I’m a freaking zig zag as I walk through our neighborhood. There are so many dogs and the invisible fences go right to the sidewalk. A lot of them are really maladjusted pandemic puppies.

I like threads like this one, because usually Reddit thinks you are a subhuman monster if you don’t love dogs as part of your DNA.

I had a bad experience with one in elementary school and I never got the dogs are amazing vibe after that since I was too aware that they could really hurt me if they wanted.

Or golfing. Nice that he is at least at his desk giving us the illusion of productivity.

My favorite part is that he is like a bathroom air freshener.

Probably doing it’s job because I don’t smell shit. Not something I’m actively thinking about most of the time but it’s just there. Still, I appreciate not having shit smell in my face every day anymore.

I want to see him in an episode where he reads his fans thirst tweets.

And the great destabilization brought on by climate refugees.

Chick lit.

I was the girl sneaking Sanderson, Tolkien, and Jordan under my desk at school.

The Texas thing has brought up all these weird memories of my miscarriage at 11 weeks.

I remember I couldn’t even get an appointment with my OB until after 6 weeks with that pregnancy due to wait lists. The only reason they fit me in is because I had continuous bleeding due to what ended up being a massive subchorionic hemorrhage.

At 6 weeks, it felt like they can barely find your fetus on an ultrasound.

Right before I miscarried I was having all of these anxious doctor appointments with specialists, because I was bleeding so much they were worried if it got worse suddenly I’d be in danger. After it was over, I was told it would only have gotten worse and my chances of making it past 26 weeks were slim.

If I had lived in Texas, would my doctor have just been like, “Well, bad luck old chum. Hope this fetus doesn’t kill you and leave your existing child without his mother?”

I keep thinking about it. It’s fucking with my head and my miscarriage was a guilty relief when it finally happened. I like my life. I didn’t want to die even though it was a wanted pregnancy.

I’m a person. I living person who already exists. How is my life worth less than a collection cells?

It reminds me of informing during Nazi Germany. The Gestapo were a fairly small organization compared to the damage they caused. I read somewhere once that something like 40% of denunciations from the public were personally motivated. Like, cheating spouses trying to get them out of the way or neighbors with feuds trying to settle scores.

I can absolutely see some moron accusing his doctor of performing an abortion out of spite because he had to wait too long in the waiting room or something equally stupid.

I would not want to be a doctor in Texas today.

It’s unreal that Google does not have an algorithm to prevent blatant brigading at this point.

I hope every single moderate to liberal woman leaves Texas. There should be a donation fund to help marginalized or low income women flee Texas. We are not their incubators, we’re human beings.

Let all those conservative men go fuck themselves or conservative cunts instead.

I have one child. I don’t agree philosophically that the human race deserves to be destroyed. I want us to persevere and become better. I don’t want Mad Max, I want Star Trek.

I want science, exploration, and betterment for all humankind. I don’t agree with the idea we deserve to go extinct as a species.

My son is a representation of my hope that there will be a future. He brings our lives joy, wonder, and new meaning. I would rather have him exist and apologize to him later if it turns out I was wrong, then never to have given this marvelous little being a chance to exist. If we do fail, and the earth dies, we all will have the choice to opt out of seeing it to the end.

In 7th grade we had our biology section where you dissect worms and frogs for a week. I made a deal with one of my guy friends from elementary school that he could chop away to his hearts content (he was that kid that got pulled out of class for a week for deer season) and I would write up all the assignments.

So, we sat at a table with all of his friends and I was the only girl. Eventually I came around and sliced open some frog and it was gross and cool. I helped all the guys with the write up. All around good time.

On the way back, my friend asks if we can wait for his friends because we’re about to head to gym and in middle school you’re always moving in packs, so I say sure no problem. We’re around the corner, and a group of girls is walking up the main hall. One I had been friends with since kindergarten. They think we are way ahead of them. And I have had what I heard seared into my brain for 20 years now, “Girl 1: Can you believe Probability-Project flirting with all the boys? Girl 2: It’s so embarrassing. She’s not even pretty.”

And then they turn the corner, and we’re all staring at each other. Me, confused and mildly horrified. The girls embarrassed and defensive.

I’m kind of proud of myself because in the moment, I turned to my guy friend and said, “I promise I wasn’t flirting with you.”

And bless him, he turned to me and goes, “I know that, they’re just stupid.” And walks me away from the situation.

I remember asking him why they would say that. And he said some people are just jealous and mean, and I shouldn’t let them change what I want to do.

And that was pretty wise stuff from a 12 year old boy.

It was honestly one of the most excruciating moments from my adolescence, but I look back on it so fondly now because I managed to have some modicum of grace in a weird situation and someone treated me kindly and had my back.

I don’t know if there is a lesson here. But I did bounce back from a bunch of mean girls calling me an ugly, slut. Your daughter is probably more resilient than she knows.

Had to scroll way too far for this. I wonder if her daughter feels what I did when I graduated into the Great Recession. I felt royally eff’d, and that I needed to delay that job market entry as much as possible.

I ended up taking a mom and dad funded post-undergrad gap year to a language school in Europe, which laddered into grad school and a successful career. Having that gap year to rejuvenate and the distance from home really helped me grow-up.

OP should consider her daughter may be feeling the same existential dread except she’s entering into unending pandemic hell with climate and economic warning signs flashing, I.e, the world is on fire and I don’t want to grow up into it, so let’s just procrastinate this however I can.

Covid makes even gap years or teaching abroad difficult. A ton of my friends got their shit together via Peace Corp, Teach for America or teaching English in SK/Japan. Being 22 yo is just a number. It’s not some magical adulthood threshold.

Lastly, it bothered me when OP wrote comparatively about how amazing and stand-up the younger brother is. I’m skeptical the daughter doesn’t pick up on it. I’m assuming the husband must pick up on it too, or he wouldn’t be opposing her and defending the daughter as much as he does. I hope OP checks her internal biases and make sure they’re not leaking, because comparative parenting can really fuck a kid up. Every kid is different.

Same. As long as I’m keeping racist, ableist, xenophobic, etc language out of his vocabulary that’s my line in the sand. He doesn’t hear that shit at home, but I can’t control other people not in our family.

He’s two. It was hard to keep a straight face the first time he mimicked in perfect replication his dad’s exasperated “Oh fuck!” We didn’t comment on it, and he moved on to other things.

Anything that helped my kid sleep.

Sleep sacks, baby Bjorne chairs/swings (only while supervised), white noise soundtracks...

The first year of his life probably took a year off of the end of ours due to extreme chronic sleep deprivation. Some babies are just bad sleepers. It sucked.

Robin Williams.

My toddler calls my best friend Auntie X and her husband Uncle X. Her kids also call us Auntie/Uncle (all under age 5).

I’m an only child though, and she is my most important person outside of my immediate family. I know a lot of people hate fake family titles. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy the first time her kid called me that though.

r/WitchesVsPatriarchy has been absolutely destroying that website for days.

Destroying it.

I’m so grateful to everyone who is deciding to get vaccinated now. Every vaccinated person is one step closer to a better quality of life for us all.

However you arrived at your decision to get vaccinated, thank you.

I loved that show, too! I feel like that drama is the first example I can come up with now where “second lead” wins.

I liked the idea that you can choose love with your head and your heart may follow.

I recently read about the Dutch guys who are doing fish aquaponics with Koi.

I think it is the only hopeful thing I’ve read in the past two weeks, and now I can’t find the article.

I feel like you hit the nail on the head that most Americans see 4°C temperature change and don’t realize how bad it is, because we live in stupid imperial system land.

0°C = 32°F 5°C = 41°F

So, it’s around 7°F temp increase? I’m not confident in my answer, though. I am a product of the American education system.

Oh. Didn’t expect for an innocent little bar chart to be the voice of doom about the end of life as we know if we’re lucky and the extinction of the species if we’re not.

That is... just fucked. I feel like I just got punched in the stomach.

I sat here for a minute trying to remember why a man screaming, “You were supposed to be the best of us!!” popped into my head.

Thank you, Obi-Wan Kenobi.