Backroads

One of these days I should relate to you the saga of Ms. PhD living in government housing with her "this is never how I would allow one of my employees to do a 2nd grade math concept!"

Ooh, this is a good question. Most of the ones I'd be likely to complain and vent about are the ones I view to have chips on their shoulders. Oh, you crazies who expect too much from the opposite camp. But I also think there's a lot of legitimate philosophical differences in how to approach school where people are determined to get their views heard. People are frustrated.

That's exactly what needs to happen.

In fairness, a good number of teachers in my circle (colleagues plus others) tend to blame parents for a lot of youth issues even as parents blame teachers when there's likely destructive forces outside either realm.

In theory I'm with you, but I honestly don't know how to make that happen beyond the obviously bad teachers. I think @Traveler has some good ideas, but even then I can think of too many exceptions (we'd have to scrap IDEA and other laws to even start). I fear the complexity would be a hard road to travel. And I don't mean to mean this defend-the-teachers, just that this is another thing I see parents getting up in arms about, plus the number of administrators needed to arrange and implement all these standards.

Ooh, I definitely see mob mentality happening. I believe that the minor years are a nice time to, if one must, make all the mistakes without major consequences. But recordings could affect it.

I think that's something kids would adjust to. The question is if we are okay with them being watched Big Brother style.

We had it as part of a fireside event at Scout camp. Same program for years. I love it. I associate it with trying to get my guys organized as we manuevered canoes, tiki torches, and worked with the flaming arrow people.

I tagged along to the Taylor Swift concert movie. I owned like two of her early albums, but pretty much ignored her over the past decade. I admit I get the appeal. This past week I discovered I may like Pink.

Apparently they have to turn on some sort of machine and technically it leads to some building on said planet.

I discovered one I admittedly haven't finished yet, but my husband did and says it's awesome, despite being cancelled after the first season. Night Sky. Sissy Spacek and J. K. Simmons happen to have a tunnel in their shed that leads to another planet. And there's weird cultish secret societies and the tragic realities of aging.

Ooh, look who's fancy and snobbish with media.

Ooh, look who's fancy and snobbish with media.

I can't recall when I got bored. There was a lot of loyalty/habit going on with that show.

Oh, I very much agree with this. It's getting pretty common to pretty much ignore the homemaking/child-rearing side of things because what if the marriage implodes? Got to be ready! And sure, it's good to be prepared, but the paranoia is unreal.

I have a friend who does work part-time outside of the home, but I don't think she has a full set of outside the house skills. What they do have, and it isn't the worst option (particularly in their case where she is very much also the homemaker and homeschooling the kids as well) is a rather complex financial plan with a lot of stuff just in her name so that if he dies or runs off she has enough to pay for everything including a training/school plan for a number of years to get herself into the workforce. Hopefully it won't happen as her husband is in good health, knock on wood, and is the quintissential devoted husband and family man, but it's there. I really don't get not having a plan.

I'm at the point of my life where I don't like much of the social scene. I like the comfort of a purchased home with my name on the paperwork and a legal marriage and kids and the friends I have. I think I look pretty darn good (though I'm currently pregnant enough to have the construction workers on the street outside of my house bending to my every whim: they will literally move entire trucks for me in fear I will pass out on the sidewalk from walking) but the friends with benefits is something that can potentially only work so long before I believe most people want a lot more.

I can count on one hand the number of wives I know what are honestly doing nothing but the traditional stay-at-home stuff. I get to be the WFH mom (with the best/worst of both worlds?) and that's no longer uncommon. I recently became privy to just why a relative with a humongous fancy house had an online job (apparently they can't afford the humongous fancy house). I know a lot of women doing part-time work, or selling their wares, and a couple of ladies working the small urban farm for actual profit. My YouTuber brother keeps threatening to quit his church office job and his wife (one of those few people I know just being a wife/mom/homemaker) isn't quite ready for what that will do to their reasonably comfortable lifestyle. I've heard lore than in the early 20th century, a surprising amount of Relief Society stuff was focused on helping to generate a household income. I think there's a big difference between nurturing the home while the man works for the majority/all of the support and being absolutely financially useless, if that's not too harsh to say.

The other day I saw this hilarious comic strip of two people very pessimistic about their relationship, bemoaning the frailty of relationships and how commitments never work out. Each panel moved from meeting to dating to marriage to some illness, all the while bemoaning how people never stay together and their relationship will fail, with the last panel showing them still together as gloomy old people. Just... commit. Try it out. You might be surprised. On a philosophical level, I suppose I can get behind the idea of a lifelong commitment without the legal paperwork of marriage, but it's still that, a commitment. And I strongly believe you should not be bringing kids into this world if you don't think of yourself as committed for the long haul.

I don't know if this is new, per say, but my internet algorithm keeps throwing stuff at me for some reason about the rise of the stay-at-home girlfriend lifestyle. Now, while I realize that the housewife/homemaker stereotype was actually a flash in the pan historically, at least the way we want to picture it and usually the female adult of the house was doing SOMETHING besides watching soaps and eating bon-bons, I do support the general notion of a caretaker of home and children. I think there are many benefits to this: house care, direct and full-tie involvement with children's needs, food prep, errands, even the wild card in the back pocket of having someone a household could theoretically always send to work for money, if needed. But the notions of the stay-at-home girlfriend vs the stay-at-home wife (or, hey, husband, whatever) seem worlds apart and I'd even say a mockery of that traditional type of marriage. On the surface, it seems the same: you have someone caring for the home. Yet is there any commitment or is it just two people playing house? In the current economy, it really is a sacrifice for many to get by on a single income. So what happens when the stay-at-home girlfriend, without the significantly greater commitment (and, let's be honest, legal protection) of marriage, gets dumped? Why would you be in this situation without a real commitment despite the sacrifices? And I realize the ones making it on social media rather do have a job and are getting an income out of this, but what message does it send?

May every jar lid be just slightly too tight.

We're on season 2 and I had forgotten some of the stuff that goes down.

I think I might try this one. As much as I think Schindler is the man for all he did, I can't watch stuff like his titular movie.

This is a rewatch for me, but it cycled back around into another viewing: tv series The Booth at the End. Consists entirely, and I mean entirely, of watching people chat in a diner booth. Guy hangs out there, and people that want something come to him, and he tells them to do things, and they report back. Kind of twisted at times, but really a fun watch if you like character-driven stuff.

I already hear this has been a good career boost for her, and I'm happy for her.