Wednesday’s Workwear Report: Ashby Jacket
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
I was psyched when Kat pointed out that Nordstrom is now carrying Saint + Sofia online. (NB: The items ship directly from the brand, so there's only a 90-day return window instead of Nordstrom’s more generous policy.) I’ve had good luck with some workwear basics from the brand in the past, and this jacket might be the latest addition to my collection.
I feel like I’m constantly pushing blazer sleeves out of my way, so I love a bracelet sleeve, and the beautiful pale blue color will go nicely with so many neutrals.
The jacket is $249 at Nordstrom and comes in sizes 2-18. It also comes in cream and a black-and-white pattern.
For something more affordable, try this jacket from Tahari ASL: straight sizes ($111 on sale at Nordstrom) and plus sizes ($159 full price at Nordstrom).
Looking for more pieces along these lines? Some of our latest favorite Chanel-style jackets for work in 2025 include these, but in general check more jacket-y options like Chanel, IRO, L'Agence, and Veronica Beard, as well as more sweater-y options like St. John, and ba&sh. J.Crew and Nic & Zoe offer a bunch of both kinds, in regular and plus sizes. On the budget side of things, check out CeCe, Tuckernuck (XXS-XXL), J.Crew Factory, and Mango. (Also check out our roundup of the best lady jackets for work!) Nordstrom has a bunch in all price points!
Sales of note for 6/30/25:
- Nordstrom – 2,700+ new markdowns for women — and the Anniversary Sale preview has started!
- Ann Taylor – 40% off your purchase, including new arrivals + summer steals $39+
- Athleta – Semi-Annual Sale: up to 70% off
- Banana Republic Factory – July Fourth Event, 50-70% off everything + extra 20% off
- Boden – Sale up to 60% off
- Eloquii – $19+ select styles + extra 50% off all sale
- J.Crew – End of season sale, extra 60% off sale styles + up to 40% off select cashmere
- J.Crew Factory – All-Star Sale, 40-70% off entire site and storewide and extra 60% off clearance
- M.M.LaFleur – Sitewide Sale, save 25% with code — 48 hours only! Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
- Rothy's – Up to 50% off seasonal faves, plus new penny loafers and slingbacks
- Spanx – Free shipping on everything
- Talbots – 40% off entire purchase, includes all markdowns (ends 7/3)
I feel like the clothes in my front load washer aren’t getting that wet. Everything is cleaned and smells fresh when I take it out, and the clothes are damp, but they’re not actually wet. Is this expected?
What’s your spin setting? A really effective spin will get the water out (but can be harsh on your clothes).
Ooh just checked and its on high. That could totally be it.
For non-delicate items, I suspect a high-speed spin causes less wear than the extra dryer time that would be required after a slower spin cycle.
This happened to me and it turned out the filling hose inside the washer had developed a hole in it. Oops. We replaced it and it happened again. I found lots of people on the internet with this issue so maybe it is a design flaw with our LG washer. Check underneath to see if you have a leak.
I always add the soak cycle to my front loader. I find things get much cleaner that way.
I have not managed my finances at all the last three ywars. I am mid30s, old enough to know better, but everything is in disarray. I need to stop spending on food and entertainment and reign it way in. Any success stories or tips?
A lot of people do “no buy July.” Check out r/nobuy on Reddit. This might be a good reset while you’re sorting through a budget etc.
/r/personalfinance was helpful for me.
A lot of my friends love Copilot, but I find it too fiddly.
Do you have the basics set up – auto contributing to 401k and some % to savings each month? I find the easiest thing to do is to not see the money in the first place, so to split my paycheck and send some to savings. Then I can do whatever I want (within reason) with what’s in checking.
Do you have an idea of how much spending you’re doing per month? Pull your credit card statements and go through them. The credit card sites have simple budget trackers which should help. If not copilot will do this too but it requires some set up.
I like to do little goals! I order too much delivery sometimes and it’s so expensive so for example, this July I am not ordering delivery at all. Take out that I walk to get is fine, restaurants are fine, but zero delivery. And then I plan for success with that by having frozen pizza in the fridge as a back up. For entertainment, I like to make seasonal goal lists. So for July I want to go to a lake, which is a $10 state park fee, I want to spend lots of time at the pool (free), see fireworks, free, go for at least one nice walk in nature, and see a museum exhibit. When I plan and schedule free or cheap things first I’m less drawn to expensive entertainment to fill a void.
No. Keep yourself busy. Can you get a second job or a volunteer commitment? I spend more when I have less to do.
I successfully did a low-buy January and February earlier this year after I realized my holiday spending had gotten out of hand. I started to manually track every purchase in a spreadsheet, because while it’s nice when apps do the math for you, it wasn’t really registering in my brain that I was spending a lot on discretionary items. So I limited myself to only getting takeout 5 times a month, and only making purchases including groceries on weekends. I also made a list of things I wanted to buy, like refills of skincare items, and told myself I couldn’t buy any until the summer sales came. I also use a habit tracker app to keep myself accountable.
Now that it’s summer it’s a lot harder to restrict my spending because I do want to spend time with friends doing fun things and sometimes that does require bending my low-buy rules, like buying groceries during the weekdays for a weekend potluck. But I’m still manually tracking every purchase and working on being overall more mindful of my spending. Last two years I averaged about $1500 a year on going to shows and museums and art things, this year I’ve only spent $500 so far.
Before you make a purchase, think about how much suffering (i.e., work) went into getting the money to buy that thing you are about to buy and whether it is worth it. Many would-be purchases do not pass this test.
Consider waiting a day or a week before making a purchase. If you still have the desire to purchase, that one may be ok.
If you have a fair amount of money but are reckless with spending it, ultimately the adage of “you can have anything but not everything” comes into play. Pick the things you want to spend your money on and jettison the rest that you really don’t want or need.
This “what do I really want” also comes into play for me, even though I don’t have a fair amount of money. I’m going to spend $x on groceries every week: what do I REALLY want to use that amount for? What’s not as important to me? If I make sure to get what I really want in the cart first, I often end up eating well but spending less, because I’m not spending on “just so so” sorts of foods/drinks that I’m in the habit of having around. Same goes for
On the topic of “what do I really want:” For a while I did “I can put anything I want in my online shopping cart, but I can only click ‘buy’ on the weekend.” It really worked well because most of the time I was out of the mood before the weekend rolled around.
Echoing the rec for r/personalfinance.
You need a budget – a statement of your priorities and obligations. A budget doesn’t mean no spending, it means you are spending on the things that matter to you, within your means. Figure out your fixed expenses (housing, utilities, transportation, insurance, groceries) and discretionary (entertainment, eating out, travel, subscriptions, clothing, savings %, everything else). Allocate money for each. And — the most important thing – when you hit the limit of a discretionary category? STOP SPENDING for the month. It’s uncomfortable to tell yourself no but remember that you have set your priorities, this is just acting them out.
I really like YNAB, because it makes it easy to see how much is left in each category, and to move money between categories if something comes up. It has a high learning curve but I have found deep value in using it regularly. But any program (even a basic excel spreadsheet) will work.
And be patient with yourself. It can take several months to really dial in a budget, and deal with unexpected expenses. You got this!
One tip that works for me: go cash-only for discretionary spending to reset habits.
If I have a set amount of cash available each week or month, I am much more frugal. I am perfectly capable of budgeting and disciplining myself to stick to my means; cash makes my spending that much more visible so I am not inclined to go overboard.
Well, after the election I was so mad at all our corporate overlords that I decided I would go as low-buy as possible as a kind of F you to that!
I know that me doing that doesn’t really affect their bottom line that much, but when I thought about buying something I didn’t really need, I’d think to myself, F you, Target or Bezos or whoever! You’re not getting my money!
This isn’t really a financial strategy, but it did help me curb my spending. Then I got used to seeing the dollars accumulate, and while I spend more than I did earlier in the year, I spend less than I routinely did.
I LOVE YNAB. I was in the same place as you, at the exact same age even. This is the only thing that helped me understand exactly where my money is going. Highly, highly recommend. It is paid, but it’s worth every penny for me.
I DIY’d an envelope-based budget with an Excel spreadsheet. No cost, no privacy concerns.
My financial planner advised me to align my spending to my values. Not focus on not spending money specifically but making sure I’m spending it on the things that mean something to me. A lot of people can’t stick to strict budgeting rules like not spending. But you can say I value eating out with friends so I’m going to allocate x amount a month to that. You can put in a separate fund, you can use a budgeting app, etc. whatever works for you. I started by putting everything I was spending money on in a spreadsheet. I could see I was paying for subscriptions I didn’t use. I was ordering takeout instead of grocery shopping, etc. Making small changes helped me redirect spending and it was a long term change not a good vs bad mindset.
My rule: would I pay three times the price for it? If yes, then I probably buy it. If not, the money is better off saved (where it’ll eventually be worth 3x).
My brain has never worked well with actual budgets. So this is a little unconventional, but sharing what’s worked for me–
First, I realized even though I never kept a balance on any cards, I was definitely floating things and didn’t have a clear picture of how much money I actually had. I ended up canceling or locking my credit cards and becoming a debit card person. Then, I made a second checking account and changed my direct deposit so that a fixed amount goes to my bills/fixed costs account, and the leftover goes to a flow account. I only carry the debit card for the flow account and the dollar amount in that account is the only thing I have to pay attention to. Once that money’s depleted, I can’t spend anything else until I get paid again.
This has actually been working really well for me and my ADHD brain. When the flow money is gone before payday, it’s incentivizing me to do better next time, and not let myself wiggle out of the discomfort by just pulling out a credit card.
I am not good at budgets. What I do is make sure enough is being taken out to cover my taxes, set up a set amount to be automatically sent to savings, and set a goal for spending in my dangerous categories: clothing and dining. I give myself an amount I can spend each month on those and then it’s a fun game to make it work.
Good morning. Random question for everyone. I’m toying with buying a profitable franchise business from my parents . The day to day is pretty hands off for a small business. The long time manager (also a family member) handles most of it. My mom basically buys product, communicates with corporate, and counts money on Sunday mornings and goes to the bank on Monday. My parents are selling this as a step towards less time working and more time with my family. I have a full time remote legal job with a big company that I’m basically jamming into part time hours already. Do you think I could pull off both? I’m well liked at work and established in my industry. We have the money to buy them out. It feels like I could double my income with a few hours of weekly work, and have a viable off ramp at retirement. I’m in my 40s with young kids. I’m worried about the ethical and technical obligations to disclose it to my employer. I also see big picture opportunities for owning more stores and making bigger money , however my parents never had that vision.
Talk to us about this long-time manager/family member. What’s your relationship with this person, and how does this person view you? What’s the plan if he/she leaves?
This! If family member ever decides to quit – you could be stuck doing all the work they do.
speaking as someone who regrets working with family… watch out for this. you guys need to sit down and have an explicit discussion about notice for quitting, what she expects if anything when she leaves (pension?), etc. work expectations (which should come from your parents so you’re only putting on paper what is already happening).
First, if you are W2, read your employee handbook. A lot may be allowed but it may something to disclose or note for ethical conflict checking. I’m in BigLaw and since I was a W2 and now K1 worker have done a rental property, an investment in an LLC, and part owning our family’s farm with my uncles. What helps is that I devote almost no time to these and am still a .75 FTE at the firm. IDK what you plan to just own vs invest substantial time in but it could work.
What’s your plan for if the manager retires or quits? Are they expecting to be able to buy the location, since that them quitting is likely?
As you have described it, it probably would be less than 10 hours a week. So the question is whether you can and want to find 10 hours a week to do this. But my big concerns would be whether my parents accurately describe the work and what happens when that manager leaves.
Thanks. Yes I need to look into whether the place will need more work than they say. Fwiw my mom traditionally went on vacation for six weeks per year and they did just fine without her so I do think it is on some degree of autopilot. I do worry about the manager quitting but it’s my understanding that she makes very good money for what she does. Basically she makes my lawyer salary but without the same benefits. She’s not in the position to buy the business, although she might hope my mom and dad give it to her. That seems kind of far fetched since they’re looking to sell it, not give it away. It did cost real money to buy the franchise and I think they want that back. There are other franchisees in the area so I imagine if I don’t buy it they’ll try to sell to them.
What’s your plan for what you’d do if this manager reacts badly to finding out your parents are selling, aren’t benefiting her years of faithful hard work in any way, and that she would now be working for you?
Again, she’s well compensated. She could quit but I’d have the money to hire someone else or do it myself and basically replace my existing salary ( but not benefits). I add she’s well compensated because while it would be a set back to lose her, I think
think the fact that the business model works while paying her very well means it would be possible to find another manager. There are a lot of businesses that only work because a dedicated family member is under paid and this isn’t that. I don’t discount spite, but I think she’d have a harder time finding a new job paying this money than I would finding a new manager. The money is good enough that I’d do it myself. We get along well but we’ve never worked together.
Putting this out there: it’s equally likely not that she quits, but that she starts stealing money from the business. The level of oversight you are describing is exactly the kind of setup that leads to a trusted employee siphoning off funds for years before it is noticed.
Your relative might quit out of spite.
That’s true. Or, more optimally, maybe her husband could finally get his career together and she wouldn’t need to work. But if I had to quit my job and manage the place it would be a different financial situation. I’d be able to pay myself her salary and collect profits, at least until I could hire someone else.
Do you know how to manage the business as well as she does?
Since your whole plan relies on having a solid, reliable manager in place to carry the load, I’d pay lots and lots of attention to how this change will affect her.
She might quit for a host of reasons from health or other external factors to not wanting the new set-up. You need a plan for that. What will you do if demand shifts up or down? What about the stability of suppliers? How are the relationships with the other franchisees? I’d go into this with the same research someone just starting a business is. No offense, but using a six week vacation as your yardstick is the wrong attitude here entirely. And, yes, you need to investigate if this is even allowed with your current employer. I’ve had different policies at several companies but all shared a need to disclose as a condition of employment.
You definitely would need to disclose it to your employer. Ours is super strict about it. I have a hobby that makes me a few hundred bucks a year and even though it happens entirely during non-work hours and has nothing to do with the subject of my work, I still have to recertify it every year and get permission from my boss, grandboss and possibly others and they always give me grief about it. I can’t imagine them approving something like this.
I have a question about how you are already jamming your full-time job into part-time hours. What is that about? Do you have other commitments that are keeping you from performing full-time services? Would adding on franchisee responsibilities be the tipping point at which you have too much on your plate OR your employer cuts you because you are not working enough?
This is my bigger life issue. Remote work kind of made me the default parent. I’m salaried and my work is done and done well. But, I’m not moving up the ladder and my pay raises lag behind sol. I could be fired or laid off, sure. But I’d probably land a similar gig quickly. My husband out earns me more than three times and while I like working, and see no need to quit, we’d be ok without my salary. Still there’s hustle in my life. I don’t make my schedule and some days I scramble or I can’t make something at the kids school because of work. My parents sort of lament this and feel bad for me. They’d like me to have more freedom and ease, which is something they’ve always had. They also think it’s disadvantageous to be a w2 employee vs a small business owner. These are the things I’m thinking about.
Seems like you should buy the business, lay off the manager, and just run the business yourself and enjoy the free time.
How long would it take you to make back what you would pay your parents to buy the business?
If your husband out earns you by 3 times and you could live on just his salary, I would totally do this with the idea that I would be quitting my job as soon as I paid off the business debt. I could then focus on raising the kids or on expanding the business/buying other franchises.
If your plan for success depends entirely on this one employee, I think it’s probably a bad idea.
Especially when that one employee basically runs the whole business but OP has the half baked idea they’re easily replaceable
This screams that the OP is underestimating the savvy and know-how of this business.
Exactly.
Op here. I don’t thinks she’s easily replaceable. But shes not irreplaceable. She hasn’t been the only manager, just for the past few years. Several other people, both family and not family, have successfully performed the role without prior experience and it wasn’t problematic when they left. People coming and going is part of the nature of the business.
I do corporate M&A but not family businesses. My rec is to have a retention bonus for the manager with a lock up period of a year or more, where you can learn the business and she has a carrot that makes her want to stay.
I agree that both depending on this manager to run it and keep it hands off for you, while that manager ultimately being replaceable is hard to reconcile. Also your mom’s time is probably less because she’s efficient and has been doing this a long time, I would expect longer hours as you ramp up like any job. A friend of my DH inherited a business when his dad died, I think they tried the hands off, we have long term employees who can run it thing for awhile, then ended up selling the business to a former partner. I don’t think small businesses run well when the owners are truly not interested and expect them to run themselves.
Having read all your responses OP, I have a question for you: have you managed employees before? Because you wouldn’t just be managing the long time manager, but all of the employees even if you aren’t their direct manager. I would talk to your mom about how involved is she in that aspect: how easy has it been to hire employees? How many have they had to terminate? Does she think she has the right number in place right now?
I also get the sense you actually need to do some due diligence here. Has the business ever been sued or threatened with a lawsuit or investigation? How have local and state inspections gone in the past? How is your mother’s relationship with the insurers? Have you ever met the insurance agent and the business’s accountant and do you get a sense they know what they are doing?
Source: I have family members that own small businesses with employees and physical premises. Theft, accidents, employee problems, and tax audits are all par for the course and crop up unexpectedly. The fact that your description includes none of these as part of owning a business raises a red flag.
Only lawsuits were trip and falls. She’s well insured. My aunt owns the insurance agency next door and is her agent. My mom gets personally upset when she’s sued but they’re well insured. I’m sure it’s expensive.
My mom is frequently frustrated with the corporate management of the franchise but the franchise model is essential to the business and she knows that. The employees are frequently hired and let go; they are part time and mostly students or other young people so it makes sense.
Occasionally people steal and are fired. I know quite a bit just from being around the business for fifteen years since they opened. Weirdly counterfeit bills are a big problem. There are several most mondays and she just eats the costs. Health inspections are nearly flawless and they’re in good standing with the franchise company, who also does inspections. I know the accountant and I’m comfortable with him. He does my taxes as we have other family business. It’s a not that I’m naive here, but I do think a lot of this is baked into small business ownership, which isn’t for everyone and might not be for me, but is at least something I’ve witnessed firsthand. At the end of the day this is a profitable business but not without risks or headaches. Still it might be a wise move for me and my family even if I have to leave my legal job sooner than expected.
Tell me about post-menopausal bleeding. I’m assuming that > 24 hours is sufficient to get on the calendar for next week. Happening out of the blue. On low-dose HRT after OCs for years because of irregular bleeding, so my last natural period was pre-COVId and I’ve just eliminated it via science since then. Ugh.
You need to see a doctor asap. This can be a sign of cancer.
OP here and I know that :)
I just have no lived experience with this and neither do my close girlfriends. I’m on the cancellation list for next week but have a confirmed apppointment in two weeks. Primary care in GYN has a provider shortage in my area.
If the bleeding is heavy, go to the ER. If it’s light, then keep checking in with your gynecologist’s office. If your gynecologist uses Epic, you can also send her a MyChart message about what you’re experiencing and she may be able to fit you in sooner or advise you to go to the ER.
Yes to sending a message to the provider. If that’s not an option, call the nurse and tell them what you’re experiencing. Sometimes they can get you in before there’s an available opening for the scheduler / front desk.
OP here and absolutely. If I make an appointments, it has the WHY and symptoms in the message making the appointment and to get in the cancellation list. IDK who makes a “new problem visit” and doesn’t bother to say why or what’s going on. Surprises are bad and I want the staff to pregame this as much as they can.
Definitely get it checked out. This was the first sign of endometrial cancer for my mom.
My mom as well. The doctor told me she didn’t want me staying on the minipill past 45 because of that family history.
Your post is a little unclear, are you actually post menopause or just stopping your period with hormones?
Huh? It says “post-menopausal” clearly in the first sentence.
She does, but then says she’s been stopping her period for years with the pill before switching to HRT. So it’s unclear how she’d know she’s in menopause. Or is this just bleeding due to switching from the pill to HRT? The timing is confusing.
She states that she has been eliminating her period via science since Covid, which implies she’s not actually post-menopausal (or that she has no way of knowing if that is the case).
Message your gyn. When I had this type of bleeding, she asked whether I’d been experiencing anything particularly stressful or if I’d been traveling when it happened. I had, so her advice was to watch for any further bleeding and message her if it happened again. In my case, it did happen again about a week later so now I’m getting all the screenings.
Your post is unclear, as another reader mentioned. Are you in menopause?
If you are in menopause, with no period for at least 1 year due to the natural transition, and you suddenly have bleeding – yes, you should let your doctor know. My GYN appreciates a message over MyChart, and he would order an ultrasound ASAP and the next available clinic appointment.
My GYN says ANY post-menopausal bleeding must be investigated. Never brush it off. Even one brief episode should be reported. Yes, there are many benign causes. I’ve had it happen, and waited until my next yearly appointment to mention it to my doctor (3 months away). And my doctor reprimanded me for not reporting it right away. We have a lot of cancer in my family. I had an pelvic exam and an ultrasound and am fine.
But this is not an emergency worthy of the ER unless you are loosing large amounts of blood and your immediate health is at risk. Just go to your appointment as scheduled, and things should be fine.
Was I being weird?
Same level colleague and I swapped cell numbers, but have never texted. A few months ago colleague was telling me her tween loved a particular indie artist, and then lamented she’s really bad at keeping track of tour announcements and getting tickets is so hard. I’m on the pre-sales lists for all the major venues in my city so when I saw they had an upcoming show for the indie artist in question I texted it to my colleague because she was on vacation so I couldn’t just send a slack message. Colleague bought tickets and was unaware of the now sold out concert until I informed her. She’s back from vacation now and mentioned it was ‘weird’ I texted her. I thought I was just doing a favor for her tween.
I’m confused — she acted on your text and bought tickets, or she already had tickets? Either way, this just sounds like a normal human interaction to me. You weren’t to know how she would perceive it.
Your coworker is the one being weird. I would have totally done the same thing in your place. But now you know that she doesn’t want to be outside of work friends, and I wouldn’t text her again
Agree, coworker is being weird, borderline a-hole. In OP’s shoes I’d move on and certainly never text her again.
I would totally not see it as weird! She gave you her number, and she told you her tween loved an artist and wanted tickets. You were being nice and friendly. Maybe she doesn’t like to have contact with folks outside of work, but she ran that risk when she gave you her number.
No, what’s weird is her saying that, even if she thought it.
+1. I don’t find it weird at all that you texted her, but even if she did, I can’t imagine why she told you that.
So. She used the info? And then called you weird. So rude. Ignore her and don’t bother being thoughtful towards her again
I read it as she independently bought the tickets. But either way what Op did is not weird.
She did not previously know about the concert, my text informed her.
So she is bizarre.
My she just chose her words poorly, and meant more like it was unexpected getting the text from you out of the blue.
So she didn’t thank you?
Nope she did not thank me. Did not reply to the text and then was uncomfortably curt IRL.
She used the info!!! So clearly it was wanted info, just not from me I guess. I think that’s why this is bothering me. Its one thing to call me weird and not use the info but she BOUGHT TICKETS.
Oh yeah that’s even weirder on her part!
Oh yeah, she’s the one being weird (and rude!) here.
I find it odd when other people, in real life, call others weird to their faces. There’s probably some part of your colleague that is a little stupid.
She’s being weird! What you did was totally nice and easy to simple ignore if it wasn’t relevant to her because she’d already bought tickets.
You weren’t being weird, but I can see why it felt weird to get texted by a work colleague while on vacation, especially if that’s not how you normally communicate with work people. Texting is more intrusive than slack or email, at least for me, since I don’t have those set up to buzz on my phone. I text people if I want a quick response, which feels a little obnoxious when you know she’s on vacation.
Totally disagree, because it wasn’t about work and OP was doing her coworker a favor. OP, you were fine, but agree with earlier poster that you should not bother to go out of your way to do something for this colleague in the future.
Yeah this. Big difference between texting about work and texting about other stuff.
Right. A favor with time sensitive information.
+1. Not weird at all in this instance. It is not like OP texted her with a work question.
+1M, I would never do anything nice for this person again. SMH.
Your colleague is being rude. You’re not being weird.
People are so cold and distant and then wonder why they have no community.
Maybe it’s a case of her tone not coming through – like, she meant it as “What a crazy coincidence that you happened to see it and think of her and it was the concert she got tickets for!” as opposed to: “Stop semi-stalking me”. Regardless, you did a friendly, non-intrusive thing for her, and I guess now you know not to do it again.
+1
+2 this was my initial reaction
You were being kind and normal. I probably would have said in the text something like “hey sorry to interrupt your vacation but wanted to be sure you saw this and figured you might not be checking work email!”
The text was similar, it said ‘Hey sorry to bother you but I know [tween] is a huge fan, this is the pre-sale code to get tickets’
If that’s the case, your colleague is definitely the one being weird/rude. You sound lovely!
Agree, so sorry you had to deal with such awkwardness when you were just being thoughtful.
Ugh, no she’s being weird and rude. You seem so kind and thoughtful I would love to be your coworker/friend.
+1
I wonder if she meant something like “Work people were the last thing I was thinking about so it caught me by surprise, but in a good way,” but it just came out more like “that was weird, ya weirdo.” Context and how she said it matters, I’m sure, but I would try to assume good intentions and bad communication skills if you can.
Agree, this is possible. Whenever I see a text from a work person I almost jump because I assume it’s both work-related and urgent. Especially if I’m not used to hearing from that person about non-work things. And if I’m on vacation, it would feel almost intrusive even if the person meant well and was telling me something non-work. She might have used the word “weird” to describe that feeling but would still welcome non-work texts from you going forward.
FWIW for legal reasons we have work phones for work texts and can not work outside of our contracts (ie while on vacation). We would literally never text work things to a personal phone. I texted her personal phone from my personal phone.
Then I bet she meant it was weird to see your name on a personal phone – kind of like when you work in an office where everyone wears business formal wear, and you run into a colleague wearing sweats at the grocery store. Your brain just has a hard time processing things being out of their usual order.
Could she have just meant it differently? Like weird meaning unusual and thoughtful that you took the time to tell her? If she’s Gen X, we used the word with a lot of different meanings like that.
Um, Gen X does not use the word “weird” in this manner. While you might be a Gen X who uses it that way, the rest of us in this age cohort are not understanding it as such. It would be a good idea to consider how well you know your audience if this is a habit you have.
Serenity now! (That’s from Seinfeld.) Maybe they live in Portland, OR, where weird is a compliment. Maybe she just meant “I was surprised to hear from you outside of work.”
This.
Good grief, I’m fine with my words thanks. But weird does not always have a negative connotation for my generation. It was often used to say something was cool or unique. The idea that a colleague would actively insult OP is so strange I think something else is going on here.
You don’t own our generation. I agree that OP’s colleague is being, well, weird. I disagree that the word “weird” has generationally-accepted non-negative connotation in general conversation. This was a PSA that if you are using it as a positive phrase over text to coworkers with whom you don’t have a solid history of friendly rapport, it comes across more negative than positive.
Actually, I am the voice of my generation.
Well 10:58, that explains the state of things today. Kudos to you for taking responsibility for all the ish.
Sense of humor needed on aisle 9.
I agree with wanting to think of another explanation. I also agree that in some regions Gen X loves calling everything weird.
“All this sunshine this week is so weird!” “How weird – I was just thinking of you and then saw you in the steet!”
I could totally see the colleague saying something that came out more critical than intended.
What you did was not weird and was really thoughtful. I might consider her comment though as her not wanting you to text her again. I’d move your relationship back to work communications only. (It sounds like to the detriment of your colleague and her child – you sound lovely.)
That’s not weird. I am also a concert person and have done this if someone makes a comment to me about wanting to see a specific person. Why would you email the info to her if she’s on vacation? She wouldn’t have gotten the email in time and clearly they bought tickets.
You did a perfectly appropriate, very nice thing. I would have been delighted to receive that text. She is the weirdo here. But now that you know she doesn’t want any friendly communication, I would disengage outside of work-related matters. I probably also wouldn’t text her even about work–e-mail or slack only.
This sounds like one of those conservations where I wish I could have a re-do but still wouldn’t know what I’d say. “It did feel a little weird to text! But I hoped the chance at getting the tickets was worth it!” “Good weird or bad weird?” “Oh would you prefer not I not text about things that aren’t work related in the future?” Etc. What did you actually say?
And, what did she actually say?
If you track what you eat, how do you do it? Not asking about apps necessarily. I really want to track calories but I feel overwhelmed by it. I mostly make homemade meals from scratch. I eat meals with my family every evening. I can measure out breakfast and lunch I guess, but dinner seems difficult. I wish there was an app where I could just take a photo of what I eat and it would magically calculate the calories for me! Anyway, if you have any tips or strategies to share, I’d appreciate it.
I use LoseIt and you can import recipes to calculate calories. You can also save recipes or meals that you make frequently which saves time. I have “turkey sandwich” saved for example since I eat one regularly. I believe you can also take a picture of your meal and it will calculate your calories but I haven’t tried that out yet.
I find calorie tracking annoying but it does help, I suppose.
I do this too. Love this app. Yes it takes a minute but it isn’t bad, and most people rotate through similar meals.
I use the Weight Watchers app for this. I lost with WW post- pregnancy and kept using it because I was familiar with it. Now I use it to maintain/make sure I’m getting enough protein, fiber, water, veggies and hitting my activity goals and trying not to let my coffee addiction get too out of hand. I’m actively training for a sport with early morning practices at the moment so hitting protein/fiber/water is especially important to how I’m feeling. Life is super busy with 3 active kids and this is the only way I can keep track of taking care of myself without feeling too frazzled.
We eat a homecooked family dinner probably 6/7 nights in the week. I have our most common family recipes in the app and it tells you the calories. I think there’s also a picture function but I don’t use that.
I honestly can’t do it long term, but I’ll do two free weeks of cronometer to see how my typical diet is going. I’m checking macros and micros more than calories though.
Honestly I know the calorie of content of food at a glance; I am the human version of the app that can look at a photo and calculate the calories after years of weighing and calculating. I don’t recommend developing this skill; it took a long time to quiet this part of my mind, and I’m not sure that calorie counting benefited me besides the very basic ideas that fat has a lot of calories, some foods aren’t very nutrient dense, and portion size matters.
My Fitness Pal lets you load recipes. You can enter ingredients, add from a web link, etc., and then adjust for how much of the recipe you actually consumed yourself. It’s a bit fiddly to enter everything and make sure you have the correct quantities, but it’s possible to get quite accurate since you are making the meals yourself.
I just cannot maintain tracking for any length of time. It makes me immediately go off the rails.
I use the no S diet rules ( book is available in the library).
No sweets, snacks, or seconds on non S days (not Sat or Sun).
Weekends, or a special day ie; birthday, etc is fine.
interesting! do you find this helps you maintain your weight or have you lost on it?
You can ask ai to do it and give a breakdown of the ingredients/amounts it’s using. Complain when it gets stuff wrong and it’ll try to correct itself.
But how are you going to know if it’s wrong in the first place
It tells you how it calculates it when it provides the breakdown. If I say something like I made roasted potatoes plus XYZ for dinner, it might provide the stats and include text that says the numbers were based on 1 potato plus 1T of oil. Then I can say updated it to 1 tsp of oil instead and it’ll fix it. The next time I ask it for the stats on those potatoes, it remembers my corrections.
I have this same problem, and I use the Lose It app. My partner actually cooks most of our meals so I don’t always know exactly what’s going into it.
I use a mixed approach. Sometimes I’ll import a recipe, if one exists. Other times I’ll search for then name of the dish or an equivalent and there will often be a restaurant meal already in there. I make a good faith attempt to use those, knowing that restaurant food is usually more calorie dense. So I might put that had .75 of a serving instead of a full one (really try to be honest with myself here!) My last attempt is to just kind of estimate what’s in there by using the portion of the most calorie dense ingredient and then estimating the rest too. If it seems low after this, I’ll just add .5-1 tbs of olive oil in the tracker. I do not bother with small amounts (less than .5 to 1 cup) of vegetables.
I know this sounds like a lot of estimation, and it is! But it works for me and makes the tracking process less overwhelming. I’ve been tracking for almost 3 months, and my weight is trending down.
You absolutely have to weigh things to accurately count calories.
But you don’t have to be totally accurate to lose weight or develop better nutrition habits. My comment is the long one above, and I’ve been losing and getting healthier by estimating some. The mindset that I must weigh everything and enter everything completely accurately was all or nothing thinking for me and was kind of a mental block.
I use LoseIt and have experimented with many apps over the years. I think their recipe function is the best. I cook a lot at home but now that I’ve added recipes over the years pretty much anything I cook regularly is in there. If I make something new, I import the recipe via link (either to the exact recipe or something similar that I modify after importing).
Whatever app you pick, once you start using it frequently it gets a lot easier. You can save common meals (e.g., I usually eat the same 3 breakfasts/3 lunches), it pops up meals you eat frequency, your recipes will be in there. So I honestly would just pick one and commit to it – in about a month it will be pretty easy to use.
MacroFactor literally has the feature you’re describing.
you can build meals in a lot of places — my fitness pal, weight watchers, mm+. personally i like using a scale instead of cups to measure because i feel like it’s both more precise and a lot easier (particularly with things like honey or olive oil!); if i’m over or under i don’t really stress about it and just enter it into the app.
i don’t think you have to measure EVERYTHING – preportioned things like string cheese, protein bars, etc, i don’t, not do i do vegetables or fruit unless i’m trying to get to a certain number for fiber. that’s the main reason i measure things like chicken, so i have a better understanding of the actual protein im consuming.
Anyone see Penn’s statement and correction of swimming records today? Long overdue. This is one issue where it’s as close to unanimous as any political issue can be – huge majorities on both sides agree that it was unfair. I agree and am angry about all the damage it caused.
And yet many elected Democrats are still digging in their heels about it. A Minnesota girls softball team just won the state championship with a T ace pitcher. I like Tim Walz personally and am a big fan of his initiatives like free school lunch for kids, but come on. We have to back down from this or we’re going to be the party of losers forever.
I know – some Dems in CA are still digging in too. Gavin Newsom is the only one who has changed tune because he actually cares about winning elections. The rest seem content to take fringe stances that help plunge the US into fascist nightmare land.
Stop it. Supporting rights of vulnerable people is not the reason the current ruling party is the way it is. Backing away from our values to win elections makes us puppets and placeholders. Not a party with any meaning or backbone.
Actually polling showed that Trump’s most effective ad was about this issue. It swayed a lot of voters, and to insist otherwise is to bury your head in the sand and continue losing elections for a generation or more. Personally, I would rather win elections so we can stop destroying the environment, abandoning our allies, deporting legal immigrants, taking away reproductive rights and kicking poor people off Medicaid. Even if that means T women don’t have the same sports opportunities. There are a heck of a lot of vulnerable people in this country who aren’t T (including arguably every woman of reproductive age) who are being harmed immeasurably by electing republicans.
It sounds like you are willing to abandon the rights of a vulnerable and persecuted group. The prosecution of this group is not going to stop at sports. Rather, sports is an “easy” first step. We have already seen the willingness to prohibit medical care, again, at first for children and then it will be for adults. The bathroom bill in FL makes it virtually impossible for a T individual to go out in public because there is no where that they can safely use the restroom. The point is to make these people disappear from public life.
Your “value” is extreme and anti-woman. It is not a value at all. It is immoral.
Allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports is a completely different issue from allowing T people to exist in society and the workplace, and you all know it. If we allow biological males to compete in women’s and girls’ sports then the whole reason for women’s and girls’ sports ceases to exist, and we are erasing women athletes. Women’s sports are not about social acceptance. They are about physical and athletic fairness.
The vulnerable people in this scenario are the biological women whose sports are becoming unfair. Hope that helps!
Biological women are 50% of the population. I don’t consider them (or myself) “vulnerable.”
I find it ridiculous that you do.
The 50% of the population that is biologically female can compete in women’s sports, and the 50% of the population that is biologically male can compete in men’s sports. Or the men’s division can convert over to an open division, and anyone who disclaims their biology can compete in that division. But the women’s division is for biological women.
There is a huge, huge chunk of democrats who feel like trans issues lost us a lot of points with centrist voters. Many (most?) people do not have a problem with trans people existing, marrying, working, living. The controversial points are kids and prisoners transitioning and girls sports.
I think they/them also lost a lot of people because it just feels so navel-gazing and abstract.
But dying on the hill of T rights cost many other marginalized groups (e.g. immigrants, children on Medicaid) dearly in the last election. I don’t know why you think T people are more important than all the other groups that were horribly impacted by the last election. And no one is abandoning the rights of people who identify as T. People overwhelmingly favor laws that prohibit discrimination, including against T folks. It’s not discrimination or persecution to say you need to compete in an open or mixed gender category if you were biologically male at birth. If sports are just for fun and records and placements are irrelevant, there’s no harm to M-to-F athletes competing against men even if they lose. Right?
Oh good grief. Let kids play sports, and stop buying into the hate.
Here in Minnesota, the (failed) bill the Republicans tried to pass would allow anyone, like parents of kids on an opposing team) to accuse a kiddo who looks a little too big/tall/strong of being trans. And then that kid has to withdraw from sports or submit to a genital and chromosomal exam. So, forced genital exams for kids as young as five years old — that’s what the Republicans pushed for. I was at the MN House hearing and it was disgusting hearing all the hate.
Athlete Ally publishes information about what the research shows about trans people in sports, if you want a closer look at the issue.
Yea and I think it’s tragic to make harassing one young person a major cause
I actually agree with not having transwomen in women’s sports but the level of glee and the personal attacks are just not it.
Yes, this!
My view is that tr4nswomen shouldn’t compete in women’s sports, it’s simply an avenue not available to them, like colorblind people can’t be pilots. It’s sucks to not be able to go after your passion but you can find other things to do.
I think there’s increasingly discussion that there should be “open” categories where people of any gender can participate. I don’t think anyone thinks they should have no opportunities in sports whatsoever.
Yeah this is where I land too. People should be free to live their life as they please and I fully stand in support of no one being harassed or bullied, but not everything has to be available to everyone, and this is one of those things.
No, they can just compete in the men’s (which I support renaming to “open.”). Since sports are just for fun anyway, that shouldn’t be an issue to go back to 56th place instead of first in the women’s, right?
Exactly, 10:33. Rename men’s to “open” and allow anyone who wants to compete. Keep women’s sports for biological females who have never taken male hormones. If someone who is socially male but has an entirely female body wants to compete in the women’s division that’s fine.
For those who haven’t followed this closely, can you elucidate the consensus? What was unfair?
Girls and women have been fighting for years against the inclusion of males in their sports, where they have caused bodily injury, set “records,” and violated privacy. These girls and women were called terrible names for this and told their own records and accomplishments didn’t matter. Despite the fact that voters on both sides agree that women’s sports should be for women only, Democrats have dug in for years and told women to just try harder and train more if they want to win again. The tide has now turned and more schools and institutions are being forced to change policies to stop violating Title IX, which protects various sex-specific rights in sports. Penn is one of those schools.
The policy was not Penn’s policy. It was the NCAA’s policy, which was changed the next year. It’s stupid to blame Penn for a policy they had no choice but to follow.
This. I fully support the underlying point (that people born male shouldn’t be competing in girls and women’s sports) but I agree that investigating Penn specifically was silly and vindictive. They were following (bad) NCAA policy at the time, along with every other university in the US.
Did they not choose to give a scholarship to this athlete?
The Ivy League doesn’t give athletic scholarships so there’s no way she could have gotten one.
Could Lia Thomas have kept swimming at Penn as a man? Because this all would have blown over had that been the case.
Yes Lia Thomas could have swum as a man. But she would not have won any championships or set any records, because the physical expectations for men are so different. Which is the reason she wanted to swim as a woman.
Hmm. This doesn’t accord with what I have read or heard at all. Years? It seems like this only became an issue after the trans bathroom bills of 2015 fell into wide disfavor, which also coincided with legalization of gay marriage and the need for the right to find a new way to draw hard lines between the genders and for gender expression. When you talk about sports – are you speaking of elementary though olympics, or a narrower issue? Because there is a wide gulf between rec soccer and D1 athletics or international competition. The tide has turned, right along with the US’s turn toward fascism and strict interpretation of what it means to express one’s gender.
Shewon dot org has entries back to 2001 and it’s an incomplete archive.
Women’s sports are not about gender expression!
Shewon . org has been debunked. And, yes, girls’ sports concern gender expression. See, the “uniforms” women are required to wear for beach volleyball in the olympics, the skirts girls wear for field hockey, the woman who was attacked during the olympics for appearing male, women’s professional soccer players being paid less than their male counterparts, in any school where there are boys’ and girls’ teams – the boys’ team is called “the Royals” and the girls’ team is called “the lady Royals.”
lol absolutely none of that is “g3nder expression.” It’s sexism we’re still constantly fighting. And shewon dot org has in no way been debunked – it’s literally a record with publicly available data collated in one place.
Let me rephrase that for you. There is gender expression in women’s sports, but that’s not the reason women’s sports exist.
I believe you have a daughter who plays sports. You are fine with her not making the team because a boy takes her spot?
Yes, I have a daughter who plays certain sports, and like 99% of her peers, she will never play at a serious level. When you say boy – do you mean trans girl? If not, uh oh! your bigotry is showing. When you say sport, do you mean a contact sport? At what age and level of competition?
It was unfair to have a biological man competing against women.
Was the individual on hormone therapy? For how long? Did the person go through puberty? I honestly, don’t know these answers but are highly relevant.
They aren’t relevant to me and if they’re relevant to you, look it up.
If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then you are having a conversation based on uninformed stereotypes.
They’re not relevant to me either. Women’s sports are for women only and the male sex advantage begins in early childhood and never disappears. What’s the argument here, that taking hormones for a year somehow shrinks your bones and takes away your muscle? If so, now you’re just a weaker
male. Human beings cannot change sex.
None of that matters. If you were born male, you are biologically privileged over those born female when it comes to sports. Your questions just address how big the privilege is.
I think it was completely ridiculous to investigate Penn for this. They were in compliance with the NCAA rules at the time and would have been open to investigation if they’d refused to let an eligible swimmer compete. That policy was a mistake, which the NCAA recognized and changed rules the next season, so the whole issue was already dealt with.
It wasn’t dealt with because the record books and correct winners weren’t updated. They now are. Those national records set the standard for the nearly 15k female collegiate swimmers in the country – it was never just “it only affects a handful of people so who cares,” as was oft repeated.
Sure, I have no problem with that, but I still don’t see why that’s Penn’s problem. Go after the NCAA if you don’t like the way they handled it.
If I understand correctly, it was because Penn did not follow proper procedures when female members of the swim team complained their rights were being violated. They were basically told to stfu, which wasn’t compliant with title IX.
Totally agree. Penn was in sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of situation. They followed the policy. Go blame the NCAA and also time to move on. There are many bigger fish to fry
And the locker room situation. I would not want to share an open shower with someone with a p*nis.
Do we really go back and update record books and “correct winners” every time a new performance enhancing drug ban or test is introduced?
Yes. We do. Watch any coverage of the Tour de France. It is like Lance Armstrong never existed.
I believe you about the Tour de France, but I’m not aware of this kind of revision happening in US sportsball type sports.
Maris had an asterisk next to his 61. Bonds won’t make the Hall of Fame.
That’s how it works in the running world. People who doped are stripped of their wins, even if they weren’t proven to having doped during a specific competition.
Oh if it wasn’t a Penn-specific policy and the relevant national policy was anyways changed it doesn’t seem like Penn should have been investigated at all. Just ridiculous.
I wonder if thats why Penn agreed to change it, since they didn’t want to get attacked for something that wasn’t really their decision anyways.
I think this is just so naive. The reason was so trump didn’t try to shut them down by removing funding. That is the reason for every single decision universities are making. It’s that simple.
Okay but Harvard isn’t folding. Penn had the choice to not fold too.
Harvard is actively negotiating a settlement.
Bc Penn is in the hot seat with the federal government
Penn treated the women on the swim team like sh*t for complaining. That is similar to what I’ve seen when the issue has come up locally in youth sports.
Yup. It wasn’t ok.
Sports are not so important that we have to be hateful bigots to participants. How dare you bring this divisive subject up when your only goal is to be hateful.
The whole point of sports was to provide recreation to children. That’s it. Then adults got involved and made it weird and bad on a number of levels. So frustrating.
This is inaccurate. Sports are also to provide equal opportunities for competition and excellence to women, the same as has always been available for men. If you want to play in a neighborhood rec league, you can do that, but women’s competition is vitally important for their health, self-esteem, and professional opportunities. It’s no good denying that.
In my own community in Ohio, they are going after trans kids with a vengeance. Ok fine, Penn sports is in a different league. And ok fine, women deserve to have competitive sports in college. But in my school district, grown adults are attacking CHILDREN in a way that makes me feel that they’ve forgotten what sports are all about. It’s almost as if it’s not about sports at all.
For some reason I never derived a lot of self esteem from the message that I might be good at something for a woman, but could easily be trounced by any man because of their objective superiority.
Look, it’s just an objective fact that males and females are biological different when it comes to different sports – look at running. There are high school boys (v v few, but still some) that have run a sub-4 mile. The fastest woman in the world was just paced and coached and tried to do the same and fell short. Tell me again why you want your high school aged daughter to run a mile against the boys?
well if we’re talking about being paced, then let’s not forget that women run faster with male pacers, and male runners can set world records with male pacers but women cannot, that the race director of the Boston Marathon in 1966 wrote that women were physiologically incapable of running the distance, meanwhile it took men 40 years to improve a 2:55 world record by 30 minutes, and it took women 10 years. We may never know exactly what women are capable of, because we keep underestimating them and denying them opportunities.
This! Sports should be for fun.
It’s hard to argue it’s just for fun when (some) women are making millions from NIL. I get the point that on a 10U rec team you don’t need to be fussed about the biological birth gender of the kids. But at the collegiate level it’s different.
I get that. But everyone argues that because one or two swimmers had a perceived unfair advantage we should all treat young trans kids badly. Maybe we (sports parents) should all get over ourselves. My kid probably isn’t going to get a scholarship regardless of who plays pee wee soccer. Yet you want a world where everyone looks down little girls pants in the name of excluding a kid who just wants to kick a ball.
A couple of women are making money. But the vast majority of sports are (or should be) for fun.
If that were true, Title IX wouldn’t need to exist. We would just mandate that women have access to men’s teams if they can be as good as men.
Come on. You can recognize that people born male don’t belong in women’s sports due to innate physical advantages in strength and speed without being hateful to any individual athlete.
You could . Unfortunately it seems like most of the people who post about it online can’t.
I was wondering when the pro-trans army would show up here and start calling anyone who thinks that girls shouldn’t lose out on sports opportunities a TERF. I knew it wouldn’t take long.
I didn’t see where OP said anything hateful about any individual?
I didn’t say anyone here had been been hateful, just that lots of people are. But we clearly are talking about one particular person, and some people are very gleeful about her records being taken away. I also don’t think this particular person should have competed, even though she was technically eligible to do so, but I still find the level of vitriol toward her upsetting. I’d be a lot more comfortable with these discussions if they started from a place of respect, rather than anger, fear and disgust, which is what I seem to see in many places online.
And I’ll also add that respect needs to come both sides. I do think this is an issue both sides are guilty of refusing to talk fairly about.
People are happy to see that individual person’s records taken away because that was a particularly egregious case of cheating.
Is the physical advantage maintained after the individual has been on HRT for the required period of time? Or if they never went through puberty for their SAAB?
Yes, absolutely. The male sex advantage persists in musculature, bone length and strength, lung capacity, lack of menstrual cycle, and about 47,000 other things.
Yes. Even pre-puberty that are biological differences between boys and girls. Boys are taller from a very young age.
Anon @11:15 – girls tend to be taller and bigger for multiple years in middle school. And yes, obviously, there are differences, but do they matter? And when (all sports, certain ages, competition level)? Women’s lung and endurance capacity exceeds men’s, at a statistical level, for distances in excess of a marathon.
The physical advantages are real and exist in every sport I’m aware of. Serena Williams is a once in a generation women’s tennis talent and lost to a men’s player who didn’t break the top 200 ranking that year. My husband has played pick-up basketball with members of a D1 women’s college team and beaten them one-on-one. He didn’t even play in high school and isn’t particularly tall for a guy (5’9″). There are just so many physical advantages of being male. Even in middle school, girls can’t compete with boys athletically. Height is the only thing where they have a brief advantage at that age, and the boys increased strength and stamina far outweighs a couple inches of height. No 7th grade girls basketball team could beat a 7th grade boys team of commensurate skill and basketball is one of the biggest height advantage sports – height matters far less in things like cross country and baseball/softball.
I don’t understand the argument that women perform better than men at ultra long distance running, because no one runs that distance competitively. Men have a clear advantage at the marathon which is the longest competed distance.
Every sport? Did you know that the bans apply to activities such as chess? The definition of “sports” in these bans is so vast that it sweeps in activities like chess, darts, pool. Your husband sounds like a really great athlete. And, yes, ultramarathons are a competitive and real sport.
Chess, darts, and pool are games, not sports. Everyone should compete in a single division in those games.
I don’t think most people consider chess a sport in the normal sense of that word, but men do dramatically outperform women there too and whether you believe it’s due to innate biological ability or social factors that encourage that type of thinking from boys more than girls (I tend to think it’s more the latter), it’s still fair for women to have their own categories and for the “best woman chess player in X region” to actually be someone who grew up presenting as a woman and has those lived experiences. I feel the same way about STEM scholarships for women.
What is a sport contested at the NCAA or Olympic level where women can fairly compete with men? There isn’t one. Not even the “girly” sports like figure skating and gymnastics because men are so much stronger and can do more revolutions in the air. Ultramarathons are not an NCAA or Olympic sport.
And my husband is not a particularly great athlete or particularly tall/big for a man – that’s my point! Women’s college teams frequently play boy’s high school teams for practice, because the physical skill gap between men and women is so significant. It’s incredibly naive to think otherwise.
The bans do wrap in all of those other activities, regardless of whether you deem them “sports.” Oh, an easy example of where women outcompeted men in the olympics – s h o o t i n g. Women and men originally competed in one division. Women tended to win. The divisions were then created.
The problem is taking an axe to an issue that requires a scalpel. That and the blatant bigotry that is all over this thread.
So Anon for someone who said she didn’t know much about this you sure got a lot to say
I haven’t followed the Penn issue because I just don’t care about collegiate sports. I deeply love and care for someone who is trans.
I take no position on the rest of this, but te sports at olympic level where men and women compete fairly–equestrian sports. They re not separated by gender and results are usually pretty evenly distributed. And yes, I will fight anyone who says riding is not a sport and the horse does all the work.
Equestrian sports, shooting, archery, and games like chess can fairly be, and should be, mixed-gender. Track and field, swimming, hockey, gymnastics, figure skating (b/c jumping and speed/power), sportsball, martial arts, etc. cannot.
So Anon, girls are “taller and bigger” in middle school because they go through puberty before boys do.
And even then, boys are still taller and bigger, just less so.
Compare pre-pubescent girls with boys, boys are stronger. Post puberty, same thing.
Sorry you don’t understand very basic human biology.
Regarding sports where men have an advantage even if it looks like they should not:
Pool (billiards). Their upper body strength (especially their fast-twitch muscles) allows them to hit the cue ball with more force, which means they don’t have to draw their stick back as far. Height matters. Their larger hands help them make shots that women can’t make. Their higher COG also helps them.
Archery: you need a lot of upper body strength to pull back a bow. Men shoot with higher arrow speeds, which reduces the effects of wind interference.
Shooting is sex-balanced because various factors balance each other out.
Women only have the edge in ultramarathons when the distance exceeds 195 miles.
I agree with your premise that sports should not be so important that this matters at most levels. No one is entitled to “win”. I tend not to see the big deal in elementary or middle or even high school sports.
But college and Olympic level seems different to me. Those are grown adults. And winning in college can set you up for future career, etc. I agree with the take above that at the highest levels, it’s just not an avenue open to this (quite small) number of people. Again, nobody is entitled to compete or win at organized sports.
This is where I come down. I think there’s room to be more inclusive at lower levels while still making sure girls and women are able to compete fairly.
I agree with all of this as well. I never blamed Penn specifically, but Lia Thomas competing in women’s D1 was so egregious as to defy common sense. I’m glad they’ve corrected the records. For sports eligibility, I see a big difference between T girls who haven’t gone through male puberty and those who t-ition later.
Leaving aside the t issue, I really disagree with this take as a blanket statement. It is not about being “entitled to win,” it’s about being entitled to participate and compete. Girls in recreational or non-elite-level sports also derive huge benefits from being able to compete, even if they’ll never play in college. Playing with or against someone or a team that is way better or way bigger or way stronger than you is not fun, it’s scary and can be dangerous, and you end up limiting your own movements out of concern of being injured. If all the various sports I played growing up were co-ed, there’s no way I would have stuck with them, and that would have been a real shame.
Yeah I think people are overlooking how physically dangerous it is to play with people who are much taller and heavier. It’s not just an issue of fairness but also safety.
I feel like this argument could be made about playing people who are different races than you, too. I know the people in our very white town would make similar grumblings when we played the “inner city” teams. Because, to be blunt, a lot of black woman athletes are much stronger and more powerful and better! And to your point about limiting your movements to not get hurt, that doesn’t apply to swimming or track, which is where a lot of this controversy is stemming from. People want to win and believe something is “taken” from them when they are beaten by people who are different.
In middle school it’s often the girls who are taller and heavier, lol!
Exactly. Even if you argue that sports are only for fun, which I disagree with, it’s not fun for girls to play in unfair or unsafe settings.
I think that’s fair in many cases, but isn’t a reason to say that no T athletes should be able to play sports… for exactly the same reasons you state about sports being so beneficial. I don’t see any reason why no contact sports should be an issue in middle and high school. Sports like track snd swimming are usually no cut and you could do like CA did at their state track meet and just add extra spots, so no girls were excluded or didn’t win because of the T athletes. I ran track and cross country and cross country skied, and we trained with the guys teams all the time. Obviously racing against them would have been ridiculous, but I was happy to be in a mostly coed team environment. Coed club teams are popular (I was on one in college) and are a good way to keep kids active without having to be so committed to sports. I think there are a lot of ways to be more open to including people while still being fair to women.
They can play in the men’s (open) category and absolutely should. It’s important for people to participate in sports for so many reasons, and it’s also important to participate in a safe and competitively fair category. The open category is the only way that allows fairness for all.
There are sports with weight classes.
11:18, you say high school girls should have to race against boys, and then you say in the next sentence that it wouldn’t have been fair for you to have to race against them?!?
Cross-country and track teams have always trained boys and girls together and held separate races.
11:26, I explained what CA did at the state meet, there are lots of other ways you could decide to score races to allow T girls to race with the girls but not necessarily against them. If you have enough people who want to run in an open division you could do that too. You don’t have to force them to run as boys for it to be fair.
Men’s volleyball nets are higher than the women’s nets, even in high school matches, because men spoke with so much more force.
In high school, men’s hurdles are higher than the women’s hurdles.
Even at young ages, women’s basketballs are lighter than men’s basketballs.
How do you seriously propose that men and women compete against each other? We have made adjustments to male sports to accommodate women’s needs. Do we do away with those accommodations?
The big deal in high school sports is that most high school junior and senior boys are adult males, and that high school sports is the gateway to college sports.
It’s also noteworthy that the adult female world record holders in various sports (such as Alyson Felix in track) wouldn’t even place in the top 500 against times posted by high school boys. She’s an incredible athlete – it simply illustrates sex differences.
Oh yes, “don’t discuss things in a way I don’t like” is always a good take.
If sports are just for fun and records don’t matter, MTF trans players should just play on the men’s teams.
Exactly. What people are saying is that sports are just for and records don’t matter… for biological women. Once again a socially acceptable way of discriminating against women.
Yes, exactly.
Hit reply too soon. It’s because men are allowed to be competitive, men are allowed to care about winning, men are allowed to have hobbies and extracurricular activities simply for their own enjoyment.
Women have to be nice and justify the way they spend their time and the things that matter to them. Someone else thinks winning shouldn’t matter to us unless we are going to get a scholarship? Sorry, ladies! Go back to knitting.
Such crap.
+1000. They just want to play, right?
This exactly.
Yep, exactly.
Whoooo carresssssss
Voters.
Sure.
Voters care. And until Democrats wake up and realize this, we’re going to keep losing elections and letting Rs run the country in the ground on a billion and one other issues.
Then Ds should be stronger and not ready to capitulate on anything that is hard or requires nuanced thinking.
It’s really not hard. Something like 80% of people agree about this. Listen to your voters.
Ok, 12:36. Do you care about minority rights at all? Who cares that 80% of people agree with anything when it deprives real people of a right to compete/exist.
Great news – they have the ability to compete in the division that matches their biology, just like everyone else! No one is denying them that right.
The less powerful group whose rights are being trampled here is women.
Yes, I care about minority rights. I care about all the immigrants, POC and LGBT people who are being negatively impacted by the current administration because Democrats could not let go of this incredibly dumb position!
Bigots care deeply.
Parents with daughters who are athletes and deserve a fair shake care deeply.
There are so few transgender athletes. Most parents (and daughters) will never need to worry about this. So if they care deeply, it’s because they have an imaginary axe to grind.
This is where I disagree. Sports, especially at the highest levels, aren’t “fair.” Kids with money and all the trainings and camps and special gear that provide have a leg up. And people are built drastically differently even within a gender.
Sports competitions are not “an even playing field” and we need to stop pretending they are.
Get real. As someone who played HS sports, the hate for these athletic participants is gross. I’m pro anyone who wants to compete.
As a woman, I sincerely do not trust any he motivations of all of these people trying to “protect” me
I have a 10 year old daughter who plays ice hockey and my husband and I did this thought experiment recently. Would we be upset if a boy were playing against her? No. In 10U, many teams are still co-ed anyway. How about in 14U, when dedicated girls teams get more common because the boys start checking? Still no, because they’d be under the no-check rules, and there are going to be kids who are faster and bigger and have a harder shot anyway; there’s still a TON of size difference at those ages because of different growth rates and puberty timing. By 16-18U, I would care. EVERYONE is bigger and going faster at that level, and the size difference would be much more likely to cause injury in incidental contact. I’m open to science telling me differently if a T girl has taken hormone suppression such that she hasn’t gotten the physical benefits of male puberty and is within the range of average size for a girl her age, but my gut reaction is that there’s a point in high school where it’s no longer safe or fair competition for biological girls.
There are plenty of co-ed club/rec teams for teens and adults, and to me that’s the right place for adult T women.
Hecheated. org shows that it’s very much not a “so few athletes” issue. 85 males hold over 1200 first place finishes in women’s sports JUST for track and field. It’s another 100 just for cycling. It only takes one to set a record that holds nationally.
Again, he cheated . org and its predecessor, she won . org have been debunked for their false claims and questionable, at best, methodology.
What “methodology?” They literally list information from race records and results on websites that anyone can see. That’s it.
Yeah I don’t understand how just listing race records is misinformation. And people are ignoring all the comments in this thread about (truly incredible!) female athletes like Alyson Felix and Serena Williams who would be literal nobodies if they had to compete against men. If the most elite woman in the sport can be beaten by hundreds or thousands of men, men do not belong in the sport. Period. And that’s virtually all sports. Maybe there’s some sport like shooting where men don’t have such a marked physical advantage and maybe it makes sense to have mixed competition there. But it’s not a lie to say men OVERWHELMINGLY have a huge physical advantage over women due to a ton of factors like height, weight, strength, speed and lung capacity.
Any information that doesn’t fit the T activists’ narrative is labeled “misinformation.” Someone else called it Orwellian–that’s about right.
Everyone should read the recent NYT op-ed “How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized and Lost Its Way.” It is a very thoughtful exploration of many of the problems with the t**** rights movements, by a gay man.
Do you have a gift link? Would love to read.
Same. This has been my sense for a long term. L and G have lot their way and T has hijacked every single e thing. The speech police are almost East German / Orwellian.
I already know that a lot of privileged gay men are trying to pull up the ladder behind them.
The gist of the op-ed is that the gay rights movement used to be about leaving kids alone, freedom of speech and thought, and live and let live. The modern t**** rights movement, in contrast, is about censorship, pushing kids who question gender norms to make permanent physical and hormonal alterations to their bodies, and pushing one concept of gender on everyone.
Exactly. It’s gone from “let us live and love who we want in peace” to “we’re going to tell YOU how to live.”
I love the saying “don’t like gay marriage? don’t get one” because it illustrates how gay rights and gay marriage don’t impact straight people at all. But the modern T rights movement is the antithesis of that.
Also, making some people permanent patients. If it were just identity, just adults, that would be different. But stop talking to my kids and acting liken groomers.
Why is this their burden even?
I also thought it was really interesting. Here’s a gift link.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/gay-lesbian-trans-rights.html?unlocked_article_code=1.TU8.o4nk.7FiFQ2oW6CsM&smid=url-share
This Ezra Klein transcript with a trans congresswoman, Sarah McBride, was also really illuminating. I completely agree that they didn’t really build the case to support trans rights, a lot of people (me included) just said oh, I’m progressive so I’m pro-trans. But then when pushed on finer points like girls sports no one had answers, and there was a huge, deliberate, campaign against trans people on those finer points.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-sarah-mcbride.html?unlocked_article_code=1.TU8.6TLV.MVu2TwMzfKSW&smid=url-share
Good article, although he could stand to give more credit to the work of the feminists who made all these points first.
I was also going to recommend the Ezra Klein interview with Sarah McBride. You can listen to it on his Podcast. What a great discussion, and exactly what everyone riled up on this thread should listen to.
Fantastic article.
Yes it was so good
Adamantly disagree. The governing organizations for each sport are responsible for setting the rules for athletes to compete under. Lia Thomas fairly competed under the rules that were available to her at the time of competition. Changing the rules later isn’t justification to strip an athlete of their titles unless you’re going to do that across the board for every athlete retrospectively. And Riley Gaines is still a loser.
Historically, intersex and trans athletes have been a part of sports and under scrutiny since the 1936 Olympics. For those that don’t know, what will happen is that female athletes like Helen Stephens who don’t conform to beauty standards will be subject to public scrutiny as she was for being tall and queer — facing media accusations of being a man for years. The bigotry around trans women (not men) will ultimately harm cis women who aren’t physically a feminine ideal.
Yes thank you for saying this
Your second paragraph is gibberish. No one is saying Ilona Maher or someone like that who’s cis but much taller and stronger than the average woman should not be allowed to complete. Some people are obviously blessed with genetics that make them good at sports, and it is what is is. This is specifically about people who are biologically male at birth.
It’s only gibberish if you lack reading comprehension skills.
People are absolutely saying this and also literally testing cisgender women to see if they have genetic advantages due to higher levels of “male” hormones and should therefore be excluded as inadequately female even though they’re AFAB.
To be fair, many of these athletes might be AFAB and identify as women (and should be recognized as such, not called men), but they’re genetically XY and intersex. I’m one of the people who generally thinks there should be a path toward inclusion for T athletes at lower levels, at least in some sports, but it actually seems pretty clear that there are some intersex conditions that provide such an overwhelming advantage in many sports (middle distance running being one) that it’s really not fair to let them compete against women at elite levels.
there have been plenty of vile things written about athletes who didn’t look conventionally girly, especially women of color. Also about Michelle Obama by the way. Their womanhood is constantly questioned because it’s become okay to launch personal attacks at people over this.
Well said, and I agree entirely.
> The bigotry around trans women (not men) will ultimately harm cis women who aren’t physically a feminine ideal
It will not hurt them more than having dudes as competition in their division.
Yes, it will. And it will hurt women who aren’t competing in sports at all.
I promise you it will not, lmao.
The way to end the “scrutiny” would be to require gender and hormone testing. Fair and objective. You pass, you play. No different from drug screening.
Again, historical accounts of the ‘36 games suggested that any of these “suspicious” women be forced into stirrups to compete and I strongly suggest you consider how that becomes a dangerous slippery slope for actual abuse.
A cheek swab should do it.
At what level? Do you think my kindergartner should have to undergo genetic testing to play soccer?
The vast majority of the population wants to let adult T people live their lives and keep women’s sports for women. The Dems are just using the T issue to distract from the fact that they can’t get their act together. They need to drop it and start actually doing something.
Yup. All for trans people being able to have jobs and health insurance and rent apartment. Not here for birthing person and chestfeeding
Dems are letting Republicans dogwalk them on this. If Dems stood up and said “this is a non-issue, you are using this as a distraction/wedge issue,” we wouldn’t be here.
No matter how fringe it seems to Dems, it stands out to voters because if Dems will look you in the eye and say women have penises, what else are they lying about?
It’s the Dems who are using it as a distraction themselves! They are digging their heels in on this ridiculous fringe position so they don’t have to do the hard work of actually standing up to the regime, defending women’s rights, preserving access to health care, etc.
But the majority of left-leaning and centrist voters don’t see it as a non-issue. It’s only a non-issue in the far left wing of the party and that coalition can’t win elections.
It’s not at all a non-issue–the Dems are making it their only issue.
So Anon, your arguments are an example of the extremist anti-woman attitude and rhetoric that are garnering backlash. No one is denying that your relative should be able to have a job and a home and live a quiet life without being bothered for their gender-related choices. But you are arguing that all women should be forced give up their own hard-won rights just to make a small minority of loud, entitled people feel better about their “gender identity.” And you are calling women who question your rhetoric bigots. That is what gets people riled up.
Yup. I guess we will have 30+ more years of MAGA. Goodbye planet, Gaza, Ukraine, immigrants, reproductive rights, social services, public education, any hope of gun control or more affordable housing and childcare. All because Democrats are utterly obsessed with men in women’s sports. We are truly the dumbest party.
Amen. This is what lost the election. Come for people’s kids and they will cut you and never look back.
Sure, if you’re simple minded.
What’s simple-minded is insisting that there is no difference between a woman and a biological male, that self-declared “identity” trumps all, and that there is no nuance that maybe requires considering the interests of women.
We lost the election because the electorate didn’t give a toss about vulnerable people. End of story.
Yes, there is a fair amount of bigotry in this thread – calling trans women, “boys” is bigotry. My point is that this is not an issue that is susceptible to a massive, one-size fits all solution. Let each individual sport determine its own standard. What is applicable to equestrian sports should not be the same as swimming. The standards for U10 sports are different than collegiate or professional athletes. This very specific issue – trans women playing certain sports – is an issue to handle with a scalpel, not an axe. My other point is that an attack on trans women is the beginning of attacking cis women more broadly for how they show up in the world.
No, what is an attack on cis women is declaring that t-women are equivalent. If gender is truly a spectrum, the t-advocates need to admit that t-women and cis women do not fall in the same place on that spectrum and should not be treated as if they do.
I completely agree
I don’t think anyone who doesn’t currently have kids in school outside of the Deep South can truly understand the scope and urgency of this issue. We live in a red area in the upper south and the threat of an ACLU lawsuit means that a biological boy has taken a spot away from a girl on the middle school tennis team. Girls in our high school are being bullied to declare themselves “nonbinary” and use “they/them” pronouns. Biological boys are being awarded girls’ parts in school plays even though there are fewer female parts available and many more girls auditioning. On college tours, high school students are ordered to declare their pronouns, with non-subtle signals that the pronouns should include “them.” It’s all about erasing women and girls.
I am not in the south, but I agree. My 6 year old’s friend announced she was non-binary and tried to get all the other girls in their friend group to identify as non-binary too. I have no problem with adults who identify this way, but I don’t see how at this age it could be anything other than parent-driven. Indeed, within a few months she dropped it and was back to fully identifying as a girl. Not that people can’t explore gender the way some people explore sexuality, but when you have 6 year olds identifying this way and trying to tell other kids to use they/them it does feel a little performative.
The point about the south is that if you live in the Deep South you might be tempted to deny that it’s happening because it isn’t as common there, but it’s widespread everywhere else.
Oh gotcha. I read it the other way.
That’s interesting to me. I have teenagers in a very blue part of CA and there are a a handful of trans/nonbinary kids at their very diverse public high school. It’s not really a big deal to the students or the parents. I’m sure the administrators do as little as possible to be supportive (because doing as little as possible is their default for everything), but there are all-gender (single-use) bathrooms as well as the usual kind.
Being a high school, there is bullying and fighting, but it’s mostly intra-group conflict. It’s relatively rare for a kid to get into it with someone outside of their usual friend group, but when it happens, it’s dealt with appropriately.
My kids are more arty/music-focused so I don’t know much about what’s going on with sports. But as far as I know, there are only a handful of nonbinary kids who play any sport for any period of time, and mostly the sports that aren’t sending anyone to play in college.
It’s the artsy kids who engage in most of the gender-based bullying.
That’s really unfortunate, and I wish The Powers That Be would step in and stop that kind of thing.
In my area (very blue CA) the plays and musicals are cast the way I remember them being cast in the 1990s – girls play all the of the women’s parts, boys and girls play men’s parts because there aren’t as many boys interested in drama club. There are some nonbinary kids in the dance club, and it seems like all of the dancers do various kinds of partnering.
At our high school you get cast in any gender role you say you are willing to play. So the boy who only wants to play women’s roles gets cast as a girl because he’s not willing to play a boy, and the girls who want to be in the play so badly they are willing to take any part frequently get cast in romantic roles opposite other girls, fortunately mostly in comedies but still not the most comfortable thing for them.
The WaPo has a piece today on how quickly nuclear war would be over (45 minutes) and the likely worst-hit cities would be. Is this really where we are, that we are normalizing mass casualty in media and conversation? Not only was it jarring to see that everyone I love would likely be vaporized…. it’s really hard to be motivated to do any work today now, when everything I’m working for could be upended by a madman.
The article didn’t change this risk
+1.
No, this isn’t where we are. I’m not even sure which current headline would have prompted such an article. (Said another, facetious way, “No dahling, nuclear war is so last week.”) We’ve been much closer to nuclear war in past generations (see, Cold War). There were many times in the 20th century that the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war and normal people had no idea.
It’s sad but it’s nothing new. This has been the case for decades. We just happen to be talking about it more now. It is horrifying, but what can you do?
I say this with sympathy, but this is my whole Gen X childhood. We truly believed that nuclear war could happen at any time.
My 1980s midwest US elementary school experience consisted of nuclear b 0mb drills where we all hid under our desks and covered our heads to protect ourselves from fallout. Laughably ineffective and quite dystopian.
Thought I recognized you from under my desk!
Yep, GenX childhood. Living in the Chicago area, we regularly talked about how we were a target. And we all watched The Day After (the nuclear war movie, not the ice age movie with Dennis Quaid) when it came out, which also may have influenced some personality traits.
We are probs responsible for all the S’s carved in the bottoms of those desks, and for removing a zillion staples from the carpet in sheer boredom while waiting for the teacher to clear the drill…
We practiced hiding under our desks in the ’80s too, but we were practicing for “The Big One”–the earthquake that was going to destroy the state of California.
Gen X here – I was scarred by the book On the Beach after reading it in middle school. Still haunted by parts.
I’m a Boomer who grew up in the 70s, and nuclear-war fiction was a whole genre. On the Beach was a classic, but it was a young adult novel called Alas, Babylon that really kept me up at night.
I love nevil shute and have read his books many times. But I read on the beach once and never again.
Laughably ineffective if the bomb is anywhere close to you.
The positive effect comes if you’re not instantly turned to disorganised molecules. The bomb blast will blow out windows and send debris flying into buildings. The idea is hiding under your desks is to avoid being cut to pieces by glass… and it’s not like you would necessarily get medical care afterward, since the destruction and casualties would be so enormous.
They basically just copied our tornado drills because having a nuclear drill was the fashionable scare-fad for the conservative adults who ran things.
We were a rural district and there was no way we would be impacted by an actual nuclear strike, unless whoever was aiming had it in for the cows and corn. There was no target such that our school building would be in the blown-windows collateral damage range. It was all fear-mongering and not in the slightest meant to actually do any good.
We also had drills and hid under out desks in the 1960s. Not news.
Yeah we genuinely thought the Mad Max movies were depicting our probable future.
and here we are, not wrong
it’s an opinion piece, I’m not sure WaPo chose to run it, but… I am in the DC area and have always known I live in the blast radius. Media has contemplated the effects of a nuclear exchange since the first bombs were tested, and this was everywhere in the 50’s. On The Beach was part of my HS curriculum. Fallout is a popular game. I guess I’m not sure why you find this one article “normalizing”?
from the 50s through the 80s, I should say. My mom grew up in upstate NY and tells me she and her friends used to play in their neighbor’s fallout shelter all the time (in the 60s). duck and cover drills were that generation’s active sh00ter drills.
I actually always felt like it was weirdly comforting that I’d be vaporized in the first minutes and wouldn’t have to deal with the rest of it.
10:19 here, and me too! I don’t particularly want to live through a nuclear apocalypse, a zombie apocalypse, or any other end of days scenario.
+1 My dad congratulated me for moving out of the bomb radius when I went off to college in another city in 2010.
Out of curiosity, how old are you? Because I am an old Gen X’er (almost a Boomer) and this was completely normal when I was growing up. The threat of nuclear war was ever present and you just learned to accept it the way you accepted the risk of earthquake if you lived in California.
I grew up next to a major military installation and even in middle school we laughed about duck and cover drills because we were either going to be vaporized or have radiation poisoning so bad immediate death would be better. My parents are old Boomers who were kids during the Cuban Missile Crisis, so I am wondering about the age of people who are just discovering this.
I told my teenager about watching ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ in school and he was horrified. It was scary but also kind of fit in with the general tone of ‘let’s tell you about this thing that will kill you and/or ruin your life’ that dominated much of our media at the time.
Nope, it’s The Day After. The Day After Tomorrow is the ice age one, that I personally quite enjoy, but I have a soft spot for Dennis Quaid.
I’m an elder millennial who grew up on major military installations, and this was just part of our lives. There were times when security increased, for a reason unknown to us, on base/post, and it was just part of the deal: We had to stop and get out of our cars at 5pm for revere, stood at the beginning of movies for the national anthem, and there were times that we weren’t allowed to leave base (especially at certain locales oversees). Sometimes our parents were deployed, hopefully we had enough notice to give them a hug, and we all dreaded the commander showing up unannounced in his dress uniform.
Retreat is at 5pm. :) otherwise, spot on. Elder Millennial here, too. The Wall fell before I started school, so I never ducked and covered, but I’m a veteran and studied a lot of 20th century history, especially military history. I’m actually really interested in the OP’s take, because I hadn’t realized the specter of nuclear war had fallen so far out of the public consciousness for (I assume) younger generations! My own elementary-middle school kids are familiar with MAD, nuclear deterrence, and the Cold War because it’s come up in books or movies, DH and I have had national security jobs, and we’ve talked with them about it from a history perspective and also to contextualize that Russia is an adversary and why the US bombed Iran. I just assumed everyone still knew this.
This is not new. But I’ve always lived in important (naval/business/etc.) east coast cities, so have understood this as a risk.
Can someone share a gift link?
https://wapo.st/4npIWCp
Lolol “normalizing mass casualty” what are you even on about. It’s literally the job of media to talk about things like this!
Toughen up, buttercup. This is not at all the scariest time in history, and your parents and grandparents kept calm and carried on.
As an Old, my elementary and middle school self crouched and covered her head under a desk for drills as school. Even as a kid I knew it was stupid and offered no protection. I also knew that we lived less than ten miles from a secondary military target. I knew as an older child that a couple of years prior to my birth the Cuban Missile Crisis had brought our country within a hair’s breadth of nuclear war. I learned as an adult that my father stockpiled canned goods and tinned water just prior to that incident. I learned later as an older adult that he would have been in the know about what was going on.
While I think that despite all that I turned out to be fairly well adjusted and not overly anxious, I have to admit that I recently looked up an archived map of Cold War era fallout shelters in my city and was well pleased to discover that my condo building was on the map as a shelter.
That article is a big nothingburger, designed to generate clicks. The info is nothing new.
Hive, is anyone familiar with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML)? We recently found out that my husband has it. It’s been a bit of a shock, but his doctor seems confident that he is responding well to medication and can live a long and healthy life. We have a toddler and another on the way. If anyone has any experience with this or useful resources on how to deal with a spouse who has chronic cancer, I would welcome those. I have been through every possible emotion in the past few weeks and am just starting to process this.
I’m so sorry. Hugs to you and your family.
My MIL has this, and has since the mid 90s. She’s well into her 70s now. It makes her much more tired than other people her age and she has some other health issues (hard to tell at this age how much is the cancer and how much is age related and lack of other health maintenance). She typically has to do chemo regimes about every 5-10 years (fewer in the beginning after the first, more frequently now as she ages). She’s on a fully oral one right now with a lot of success. It really is “chronic”. But up until Tr*mp, there were great strides in cancer medicine, so there’s a lot of reason to be positive. I am so sorry you’re dealing with this though.
Sending you love and support. I don’t know anything about CML but my husband was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer at age 33. It was a rough couple years of surgery, chemo, and recovery. The biggest lesson I wish I could share with myself back then would be to lean of friends and family. I thought I could handle doing almost everything myself, and my husband preferred to keep this quite private. But being a full time caregiver without a lot of support pretty much broke me. Tell your friends and family and allow them to help even BEFORE it feels like you need it. Especially with kids, lean on your village. Hire extra help around the house. Put some supports in place. I went to therapy nearly weekly to help process my own emotions through all of this.
I’m sorry you are going through this. There WILL be many better days ahead where this falls into the background of life, I promise.
This. All of this.
Check out Mayo Clinic or American Cancer Society websites for good information. ACS might have special patient information as well.
This is a kind of cancer for which there’s a good targeted therapy, so his prognosis is probably good. Best of luck to you.
It’s good to hear that your husband is responding well to treatment. Best wishes to your whole family in living with this challenge. If you want to connect with other folks who have spouses with chronic illnesses, I can recommend the Well Spouse Association (wellspouse [dot] org). Their twice-a-month online meetings kept me going during my husband’s cancer and heart disease. It sounds like it serves only people say, 60+ but one very active member (and former President) has started a group for much younger spouses. It was wonderful to meet with others who understood the specific challenges of being a healthy spouse. Hugs, if you want them.
I’m so sorry for y’all. My brother was diagnosed with CML in his early 30’s and is doing very well more than 5 years later. While it was terrifying at first, we’re all very hopeful that he can continue to live a normal life with medication for a long time.
Yes, I have a precursor condition to this, and it is progressing to leukemia. I am followed regularly by Oncology. I am also at risk for multiple common cancers because of bad genetics, but leukemia will hit me first most likely. Fortunately, it is perhaps the most treatable. I’m actually a little relieved I wont have to have any surgery! My oncologist also reassures me that treatments are very effective and I will be able to live with it super well. Every medication will have some side effects, but honestly the younger and healthier you are to begin with, the easier it will be.
My uncle also has this, and is about to turn 90!
I have found private Facebook groups for my conditions really helpful, especially for reducing my stress.
Your husband is going to do super well. But these experiences will change you both. Hopefully, much of this change will be in a good direction, helping you focus on the things in your life that are most meaningful. Live for today.
Does anyone have a professional shoe recommendation that doesn’t make noise when walking through the office (I don’t want to wear sneakers)? Even my Quince suede loafers seem to make a squishing noise.
I have a pair of Born loafers with firm gum soles that neither squeak nor click nor pfft when I walk.
Low pumps?
Is the squishing sound a function of the outside of the sole on the floor, or noise created by your foot inside the shoe, like an air gap creating noise? If the latter, something like superfeet insoles or even socks can stop it.
Air gap noise, and thanks, will check the insoles out.
Have your cobbler add rubber resoling, if it’s the outer sole that makes noice.
We will be staying at my in-laws’ house over the holiday weekend. Though the house is on a lake in northern Michigan it will be hot there (94 degrees). Our bedroom is on the second floor where there is no air conditioning and one window. They have an oscillating floor fan. There is also a ceiling fan. I really do enjoy being at their house but I barely get any sleep at night because it gets so hot in that room. Any advice?
Close the curtains/shades during the day, try to maximize air flow at night. Get one of those water mister spray bottles, they really help, especially in combination with the fan. Wear nothing or as close to nothing as you are comfortable with in this situation. Keep an insulated bottle of cold water near the bed, and a wet towel to be applied to your wrists and neck for quick cooling. I’m from Europe and never had AC growing up and this is how we handled heat waves.
There’s a room in my parents’ house that seems to get no AC coming through the vents, and a Dyson cooling tower helps a lot.
I would check into a hotel with AC. I’m perimenopausal but I would get literally no sleep if my bedroom was above about 85 and you’re not going to cool it below that with curtains and fans.
Yes Europeans do it but it doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. And until recent climate change effects it almost never got to 94 in most of Europe.
Same…I wouldn’t sleep there. I don’t spend my limited time off from work being miserable unless it’s for a really good reason. I also don’t have the physical capacity to work a demanding job and then get barely any sleep all weekend.
Same, I cannot sleep when I’m hot, I need AC.
Any hope of being able to buy a window AC unit to donate to the house?
This would be my move. It benefits you for years to come, and surely the in-laws will use it when it gets terribly hot.
If they don’t want an installed window Ac, get a portable one and a temporary window kit.
My father purchased an AC unit and brought it to a rental house in this situation. A window unit (or the portable kind that has a hose you put up to the window) is about as much as a night in a hotel, and you could keep it at their house for next visit
I’m in the Bay Area and have one of those for our rare heat waves. My home has no A/c.
Those little units are noisy but they really work!
I think we used it for 3-4 days last year.
FWIW, weekend highs forecast for my area of northern Michigan are currently low 80s and not mid 90s. It has cooled off from last week and the humidity dropped yesterday.
Keep the blinds closed when it is sunny, keep doors and windows open throughout the house. If there is a furnace fan, run it during the cool parts of the day to cycle the hot air out. Sleep downstairs if needed.
I can’t sleep if it’s hot so I would book a hotel or buy an AC myself.
Please do not buy an AC and take it to someone else’s house without asking them first and offering to pay the electric bill for the month. A lot of windows in older houses will not support a window AC unit and a lot of older houses do not have the electrical capacity to support AC. And it will likely cause their power bill to skyrocket.
Totally agree with this. But I would consider buying another fan for your room.
Also, I am not sure where you are going in MI, but my parents are at a lake in northern Michigan right now, and the high today is 73, with a forecast high of 80 on Saturday and 75 on Sunday.
Yeah, northern Michigan is not that big and no part of it has a 94 high forecast for this weekend.
I live further downstate and even here our highs are not expected to climb out of the 80s any time in the next 10 days. Night time temps are 65-70 right now, too, so sleeping with fans and an open window should be fine. Being surrounded by the Great Lakes keeps us quite comfortable.
We’re going to the town of Honor in northern Michigan. Forecast is 94 degrees on Saturday.
Day time highs are very different from the nighttime temperature. Especially because the water cools things off faster.
My weather app says 85 for Honor on Saturday and <80 for every day after that.
Honor is a beautiful area, and not forecast to be more than the low 80s on Saturday, dropping to the mid-70s on Sunday, with a whopping high of 69 by Monday. I think you are catastrophizing unnecessarily.
Pay the electrical bill for the month after using a window unit for 3 night? Lawd. If they are destitute, okay. But guests always add to your costs for the time they are there, that’s expected. Since it’s DH’s parents, can you just ask them? The portable units don’t even have to sit in the window
Can you switch rooms with someone else? Also, if you can somehow put a box fan into the window, the air flow might help.
another point – if she has cheap sheets on the bed that’s going to make it worse! bring your own linen or percale sheets for yourself if that’s the case.
Bring a fan you can put on a desk or table that faces the bed.. Put a bowl of ice in front of the fan so the air blows across the ice. It really will help. I didn’t have A/C in my college dorms (in the South! August and May were quite hot), and this really does help. Also if the room has windows on different sides, you can set up box fans in the windows and get a cross breeze going, that helps (so one fan blows air in, the other side blows air out).
I’m probably going to buy this: https://thefoldlondon.com/product/skye-silk-blouse-blue-and-orange-peony/?sku=DB493UK10
How would you style it? There’s a matching skirt too. Or talk me out of it if it’s actually hideous. I have dark-ish skin so I wear colors like bright yellow and orange really well.
I like it with the matching skirt if that is a look you can pull off. I also like it under a cobalt or white suit. I like it less on its own over solid color pants or long skirt, but it’s not that it doesn’t work, it just isn’t as put-together a look
Do you think it works with darker wash jeans?
Different commenter; I think it would work as long as the dark wash doesn’t have clashing undertones. White jeans would look great, too.
Commenter above: I agree with this comment, and with a little work, you might even find a pair of very light wash jeans that work for a bit of an edgier take.
(BTW-After posting, I thought – what about dark jeans? So we were on the same page)
love it if you can wear those colors! i’d wear it with white blazer/white cardigan also. very very dark wash jeans or very very light blue wash jeans, or white jeans, i think. navy pants. light gray pants or suit.
I also agree that navy could be interesting.
It’s gorgeous!
I would rethink that. It’s not stylish or interesting enough to be unstylish. I’d look for something else bold.
I would wear this with a warm, slightly off camel coloured bottom.
I really like the principles of the Tibi colour wheel, mixing very bright colours with more muddy ones rather than black or white.
I like it with the solid blue pants as shown. I’d add a topper in one of the colors, or something close to it. The right beige/tan could work.
AITA? DH and I have very different tolerance levels for driving on near-empty. It seems like every time I get in his truck, the gas light is on. I almost never let my car get below half a tank. This is an ongoing source of mostly good natured ribbing between us. FWIW, to my knowledge, he has never run out of gas.
I am currently 36 weeks pregnant. I have a number of high risk factors that mean I could be called in for an induction any day, including preterm. They’re definitely not letting me go to 39+ weeks, I’ll be lucky to go to 38. Very much touch and go rn. The plan is for DH to drive us to the hospital in his truck. We both prefer his truck for a number of reasons – it’s easier for me to get in and out of than my little car, safety (his big thing), and we only have one car seat base rn (a second base is on back order) which has been installed in his truck. Yesterday, we were running an errand and the gas light came on in his truck. I asked him to please not let that happen when we’re driving to or from the hospital. I will already be stressed and anxious, please do not add to that. There will be a lot of things we cannot control on the day-of but this is one thing we can control.
He said ok but he’s a bit grumpy with me. He said he would never let his wife and newborn be stranded on the side of the freeway. We only live about 15 miles from the hospital, gas light goes on at 50 miles left, that’s plenty of gas to get to the hospital or home. I pointed out that it is currently summer and our route to/from the hospital is also the route to two different beaches – one north and one south – so beach traffic is bad Th-Mon no matter which way you’re going. It’s also been 100+ degrees. With the AC on, you could easily burn through 50 miles worth of gas (and likely more) by idling in traffic. He’s still a little grumbly because I’m not trusting him to take care of us.
But like – you’re basically admitting that you wouldn’t take care of us if I didn’t speak up? If his response had been, of course I will have a full tank for the next month, how could you possibly think otherwise! Then I would apologize for doubting him. But doubling down that driving around with the gas light on during summer beach traffic with a 9 mo pregnant wife does not inspire confidence! He’s my husband and we’re about to go through a whole thing and I’d like to smooth this over before baby gets here. Was I wrong here and what do I do?
I think you probably have better and nicer feeling ways to use your mental energy right now!
Let me get this straight – you asked for something incredibly simple and easy for him to do that he should be doing anyway while you’re close to delivering in a high-risk pregnancy and he had the audacity to say anything other than “you’re absolutely right, consider it done?” Wow. This is one of those insanely irritating things about men, like my best friend’s husband refusing to wash a knife used on raw chicken with soap. I don’t know if it’s ODD or what but it sometimes makes being single look damn appealing.
Lol. She can fill up his truck then. She’s essentially asking him to fill up his truck twice as often as usual, which is a needless PITA, because she’s anxious, not because it needs to happen. I’d probably just lie and say “of course!” and then do what I always do.
His truck is a stick and I don’t know how to drive stick. I know I should learn, each of us should be able to drive the other’s vehicle in case of emergency. But we haven’t gotten around to it and I think we’re unlikely to teach me how to drive stick rn!
I guess I could go buy one of those red gas containers and fill that? I’d probably have to make a few trips to get to 1/2 a tank. Seems like a much bigger PITA than him just… filling his truck maybe once a week for the next 2 weeks.
Just get in your car if the truck’s gas light is on and you go into labor.
I suppose if it’s a time limited request, I’m on your side. I hate getting gas and would not react well to someone telling me to keep my tank full. Even someone I loved dearly.
Put the car seat in your car and take that
I feel for you and I think you are 100% right, but if he won’t do it he won’t do it. It’s not good for you to be pumping gas even if you could drive the truck. So I say take your car to the hospital if you get in on the day of and his gas light is on.
Haha, this is my husband. He has to refuse to do the sensible normal thing just to prove that I don’t control him.
Yes, couldn’t be that he’s got his own thoughts and opinions that are just as valid as yours. Nope, not at all.
I swear some of you hate your husbands.
Not washing a knife that’s touched raw chicken is objectively unreasonable. Plenty of men will do sh!t like that just to prove that they don’t have to listen to their wives.
Lmao, I forgot about the misandrist brigade around here.
Yikes.
This is basically me and DH. I find it works better to agree to disagree but ask for action because I am trying to minimize stress. You’re in your last trimester, a lot is not in your control so it’s understandable to want to control what you can. Agreeing to keep the gas tank at least half or 3/4 full for x period of time can be something you agree on to remove the stress around the risk of being stranded for lack of gas. It doesn’t have to be about how well or not well DH would take care of you and baby.
You’re right. I led with, I will be anxious can you please help me to be less anxious? I should’ve left it at that. I think my listing all the reasons My Way is the Right Way probably made it worse and made him feel more defensive.
100%
there was just a fascinating article in the NYT by a (US born) immigration lawyer who gave birth in the car on the way to the (American) hospital — it was a complete PITA to get her daughter declared a citizen.
I can’t find the one I read, which was from this week, but here’s a similar article in the NYT (gift link):
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/well/family/why-you-dont-want-to-have-a-baby-in-a-car.html?unlocked_article_code=1.TU8.nh20.ZgahRh8qPRZu&smid=url-share
A different angle that might make your man-child change his ways: on many modern vehicles, the fuel pump needs to stay submerged in gasoline in order to avoid overheating. It wears out more quickly if you constantly run the tank close to empty because it then frequently has to run at higher-than-optimal temperatures.
yikes, says the person who has put 17.45 gallons in her 17.5 gallon tank at least 3x this year alone
You likely have ~2 gallons beyond that in the fuel lines, but it’s really not optimal for your fuel pump. Probably won’t die on you tomorrow, but will last longer if you curb that habit. Any incremental damage will not heal itself after all, but will just continue to build up the more you push it.
Are you a risk taking person in general?
I think you were overreacting, and I also think 36 weeks pregnant women get to overreact about stuff like this.
See what he does over the next four weeks. My guess is that he grumbled and will now top it up. But really, push comes to shove, you have another car option available to you in an emergency, and the arguments for taking the truck are very weak. (He will be home again before you’re released from the hospital if you give birth and can drive the truck back to it).
You are not wrong! My DH is the same and constantly runs the gas down to well below my comfort level, but I’m not pregnant. In your shoes I would just say “Buddy, I love you but you gotta fix this for me, your very pregnant wife who has a zillion things to worry about and needs this to not be one of them. The end.”
Sorry, I do think you’re the AH. And I’ve had four kids with quick labors and get the fact that this is a stressful time. But needing to keep your gas tank half full at all times seems like anxiety. I definitely wait until the light comes on, always. Labors are rarely so quick that you can’t get gas on the way.
Maybe that can be your back up plan, for your own peace of mind? Plan to stop at the nearest gas station on your way to the hospital regardless
I also think it’s a bit melodramatic to say that “he wouldn’t take care of you” and the baby if you didn’t speak up. This is an area where reasonable people can disagree!
Agree with this, and I might add to literally time with a stopwatch the amount of time it takes from when you pull into the gas station, fuel up the 4 gallons it would take to comfortably cover any traffic situation on the way to the hospital, and pull out, so you get over the “we won’t have time to get gas!” worry. It’ll likely be under 3 minutes.
Maybe it’s because my spouse is law enforcement, but cars do run out of gas and bad things happen because of it. My spouse never lets the tank get below half because what he’s seen on the job.
It IS anxiety but it’s reasonable anxiety — AND, don’t you think this is something that her husband can so easily accommodate that it should be a no-brainer? He has one job right now: to support his super-pregnant wife.
Man, the bar is in H3LL for these men.
It’s not a no-brainer, because I’ve been pregnant four times and have a brain and literally have never thought or worried about the gas.
And he said okay, he’ll do it. So the question is really about tone-policing the way he agreed.
The bar is totally in hell. Depressing.
His one job is … poorly defined and subject to constant change? Would you sign up for that job?
Right. I’m certain he has many many job.s
Well he did sign up for that job when he knocked her up. Like yes of course the non-pregnant partner’s job is to support the pregnant partner, and yes that often is subject to a lot of change!
If he doesn’t fill it, then it’s not the car you use to get to the hospital. If he wants to be a huge man baby about it, then no truck ride for him on that day.
This is the answer.
You are not the a-hole. It’s not necessary to argue the merits of a gas tank. You asked for something simple that would make you feel less anxious. He can easily do it. That should be done, no questions or arguments needed.
For the person who suggested that you are the a-hole because you’re asking your husband to deal, momentarily and easily, with something that makes you anxious — again, whether it makes you anxious (regardless of your personal experiences with births) doesn’t matter. And just because people worry about different things doesn’t make them wrong or bad.
This right here. It doesn’t matter if there are any good arguments for his side. It’s an extremely simple thing she asked for with many valid reasons behind it (ie, it’s in no way an unhinged request). Just. Do. It.
That’s not how being a couple works. You don’t just get to say (in probably a very annoying voice) “this is a reasonable request and therefore I will not accept discussion.”
When you’re 9 months pregnant and make a reasonable request? Of course you do.
This is pedantic, but she’s 8 months pregnant. The first two weeks are freebies, and conception to the 40-week mark is 8.75 months. My pet peeve is all the people who count 4 weeks as a month and say pregnancy is 10 months long. It’s less Than 9 for most of us
Oh my god. That’s not at all what OP is saying. And being a couple should work like this: if A cares about/is worried about something and its a simple thing to handle, B does it.
So, for example, my husband cares about washing the cars. I 100% do not. He ususally takes care of it, because he cares about it. But when he says, “hey, can you get the car washed this week?” I just do it. Because it’s a small thing that helps my husband, regardless whether he’s “right” or whether I’m “right.”
I mean, missing a car wash one weel does not hurt your husband.
Do you just do everything your husband asks of you, even if you think it’s born from anxiety? I don’t.
If he were heavily pregnant with a high-risk pregnancy and asked me to keep the gas tank full to alleviate his anxiety, I would 100% do it. That’s not even a question. I wouldn’t waste his time arguing.
He’s not arguing, he said okay! He’s just “a bit grumpy”. OP is wanting her way AND to control his feelings about it
+1 at 12:53.
Then correction, I would do it for my husband with a smile and no judgment. What does it cost me to out him at ease?
Congrats on “keeping sweet.” Fundie men would love to have you as a wife.
It sounds like they live in an area with a ton of traffic, so it costs him a lot of extra pointless trips to the gas station!
People are allowed to be human and feel “a bit” disgruntled sometimes.
12:55, I don’t believe you.
You do know you can be nice to your spouse without somehow being a fundamentalist? Try it sometime. You might be shocked at how nice it is to live when people are kind to each other.
This is a false argument. This isn’t about “everything.” This is about one small, simple thing.
A helpful thought experiment for “is it just anxiety” is putting odds on all the issues. Like, it sounds like you’re worried about the light being on AND there being massive traffic AND it being so hot you need to blast AC AND labor being so precipitous that you can’t stop for gas AND you guys didn’t just decide to take your car to the hospital for some reason AND he can’t come home to get the truck or swap the car seat base during the three days you’re in the hospital. That is a loooooot of low probability ands in a row. I lean on the side of this being unjustified anxiety.
I think perinatal anxiety is normal to experience, but experiencing completely normal anxiety does not necessarily mean giving in to that anxiety.
That’s just now how anxiety works.
It absolutely is, and this is a very common process that anxiety therapists will walk their patients through. Breaking down the anxiety in this way deadens its power.
I live somewhere where earthquakes and wildfires occur, so we never let out tanks go below a quarter full and usually keep them above that. I’d never want to have to worry about evacuating or being without power for days on an empty gas tank, so my sympathies are definitely with you on this one. It just seems like basic preparedness, especially with you being pregnant.
Yep. You won’t find any disaster orgs recommending running to empty just for fun.
It’s wild how people are framing a general safety practice that’s recommended by many organizations government and non governmental alike as ‘anxiety’. Risk taking on other people’s behalf is selfish.
It is not the first time I’ve seen that characterization here!
I think a lot of people would rather just not know about a lot of general safety practices and recommendations.
Privileged people who have never had anything bad happen to them, have never seen social systems break down, and who think they can easily buy their way out of any situation believe that caution and advance planning are “anxiety.” I plan ahead, so I had toilet paper and N95s in early 2020 and was able to give some to my rich optimistic relatives who thought they had nothing to worry about.
“Privileged people who have never had anything bad happen to them, have never seen social systems break down, and who think they can easily buy their way out of any situation believe that caution and advance planning are ‘anxiety.'”
Anon at 2:42 pm, you described my rich relatives perfectly, as well as a lot of their condescension for me.
Anyone else remember the May 2021 gas pipeline ransomware attack that left half of the South with empty gas pumps?
I keep my tank at least a quarter full precisely so I’m not totally SOL if a random emergency happens.
Another moment where I’m so grateful for my husband. He gasses up both our cars at the 50% mark.
It had literally never occurred to me that there are people who regularly keep their cars gassed up above 50%. Maybe occasionally in a storm/fire/emergency preparedness situation. Or in winter keeping it above 25%. But it honestly seems crazypants to me as a baseline of operating! (And also lol for all the independent women who don’t get their own gas)
Right. I gas up when my car needs more gas. My life is not so empty that I go to the gas station unless I absolutely have to.
No one has ever independently taken my car to get gas for me. I’d love it if they did, though 😄
Good grief, I know how to get gas and certainly do if I run out on a trip or something. Having a spouse do nice things for you doesn’t make you “not independent.” You keep on taking out the trash and getting gas to prove a point or something, I’ll sit over here enjoying not having to.
You don’t put gas in your own car???
Nope. It’s one of the nice things he does for me. It can be pretty great having a husband who’s caring like that.
Can the people claiming OP is the AH provide any compelling reasons why it’s good to run to near empty in this situation? What’s your argument, his convenience is most important? Help me understand.
I don’t get it at all, that would cause me so much stress. Full tank all the time here.
Do you just not drive or do you live at the gas station? Getting gas is my least favorite activity.
I drive by a gas station on my way to work and it’s beyond easy to take 5 minutes to fill it up.
It might be a difference in locations. My gas stations are anxiety inducing because they are always full and you always have to navigate getting a spot. I get to empty everytime before I go to the gas station. It is not beyond easy.
This is like saying “my husband wants to vacuum once a week, and I want him to vacuum daily,” and then a commenter replying “for those who think him vacuuming once a week is fine, what’s your argument?”
The argument is that she’s looking for him to perform an action on her behalf that is not necessary. If he wants to do it, amazing! If he doesn’t, that’s his choice, and it’s fine, too.
If she’s that worried about it, she can fill up the truck herself. Or they can take her car. Either way, not a thing worth emotionally stressing over.
Firstly, I said she is the AH because that is the binary conceit of this meme, I don’t actually think either of them is an AH.
I’m coming from the point that it is unreasonable to be upset about this if he forgets, and it is anxiety more than an actual need. I often find myself intending to get gas and then completely forgetting. Perhaps it is an ADHD brain, or being distracted, but even when I have a plan of when I’m going to get it in the course of my errands, I sometimes drive right past and end up at home. So I am sympathetic to how her husband could honestly forget, and I don’t think she really needs to worry about running out of gas (has it ever happened before?)
Well, as someone who is anxious, I’m sympathetic to her anxiety. So can’t we see how he could honestly forget and see how that’s perhaps difficult for OP?
Whether “someone actually needs to worry” is immaterial to anxiety, just like “just write it down!” is immaterial for someone with ADHD.
Your comment is funny because you’re, like, rejecting the things that work?
Evaluating the situation more objectively actually is very material to anxiety, as most therapeutic methods for addressing anxiety include evaluating what steps one wants to take due to the anxiety and figuring out which ones are justified by reality vs which ones only seem necessary due to the anxiety. Writing things down is similarly part of the toolkit for people with ADHD.
Just saying, I took Lyft to the hospital for both my deliveries.
NTA, but also I am your husband. We’d probably compromise on the tank not getting less than 30 miles, but my car is highly reliable on 50 miles is 50 miles with the AC on in traffic.
The tank doesn’t have 50 miles left in it when the light goes on, at least not on my car. When the light goes on the “miles remaining in tank” indicator starts to go at around 3x the actual mileage, so it’s really got about 16 miles left.
When people wonder if being a single mother is hard this is what I, a single mother, think about
Just gonna say it’s not anxiety to want adequate gas with room to spare in summer heat and traffic while pregnant. It’s common sense. The burden is on the husband to prove why running near empty is safer.
Once upon a time I worked at a major auto manufacturer and the only claims we ever had for engines running dry with catastrophic results were from men. Sometimes I think about that and their entitlement to think they deserve a free engine for their own behavior.
I don’t know anyone who drives near empty unless they’re broke.
But what happens if you’re out together and you propose swinging by the gas station? I get that you don’t really drive his truck, but if you fill up the tank when you’re out together, is that not enough?
(And I do not mean on the way to the hospital!! I meant yesterday while running the errand… Or I guess I just hope he did fill up the truck yesterday.)
This is a totally reasonable request. The women saying to stop for gas on the way or to take a Lyft aren’t recognizing the fact that you have an extremely high risk pregnancy. This is different from normal labor, where you may have time to stop. There are so many complications that can make getting to the hospital quickly absolutely critical. I’m an MD and would never want my patient stopping at a gas station on the way to a hospital if she had any type of complication.
Your husband got his feelings hurt because he felt like you were calling him callous. Frame it as “this would make me feel less anxious, in a very anxiety-inducing time.”
Also – the women saying he shouldn’t have to do something to make you feel better are being silly. That’s what marriage is. If my husband says something will make him feel better during a difficult time in his life, I will always try to do it unless it’s not possible. It’s not about ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ it’s about committing to doing things to make the other person’s life better and valuing each other’s feelings. At the end of the day, that impulse (or its absence) is one of the big distinctions between happy and unhappy marriages.
Your last paragraph is key and what I also said in comments above. I gladly fulfill little requests my husband makes of me and he does the same for me. We literally don’t question the other about it when it’s a simple thing to do. I didn’t realize that was unusual.
Good for you. But lots of people aren’t like that. We question everything that isn’t a valid request or a request “just because.”
I actually don’t know people like you in my orbit. It must be a personality difference.
Why though? Genuinely, my husband is a literal angel and I feel like the luckiest woman in the world to have him by my side. I would do anything in my power to make his life better, because I love him. I feel the same way about my parents. I thought this was instinct for people we love.
The idea of ‘questioning anything that isn’t a valid request’ is bonkers to me.
Haha, you aren’t wrong. It is bonkers and exhausting. Best I can say is most people I know have an ingrained sense of right/wrong/reasonable, and any conflict gets our back up.
So as an example between two people who love each other (me and my spouse) it tends to be a power struggle because we both think we know the best way to care and love ourselves and each other and our goal is to make the other see sense. It is not in our nature to succumb to someone else’s idea unless we fully conform to the notion being presented.
We both come from families and friend groups like this. It’s probably a “like attracts like” situation.
Thank you for such a thoughtful answer! That makes a ton of sense and I totally understand. It’s so true what you said about once our shackles get up – then it becomes about defending our side versus whatever the original thing was to begin with.
Y’all do not sound very emotionally mature and well regulated. Fighting for your side for the sake of being right vs the betterment of the relationship is classic emotional dysregulation. It’s like toddlers tantruming.
I don’t think I could stay married to someone who questioned everything just to…fight? That sounds miserable and awful for low-stakes things and really bad for high-stakes ones.
They (we) would say we’re fighting the idea of mediocrity so that we can have optimal.
My ex-husband questioned what he did not see as a valid request and ended up putting me in a wheelchair. Turns out, it was actually dangerous to do what he did!
1000%. I think I saw your comment and I totally agree. The tension betwee those who believe ‘the person who is right gets their way’ versus ‘we both strive to make each other happy in every moment because we love each other’ seems like the big dividing line on this thread.
Between you and me, I think we wind up with the happier relationships…
And there is great misery when one person is one way and the other person is the other way. Ask me how I know. Ask me how delighted I am for that and 1000 other petty, daily things I am to be divorced.
I agree. You really should know yourself and your partner before you sign up for a lifetime.
One person being a good-faith actor and the other not is the worst. I am so glad you are free from that!
She literally has another car available to her if the labor is precipitous.
It’s entirely likely that they won’t be at home when she goes into labor. If they are driving anywhere in his truck, it should have enough gas.
Okay, then don’t drive anywhere in his truck.
Or she can fill it up herself.
Unless he’s run out of gas before, you are the AH. My car can still drive like 50 miles with the gas light on. I don’t get the big deal.
Right. It isn’t amazing for the car, but you aren’t going to be stranded.
The effect on the car is cumulative, though, so keep that in mind if you do this regularly.
Your husband should be babying you during this time. Foot massages, washing your hair, cooking you dinner, letting you cry in his lap over tiny things, giving you space to be emotional or scared, pampering you, getting you whatever you want. It isn’t the time to argue over semantics – he should be doing anything within his power to make life easier for you.
Ew. Pregnancy isn’t making her helpless.
My husband literally waited on me hand and foot during my pregnancy. I thought this was generally an evolutionary adaption, but I’m shocked to see most women seem to think not even filling your gas tank up for your high-risk pregnant wife is reasonable. We need higher standards for men.
The bar is in h3ll
I guess? I’m in a military community and the men aren’t even always there during pregnancy and birth. I never viewed pregnant women as helpless. My mom was pregnant with me and my sibling alone while my dad was deployed. She was not helpless.
A lot of you don’t have sweet loving husbands and it shows.
Right? Lord.
For real.
I think it’s more than most women view themselves as competent adults these days. My husband is very devoted, but I would strongly resist the infantilization some of these comments are describing.
It’s ‘ew’ to be taken care of while you’re literally risking your health to create a new life?
I think it was the washing of someone else’s hair that grossed me out. So yeah, ew.
I am trying to understand how, with the level of physical and emotional intimacy that being married entails, washing your wife’s hair could somehow be crossing the line. I let strangers at the salon wash my hair.
They are doing that as a precursor to another service, not because they think pregnancy takes away your basic ability to function for some reason?
Also, there are a lot of things I let strangers do that I don’t want my husband doing.
Oh my god! Why can’t people understand that one person’s boundary is not another person’s??? It’s not objectively “ew” or “not-ew” to have someone else wash your hair. It’s one person’s comfort level.
Your personal preferences are just that. We’d all be better off if we just understood that simple, simple thing.
50 miles is 2 gallons of gas- you could put a 5gal Jerry can in the trunk to avoid the argument.
Not in a truck.
This bonkers thread is the reason I read this page.
Obviously NTA but it is always helpful- as I look at the burning country and world and grapple with understanding how other people can see the same things I do and have wildly opposite analyses – to see it on a micro scale such as this
Those of you defending the husband, congrats on being a pick me, as the kids said several years and but I’m going to keep saying.
I’m not defending the husband, but she’s the unreasonable one in this scenario. Luckily, the husband can’t see me so I can’t shine in his eyes, or whatever you’re implying.
“Pick me” is an inherently anti-woman phrase. Please stop using it.
You’re both a bit inflexible. What stands out for me is that I’m surprised that you haven’t taken the time to learn to drive his (stick shift) truck!
If you’re concerned about the unlikely but theoretically possible scenarios that could result in running out of gas, I would expect you to be equally concerned about the unlikely yet possible scenarios where your husband might unexpectedly be incapacitated and unable to drive the truck. It would be useful and safer if you had the ability to be able to drive both your vehicles.
This. you can learn to drive stick in like… an hour. the fact that you haven’t done that and are simultaneously upset with your husband for not changing an ingrained habit is interesting.
I acknowledge that I do need to learn. But it’s not as if I can just take his truck and try to figure it out by myself. He’d have a heart attack. Ive offered many times to learn over the weekend but something always seems to come up. I haven’t wanted to like, put my foot down about it. I figured it would happen at some point.
Wow. He’s being a baby.
I saw a friend making fun of the Lululemon/Costco lawsuit because she said “come on, no one has ever thought that a Costco item was actually made by the brand on the DL.” with clothes i might agree but everyone knows about the liquor and wine, right?
I know there was an article from the maker of Indian simmer sauce about how Trader Joe’s totally ripped her off and copied half of her design elements.
Huh?
I agree. There’s all sorts of house brands that are made by some original manufacturer. It sounds like in this case it was just trying to be a copy.
I literally got a multi-pack of store brand items this week. In the middle of the sealed pack was a brand name version that apparently came off the same manufacturing line. The labels were very different; otherwise the contents were indistinguishable.
People sometimes say that Vuori makes one of their joggers, so I think the confusion on clothes is legit.
I’m moving from a small company to a job at a huge global company. My mid-level position will be fully remote (the people on my team are also remote). Do you have any advice on how I should reset my expectations in working for a much larger company? I realize there is more bureaucracy and more specialized roles but any other insights are appreciated. I want to start off on the right foot. I’ve never started a job remotely either, with no plans to meet in person, so I’m curious what that might be like and how to have the right mindset.
I think you have the right mindset! You go in curious, understanding that things will work differently, and prepared to flex with them as you discover what they are.
Be prepared to spend a lot of time trying to figure out who handles what. I am in this situation and still struggling 7 months in.
can you suggest an in-person kickoff meeting? I agree that figuring who does what, how policies work in practice, etc is a big part of it, but so is establishing relationships, and that’s harder when you literally have never met IRL.
Don’t do this. Do not start off by asking for things to be done differently. Sit back, ask questions, learn, and then work on making changes. And I would think that asking your 100% remote team to travel to meet you would not be terribly well received.
Sooo why is my brow product turning orange, especially in the sun?! Googling didn’t turn up anything helpful. Has anyone ever had this happen with makeup? So weird. I don’t put anything under / on top of it.
which brow product? are you putting sunscreen on your eyebrows before you put makeup on? if so which sunscreen are you using? that sounds like a chemical reaction; i’d switch brow products.
Oxydation could be the issue.
Google will also tell you that you can have this problem if you use a face product with vitamin C.
Do you have a favorite pair of athletic shorts for a curvy woman? The Nike running shorts of the earlier 2000s were always a little too tight in the rear and loose in the front for me, plus a bit too short if I actually wanted to run. I basically want the soccer shorts I wore as a kid, except maybe with pockets. I don’t want to pay $40 a pair, but maybe that’s unreasonable. I think I’m stuck in earlier 2000s clothing prices, hah.
Yeah, $40 is reasonable for running shorts. I am curvy and really like the Athleta mesh run racer shorts.
I love the Athleta mesh racer run shorts as well. They have a great little zip pocket that’s perfect for keys and a credit card. Athleta is having a sale now and it looks like certain colors are on sale for $30.
+1 for these.
If I found a pair of $40 performance shorts that fit me well, I would snatch them up. I think you need to figure out whether you want cheap shorts (in which case, browse the sales at Old Navy), or a great fit (accept the reality of inflation).