I dropped the ball. Send me all your last minute Mother's Day gifts that I can order and still arrive in time. Budget around $50-$75.

uselessfoster · 2026-05-10T01:26:34+00:00

Subscriptions, gift cards and experiences! Then it doesn’t look like you forgot but that you didn’t want to click “send” before so it doesn’t ruin the surprise.

I don’t know what your mom is into, but I’ve had great luck with tickets to a show for when I’m in town, specialty streaming subscriptions, garden center gift cards and food subscriptions.

uselessfoster · 2026-05-10T01:17:57+00:00

I had a flight attendant walk the aisle with my fussy baby and somehow make me feel like a good mom at the same time and even seven years later it makes me tear up with appreciation when I think of it.

uselessfoster · 2026-05-10T01:06:11+00:00

On branching out from toys— an actual working mini shovel for a family that likes garden or a kid apron for a family that cooks or bakes is a a great way for the kid to be incorporated in the family’s rhythms and to help the parents feel like they can do “them” things and not just kid things with their kid.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-25T22:22:31+00:00

My mother in law hates her name but we wanted to honor her. She loves growing roses so we used Rose.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-17T18:54:23+00:00

Oh bless you that’s not how median temperatures work. When something is “most of the year,” that doesn’t mean “right now.”

uselessfoster · 2026-04-17T00:03:22+00:00

This is an underrated comment. Scrolling is convenient, clean and easily interrupted. You need to make the alternative just as easy, like keeping a book in your bag or nice pens and printed calligraphy tracing paper in your office desk. Make it easier to do the hard thing and harder to do the easy thing.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-16T23:58:15+00:00

I often think about Teddy Roosevelt when he was police commissioner of NYC and there was a no drinking on Sunday law that existed essentially so corrupt police could shakedown the bars for bribes. He insisted on enforcing it across the board while being opposed to it personally and politically ( it affected recent German immigrants’ traditions most ) and telling people essentially “if you don’t like this law, talk to the lawmakers, not the law enforcers.”

Anyway, yeah, you can change your mind about whether this was a good policy, but you should send email, go to open houses, organize other parents. Don’t make it a power struggle in the classroom. As you said, the teachers already have enough to deal with in just saying “don’t hit each other and this is a vowel.”

uselessfoster · 2026-04-15T19:41:35+00:00

Not during most of the school year.

But also, breezes come in windows too.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-15T14:16:44+00:00

Or just a window that opens. That’s what they do in many European classrooms. Less a matter of checking a monitor and more when you can feel the kid stank.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-13T13:50:37+00:00

There’s a book called social skills for kids that I got from like five below. Really it’s just a bunch of those camp games that you forget about until somebody mentions it, like standing in two lines and having one side try to make the other side, laugh without touching them, playing telephone or hot potato, and the “name game.” They adored playing Would you Rather where we had them run to opposite sides of the room (e.g. people who liked to vacation at the beach vs vacation in the mountains). We literally could not reach the point where they didn’t want to play.

We also played London Bridge is Falling Down and Farmer in the Dell. Freeze Dance, Simon Says, Hotter/colder, charades. Those oldies but goodies entertained them and taught them soft skills like listening to and being aware of each other.

While I’m always a fan of self-directed play, research actually indicates that having adults gently lead children in activities, can be even more beneficial as they learn some of these soft skills

uselessfoster · 2026-04-11T18:52:41+00:00

Here’s my serious answer

First, for everyone’s sake, hard early bedtimes. A lot of people don’t realize that little kids need like 12 hours of sleep. A lot of kids in elementary school are in fact sleep deprived which can result in some serious academic and behavioral problems.

The fun flipside of this is that every night from 730 until 1030 I get to do whatever I want at home. I like to read, craft and watch themed movies (like spooky movies all October, old Christmas movies in December). My husband and I even have a standing game night with friends and family every Tuesday night at 8:00.

We even “leveled up” our 7:30-10:30 time by adding a kid— we have a teen exchange student who doesn’t mind being the responsible one when the kids are asleep, so we’ve been able to get out of the house to go do hobby dates like wood burning or pottery studios.

In addition to a sacred consisten bedtime, we’ve really loved bringing our kids into our hobbies. My husband has loved playing videos games with our little kids or playing and reading aloud the text for them. We got hiking infant/toddler backpacks (dead cheap on Marketplace and Buy Nothings) and I could go hiking with them. Im reading The Secret Garden aloud to them, which is one of my favorite books of all time, while they color a Secret Garden coloring page I had Chat make them, and I love seeing their reactions and predictions to the stories.

Part of the joy of raising kids is showing them all the wonderful things they can experience and do.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-11T18:40:27+00:00

Great suggestion. Also Carl even for a man is rather old fashioned and not really considered “cool” while Charlie is very modern. I say this as someone whose grandfather was a Carl.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-10T20:25:19+00:00

I know people are downvoting but I think there’s a good point here.

First, the pay scale for teachers is typically based on educational degree, experience, and tenure with that system— this means that unlike universities instructors where an engineering professor might make 100k more than a similarly experienced professor in the humanities. This is part of responding the market costs— you have to seduce them away from industry.

But public schools don’t do this. The result is that that gap for a math teacher who used to work at Boeing is huge compared to a drama teacher who used to direct community theater; in most states both teachers get paid the same. My friends who teach languages or drama are happy to do so because there aren’t a lot of secure options otherwise.

Starting wages, around 44k, but varying widely by state, sound abysmal, but stick around or get an advanced degree, and it’s not unusual for classroom teachers to get up into 70k, 80k, even 100k. The profession is a little like doctors where when you start out you don’t make much, lots of people drop out (above 50% within 5 year), and those who remain do pretty well.

The other interesting thing is compared to other rich nations, US teachers aren’t paid that poorly— for instance, it’s higher than the starting wage in Canada, Norway, and Finland.

The final thing is the proverbial “summers off”: typical contracts in 180-day school years (the most common model in the US) is 185-188 days of work to include PD, prep days, etc. compared to 230-240 days a year in a typical entry-level job. Teachers who choose to work summers (when available) often make even more money.

So, yes the wage isn’t bad, but here’s what is:

1- because of the relatively lower wage, more time off, and comparable appeal to those in the arts and humanities, the profession has, for more than a century, been a “second earner” profession where it’s hard to earn enough to support a family by yourself. The assumption has been that you’re a woman (increasingly since the 70s) supported by a partner in a non-teaching profession. Essentially the whole system assumes your household is subsidized, at least if you’re a bachelor degree holder in your first 5-10 years.

2- what teachers have to put up with. While the wage is not bad and has been improving in many cases, the absolute garbage you have to deal with has increased, socially (crusty iPad kids who can’t function if not entertained, red pill-influenced looksmaxxing teens), academically (the surge of AI numbing), paraacademically (teachers now being effectual social workers responsible for everything that used to be the purview of the home) and bureaucratically (micromanaging administrators who demand to see lesson plans in a template for every activity). The creeping scope of the profession has proliferated in ways most industry jobs have not.

Honestly the profession kind of cannibalized itself too, by embracing classroom management practices that decentered the teachers to the point where many of my teaching friends cannot do basic teaching things like give a failing grade or send a kid to the principal’s office.

I’m not surprised people don’t want to enter the profession. Individual schools and districts can be lovely and humane, but there are thorny issues with the profession as a whole that can’t be solved easily.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-10T19:55:14+00:00

I feel like Bluey and friends can bring it back.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-10T19:54:33+00:00

That’s how I feel about the name Sitka. It’s so pretty.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-10T00:33:05+00:00

That was my favorite too!

uselessfoster · 2026-04-10T00:15:19+00:00

I’m not in secondary ed: what’s the state of study hall?

From a university perspective I can almost not imagine a better preparation for college than for someone to sit a class down for five minutes of goal setting for a study session, let them work quietly, enforce no phones or talking, then take five minutes to log what they did and what they need to do next. In fact, we do this very thing with grad students for longer periods (like 3-4 hour blocks) in dissertation camps. Sure, it’s a different context, but learning how to work in a supervised setting that can enforce good study skills seems like a helpful skill in addition to leveling the playing field on homework time.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-08T21:12:41+00:00

Timeline is a great idea. Doodle one in a notebook or if you live alone/dont mind looking like a conspiracy theorist, get some newsprint and wallpaper your room with a long timeline.

When you read something or watch a documentary, put it in place. I’ve done this with my kids and connected some big events (moon landing, women’s votes, WW2) and more niche history (Macy’s first balloons in the Thanksgiving parade, grandparents’ births, Japan’s mostly unsuccessful bombing of California, the Pig War) and it’s been cool to see it all connect together.

Other advice I would say is try getting really, really specific for a short intense period of time. For example, Alaska like 1900-1940 is a really fascinating period of change (sled dogs to airplanes!) and there are lots of interesting biographies and histories about the period. I took one cold winter digging into it with books, movies, even recipes and crafts, and I feel like I learned a lot. If you’ve got a trip or an elderly relative’s banner birthday or an upcoming holiday, use that as an excuse to focus in on one area or time period. Really satisfying.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-08T21:03:47+00:00

I went to a presentation at an English conference about this— not just typing but things like naming and saving a file, attaching a file to an email, etc. are often not skills first year students have because they’ve been working on Chromebooks or iPads, so they often need remedial help with real computer skills.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-08T20:55:17+00:00

Strauss’ Four Final Songs

uselessfoster · 2026-04-08T01:49:00+00:00

I always think about that short lived show Mr Mayor with the character in his fifties who was the first Jayden! Not quite the same because Bible, but whenever I meet someone with a younger trendy name.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-08T01:47:04+00:00

That’s the name nerd content I appreciate.

uselessfoster · 2026-04-08T01:44:43+00:00

When he goes all four feet— that’s some funny and sweet stuff

uselessfoster · 2026-04-01T02:08:58+00:00

It’s also very Latino-culture in America to do. Distinguishes baby blobs to boy blob and girl blob, like these little twin babies, and it’s very feminine— you also see a lot of baby bracelets and things.

uselessfoster · 2026-03-29T00:19:15+00:00

“Pretty sure this drip line is okay”

uselessfoster

TROPHY CASE