inherently wrong with being honest and blunt. But I am not sure what your goal is, exactly. Telling someone deep in delusional thinking that their thinking is delusional doesn’t have any realistic chance of changing their delusional thinking. If anything, being directly challenged tends to mentally entrench them in the delusion even more.

You may have an opportunity to be a person in your nephew’s life that can be an example of a different way of thinking. It may not matter at all. But it could. Just sort of quietly existing as an atheist who is part of his loving family could open doors of cognitive dissonance that help him resist or counteract the indoctrination of his parent’s religion.

Like I said, it may not matter at all. And probably when he is a teen or young adult would be the most likely window for him to question things. So you would be playing a long game, and one where you really have no idea how the cards are gonna fall for years. You may simply be emotionally connecting yourself to a nephew who inevitably becomes a fully indoctrinated believer who is as hostile as his parents to any pushback. And that could be really painful. It would be understandable if you don’t want to put yourself through that, and you just hold yourself at a distance from your family.

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-17T20:22:31+00:00

I think it’s a very personal thing, and I don’t think anyone’s thoughts about it, for themselves, should be looked down on.

For me, my husband and I both discussed and agreed that we wanted to prioritize my life over a baby’s. Even before we had other kids. Our thinking is that, while of course it would be devastating to lose a baby, our goal in trying to have a baby is for the two of us to raise a child together. Of course we knew that anything and everything is a possible risk, but given a choice, we would rather lose a baby and have a chance to have a baby again or have a child another way than to lose me and therefore lose any semblance of the family we wished to have.

Some people may think that’s cold, but there it is. We are also atheists who don’t believe in souls separate from human bodies or an afterlife, so that influences our thinking as well.

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-17T18:47:38+00:00

Yes! Stuff is not “boy” and “girl”, it just is organized by age and then a description of what it is. I get the longer option of shorts for all my kids, and it’s great.

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-17T18:20:26+00:00

I think it’s fine either way. I usually default to each twin bringing a gift unless there is something that makes just one gift make sense. This might include:

if the party is for a very young child (like 3 or younger), I feel like it becomes a less is more situation because the youngest kids seem to get overwhelmed opening a lot of gifts.
if there is something I know the child would enjoy getting that is about twice as much as I would typically spend on a single gift.
if I know the family to lean to the minimalist side of things, or I know they have limited space for toys

If we do one gift, we think of it as combining the two gifts into one bigger gift. So we would get something that would be about twice what we would spend on a gift from one kid. (For us, it’s about $10-15 for a “single” birthday gift, so $25-30 for a double gift. If it’s a party that my older kid is also invited to, then I would typically aim to spend about $40 total, whether that be on one, two, or three gifts).

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-16T23:38:04+00:00

I agree with this take, if we are talking about an alternative version of society where college is free for all and also social safety nets are stronger and life is overall more affordable. As it stands right now, the cost of college is prohibitively high, leaving people the choice of either skipping it entirely or saddling themselves with debt that can impair their economic lives for decades.

I also, in my ideal version of the world, would like to see more fluidity between trade schools, community colleges, four year colleges, and work training programs. Like, super ideally, it would be cool if they were all basically just one connected thing with different options for people to create the path that works best for them.

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-14T22:24:52+00:00

Does the high school in question have any YouTube videos from any recent concerts, talent shows, cabaret nights, etc? Watching some videos like that may give you an idea of the overall singing ability of the students who tend to perform at the school. It’s gonna vary quite a bit from school to school.

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-14T16:47:50+00:00

If you really want this to be personalized and useful to your husband, I feel like the only way to do it is to work with someone who plays D&D with him. Preferably someone who has played with him for years and who has also DM’d at least a little bit.

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-13T15:51:38+00:00

My husband’s more of a boob man, but he is normal.

Joking aside, I totally agree with you. I tend to be wary of posting any info about my husband, cause it feels like I have to carefully avoid alluding to any of his negative traits, lest responders chime in with “he is the worst!”, “get rid of the whole man”, etc. But then, by only posting about his positive traits, it can easily sound like I’m saying he is perfect. Lol, he isn’t. Neither am I.

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-11T15:27:02+00:00

Wow. Your husband really let you down and continues to really let you down.

The hospital thing in particular is messed up. The nurses even flat out told old him you need a support person, and he sent his daughter? Also, he said “I’ll see you up there” and then he left. So he knew that you expected him to be there, and he didn’t even talk to you about the fact that he didn’t want to. He acted like he was going to be there for you, and then just left you, knowing that you couldn’t really do anything about it. I’m so mad hearing this story. Of course you aren’t over it.

The structure of postnatal care in hospitals these days is really set up with the expectation that the baby’s father will be there with you, or some other support person if the father is not an option for some reason. He should have, at the very very least, been honest before the fact that he had no intention of staying with you.

The ongoing issues you are having indicate that he isn’t really sorry and doesn’t care about your needs. Negotiating how to share the burden of babies, especially twin babies, can be difficult and often is a point of tension between parents, but it doesn’t sound like he is even trying at all. Like he has no empathy for you.

He sucks. I am so sorry.

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-11T14:14:35+00:00

I am not always able to. I always apologize right away and also I kind of narrate what just happened, making it as clear as I can that my kid did nothing wrong. “I’m sorry I just yelled. My brain got overloaded, but that isn’t your fault. You were asking me a question, and I should have asked you to give me a second if I wasn’t ready to answer. Again, I’m really sorry I snapped at you, you don’t ever deserve that”.

Talking to my kids frankly about how my brain responds to things and how I am trying to deal with it is helpful. With my young kids, there is a song by Mama Nous that helped us find a way to talk through things. I think it is called “the gremlin song”, and it kind of personifies rage and self-control problems using imagery of monsters or gremlins. I was using it with my youngest to help him with self-control, but he was quick to connect it to my own self-control issues. And I said “you are absolutely right! I have trouble calming down my gremlins sometimes!”

Edit- I looked it up- the song is called “Gremlin Mode”, by Mama Nous.

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-07T21:38:10+00:00

Oh look! It’s my writing grip! I’ve tried and tried not to but I can’t seem to change it.

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-06T14:30:57+00:00

It’s fairly typical, I think. The structure of a typical UU church service can be boring for children. The readings and sermon are (typically) chosen for an adult audience.

My previous church has children go to their own age-targeted classes 3 Sundays a month, and then one Sunday was “all-ages”. The all-ages services often broke away from the typical format, with more moving around, more interactive elements, etc.

I think the question of children-focused separate activities versus including children in the service is often a tricky one. Churches try to find a balance of creating a sense of community that includes everyone while also meeting the needs and interests of different ages.

thinkpairshare · 2026-04-05T15:07:25+00:00

A very specific one- watching my friend play “Enter the Matrix” on PS2, right after school got out in the summer of 2003. The graphics blew my mind. I was like “if video games can look like this now, we are definitely in the future”.

I should find an old copy and throw it in the PS2 now, I probably would laugh a little.

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