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Weekend Open Thread

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Something on your mind? Chat about it here.

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Sales of note for 4/10:

224 Comments

  1. What’s the best family-friendly (-ish, older kids, but definitely no R-rated stuff) Halloween movie that’s not Nightmare Before Christmas, Hocus Pocus, or Beetlejuice? (Nothing against those movies, I’ve just seen them a bunch.)

    8. Not a movie, and not specifically Halloween, but Over the Garden Wall might be an option.

  2. Thank you, Canada, for introducing me to the word “gormless” (in a critique of the Reagan foundation falsely stating that Canada used President Reagan’s views on tariffs out of context).
    I’m sorry this administration sucks so much. We don’t deserve you as neighbors.

    1. +1

      Canada, I wish I could defect. Please know that we are not a monolith down here.

  3. Does anyone else bait and switch when interviewing to overcome biases?

    I’m very much an introverted corporate goth girlie. However for interviews I go get a pale pink manicure and wear bland clothes, I excessively research the interviewer so I can ‘coincidentally’ bring up things they’re interested in, and have a script that hits all key topics. In interviews I spend 100% of my social battery chatting and laughing and smiling.

    1. Well, of course you dress and act socially appropriate for interviews and do your research.

      I would not call this bait and switch. I just hope you are not applying for a client facing corporate roll if you plan to return to Goth styling, have no interest in your colleagues, and isolate.

    2. I wouldn’t call that “bait and switch;” I’d call it maximizing your chances of getting hired by appearing as mainstream as possible.

    3. In job interviews, as in first dates, your counterpart is meeting your representative, not you.

    5. I’m midcareer, and I dress nicely and appropriately for interviews, try to make conversation and connect with interviewers, and overall make them think I’d be good to work with and they like me.
      I do think at some point you have to be your authentic self and hiding yourself too well means both sides aren’t able to judge fit. I do a lot of interviewing as the hiring manager or a peer now, and I tell people the truth about the environment (you need a tough skin and a strong backbone) so that they can decide if it’s a good fit for them.

    6. I don’t. Unless you’re desperate and need a job ASAP, you’re interviewing these people too. I would obviously try to put my best foot forward with personal grooming, appropriate research and preparation, etc., but I wouldn’t be trying to present myself as anyone other than who I am. If they don’t like it, I don’t want to work with them.

      1. I dress up, prepare, do my research, am on my best behavior, am friendly, etc. But I try to be “me” as much as I can within those parameters.

    7. Yeah, if you really feel like you’re doing a bait-and-switch, like your interview persona is a complete 180 from your daily work persona (which doesn’t need to be your truest interior self) I’d think hard about your goal : if you get this job, are you going to be happy and successful in it?

      But putting your best foot forward, like “me, but a more polished version” is normal + good for interviews. But in a similar way that I’m putting in more effort socially if I’ve just moved to a new city and am trying to meet friends vs. hanging out with my oldest buddies – I’m not being someone *entirely* different than who I am, just putting effort into being “me on a really good day”.

      I think stalking your interviewer to casually bring up points of connection (being a fan of the same sports team? or did you mean work stuff?) is weird though, sorry

      1. I have a 100% success rate with this strategy, so it’s very clear how much personal bias does impact hiring. It depends on the interviewer, if I end up learning about the Orioles or just reading all their previous publications.

        1. You may have a 100% success rate in them making an offer, but do you have a 100% success rate in actually liking the job once you get going?

        3. This is more reflective of your naïveté about adulting than it is a gotcha! brag…

      2. Yeah the way the OP described it sounds creepy. I look at the person’s LinkedIn profile but that doesn’t usually lead me to a ton of personal interests.

        If something is important to my life, like the fact that I’m a mom, I won’t hide it in the interview, but I might not mention it until after we’ve developed a rapport.

    8. Honestly, my interview strategy is not this at all. I do a reasonable but not extensive amount of research, dress nicely, and then act like myself. This is a two way discussion, and its best if everyone knows what they’re getting themselves into. Same for dates tbh.

  4. Curious on thoughts from anyone who has been married for decades.

    I was at a conference this week and ended up hanging out with a co-worker I would guess is in her early 50s. She is married at least 25 years (she said something about their anniversary trip) with four grown or nearly grown children. At one point, she mentioned that she and her husband divide their responsibilities for their house and children into spheres. For example, planning and appointments for their kids were all her job except for medical appointments because her husband is a doctor. Based on her explanation, she does a LOT more of the work. When I commented to that effect she just said in her experience it was less work to do it herself the way she wanted it done rather than constantly fight about it. I probably looked dubious because then she smiled and said that every couple has to come up with their own solution and one was not better than another but she was measuring in decades of a life together not in days or even years. And then we changed the subject (she is two levels above me; I was not going to debate with her.)

    I might have dismissed this, but in a lot of ways she is who I want to be. Senior VP level at our company and widely respected; apparently happily married; active in the community; somehow has time for taking care of herself; etc. And when I talk to my friends it feels like all we do is argue with our spouses about emotional labor and why nobody signed Johnny up to t-ball or why we have to pack lunches.

    So thoughts? Particularly from people who are past the most labor intensive parts of child rearing?

    1. She values being married more than she doesn’t want to be taken advantage of. Which is sad but it’s her decision to make.

        1. Seriously. Probably also perpetually single because she doesn’t understand how to be in a relationship with another person.

          1. Actually happily married to someone who is my equal because I refused to settle.

    2. That is in a nutshell why I didn’t marry. No one I’d dated pulled their weight on life stuff and it would have only gotten worse if kids were in the mix. Your coworker is okay with that. I’m not and I wish more women weren’t (see also, woman who married my terminal manbaby of a father after my own mom got sick of his crap), but all I can control is myself. You don’t have to accept her version of labor division either.

        1. I’m glad you lucked into one who wasn’t a dirt bag. We aren’t all so fortunate.

      3. Sorry to see such rude knee-jerk responses to your honest and inoffensive viewpoint.
        Just chiming in to say your choice is valid, and I wish I had made it in my 20s instead of spending years raising a 20-something year old man. I’ll never get those years back.

        2. I think people roll their eyes when they see an adult still complaining about their parents’ divorce (without a discussion of actual abuse/trauma), fairly or not.

    3. Conceptually this seems like the idea in Fair Play, where you divide up areas of responsibility and then the person responsible handles conception, planning, and execution for that item. Whether those areas are divided evenly/fairly/equitably is a different matter and one that is basically irrelevant in any individual relationship–what matters is whether the people in that relationship are satisfied with the division of labor.

      Maybe her example is instructive to you (for me, the notion of clear and explicitly divided responsibility makes a lot of sense so that there’s less fighting about any instance of t-ball sign up failures or anyone Just Happening to have to pack lunches all the time), maybe it’s not (for me, it’s important to me that the work involved in running our home and family feel relatively evenly divided–more important than that the work be done in the specific manner or timeframe I’d prefer), but take what you like and leave the rest.

      1. My parents (married 50 years) do this. My mother is responsible for food. She shops, she meal plans, she cooks. She enjoys it, likes to eat a wide variety of things and is very good at it. My dad would eat the same three things (that he can make) on repeat. On the other hand, the man is a neat freak. A place for everything and everything in its place kind of personality while mom does not mind clutter. He does the vast majority of the cleaning (including the dishes because he does not like the way anyone else loads the dishwasher). She does all the laundry, but he does all the yard work, etc.

        She did 90% of the child-related work She did the vast majority of the elder care, including for his mother (all of my grandparents have now passed away). She takes care of their dogs. Has she objectively done a lot more, despite having roughly equivalent job responsibilities? Absolutely. Does she feel taken advantage of? Not even a tiny bit. But then she is very much of the “you can be right or you can be happy” mindset.

        1. This is me. I like cooking and meal planning; I like calendaring (weird). I don’t give a thought to air filters or fertilizer. Yup, very normal gender roles, and we are very happy.

        2. We verbally negotiated our own split of tasks early on and continue to revisit it as we grow older. It’s not really broken down by gender roles, more by who is better at a given task. But my partner is a latchkey kid who had to learn to cook to survive and isn’t a giant manbaby.

    5. It’s very individual but a marriage can certainly be successful even if one person technically does more than 50% of the work. To me, it matters how much of the work I have to do is something I hate doing. I would be miserable and resentful if all my most hated chores ended up in my basket, even if it was 40% of the total. I’d gladly do 60% for the things I don’t hate.

      IMO, the best marriages are the ones where each partner strives to do the majority of the work and/or actively tries to make everyone else’s life easier. I’ve seen some great positive examples of that and a lot of negative examples of the opposite.

    6. Do you have kids? Because if you don’t have kids, then from your coworker’s perspective you don’t fully get it. If you do have kids (it sounds like you do), it may have stung that she was sharing a way that dividing up responsibilities works for her and her marriage but you challenged that it wasn’t fair, which seems to imply that she’s wrong about it being acceptable.

      And while I think you aren’t off the mark in saying that she’s likely doing more of the work… most women in most marriage (particularly those with children) are doing more of the work, and some people are (at least semi) okay with that arrangement. Division of labor is a really fraught, sticky wicket and I think any couple that has managed to weather the storms together and feel good about it is doing just fine.

    7. From my personal experience, arguing about emotional labor is never going to advance the ball. You are either married to someone who is aware of how labor is divided and you two have discussed it and come to terms or you’re married to someone who is unaware and doesn’t care (the schmuck or worse) or tries to make it better (which can be frustrating). You don’t know which of these her husband is. And you don’t know how happy she is, either. When my first marriage ended, all our friends could say was, “Oh my gosh, you two were so happy!” We were good friends, yes, and still are, but that doesn’t mean our marriage was everything we both wanted. Lastly, you’re in the thick of the child-rearing years – you can’t compare to someone whose children are nearly grown.

      1. I never got anywhere arguing with my now-husband, then-boyfriend about emotional labor. The needle moved when I reframed it as being proactive and taking initiative.

    8. Married 24.5 years, 2 tween-agers, mid-40s here. Yes, I think she’s spot-on. If she really does a lot more work, that’s an issue, but I’d count any work done to support the family – so if her job has substantially fewer hours and more flexibility than his, that’s at least part of the difference. And who has standards matter, too – for example, my husband is persnickety about folding clothes, so I just don’t anymore – he’ll just re-do them, so there’s no point. And I very much agree that you’ve got to each understand what your responsibilities (or spheres) are and mainly stay out of the way of the other on them, and that years and decades matter a lot more than any given days.

      1. I think the idea of emotional labor is a trap for women. If you take it too seriously, you will never be happy with your relationship and you will be keeping score for everything. Relationships aren’t meant to be equal at all times, down to who plans the birthday party or restocks the diaper bag. You can resent your partner at times but remember the bigger picture you are building together. Trust you are both doing your best, and if something’s not working, it’s not because you are being unfairly exploited. It’s just a bump in the road. Not a conspiracy against you.

        2. This is a good point. I feel like the last 5-10 (maybe more) years have been chock full of really good ideas which taken to their logical extreme have done very little good to anyone.

          Emotional labor is a great way to describe some of the hard to quantify work that goes on in a family. It’s a good way to identify why we are so overwhelmed and exhausted. But in some ways it becomes a bit like complaining that someone else doesn’t care as much as you do. You can only make yourself care less. For us, it’s a matter of who cares about the thing – he makes the bed because he cares about that, I get all the gifts for all the bday parties. I could delegate getting birthday presents and he would be fine with doing it but everyone would get the same crappy gift and I would be the one who is upset. Ultimately any relationship is just figuring out what works for you.

          1. Completely agree, AIMS. Want to do less emotional labor? Care about less stuff. No one will die if Thanksgiving isn’t hosted, or Christmas cards aren’t sent, or the kids pick out clothes that clash, or thank you notes don’t get sent, or you don’t keep up with old friends. All of those things can be a wonderful part of a rich life, and if you want them to be part of yours, do them — but it’s not a character flaw for your partner not to really care whether they’re part of theirs. If you care, do it, and if you don’t, let it not get done.

          2. I would add it’s okay to care. It’s okay to do more because you want to. I loathe the “no fun’s, don’t care” trend almost as much as the emotional labor trend.

          3. Oh, absolutely!!!! But if you care, it’s yours to do. You can ask for help, but you’re asking for help with something you want, not with work that must get done, so people can say no. That’s all I’m saying.

    9. A general rule for a healthy relationship is to accept the other person as they are, and to not be with them if you can’t accept them as they are. I also abide by the framework that if you want something done a certain way, you do it yourself – your partner isn’t your employee. Lastly, most things aren’t worth arguing about, and there is no scoreboard or valor in winning arguments over the most banal aspects of life.

      It’s possible her husband works longer hours than she does or that she enjoys managing domestic duties and doesn’t find it burdensome. It’s also likely that most men of her generation have issues contributing equally, and to be happy that it one concession she made in finding an otherwise great partner. I know women of that generation who’ve made much worse concessions.

      Arguing about Johnny’d t-ball and ’emotional labor’ and packing lunches sounds exhausting. If your partner isn’t capable of things you feel are dealbreakers and doesn’t want to change, don’t be with him. But hand-wringing over every tiny failure or disappointment, versus just letting most things go and accepting them as they are, is a sure-fire way to be miserable.

    10. My kids are now 12 and 16. It feels totally, completely different than it did when they were younger. Having young children and two full time parent careers is incredibly hard; it was almost overwhelming to me. And I felt like no one could understand it except other people who were actually living through it. It’s hard to give your partner grace during these years. (You can’t save someone who is drowning if you’re also drowning!)

      But the thing is: it changes. Doing the planning and appointments for my teenager is a totally different project. It’s more fun, more interesting, less laborious. And I have more time! I have a very senior job and a lot of responsibility, but a lot of autonomy. I can be the Basketball Mom because I have enough power to cancel meetings after 4:00 on game days. And I can see the future more clearly now, and I know that my oldest child only has a few years left before adulthood. It makes me more willing to pack the lunches (when she lets me; she mostly wants to do it herself) because I know it’s not forever.

      In short: don’t compare. You’re in a totally different phase of life. It will change – a lot! – as your kids get older.

    11. This is what I always ask myself: would I still have to do the job (and more) if I were divorced? If the answer is yes then I try to shift my thinking. 1000% agree that sometimes it’s easier to do it yourself. (I also just don’t do a lot of things that I don’t care about and if my husband wants to do them then great… for example Xmas decorations are almost 100% his thing.)

      Emotional labor is also something that the more online and young you are the bigger a deal it is — it was just women’s work before. So if she’s older then it may not be that big a deal in her mind, just a price of admission.

    12. I’m married but I don’t want children. I was always on the fence about it but after hearing women constantly complain about their husbands when it comes to childcare, I decided I’m fine with marrying someone I love who doesn’t expect me to do all the work. He will make me dinner, do my laundry, clean etc while I’m busy at work. I don’t really understand the women who want children and decide to have them with men who are not equal partners. If they wanted children enough to overlook it, then that’s their choice to make but certainly not something I would want for myself.

      1. Honestly, I don’t think you fully know if you have an “equal partner” type spouse unless you go through something that is long-term and around-the-clock demanding (which could be having children, elder care, or a spouse with caregiving needs). It’s really a completely different game to go from two able-bodied adults who can grab their own dinner and tidy a house that doesn’t turn into a disaster because only two adults live in it to having young kids. I think a lot of women are blindsided by a husband who seems to pull his own weight until sh!t hits the fan.

        2. It’s biologically impossible to have an equal division of labor when it comes to raising children. The mother literally creates the baby from her own body, then feeds it from her body. I don’t care how many bottles the father washes or how many diapers he changes–the mother is the one wrecking her workday with pumping breaks. If you formula-feed, you are still the one who has to go through the physical recovery from pregnancy and birth.

          Even if both parents have the same amount of parental leave, which I would argue is inequitable because the mother needs additional leave for physical recovery, the mother has to take the first leave. That is when the pattern of the mother’s being the primary parent and the one who handles the logistics is set. She is the one who takes the baby to the pediatrician because she’s the one who’s home. That means that forevermore, she is the one making and attending those appointments. She is the one who has to make sure child care is in place because she is off of work and has time to handle it, and because she’s the one who can’t go back to work without it. Etc. etc.

          1. I agree with most of what you said, but not with the mother getting stuck as the appointment-maker forever. That one thing isn’t at all inevitable.

          2. You say that like it’s a bad thing. I far prefer to control appointments. Then they’re convenient for me and make sense.

    13. My husband and I have been married for over 20 years. We have one grown child, and two in high school. Over the years, we have split the child-rearing and home maintenance tasks differently depending on our jobs, etc. For example, when our kids were babies, my husband stayed home with them. He had a consulting job that allowed him to work as much or as little as he wanted and whenever he wanted. I was a fairly new lawyer and needed to work a lot. As our kids got older and went to school and I got more senior in my career, he took a different job that is far less flexible. So before, he was always the one who did dr appts, field trips, etc, now I am.

      We also have different strengths and weaknesses and play to those. One kind of trivial example is that I really dislike cleaning up blood and he really dislikes cleaning up vomit. If we are both home, I clean vomit and he cleans blood. If only one parent is there, obviously they have to just deal with whatever, but when we can accommodate we do. (Even though I clean more because at least my kids vomit more than bleed). Same with homework–I am not as good at math so he helps with math and science and I help with english and history.

      We hire help for cleaning the house and yard so we don’t fight over that but before we could afford to we usually tackled it together on the weekend and tried to just get it done quickly.

      I make the grocery list, he does the shopping. We both do the cooking depending on what is going on that night. Sometimes there is a lot of math so I will start dinner while he starts homework. Sometimes it is the opposite. Sometimes we cook together. Sometimes I worked from home and he had a busy day outside the home so he will rest while I cook. Sometimes I am exhausted from court and so he will cook.

      I think it helps to feel like he can look around and see what needs to be done and do it and to trust that he is always trying to do more than his fair share. We both do.

    14. To be honest, a large part of it is likely money. I do more of the managing of kid stuff/emotional labor while working a ‘big’ job full time. But my husband works a bigger job that allows us to hire out almost all of the annoying work – we have a gardener, cleaners, a nanny, pet care, etc. Once we had enough coverage to not fight about who made the lunches (the sitter), who picked up the kids from baseball, was the dog fed and litterboxes cleaned, etc. most of our biggest arguments stopped.

      1. +1

        This was my first thought.

        OP – this woman is a VP and is married to a doctor. Their life is very different from yours / your peers.

        2. +1. I would assume they have a lot more help than you do, plus their kids are much older.

    15. I think she has a point. She doesn’t want it done – she wants it done her way. Sometimes it’s not reasonable to force others to do things your way, so you step up and do it yourself.

    16. It’s definitely gotten less contentious as our son (13) has gotten older and generally less needy. I also think there is SOME truth to some of us prioritizing having things done a certain way over not having to do them. And for me personally anyway, sometimes the driving factor behind why I think something needs to be done a certain way is that other women (women specifically) will judge me if it isn’t done that way, rather than it is truly important to the well-being of my child or something. So I think some of the pressure can be self-imposed. My husband independently takes on a lot for things he thinks are important; we just don’t always see the same things as equally important. I think perfect can be the enemy of the good though – the division of labor is never going to be exactly balanced, and she’s definitely right that every couple has to decide what works for them. Perhaps she gets more pleasure out of doing some of that labor than you would, or perhaps she is underselling what her husband does – who knows. She almost certainly isn’t telling you all of her struggles!

      Somewhat related – for anyone in NYC, I highly recommend going to see the play Liberation, which touches on some of the tradeoffs women make in getting married and having children. It is perhaps most poignant to women like me who were born closer to the start of the women’s movement (age 48) and who are now raising kids of their own, but I know many women of different ages who enjoyed it.

      1. There are definitely things I do/have done that I wouldn’t care about in a perfect world, but I do because other women will judge me.

        Sometimes I do try to weaponize the double standard. I learned pretty fast that if I called, the pediatrician’s office was pretty ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, but we could get an appointment for a sick kid if my husband called. Also school office administrators would fall all over themselves filling in the paperwork FOR my spouse, so I usually get him to help with bureaucracy.

    17. Was the discussion only about emotional labor or total labor? I do probably 90-95% of the emotional labor but my husband does the majority of the more visible labor (dinner, dishes, trash, etc) so the overall split feels fair. It suits our particular personalities. I hate things like cooking and much prefer to do things I can do from a computer, he’s not very detail-oriented and it would take him a lot longer to do things like book doctor’s appointments than it does me, but he’s happy to cook dinner every night.
      Either way, I think if it works for them it’s not necessarily an issue. It sounds like this works for her.

    18. I do think you have to come to a place of acceptance with your relationship, even if the burden isn’t equally shared.

    19. Sounds like she had very specific desires for how certain things are done. When that’s the case, yes, you should do them yourself.

    20. She’s right. You find what works for you and you don’t have a relationship based on internet meme advice. Focusing on emotional labor is far more detrimental than just getting your life done.

    21. I’ve been married for 20-ish years and I’m pretty sure that if you followed us around with time clocks, I do more of domestic labor and emotional labor than my male spouse. That said, I feel like it is equal, or at least equal enough, because he cooks, does most of the food shopping, does the taxes, and does a lot of the driving. Is it perfect? No. But it works for us.

    22. I’ve been married 20 years. Two kids, one in high school, one still in elementary school. A few thoughts:
      – You really have no idea what arrangements work for other people and for other marriages. Many of my friends have less egalitarian relationships than I do, and I believe the reason for that is that we both work full-time in roughly comparable positions. The calculus would likely be different if our work arrangements were different.
      – Sometimes, the more particular person has to handle the task themselves. I can be that person for some things, and I own it.
      – Scorekeeping is a surefire way to be miserable in your relationship. I work under the assumption that we’re both pulling our weight, even if it looks different. Obviously, there is also the assumption that nobody is getting taken advantage of. I have found the scorekeeping decreases a lot as the kids get older.
      – Life stages are a thing! Maybe you’re doing more now. Maybe it’ll be your husband doing “more” five years from now. This stuff is rarely as clear-cut as it seems. You will be unhappy if you don’t allow life and your division of labor to evolve.
      – Emotional labor has become a really loaded term, IMO. I appreciate what it is trying to cover, but some of this stuff is just unpleasant work that any adult has to do, kids or not. Kids just tend to bring the conflict to the forefront.

    23. Does anyone 50 years or older married to a doctor, with children, do only half of the shared work? I think that says a lot right there.
      I don’t think many 50 year old plus male doctors with a long term marriage went into that marriage expecting an equal partnership. That wasn’t the deal offered. Nor did their wives. Things were different then, y’all.

      1. 50 isn’t that old. They were born in 1975 and didn’t graduate college until almost the millennium. There was definitely an expectation of sharing labor relatively equally in many marriages by 1997. You’re acting like she graduated and married in 1955.

        1. +1
          I’m in my 50s and was married in 2003. Many of the comments about this 50-ish woman and her husband contain a lot of inaccurate and frankly ageist assumptions. We are not your grandparents!

          1. I’m 70 and I think the assumptions about marriage, career and division of labor are way, way out of touch with professional women of my age. We kept our names, never left the work force and opened a lot of doors, and many of us were pretty clear about what we needed from partners. It might not have been true for all segments of society, but professional women of my age were a motivated group. Sometimes I think posters on this site have so little sense of history that they think that dinosaurs were roaming the earth 50 years ago.

          2. My mom is 74 and kept her name and had a high powered career (STEM professor and then dean at a major research university). My parents didn’t have an equitable marriage by today’s standards but it was far from a traditional 1950s marriage. They had a cleaning service and my dad actively parented and did household chores. And 50 is a whole generation younger than that.

        2. Seriously, I’m 51 and old enough to not love my life according to the grievance of the day/pop psychology of emotional labor. And for the youths, we all got married in modern times, we’re just wiser.

      2. How….old do you think 50 is? I’m 50, married in 2009, two kids. This isn’t a Don Draper situation.

      3. I’m in my early 40, and don’t know anyone with kids who has an equal marriage. It’s not as unequal as my parents generation, but the wife still does lots more work. The OP didn’t say that the wife did everything at home, just that it’s not equal. And that’s true in my experience.

        1. As a VP married to be a doctor, I’ll eat my shorts if she is scrubbing toilets, doing all the shopping in person, taking time off for the kids sick days etc… They are a wealthy couple.

    24. My best friend is married to the world’s biggest manbaby and she scorekeeps like it’s going out of style because she’s doing 98% of the work at all times. She can’t just step back and trust things will be somewhat equitable because they’re so far from that. They’re not happy and IMO should divorce. He doesn’t want to make her life easier – if he did, he would have changed the first 7,300 times they fought about it.

      1. My best friend is also married to a huge manbaby although she’s not a scorekeeper and seems happy doing everything. It seems to work for them, although I do think it’s really sad for their kids how checked out he is of parenting. It was over a decade ago now but I still remember her telling me when she was pregnant with her second that a silver lining of a rough pregnancy was that her husband now spent 15 minutes a day with their older child – as if that was unfathomable otherwise. Divide your household chores and emotional labor however you want, but it’s so unfair to the kids to have one parent who doesn’t want to be a parent.

        1. Same with my friend – he spends time with the kids under duress. I will say, though, that he made it very clear he didn’t want a second kid and she pressured him into it, thinking it would all be fine once the baby arrived. They have a lot of issues.

    25. Married two decades.

      I could not care less about tracking muddy footprints into our back hallway. If they are there when I do my weekly cleaning, I’ll deal with it then. My spouse would follow behind me with a zamboni if he could get away with it.

      On the other hand, if he were to touch my laundry there might be a burial (j/k, but barely).

      We do what works for us. If one of us cares deeply about a thing, the other person marries efforts to take our filthy shoes off in the garage or sort the laundry before dumping it into the machine.

  5. How much do you place on having a dream, rockstar career versus one that you mostly like and pays well? I am at a juncture where I’m realizing time is running out to leave my well-paying and enjoyable job to try to really pursue the rockstar career (go to grad school, pivot fields), and though I feel guilty or like I may be wasting my life by not trying to become a UN ambassador or CEO, I’m also feeling less energized to do so. Is it okay to give up on being a superstar and just live a happy and comfortable life?

    1. Assuming you’re American I wouldn’t suggest becoming a UN ambassador, you’re just a mouthpiece. However for other countries it’s a sweet role where you’re able to make real change.

    2. The pragmatic answer: switching careers will put a huge dent in your earning power. You’ll stop earning while you go to school and stop contributing to your retirement savings. Then, you’ll be earning entry or entry-ish level wages while you start out in a different field…at your older age. You may not be able to save for retirement on this reduced salary. It will take you years to get back to where you were financially and you’ll never recoup the lost earnings years where you couldn’t contribute.

      Ask yourself why you want this rockstar career. Because it sounded cool when you were 19? Because you think it’d bring public praise? Is whatever the reason still true for you now at this juncture? What do you value now? For me, I value an easy career that can accommodate my health issues. I don’t give a hoot about the rockstar job I wanted when I was 12.

    3. If you are a happy, comfortable adult who has a well-paying and enjoyable job, you have won the lottery and are a superstar. Adulthood is hard! Just being happy is more than enough.

      Now, if you’re not happy and want to pursue something else for that reason, that’s different. But don’t chase waterfalls unless you are actually unhappy with the rivers and the lakes that you already have.

    4. Nope, I want my job to pay me as much as possible for as little time as possible. I’m not trying to make a million dollars working 80 hours a week. No need to be a rockstar, just comfortable. I don’t need to love my job I just don’t want to hate it.

    5. I’m currently figuring out how to get my job to stop trying to promote me so I vote no. My calculus is that my role pays well, I work from home, I have kids and elder care responsibilities, so being an individual contributor is more important to me than a bigger role with more work and more headaches.

    6. I had a dream, rockstar career and burned out. It was great but now I’m just tired and am happy with my job that pays a moderate amount of money for a moderate amount of work, so I can focus on things outside of work. I’m still providing a very important public service, but in a low profile and not exciting way. I don’t think I could do a job that I actively believed was a net negative to the world.

    7. Yes of course. And realistically, a lot of the reasons people get rockstar positions are things you are not going to be able to control, like being born with connections or money, or having already been a deemed rockstar in another field. You do not become a UN ambassador just by being qualified.

    8. Isn’t it the dream of most people to live a happy and comfortable life? And hopefully contribute something good to the world?

      Honestly, in the fields I work in the superstars have been on the trajectory for a long time. You sound young, but most superstars don’t get there going back to “grad school”. They are very driven, working very hard, and know what they want.

    9. As I approach 40, I have no remaining desire to be a rockstar. I have a growing desire to simply be a rock that lays around and grows barnacles.

      1. As someone who works with barnacles, I want to be a rock in a chlorinated pool 😂

    10. For me some of this was age/family situation. I spent my 20s pursuing a career and then my early 30s realizing the job is never going to love me back (I say as someone who does incredibly fulfilling work). So I stopped pursuing, “leaned out” to a point where I felt like I was giving my best self to my family and thoroughly enjoy my happy, comfortable life.

    11. What do you think the rockstar road would give you that you don’t already have?

      I work with plenty of people who went to grad school. They are lovely people who are sometimes good at what they do, but realistically a number of them are in uncomfortable roles that they don’t like and aren’t suited for because they have grad school debt that won’t pay itself. That degree didn’t make them rockstars and the career path they are on doesn’t lead to fame. So my suggestion is to really analyze what you think you want and consider a change like you mention here will really get you there.

    12. Yes, it is of course ok to not be a superstar. Most people aren’t. I know I’m personally looking to kick my career up a notch. I may not be a rockstar but I do want bigger responsibilities. I don’t know your life stage, but I don’t have kids and my parents are deceased so I have more space to do that personally.

    13. It’s absolutely okay to live your best life! I had a rockstar career, got tired, wanted a change, and pivoted careers. I am now an individual contributor in a different profession, and getting paid significantly more to do significantly less. More of my time now goes to my family, volunteering in the community, and my hobbies. I think it’s worth re-framing how you define success. Happiness and comfort are measures of success. That being said, it’s also okay to chase your dream if it’s still important to you, but know that it may come at a cost of losing some of the comforts and stability you currently hold.

  6. My boyfriend typically carries two phones, a work iPad, earbuds, wallet, keys, water bottle, and glasses – and often forgets or misplaces something because he’s juggling too much.

    He’s looking for a small-ish, non-backpack bag that would corral his stuff but not look out of place in a construction business setting. Any suggestions? Sling bag? Messenger?

    1. Consider a Timbuk2 flight messenger bag – canvas, roomy, lighter and less costly than learther, definitely doesn’t read as girly.

      1. This. My husband, in a blue collar, male dominated field, carries the smallest one of these and loves it.

  7. I have a lot of jewelry, only a few pieces of it are expensive. Much is from museum shops (often kept in the box) or filled with fun memories, and it’s often in the box it came in or stored in some other haphazard way. What do you all use that is compact, deals with a lot of LONG necklaces (24″ at least), a lot of earrings, and a lot of charm bracelets? Bonus for if there is a way to memorialize that “this is from my grandmother and it was precious to her; she got it as a teenager,” or “this was part of what Nana left us”? I feel that at some point centralizing it makes it easier for burglers to burgle but also so that no one loses anything because it fell in with some winter socks. My mother had two 22K gold bangles (not a practical alloy for that sort of thing) that I never found. I doubt they were stolen, but stuff was kept here and there and several slow sorts of the dresser never turned it up.

    1. You. might take a look at the Wolf jewelry trays, which can be stacked and put in a dresser drawer, which is convenient, and takes the jewelry out of general view. They are pricey, but you’ll be able to see everything you have to avoid forgetting and losing particular pieces. Good luck!

    2. long and inexpensive – jewelry tree where they all dangle in front of me. this one is too short for you but you get the idea https://www.containerstore.com/s/closet/jewelry-boxes-storage/umbra-gold-tribeca-necklace-stand/12d?productId=11006206&country=US&currency=USD&adpos=&cid=cse|SSC|Google|TCSP_X_US_EN_Storage_PMAX_X_18200107324___en&g_acctid=801-592-2151&g_adgroupid=&g_adid=&g_adtype=none&g_campaign=TCSP_X_US_EN_Storage_PMAX_X&g_campaignid=18200107324&g_keyword=&g_keywordid=&g_network=x&sc_intid=10071892&scid=scplp10071892&utm_campaign=pla&utm_source=google&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=18198992781&gbraid=0AAAAADHVesiE1GKIGoTp877A968JoLUk0&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvM_3hc69kAMVJDEIBR3wqyL4EAQYBiABEgJYQfD_BwE

      co-sign the stackable trays for other pieces.

    3. I think compact and organized are going to be competing in this case. I have a fairly large jewelry box with seven drawers and a large top compartment, and it takes up a lot of space but it works great, since I know to bring all jewelry back there when I take it off.

  8. My daughter’s best friend is marking her bat mitzvah soon. Our whole family was invited. At a minimum, my daughter and at least one of us parents will be attending the ceremony. TBD if we are bringing the younger siblings at all, just to the party, or to both.

    What is an appropriate gift amount? Relevant context:
    -my daughter attended bestie’s older sister’s bat mitzvah a few years ago and we gifted $180.
    – we typically do a big birthday gift for BFF especially since her birthday is near our daughter’s. For example last year took her to an NBA game and called it both of their b’day gifts. A previous year we took them skiing.
    – not NYC but a wealthy suburb of another major city.

    1. I don’t have a good answer because our circle is very different- $180 would be wildly out of place. $36 for a classmate acquaintance, $54 or $72 for a very close friend. But I’m curious to see what would be appropriate in that kind of wealthy suburb! (For my own bat mitzvah 30 years ago most gifts were $18.)

      1. Yeah my answer is almost exactly the same – $36 for a classmate or casual friend, $54 or $72 for a bestie. And fwiw we have taken friends on very expensive outing and even vacations, so it’s not that we don’t spend money on other kids, but I can’t imagine giving a kid who’s not related to me $180 in cash.

        But given that you gave the sibling $180 I’d do that.

    2. Just for context, my nephew just had his Bar Mitzvah. I gave $270 in a check for his 529 and a hundred dollar bill for him to buy something now. I like the idea of a check for their future and then some fun play money for now. I think $180 is fine though for a friend!

  9. Update post – I posted recently about the challenges of scheduling a vacation with a cousin who wouldn’t help, wouldn’t give a budget, and wouldn’t say thank you to us for finding lodging, going back years. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before, but I think I’ve landed on the solution – I’ll fly out to visit her at her home and invite her to visit me, but I won’t suggest any more proper vacations together to third destinations for the time being. I think a “trip” instead would give the younger cousins the bonding time and I wouldn’t feel resentful about having to do all the planning for a vacation, which I want to be special and fun during my limited time off, without so much as a thank you. I actually feel excited about this now and I think she’ll be more enthused too. We can easily invite her sister, my other cousin, to join us too. Sure, it’s not quite the same as a big cousin reunion on the lake, but it’s better than nothing and I have some other people in mind for future vacations who LOVE it and make the effort. Win win.

      2. Well, no, because she can’t be bothered to have a really fun time with the other cousins – I think I win there. But going to meet her where’s she’s at. She does bring other great qualities to the family and I try not to forget that.

      4. Oh, yeah, let’s make sure the top comment invalidates the poster who feels good about the solution she’s settled on. This place never disappoints!

      5. Are you 5? What stupid competitive structure do you place on your family relationships?

      1. Definitely yes – it’s more backstory than I can get into here, but her entire family has been “you come to us, we may rarely come to you” for decades. Fair? No. Something I can live with? Yes, within reason.

        1. This is important context. I’m glad you found a solution that works for both of you.

        2. Sounds like a reasonable option.

          Also, gently, if verbal expressions of gratitude are as important to you as your snark here indicates, maybe tell her that with your words like an adult rather than getting bent out of shape that she didn’t read your mind.

  10. Feels like we haven’t had a book thread in a while!

    Just finished Of Monsters and Mainframes and wanted to recommend it, since I had fun reading it. It’s pretty light and escapist, and in keeping with the Halloween season, since it includes vampires, werewolves, and a supernatural mummy, among other monsters.

    1. Two of my fave scifi/fantasy authors just had new books come out so I’ve been reading those (Time Police series and the October Daye series). I also recently finished The Correspondent, which was fantastic!

      1. Ooo, I added The Correspondent to my digital holds, but it says it will be at least six months.

    2. I can’t stop reading dystopian romance books. I’m taking it as a sign that psychically I feel like I need to prepare for whatever will come next in this dystopian world we’re living.

      1. My husband won’t stop finding dystopian shows to stream, and I’m over here hollering for Halloweentown for something light ha. (I’m not the poster above.)

      2. I am the opposite & need to retreat into fluff or historical/fantasy stuff completely unrelated to the present.

    3. I really enjoyed Guilty By Definition recently. Also Fools and Mortals, a novel about William Shakespeare and his younger brother by Bernard Cornwell.

    4. I just finished the new biography of Lin-Manuel Miranda and I loved it! So inspired by how he values creative collaboration and never stops learning. About to start Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico. I cannot wait — have heard great things. This quote on the back cover sold me:

      ***
      Edging closer to forty, they try living as digital nomads only to discover that, wherever they go, “the brand of oat milk in their flat whites was the same.”

    5. I just read Maria Reva’s Endings and my goodness, so good. And I’m not a fan of meta fiction.

    6. I finished reading The life cycle of the common octopus by Emma knight. It was a delightful read and so well written. As I was reading this novel, I imagined it as modern day merchant and ivory film, like room with a view, and I’m hoping it becomes a series or a movie. It’s a coming of age story, but beautifully observed with an incredible protagonist who is so genuine as a character.

    7. I’ve had a really meh reading year. A lot of the recent hyped books (including The Correspondent) have been 3.5 stars for me at the most. The last book that really blew me away was Demon Copperhead but that’s old.

      I am looking forward to reading the Lin-Manuel bio and Buckeye.

      1. the hyped book I’ve loved best this year is Mona Awad’s “We Love You, Bunny,” but that assumes you’ve read “Bunny”… also liked Sarah Maria Griffin’s “Eat the Ones You Love” and Rose Keating’s “Oddbody” (all are fairly weird, though!)

      2. So happy to see another Demon Copperhead fan!
        I love Demon Copperhead (I read it a couple of years ago) and then went on a bender reading all Kingsley’s books. She is a really good author.
        On a completely different note, I enjoyed reading Helen Wecker’s Chava and Ahmad Series (“The Golem and the Jinni” and “The Hidden Palace: A Tale of the Golem and the Jinni”).

  11. I’m running into a food rut. I’m bored with all my meal ideas but also don’t want to spend a ton of money eating out. I’d love some tips or meal/meal prep inspiration. What do you all eat in a typical day/week?

    1. I made Turkish eggs recently and they were so easy and delicious served with flatbread and a salad.

    2. Eggs for dinner – scramble/omelet/Shakshuka
      Rotisserie chicken – Add a baked sweet potato and some roasted veg
      Lentils – soup or Trader’s Indian packets (+ scrambled egg, spinach)
      Salmon – NYT recipes (maple miso salmon is a favorite + roasted veg)
      Fancy toast – ex. goat cheese/tomatoes/olive oil +/- smoked salmon

      And now that it is getting cold, some sort of one pot “stew”.
      African peanut stew and a simple bean chili are easy and delicious.

    3. I’m on Week 2 of this, https://therealfooddietitians.com/healthy-meal-plan-2/ so tonight is Greek Quinoa Salad Bowls. Next week we start https://therealfooddietitians.com/2-week-healthy-meal-plan-5/ because dh asked to put the lentil meatballs back on the menu. I pretty much use their mealplans and just poke around to find one we’re in the mood for and then do the shopping. We end up switching the days around sometimes depending on what’s happening or which nights are more crunched for time.

    4. We’re big on soups and curries now that it’s fall! I usually brown a big batch of whatever meat is on sale, and then turn it into 2-3 different meals. Some go-tos: white chicken chili, thai curry (this is great to get lots of veggies into the mix), carnitas, vegetable soup (with ground turkey, beef, or chicken added), tikka masala, and stir fry. I try to stick with either chicken or ground turkey, and it works perfectly for most of the dishes I just listed. Carnitas works with chicken or pork.

    5. Grab something from the pantry you need to use up, and hit BBC Good Food or Eating Well for a new recipe to try. This week will be a new recipe for a kale and millet salad; a soup to use up some butternut squash; and a favorite Bob’s recipe for a barley and lentil stew.

  12. I just started swimming again for the first time in years. Can anyone recommend a good hair mask that I can apply after I shampoo? I prefer to do my full shower stuff at home but I’m realizing that I can do a quick shampoo at the pool to rinse my hair out, and it seems like a great time to add a mask because my hair will already be wet.

    Also starting to watch advice on being more efficient and stuff in the water – any favorite YouTubers or anything? I tend to prefer short content.

    1. Hask sells their hair masks in single use packets if it would be fun to sample some before you choose.

    2. Do you wet your hair before you get in the pool? That makes the most difference for me.

      I like Effortless Swimming on IG for bite sized tutorials. I think they have a YouTube channel, too.

  13. I’ve enjoyed and appreciated the bathroom remodel threads. Now, I’m in the position where we have to remodel an ensuite shower. It’s a double shower, so the footprint of a medium size tub, and has two shower heads on each side if two want to shower.

    I’ve been going back and forth on a few design decisions, and I’m running out of time to decide! I’m a newbie at anything involving Reno or remodelling. Husband and I have never experienced any renovation ever, since our condo was purchased new, so this is the first time we get to pick out fixtures and colors ( we chose from two options pre construction, but that has been the extent of our decision making). I would like to have the longer back wall, which will be all tiled, stick out a bit so it can form a ledge or shelf— like a long window ledge. I think I like this for look and convenience more than a niche, but I’m not sure if it is a good idea. Would it be hard to clean, or be a nuisance? I have three or five bottles that I use when showering for hair and body.
    I also wanted the tiles below this ledge to be large and have less grout lines, and the tiles above to be the same colour, but a different shape and smaller. So for example big rectangle tiles, and then smaller ones, where it will be easier clean as it would be higher. Also, what color of tile in a bathroom with no window? My husband surprised by wanting two colours, and apparently he loves the pale pink and pale green. Currently, we have all white tiles with a black tile floor.

    Another decision is whether to install a rain shower or not. The guidance from the fixture store, is that this would be wonderful, but when I’ve stayed in hotels they don’t seem great, though the sales rep said if they are your own with better pressure they are great. I prefer a shower head that is not fixed, as I have curly hair, and feel I always get water in my eyes with a rain shower. Sorry for the novel, but what are some remodel decisions that have been worth it, and what should I avoid? Thank you for your suggestions.

    1. Rain showers suck! I’ve never seen a good one. I suggest a traditional style with or without a handheld attachment.

      1. I agree that handheld is the way to go…and would be easier to replace, which is why I prefer it!

        1. That being said, our shower has both a rain head and a handheld. I don’t think you can clean your butt well without a handheld…

    2. Again, apologies for the long questions, but the current shower is over 20 years old, and I would not be changing it, if it didn’t need repair. I’m hoping for something that will last, which I’m wondering if ledge/ rain shower, and two colors will not be too high maintenance or dated. Thanks again!

      1. Rain shower: A strong no for me. I don’t always want to wash my hair, and it’s hard to stand under one of those and not get your hair wet.

        Ledge: Sure, why not? Many molded fiberglass shower surrounds have a ledge. I don’t know that it’s any more/less high maintenance than a niche.

        Two colors tile: again, why not? There’s nothing inherently dated about two colors. Those two particular colors, however, are . . . a Look. You might want to find photos or examples to make sure you like how it looks.

        1. We have a rainfall-esque showerhead, but it’s adjustable – allows me to angle the flow if I’m not washing my hair.

        2. About the ledge: don’t situate it where you will crack your elbows on it.

          Rain showers are awful unless you are filming a movie scene.

          1. Would love the ledge, but it again, may not be possible if we have to do a shower base. So many options, yet we are limited by being in a condo. Love the comment about the movie scene:).

    3. My best advice is to put the bottles (whether on a ledge or in a niche) facing the inside of the shower, rather than facing into the room. Your lovely tiled back-wall ledge will look great until you put all your miscellaneous bottles on it, then… notsomuch. Ask me how I know — I’m enjoying my third bathroom remodel and I have the niche hidden on the inside wall and it looks so much nicer!

      Also agree that rain showers are not good.

      2. The bathroom remodel sounds beautiful! I hope we can have a more discreet niche if possible. I’m also loving all the handheld shower possibilities too.

    4. I’d vote for a totally exposed thermostatic shower with a hand held attachment. I had one in a very fancy hotel in Hong Kong once and I’ve been drooling over the look ever since.

      1. Thank you, these are great tips! I agree that products will look better in a niche that’s not visible as you enter, but I’m not sure the niche will be possible near the handheld shower plumbing, so we will ask the contractor if this is possible. I’m actually going to head to the fancy tile store today, so I’m excited to see some possibilities!

    5. 1. Rain showers are awful. You’re either getting waterboarded or shivering. Hard pass. We rule out hotels if they have this style only!
      2. We chose one fixed showerhead (traditional style, spray at an angle) with a handheld sprayer also (you toggle between them). Wonderful for both cleaning the shower and also body-only showering.
      3. Suggest as few horizontal surfaces as possible to prevent mold.
      4. Suggest having the product niche be situated such that you can’t see it from outside the shower.
      5. Don’t forget a ledge to prop your foot while shaving – the product niche can double as this if you set it low.

      1. Adding, we had originally planned on a shower in the corner (so- two tile walls, two glass walls, one of which is the door) but due to the niche & ledge request, ended up having a half-wall to accommodate those out-of-sight. Love the outcome.

      2. These are great points, thank you, and they make me feel less intimidated, as I’m a newbie and overwhelmed at the options and cost! I will take them on board today at the tile shop, and tomorrow when I pick out the fixtures. I’m glad I’m not the only one who dislikes rain showers!

      3. Any chance you have the name or link of the showerhead you chose? I am thinking of replacing my handheld sprayer that awkwardly clips into a holder with a toggle option like what you described.

        1. I haven’t found one yet, but I’m looking again this weekend, so I will post a link when I’ve mad a decision!

    7. Not sure if it fits your space, but our tiled bench has been really useful. Leg shaving; being injured and needing a place to rest; and it will probably be helpful as we age.

      1. I would love a tiled bench, but my husband is worried about this molding. I think though it’s doable, but we may have to go with a sheet pan due to it being a condo on the top floor. We will see what they can build when the builder suggests.

    8. This may be wrong if the rainshower head has to be mounted at a different height or angle than a regular shower head, but in general it is not a big deal to swap showerheads – you can do it without changing the plumbing.

      I think multicolor tile might be less popular, but if you are planning to stay in this condo for a while, do what you like. A long ledge sounds like a great idea. You could potentially use something like a long piece of marble or countertop if you are worried about the grout lines on the top of the ledge; we have a ledge running the width of our tub that is a narrow marble slap that has held up well.

      1. Love the idea of a ledge as you described, but if we go with a pan, it may not be possible. We may be able to pivot and do all tile, but this may be less viable on the top floor of a concrete condo.

      2. yea we just swapped out our showerhead (to a rain shower, sorry haters, I love it!) and it was a trivial cost. The showerhead was $30 on Amazon and I think we paid a plumber about $50 to install it.. handier people could probably DIY. So this isn’t something I’d worry about at all in the context of a five or six figure bathroom remodel.

    9. I love my Kohler showerhead which is a combined rain shower and angled spray. You can turn on either or both at once. You can also get the coordinating body spray and the handheld spray, which operate independently from each other and from the showerhead. There are four buttons and one temp control knob. Heaven.

    11. We were just in a London apartment that had a rain shower / regular shower combo where you could toggle between them – my husband and boys loved the rain shower but I was so thankful I could turn it to regular. Not only do they never get the soap out of my thick hair in an efficient way but you can’t just hop in and skip a hair wash without a shower cap. So maybe a combo would be good, or o my for one shower if you do it. I’d rather have the jets that massage your body from all over or a steam component.

  14. I’m going to need a new Kindle soon — which one do people like? Unfortunately I do like Kindle Unlimited so has to be a Kindle. Thank you!

  15. Has anyone here been to the Ruka ski resort in Finland? If so, do you recommend for a family trip?

  16. The East Wing demolition has triggered a “I hate him SO MUCH” and “flames… flames… on the side of my face, flames…” kind of hatred. Do you agree? Is this a new turning point? Always hated him but… this is new. (Quoting the great Madeline Kahn in Clue.)

    2. No but I lost my job and my husband had to take a massive pay cut earlier this year due to his total decimation of science research funding so it was kind of a ‘my opinion couldn’t sink any lower’ situation(and even aside from the personal impacts, I do think that’s one of the worst and most irreversible things he’s done — it will take decades until our scientific progress returns to what it would have been without this and who knows what could have been done in those decades).

        1. It’s kind of obvious. Tearing down the East Wing to make a ballroom without any public discourse is completely in character. And is not even in the top 20 of worst things he has allowed/enabled.

          So what was the point of your question?

          1. The point was that being appalled at various things, in various ways, is possible. This virtue signaling falsity that one can’t be horrified by different things and in different ways is not only stupid; it’s actually detrimental.

            No one said this is the worst thing he has allowed or enabled. Making that claim is just smug bs.

          2. I mean, the commenter said this triggered a hatred of him like she’d never experienced before. She didn’t say this is yet another awful thing he did. She said this is the turning point that made her enraged. That’s what people are reacting to.

            So many commenters here use the word smug in the oddest ways.

        2. That if THIS is the thing that viscerally bothers you, your values are out of whack.

          1. Again, if this were the ONLY thing, then sure. No one said that, and pretending they did is pretty stupid, and aggressively so.

      2. Caging kids is a bipartisan USA problem with endless precedents. I think it’s less about people’s priorities and more about what represents a change.

        1. Ok. Which act of violence against children or pregnant women would you prefer I cite? Plenty of options to choose from in the immigration context right now.

          2. Well, we’ve also destroyed plenty of buildings in other countries over the years, so what’s one in ours?

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