Tuesday’s Workwear Report: Black Tweed Jackie Dress

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1. Gah — I am usually pretty disciplined for spending but OmG there are tons of packages heading to me right now. Yes, the sales are good. Yes, it may be cheaper than therapy. Yes, I could have used a casserole carrier for YEARS. Yes, I can afford it. But it also a total high.

   1. Retail therapy is for reals.

   2. I’m compensating for holiday acquisitions by watching Hoarders and having offsetting cathartic trash / donate piles going. People and their stuff are such a web of complex dynamics — identity, need, culture, habits.

   3. I’m actually a little bummed if I don’t have a package in the mail on its way to me. Which I realize is a problem but…

   4. The “Early Black Friday” emails are killing me.

      1. Every early November, I do a week of hitting “unsubscribe” instead of just deleting every retailer email. Pays off in late November when every company sends out sale emails daily.

         1. I have a ton of stuff I’ve mulled over since at least 1Q24 and was miffed that I hadn’t hit a black Friday or after xmas sale. So I think if I kept that tab open, it was just to bargain shop.

            I also bought mouse traps, so I need to have a purchase I feel good about in there.

            My sneakers needed to be replace over the summer but life happened and now I’m delaying buying just in case there is a sale or I have rewards points to cash in. I should just buy what I need at retail but I guess I was so strapped in my 20s that I just can’t let that go.

   5. I just did my seasonal change out of my closet (Bay Area here) and now instead of shirts I have cozy sweaters. It’s like I went shopping!

      Hoodies are year round. :)

   6. This is me exactly lately!!!

2. I’ve been inspired by some of the posts here about holiday parties recently and I just bought a house and would love to try to throw one of my own but I’m a true entertaining beginner. I’m imagining ~20 people, cocktail/mingling party (ie not a sit down dinner), adults only. What should the menu be? Strong preference for things that can largely be prepped in advance/limited active cooking. How much should I expect to spend on this? What time should I invite people for?

   1. Cater it. Prices vary. Lower end have a local restaurant drop stuff off and hire a task rabbit or two to serve and bartend. Higher end have a catering company make the food and serve and bartend. Once you get past 8 people for a dinner party, DIYing these will drive you mad.

      1. That seems way overkill for what the OP is planning. I would get a fruit tray, a veggie tray, and then lots of frozen apps from Trader Joe’s.

         1. Except then you have to prepare all of it and you don’t get to enjoy your own party. I always cater at 20+ people, it’s barely more expensive than doing it yourself and you get to actually have fun. Do you want to be a waitress for the night or do you want to have a good time?

            1. Catering is one of those things that I associated with “rich people only” but learned it is actually cost effective for big parties once you find the right place. Don’t knock it until you try it.

         2. This. Plus a bowl of chips and a bowl of popcorn.

      2. Do not cater the party. The only parties in my life that I’ve ever been to that have been commercially catered are work events or weddings. Rarely is good food found at either.

         If you were in a small town, I’d tell you to get the nice ladies from the [Methodist church, glee club, knights of the round table] to do some [apps, cute sandwiches, pans of lasagna for you], but you’d know about them already if you lived in such a small town, and you wouldn’t be asking internet strangers.

      3. For a neighborhood thing, you need to know your neighborhood. Having staff for a dinner here, in my neighborhood with million dollar houses, would be extremely off-putting and pretentious. It would not go over well.

         1. Agree. Maybe this is a regional thing, but it would be very, very weird in my circle (basically upper middle-class)!

            1. Yeah my UMC, private school, east coast circle would never, ever cater this.

            2. It’s very common in my extremely middle-class circle to order the food for these sorts of things, though. Party platters of appetizers from Publix, vats of lasagne from the local restaurant, etc. No wait staff, bartenders, rented dishes, etc.

      4. I am both an unskilled and nervous cook, but an excellent host. I’m also hugely busy. If I had to cook or even just pick-up, reheat, and plate apps from Costco or Trader Joe’s, I would absolutely never entertain. I really strive to open my house to friends and family — and a full catering set-up would be out of place for most of these events (UMC neighborhood right outside of DC) — but my sweet spot is ordering “catering” from our local fast casual restaurants.

         For anything from 10 to 45 people, I will call a local BBQ or Mexican joint (most of the places around me have separate catering menus if you ask), or our local fast casual restaurant, and get a great, easy spread for about the same as it would cost me to buy the food individually. If I’m really rushed, I will pay for delivery. I like supporting local places, and it doesn’t feel pretentious or overdone. I also really enjoy my friends, and never stress about timing re-heated apps in the oven or if I have enough platters.

      5. I am both an unskilled and nervous cook, but an excellent host. I’m also hugely busy. If I had to cook or even just pick-up, reheat, and plate apps from Costco or Trader Joe’s, I would absolutely never entertain. I really strive to open my house to friends and family — and a full catering set-up would be out of place for most of these events (UMC neighborhood right outside of DC) — but my sweet spot is ordering “catering” from our local fast casual restaurants.

         For anything from 10 to 45 people, I will call a local BBQ or Mexican joint (most of the places around me have separate catering menus if you ask), or our local fast casual restaurant, and get a great, easy spread for about the same as it would cost me to buy the food individually. If I’m really rushed, I will pay for delivery. I like supporting local places, and it doesn’t feel pretentious or overdone. I also really enjoy my friends, and never stress about timing re-heated apps in the oven or if I have enough pla t t ers or how to set up a cheese plate. The food is just ready, and I can enjoy my friends.

         1. To be honest, I’m a good cook, but that is exactly what I’ve done the last few times I’ve had a crowd. There’s an excellent Mediterranean place on the nearest retail/shops block near my house, and they’ll do an assortment of filo dough sandwiches (similar to spanikopita), hummus/baba ganoush/veggies, falafel, as well as pomegranate chicken legs. No one goes home hungry!

         2. You know, this is actually a very good idea. Now I’m thinking next time I have a party I get carry out from my favorite Indian restaurant, where one entree easily feeds 2-3 people. A couple of veggie options, a couple of meat options. Then I supplement with frozen TJ appetizers and some sweets.

            I guess I would not consider this to be “catering “ but it is quite a good idea.

            1. A bunch of takeout is the way to go. We do this with Indian food, barbecue, Italian food, Thai food…

         3. The catering plat ters or family style meals from an Italian place end up being HUGELY cost effective too. Also, again, I might be the only person that struggles with actually getting food from a container to a serving dish, but the restaurants serve the food plated ! That I don’t have to prepare! I can pick them up on the way home from work, walk the pla t t ers into my kitchen, put them on the counter, remove wrap, and POUR MYSELF A GLASS OF WINE because I’m done!

      6. I think a middle ground is maybe hiring a local teenager to help you get set up and heat things up in the oven while the party is going. He or she can leave at the halfway mark.

   2. If you’re not doing a real dinner, you need to invite for either clearly earlier or later than the meal. Like 3-5 pm or 8-10 pm.

      I agree that you don’t have to cater, but that will take some stress out. If you don’t want to, though, there are tons of options at Trader Joe’s or Costco. You can find some good little frozen apps and just heat them up. A cheese platter is always nice, especially if you add dried fruits and nuts. Make sure the food is something that can be eaten easily while standing.

      Then some bottles of red wine and white wine and you’re all set! If you want to have cocktails, for that many people, I’d do one you can mix in advance and just pour for people once they get to your house. You won’t want to be taking 20 separate cocktail orders.

      Do be sure to have some seltzer or similar for those who don’t drink alcohol.

   3. I expect to spend a couple of hundred $ on parties like that. If you want a Saturday evening party, I would invite for 6PM. If you want a daytime thing, I like 1PM.
      Food ideas for finger foods and things that can be eaten with just a fork (no knife):
      – Lots of frozen apps from Costco/Trader Joes
      – Generous charcuterie board with meats, cheeses, nuts, fresh and dried fruits, fig jam
      – Crudite platter with a couple of dip options
      – Caprese Skewers
      – Stuffed mushrooms
      – Shrimp cocktail
      – Meatballs in a crockpot
      – Cheese straws
      – A “main” that looks really festive but is minimal prep work is a spiral ham served with Kings Hawaiian rolls and mustard to make little sandwiches

      1. I would not do 6. People would be expecting dinner if the events starts at 6. I would have it start at 8, if you want an evening event

         1. Whereas in my neighborhood and among my friends, 8:00 is much too late. People want to be home and in bed by 10! And nobody wants to be eating anything more than light deserts after dinner.

            OP – Are you inviting 25-30 year old single people with no kids, people who need to hire a babysitter, or 50 year old married people with teens? Your audience will determine your timing. Are you in the suburbs or NYC?

            1. I would whine so much if I couldn’t even show up to a party until after 8 haha. I really have become my mother.

         2. In my circles an “open house” from 5 to 8 would signal appetizers only, not dinner.

            1. Yes I would not expect dinner unless the invitation said “dinner party.” Both “cocktail party” and “open house” signal appetizers only to me.

   4. Last time I had a party like this, I partnered with a reliable friend. We had the party at my place and I made most of the food, but she also brought some and also brought some premade cocktails. We set out some booze and various mixers, too.

      It worked out well, no catering or bartender required. I am a little amused by the idea of needing a bartender for 20-odd people. My parents regularly threw parties of about that size back in the day and never had a bartender. And they enjoyed themselves just fine – people can make their own drinks.

      1. It’s very obvious to me that many people here just haven’t actually entertained all that much. A bartender is a couple hundred bucks for the night and they clean everything up and keep your house from turning into a frat house. They also let you enjoy yourself and they take care of your guests.

         1. Uhh, OK, that’s a hot take. Maybe our standards are just different than yours?

         2. Huh? I entertain all the time. The fact that I have reasonable friends keeps it from turning into a frat house. Have a bartender if you want, but it’s certainly not necessary!

         3. This is a wild take. I entertain, my dad entertained a lot, my in-laws entertain even more than he did. I can count on one hand the number of times my dad (a borderline fancy person) hired a bartender and my in-laws never have, even for 30+ person parties they’ve hosted at the neighborhood event space.

         4. a couple hundred may be trivial to you, but it’s not to many people. Would you recommend that they just never invite people over if they can’t afford it??

         5. Maybe we have different kinds of friends? I don’t have friends who would turn my house into a frat house – which I take it means the guests are throwing up in a corner and macking on each other while wearing too much cologne?

         6. For the parties we’ve given over the last few years, we hire a couple who replenish the beverages and certain appetizers ( e.g. prawns with cocktail sauce) as needed, pick up dirty plates, and do an amazing cleanup afterwards. It is worth the cost when we have 40–45 guests.

         7. Way to come across as a complete ass.

      2. When I entertain, I don’t hire a bartender although that is an interesting idea for the future. I generally have one or two cocktails and then wine and beer. The last party I had, middle of October, I hosted with a close friend. We had red and white wine, bud light, a local beer (I think it was an IPA), a summer sangria because it was still summer hot in Texas at that point, and old fashioneds because they are my friend’s specialty.

      3. True story. I had a party like this, originally for my friends, but then one of my friends wanted to invite her friends too, so she offered to bring some food her husband, a really good cook, would make. She brought four egg rolls. For 15-20 people. I’m told they were delicious. She was in my kitchen trying to split them into fourths. I never had one. WTactualF.

         1. HAHAHHAHAHHA! I was having a very bad day (see post re husband below) and this really made me laugh. I am sorry but i could picture the whole thing and can not stop laughing!

   5. You do not need a caterer or bartender for 20 people! And in my circle that would be over the top. Buy wine, beer, and non-alcoholic options (sparkling water is popular). If you want a cocktail, pick one that can be made in advance and that is seasonal. (If you can find one the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks almost always have options). Be sure you have enough glasses but do not worry about them matching. You can serve food on paper plates but wine out of a paper or plastic cup feels college.

      What to serve is largely dependent on how much you like to cook. You do not need to serve all the things for a party that size. Buy or make a charcuterie board with sliced baguette and crackers. Same with a veggie board with a dip (I usually make a board with homemade hummus in the center, surrounded by halved grape tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers in different colors – serve with pita chips). Add two more finger foods from Trader Joes or Costco (at least one vegetarian) and then one make-ahead hot dish. This time of year crockpot mini meatballs or sliders works well but I usually make a big frittata with no cheese because so many of my friends are meat/gluten/dairy avoidant. Add a big plate of brownies/cookies/sweet bite sized deserts from a freezer. I usually add an GF ice cream option. And you are set.

      Or (hear me out here) – For your first party, buy alcohol as noted above. Add chips and dip (or make a dip) and a huge veggie tray with store-bought hummus sprinkled with paprika and drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice. Order pizza (one vegetarian) and garlic knots. Have cookies and brownies from the grocery store (cut the brownies into smaller two-bite pieces). Modify or add items for known dietary issues. Use nice paper plates. Enjoy and tell everyone this is your first party and make the best and worse party experiences you ever had one of the conversation topics. Or start with a brunch party because coffee, coffee cake and/or baked French toast, a frittata or breakfast casserole, sheet pan bacon, a fruit plate/salad and a bunch of mimosas is easy.

      In my area and evening party on a weekend would start at 5 but that is because people have kid activities and any earlier would not work. There is enough food that most people that they do not need dinner but early enough that they can leave at 7 and still have a “real” dinner.

      1. Agree with all of this, plus I love the idea of a brunch party! I would even love a breakfast for dinner party, to be honest!

   6. https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/cranberry-martinis-9564294
      I just saw this recipe from Ina for Cranberry Martinis and you can make it up to 3 days ahead! This might be fun.

   7. I’ve been throwing a similar party for about 10 years, but our invite list has grown to about 40 people. I do a lot of baking for the party (8-10 types of cookies) so I lean into buying prepared foods/easy to assemble hors d’oeuvres. I normally buy a honey baked ham and serve with Hawaiian rolls. I have one of those three-crockpot things and I put meatballs, hot spinach dip from Costco, and a crab dip in those. I buy Costco spanakopita and mini crab cakes and put them on hot plates so I don’t have to keep restocking during the party. I do a veggie tray, shrimp ring, and charcuterie board. I also make a few gallons of a holiday punch that is really popular and have beer and wine available. We spend about $500 to $800 on the party.

      1. What is your popular holiday lunch recipe? I haven’t found one I really love yet!

         1. It’s so simple and people LOVE it. It’s one can pineapple juice (46 oz), 1 2 liter of sprite, 1 bottle of cranberry juice (64 oz), 1 can frozen concentrate lemonade, and 1 bottle southern comfort. I normally add some cranberries and lemon slices to be festive. To be clear, I do not like southern comfort and you would never know it’s in there. Be aware it’s strong and maybe you only want to use 3/4 of the bottle. This makes 2 gallons and I normally make 2 batches and it’s always gone!

            1. This is awesome, thank you!

   8. 20 people is standard Sunday dinner for us, something we do probably twice a month at that size. It would not occur to me to “cater” this or hire a bartender… but I do get a veggie or fruit trays, sandwich trays, cheese trays etc. from Costco or Whole Foods catering pretty regularly, which I think is similar to the original “cater it” suggestion (“have a local restaurant drop stuff off”). And when people offer to bring something, I am not shy about taking them up on it and telling them what to bring (bread, a salad, a dessert, etc.).

      If you want it to feel really fancy, then I agree about hiring help or a getting a good friend to do all the back-of-house kitchen-y stuff – once our parties get over about 25, I have my mom or sister come so I can actually enjoy the party. They come a 3-4 hours ahead so that I’m not rushing about like a maniac right before.

      You said adults-only, so this doesn’t apply, but we also often have our high school babysitter come to keep an eye on the kids running around (we live in a high-fertility bubble with most families having 4+ kids, so even if we only invite 2 families we might have a dozen children needing shoes tied, hands washed, water cups filled) – she is deputized to pitch in on the kid requests and supervision so the parents don’t have to leave their conversation so often. This is another way to make it feel more party-y.

      As far as cost – plan to spend at least a couple hundred. Even if you only spent $5 per person you’d be at $100 on food alone, and I don’t think that would get you what you’re looking for (we fed 20 adults and 30 children last month on $200 but the menu was homemade lentil soup and apple crisp and everyone brought sides).

3. Could we discuss favorite consumable gifts? I think I’m looking for something small and either savory or condiments (nuts? spices? oil and vinegar?). Have done Harry & David’s and Penzy’s spices in the past and liked them.

   1. My sister buys each of us a box of the most incredible oranges every year from Tree Ripe. We go through them like crazy!

      1. Specifically, the Satsumas.

   2. I’m one of those people who hates pretty much all of the typical generic gifts, but I do like to cook and so I love food gifts. I like spices, oils, vinegars, nuts, chili crunch, chutney, hot sauce, mustard, jam (though my MIL always seems to get us weird jams I don’t like), maple syrup (MIL also manages to get this wrong, I think because she shops at wineries so everything is always wine or oak barrel flavored), and even fancy flour and other baking ingredients, though that’s heavier and messier and more of a know your audience gift.

      1. I do love an oak barrel smokey flavored maple syrup!

   3. Williams Sonoma ready to bake croissants are a favorite in my family!

      1. They have a frozen breakfast box subscription with 3 months of goodies – my parents and inlaws ask for it every year.

   4. Coffee. I’m not picky and I make my own so the more the merrier. Also, we get boxes of fruit from Pittman every year and love it.

      1. Ooh and syrup

   5. Different type of consumable, but cute beeswax candles. Especially ones that are shaped like little trees, pinecones, etc.

   6. I dislike getting cooking ingredients as a gift. I know that, to the gift giver, it seems very easy to use the spice rub, marinade, oil, spice mix, sauce, vinegar, etc. But I’m a non-creative cook and I don’t care enough about cooking to want to do the work of figuring out how to use the gift. I want something already edible with no need on my part to come up with a dish or recipe I can incorporate it into. So fruit, bread, cheese, nuts, chocolate. Or something complete on its own (like a frozen meal or item) that I just have to heat up.

      1. On the other hand, I’m a good cook and would love a great spice or vinegar or oil to get the creative juices flowing. I would dislike a frozen meal.

      2. Same. I feel like I’ve been assigned a task. The spice or vinegar or whatnot will end up sitting on a shelf for years and then get tossed. Send me something actually edible or don’t send it all.

         1. I’m also a good cook / daily cook and NO I don’t want a frozen meal. I would love a very nice olive oil or condiments like Maille Dijon mustard, Arborio rice, a red wine vinegar from a winery, etc.

            Do NOT try to buy this stuff from the food section of Marshall’s or TJ Maxx or Home Goods. That stuff is straight crap.

            1. Eh, I’ve gotten some good jams and pickles from those places. But you do have to be selective.

            2. I think “hmm this is $2.99, maybe I will try it and then if I don’t like it I’m only out three bucks” is a different calculus than foisting it on someone as a gift. That stuff has usually been sitting around for years, stored who knows how. It’s not good stuff.

               My husband likes Ghiradelli Peppermint Bark for Christmas and always asks for it. His sister gave him the Home Goods never-heard-of-the-brand version of it. When he opened it, it became clear that it had been melted and then re-solidified at some point. Maybe multiple times. His sister can afford the real thing. It’s available in every grocery store. She just likes to get what she thinks is a good deal.

      3. Same. I will never use the spice rub or whatever. I like to pick out my own things for cooking.

      4. I think food gifts should either be ready to go as is (like chocolate or cookies), a condiment (jam, mustard, syrup, etc), or just a straight ingredient but not something that requires effort to use (so plain olive oil, not a weird flavor, a nice cinnamon or vanilla but not a spice rub). The catch on the last one is that different people’s perception of standard varies. If you never bake, cinnamon or vanilla might not be that useful. And some spice blends actually are really good- there are a few from Penzey’s I use all the time, but others I’d probably never use because they go better with meat, which I don’t eat, or are heavy on a particular flavor I don’t love.

   7. Harry and David pears are underrated.

      1. Everything else from Harry and David is terrible, including the other fruit, but the pears are divine.

      2. under rated? literally very highly rated (with a price to match). lol.

   8. Chocolate. Always chocolate. As someone who likes to cook, I have plenty of oil and vinegar. I already have all the spices I need. Chocolate feels like a treat.

      1. Yeah, and I feel like most people who cook already have their favorites.

      2. Same. And it’s super re-giftable even if the recipient isn’t a chocolate liker.

         1. I’m never gonna say no to a box of See’s Nuts and Chews.

            1. Soft Center and truffles forever. Bah humbug to Nuts and Chews.

            2. You can have my softies and I will take all of your nuts and chews.

            3. It’s a deal!

      3. As someone who is not especially fond of chocolate, I get much more excited about it if it’s mixed with something else. Love chocolate covered pretzels, peppermint bark, caramels, anything peanut butter and chocolate…

      4. +1.

   9. I think fancy olive oil is a fun Hanukkah gift. Before my mom owned a sweet shop I gave peppermint bark from Williams Sonoma to my husband’s family and they all loved it. From her store I’m most inclined to gift the sea salt caramels. I’d be delighted to be gifted a huge bucket of maldon sea salt. If you live far away I’d love some of your Vermont maple syrup or your Virginia peanuts or whatever special comes from there. I’ve been know to overnight New York bagels to friends across the country.

      1. Aren’t sea salts pretty high in the microplastics these days? I threw mine out and am switching to the Himalayan salts.

   10. I got my husband some spices from The Spice House last year and he loved them! And he got to use them throughout the year and we all enjoyed them.

   11. As has already come up, it’s important to make sure that whatever consumable you’re gifting is going to be used by the individual. I shy away from scented soaps for that reason. I usually have an ingredient gift and a prepared food gift. Folks who have food sensitivities or those who just enjoy cooking get the ingredient gift (often a nice vanilla) and others get the prepared food gift (very dependent on my mood when I’m buying and what’s available). I often buy a Costco thing and repackage to smaller sizes, since they tend to have nice stuff.

   12. Cherry Republic is great for something new and different. Cherry products local to Michigan.

       1. +1 for Cherry Republic. The cherry c–tail drink set is fun and unusual.

   13. Savory Spice has fun spices. The smoked black pepper is a must have. Harneys is great for tea drinkers. Stonewall Kitchen has lots of great savory condiments, and not eye bleedingly expensive candles.

   14. whole bean coffee, fancy chocolates or bath bombs. no shower steamers, or sheet face masks please.

4. How many times a year does your office internet or email lose service? Looking for a reality check. I’m a partner at a professional services firm. ~150 total people (~100 staff, ~50 professional licensed folks). Our office occupies several floors of a tall building in the capital of a Midwest city. We lose email and/or firm WiFi capability at least once a month for at least 10 minutes, but often a half day or more. I find it nerve-racking and embarrassing – clients can’t reach us! Our IT team assures us there’s no bugs or hacks, it’s because of our internet provider, Office365 server blips, etc. I lateraled here from a smaller firm just before Covid and we never had an outage, ever, so I’m trying to figure out if this is really normal in a larger place. Oh, this is unrelated to severe weather, if we lose power, everyone assumes both WiFi and email will be down. How often does this happen to you?

   1. This is not normal. Have been working 40 + years in Upper Midwest city; can count work outages on one hand. I would look hard at who is running your IT.

   2. I work in a large office and the answer is never. At least once seems like a serious issue that your IT dept should be addressing.

      1. +1 – never.

   3. 250 person consulting firm. Pretty much never except if Microsoft has an outage (maybe 1-2 times per year).

   4. Is it email or just WiFi being down? Those are not the same. If it’s WiFi, you’d still be able to check email on your phone with data. Then that is your IT folks not doing their job.
      I am also assuming that this happens to the whole office, and it’s not just an issue with your own device.

      1. They happen sometimes at the same time and sometimes separately. So WiFi might be down and email is down. Or, email is down but WiFi is running. Or WiFi is down but I can get emails on my phone using my data.

         Yep, full office, not just my device.

         1. Wifi being down with any regularity is not normal. In the 4 years I have worked in my current building, it was down once due to some technical work, which means we had advance notice.

   5. I work for a large corp that is NOTORIOUS for under investing in infrastructure, and our headquarters loses power… maybe 2x a year? (it’s in a rapidly expanding exurb, and usually some construction problem cut power)

      Outlook servers (your email) are definitely not going down that often

      10 minutes of Internet/wifi downtime wouldn’t register to me although it’s super frustrating but a half day would be very unusual. When that does happen, I go to a coffee shop

      In my experience of IT folks, they often know how to improve reliability but can’t get the funding. I’d talk to the IT team & get their input first – and see if you can help them make the business justification for fail over systems, given that you’re the one that sees the customer impact

   6. once in the last decade?

   7. I work for government, so somewhere that under-invests in this stuff. Part of our system goes down such that we can’t work about 2 to 3 times a year. When I was in private practice, it was once every 2-3 years.

      Not the point, but I’m surprised by the ratios at your office. I can’t think of what profession has 3 staff for every professional.

   8. Never that I can remember in 16 years of working. Our document management system has had a few outages, but that was unrelated to internet access.

   9. I work for a nonprofit in NYC, and maybe once or twice a year we will lose phone service or internet briefly, typically due to a larger outage in the neighborhood related to construction or something.

      1. As luck would have it, just after I posted this I got an email that the internet was out at one of our spaces (we have 3) due to “an area outage.”

   10. I’m Chicago area. Never in the eight years I worked downtown. Now I work from home for a company that is headquartered in another state. Zero times on their end. My home wifi has only gone out every couple of years and is usually up in an hour–often due to power outage or the like. Never have lost email access.

       This sounds really, really unusual. It would also have me concerned in bigger ways. If normal service can’t be maintained, how effective are the things you can’t see–like the ability to protect or recover from cyberattacks?

   11. I worked for a government agency located in a big Midwest city in a privately owned tall building. We lost internet and email service about once a month, entirely due to the agency’s network, NOT the internet provider or Microsoft, etc. I think in five years we lost service about three times due to third-party failures–and those were city or nationwide failures so external folks were often aware.

   12. IT for a large entity who’s under invested in bandwidth. At least once per week and slow AF any other time.

   13. Once per year, midsized law firm with one office.

   14. About 10 years ago, my small office (50 people) had the same issue. We had the ISP physically lay down more fiber optic cable under the sidewalk.

   15. I live in the Bay Area and we’ve lost it a small handful of times due to power outages. That’s a PG&E issue though and not an internet issue.

   16. I can count the number of times on one finger and basically the entire city had lost power because of severe weather. Our building/floors got power back much faster than my apartment. I ended up sleeping on my couch for a couple nights because my place was very cold with the freeze.

   17. We had a weather-related power outage that lasted an hour last week, but otherwise never. Although actually come to think of it, our wifi router/internet connection was on a backup so we all still had internet and could use our laptops.

5. How do you figure out how much to contribute to it? We’re expecting our first (and likely only) child next year and DH and I are contemplating opening an FSA or HSA this year for the first time. As DINKs, we had very minimal medical needs- routine visits, occasional vitamins and supplements, and contacts for him. Those expenses alone don’t add up to a ton, but with this kid on the way, I don’t how to calculate future cost. Anyone have a ballpark they could share? Or a good basis for just maximizing the contribution?

   1. We max out our HSA (must have a HDHP to use or contribute to a HSA). Contributions are rolled into the following year, I.e., there’s no use it or loose it feature. Many people use it as additional retirement savings. We don’t, just use it for healthcare. But 13 years into parenthood, a couple ER trips, random physical therapy for two adults, two bouts with cancer and one trip of braces, it doesn’t grow a ton.

   2. I would not get a high deductible plan with a child. There is the delivery and so many doctor visits in the first year. I would look at what your costs will be to deliver. Do you have hospital coinsurance or is it a flat copay? Infant well visits are free but you may have copays for child sick visits and your own medical care. I have 2 children and max our the FSA contribution. We almost always spend it all and if not you can use it for other health items (OTC medicine, sunscreen, etc)

      1. Depending on premiums, co-pays, OOP max, etc., the math often works out to make a HDHP cheaper. At both my employer and my husband’s employer, the premiums for the regular PPO are much higher than the HDHP premiums and the benefits are not much better, so at any level of health care expenditure we come out ahead with the HDHP. The way the plans are structured you are often even more likely to do better with the HDHP in a high-expenditure year. You just have to keep reminding yourself every time you swipe that HSA card for a huge bill that you are actually paying less overall.

         1. +1 when we did the calculations, the HD plan worked out to be roughly the same if we maxed out the OOP, and potentially much less if we didn’t see many doctors that year.

            For the OP’s question, I would contribute at least as much as your deductible and ideally up to your OOP max. Depending on when you are due, you may or may not hit the max (if the pregnancy is split over two calendar years or mostly in one, when your ultrasounds will take place, etc)

         2. +1. The high deductible plan is cheaper for my family because the premiums are lower and we hit our family OOP max every year. The deductible is $6K, but the OOP max is $6650. We have to save up a lot of money for January and February, but we hit the deductible in March and hit the OOP max by the end of June.

            I max out the HSA savings, and we spend every penny. Anything leftover after the OOP max is spent on vision, dental, and out of network services.

         3. Yep, that was the case with us. My employer contributes a substantial amount to an HSA when you have a HDHP, so we always factor that into the equation.

      2. I chose a high deductible plan for my baby making years because the total out of pocket cost was lower and the delivery would use up the whole deductible anyway.

         1. Same here!

            I’d just avoid an FSA if at all possible, they’re more terrible than they’re worth since money doesn’t roll over. HSA is great though.

   3. Which one you can open depends on which health coverage you have. You can only do an HSA with a HDHP. Pro is that the funds are not “use or lose” and have a triple tax advantage. I just max it out and since my annual out of pocket max is now covered, now have protection against a catastrophic year, and the rest invested.

   4. We put 2k in our FSA when we had a kid, which seemed about right. Baby needed some physical therapy and a few specialist appointments, I needed post-natal PT and therapy, and lots of routine walgreens stuff was covered by the FSA (like sunscreen).

   5. If you choose an HDHP and get an HSaA, just max it out and keep paying out of pocket if you can. If you get an FSA, add up what you spent last year in covered expenses and then add about $500 for baby. And if you are going to be putting the baby in daycare during the year, don’t forget to use the childcare component of the FSA. You should probably just max that out unless daycare will only be for a few months.

   6. Get a HSA whenever you qualify for one and max it out every year. It’s yours forever!

   7. This is our first year with a HDHP option and we have two little kids, family of four. We’re doing the HSA and maxing out. I don’t know if this year will be a big spend on medical or not, but no one is getting younger, I suppose (staring down the gun of a hip MRI next week for a possible torn labrum… ooooof). However, the employer contributes about $2k to the HSA, which is the delta between the HDHP deducible and the non-HDHP deductible, so that sort of did the math for us – same out of pocket cost to us on deductibles until (or if) we hit it, plus the ability to get several tax advantages but contributing the full amount to the HSA.

   8. We had our baby before HDHPs were a thing that made economic sense. I’m not sure we even had the option at that point. We maxed out our health care FSA that year because IIRC it just covered the doula and the deductible on our PPO, so we knew we’d spend it all. Given the options we currently have, I’d pick the HDHP and max the HSA.

      I think of HSA money as never really existing. I never see it in my paycheck and when I pay bills using the HSA it doesn’t come out of my bank account or my budget. That helps mitigate the sting when I have to pay a $3,000 ER bill.

   9. We had both an HSA as well as a dependent care FSA when my kid was little and in daycare.

      Our employers both contributed a substantial amount to the HSA, so we factored this in as “free money”. If both you and your husband get an HSA plan through your employer, you should look into which plan to add the baby so that you maximize potential employer contributions vs. premiums.

      Note that as a family, you can divide your contributions up into two different HSAs in whatever way makes sense to you, as long as you don’t exceed the annual total contribution limit for family.
      Example for 2025: HSA contribution limit for family is $8,550. My employer contributes $2,000 to my HSA when I have kiddo covered under my plan ($1,000 for me alone), my spouse’s employer contributes $1,100 if he takes the kid, $550 alone.
      I decided to contribute $2,400 as a payroll deduction (making my HSA account grow by $4,400 including my employer contribution – note that this is higher than the individual limit of $4,300). My husband contributes $4,150 to his HSA ($3,600 by payroll deductions, and $550 additional contribution from his employer as a benefit). Basically, out of the total $8,550 possible, we’re getting $2,550 from our employers and decide to divide up the rest between us in whatever way makes sense.

      Since the HSA can roll over (i.e. you don’t have to use the money that year if you don’t incur costs), we do not take distributions from it, but use it as a retirement medical savings vehicle. Plus, I keep all medical bills and receipts, because I will be able to reimburse myself for all this later in life using HSA money.

      If you are planning to spend the HSA money instead of saving it for retirement, be aware that it can only be spent for the persons covered under the individual account. I.e. if you have the kid on your HSA plan in 2025, your husband cannot use his 2025 HSA money to pay for any medical expenses for the kid – you’ll have to use _your_HSA money.

      The dependent care FSA does not roll over, so if you’re planning on daycare, you need to look at the overall amount you will realistically spend on daycare in that year, and only pay as much into the dependent care FSA.

   10. Honestly, if you can swing it financially to cover your deductible and OOP from regular cashflow or savings, I’d just go for an HSA and contribute the max, which has multiple tax advantages and rolls over. And in the event that you really run out of money for medical care, you can always access the HSA later, as well.
       If childcare is on the table, I’d get a dependent care FSA on top.

6. Posting here to hopefully get more responses than the moms board. Does anyone have feedback on repeating kindergarten (switching schools regardless) is a good idea for my June 4th bday son, in a district with september 1st cutoff? He has an ADHD diagnosis from when he turned 4 but he’s improved so much at home. However, in school, group situations or situations where hes expected to be calm like a science museum birthday party, his hyperactivity and impulsivity are challenging. The teacher said he has trouble keeping his hands to himself, wanting to just make his friends laugh in class etc. He’s doing great academically and seems to finish all the work assigned etc. and there are no other concerns. I’ve had 3 kids tell me at 3 different times that my son is “bad” and doesn’t listen to the teacher. My son cries when he hears kids say this and gets really embarassed. I’m just not sure what to do, because it’s clear he can’t help it. Right now, it feels like the hyperactivity is the issue rather than inattentive, but maybe the inattentive doesn’t become an issue in school until older? I can’t tell if he just needs one more year to play and be a kid, but if he will regret it when he’s older and bigger than everyone and he may “outgrow” this type of behavior.

   1. IDK your son or how the boy dynamic is different than the girl dynamic but you get one good bite at the apple on this and it’s just November. If it were me, I’d get a full psych evaluation and do all of the testing that you can and see what is really going on. My mom used to teach at a school where a lot of kids were very bright but also had very real learning challenges (dyslexia, etc.) and often an overlay of ADHD of the various types and maybe some other things. It’s really important to know all of that because it may be that redshirting fixes the problem and it may just mask it. Also, there are schools out there that are $$$ but offer true help for kids who need that sort of 1:6 ratio type help and that can be life-changing for a kid to know that they can do all of the things and are a good kid but may just need a different approach. And for truth-in-advertising, I have a fall-birthday child who never struggled academically but something was off. Kiddo was very tall, so would have likely gotten more negative attention and been so noticeably larger than peers had we re-shirted (in our district, people often redshirt to give their kid a leg up on sports but IDK that having a bunch of kids driving in middle school or 19 and 20-year old seniors is really worth it in the end). It turns out, that kiddo is also autistic, but not so autistic that any early childhood test flagged a concern, and just knowing that meant that we could put a name to what we were all experiencing, explain it to others, and try to help kiddo fit into a world that is wired for people one way and not another. Having that Dx also means that kiddo is not military material (if that matters) and may be excluded from some jobs. In smaller towns or 50 years ago, these kids probably weren’t identified but we live here and now and I feel like we do a disservice not to investigate seriously once issues arise.

      1. Having a kid who can drive in middle school or is 19 or 20 in high school is not redshirting. That requires a kid to be held back multiple grades. To the extent you are trying to make a point, it’s really undercut by your exaggerations

         1. For NC:
            Kids do drivers ed at 14.5; learner’s permit at 15; earliest license at 16
            Our youth group has many 8th grade middle schoolers with a permit who were early spring birthdays who were redshirted (all girls FWIW), so it’s not just the summer boys. These girls probably have very type A ambitious parents who are big into their kid doing well on travel sports.

            1. Widespread redshirting of girls born in the spring is crazy! That’s like 6 months before the cutoff. It’s stories like this that make me happy that I live somewhere that has banned redshirting.

         2. In some states, kids get a full-on license at 14. Even not red-shirted, that is middle school. Now it’s just earlier in middle school, which is hella terrifying. I grew up where you drive at 17 and even though it’s a bummer, 17 is IMO materially different than 14.

            1. South Dakota is the only state that gives a license at 14, and it’s with restrictions. I live in a neighboring state that gives lots of freedom to young drivers, IMO, and the only thing that’s possible at 14 is a school permit, which is a type of learner’s permit. Even so, I can’t say I know of a single middle schooler who has even a learner’s permit. High school freshmen, yes. Middle school, no. Let’s not exaggerate the point.

            2. Kansas licenses at 14 too, with restrictions, but… I think it is fairly common for farm kids in the mid west.

            3. In Charlotte and can confirm maybe a third of kids in my kids’ eighth grad e confirmation class were 15YO with permits by the time we had confirmation last spring.

            4. The idea of an eighth-grader behind the wheel of a car, even with a parent in the passenger seat, is terrifying. Based on my observation of my kid and her peers, I would be in favor of raising the age for a permit to 16 and the age for a license to 17. There is a lot of maturity that comes in between 16 and 17, at least among the girls.

               Developmentally they probably shouldn’t really be allowed to drive until they’re 25, but that’s not practical.

            5. Being from South Dakota, there weren’t many real restrictions if you were in a rural town. I know multiple kids who put their car into the ditch in winter driving conditions throughout high school. Generally drivers ed was taught in school and wasn’t given until 8th grade, so I think a lot of people did wait to take drivers ed for free even if their birthday was earlier.

   2. First, as a mom whose child also has behavioral challenges, hugs. Second, holding kids back and repeating kindergarten is very, very common in my child’s school. You might find that he’s not actually that much older or bigger than his classmates. Third, while you are probably in the best position to judge whether this will help behaviorally, it’s not likely to solve or worsen all of those problems so please give yourself grace with this decision. You sound like a really great mom.

      1. Yes, tons of kids are redshirted in our district now too. He is one of the youngest of the 20 kids in his classroom. I’m not sure what we are so quick to diagnose as ADHD isn’t just him developmentally needing to move and play more than a public school setting allows with one 30 minute recess. However, I don’t want to redshirt and make a permanent decision if we still have other issues to solve.

         1. I had a slightly different scenario as my son is a Feb birthday, but your saying that he isn’t developmentally ready to sit still all day with one 30 minute recess really resonated. In our case we moved him to a Montessori school after kindergarten for 1st – 4th grade, and then we moved to a place where elementary schools are more play based and he went back to public school and did very well. His Montessori class was a 3-1 boy to girl ratio, and it was a LOT of smart boys who just couldn’t hold still. I haven’t kept up with most of them, but my son and the two we have kept in touch with are doing very well academically in high school. So if you have the resources, that may be another option. My son is normal bright, btw, not gifted, and we chose not to pursue the formal ADHD diagnosis that the school was pushing for in kindergarten. He still needs to be involved in sports to get enough movement in during the day, but he has no trouble academically.

         2. +1 to ‘as mom whose children have behavioral challenges, hugs.’

            I have 3 children all with ADHD and other issues. You are right to question this. I have learned the hard way to always trust my gut. From what you write you don’t have a gut feeling that this is going to help him. Listen to that voice.

            How I would approach this is to say ‘He is struggling and their suggestion is to hold him back a year. What supports are in place currently to allow him to access education? Does this need to be modified? How does holding him back a year enable him to overcome the current challenges?’

            The most effective modification for my son at K was lots of running during the day. He would run laps in the playground for 5mins between each class and then go to class and he would manage to hyperfocus the whole time. He had a 1-1 aide to facilitate this (two disabilities) but this could be accomplished with any member of staff. Speak to the professionals who have evaluated your son and get their input. If you have not done your own evaluation go ahead and get it done. They were the ones who suggested he run between class and it was put in the report as a strong recommendation.

            1. wow, thats amazing, were you in public? We’re in a highly ranked district in the south but we dont have even floating aides for kinder. its 1 teacher with 20-22 kids and theres maybe 3 aides for the school and they are spread for the ones that severely need help. Thats why they didnt even put in movement breaks in his 504, which to your point is probably the only thing that would help him.

            2. We were in public in New Jersey. My elder two both have a dual ASD and ADD diagnosis. Very bright but a ‘handful’ at the best of times. I learned from various resources what I could do. Get on the Facebook groups and a day in the life of an IEP. Lots of people will help you because we all have our battle scars.

               Best advice I was given was that if a child study team were being nice then you aren’t getting what your child should be getting. The districts are under huge pressure financially and while they get funded for IEPs they don’t get funded the same way for 504s. I did a lot of fundraising for the district and held them accountable for everything.

               If you go private the 504 plan goes away and you have to go through the process again if you want to go back to public. With an IEP, you can do a unilateral placement and you can keep the IEP active.

   3. My brother repeated kindergarten and now resents my parents for it. He thinks it was unnecessary and he blames them for him being socially out of step with his elementary school classmates (there were some other specifics about his school that probably made this worse). He didn’t have ADHD, but was very active and just seemed a little slow to mature early on, but was fine academically.

      1. I was held back based on my birthday alone and resent it still. A lot of people and peers assumed there was something wrong with me. I stuck out because I hit puberty and my growth spurt early. Middle school dances were even more acutely unfun. I’d be fine with a Montessori multi-age classroom but redshirting has become insane.

      2. wow. Just as a counter point, I did repeat kindergarden. I have an early August birthday. I do not resent my parents for it. I was small kid and a little immature. I don’t think it held me back socially or academically. I think the only odd thing I recall is that I turned 21 earlier than some of my college friends but not by much.

      3. I’m anon at 9:07 and I’ll add another random point here. I don’t know if you have other kids and what their ages are, but I also think the fact that my parents held my brother back has had life long consequences on our relationship as well. He’s only three years younger than me, but ended up four years behind in school, which meant that we never attended school together (we also went to different elementary schools). By the time he got to high school, I was off to college on the other side of the country and was then busy with my own life and we’ve lived thousands of miles away from each other ever since. We get along fine, but aren’t especially close and I think that’s partially because we had so little shared experience as kids, especially once I was a teenager.

         1. I worry about this with my kids who are five years apart. We deeply wanted to have kids closer together in age, but it didn’t happen. Secondary infertility is fun! I try to be mindful of giving them shared experiences, but it’s really hard at times, especially when one kid is a teen and the other is still in elementary school.

            1. Just to give you a more positive experience: I’m a decade older than my only sibling, so we have very few shared childhood experiences, and we are close as adults. When he started college, closer to where I was living as a 28-year old young professional than to my parents’ home, we spent more time together and I became his go-to trusted-but-not-out-of-touch adult. We started taking trips together eventually, and now that we’re in our 30s and 40s the age gap has narrowed a lot and we’re good friends. And we’re not even that similar, in addition to the age difference – we have very different personalities and interests – but coming from the same family, we have shared history and core values, trust each other, and have a lot of fun together. Our partners are friends, too (mine is a few years younger than me and his is a few years older than him and they went to the same college although they didn’t cross paths there, so they’re actually more peers than the “real” siblings). I feel like sibling relationships are really a matter of magic a lot of the time – either they click or don’t.

            2. There’s no guarantee your kids would have been BFFs if they had been born closer together.

            3. My brother and I are 13 months apart, one grade difference, and my mom has repeatedly said she should have redshirted him. I hated being this close in age and grade, felt forced together in activities and friends. And now as adults we no longer speak. Being close in age does not equal BFF.

            4. By contrast, my son is five years ahead of my daughter and they are obsessed with each other. He’s extremely sweet and doting by nature whereas she is assertive and fearless and they both just love being together even if they should have nothing in common.

   4. No skin in this game but everyone I knew growing up who was redshirted did way better in school academically and socially. The best time is now, when the kid is young and won’t know the difference. In your shoes, I’d absolutely hold him back. Wouldn’t stop me from figuring out what else is going on, but this sounds like a no brainer.

      1. Kiddo is already doing well though. How well will he behave when he is even more bored?

         1. the school we are thinking of moving to is more academically rigorous so kinder there will be 1st grade in public, just as a data point

            1. I don’t see this explicitly in any of your posts, but just want to say: If you are thinking your son may be academically unprepared for this more rigorous school’s 1st grade after public school K, don’t factor that in to your decision. Assuming this private school has a lower student:teacher ratio and your son is at least an average learner, any knowledge gap will even out very, very quickly.

            2. OP – I just posted above. I have 3 kids with ADHD. All are ‘gifted’ and need academics that push them to think. They just do not do well in a mainstream class. They are currently enrolled in a rigorous program at a catholic school. Take a look at your local Montessori options because they often let the children go at their own pace and encourage active breaks. Not all programs are great but a lot of them are there to cater to our children. Again, my advice is to listen to your gut and try what you think is right for him.

               In my previous post I forgot to mention that you might want to hold him back in the future. There are big jumps at 3rd, 6th and 9th grades. I wholly recommend saving the redshirting for those grades. Best thing I did for my daughter was hold her back in 5th grade. She was not ready for 6th grade at all. Now she has caught up and is ready to rejoin her grade for high school.

   5. Especially if he’s doing well academically, making him repeat K will just make the problem worse. He’ll be bored and frustrated and older and bigger than the other kids, which will prompt and/or empower him to act out more. He needs time in the age-appropriate grade level to mature, treatment for the ADHD, and/or an evaluation and intervention for any other issues that may be going on.

      Modern kindergarten is just terrible for most kids. A bunch of kids as old as 6 or 7 are trapped indoors all day in a hot, stuffy, noisy classroom with brightly colored visual clutter all over the walls, forced to study a curriculum designed for 4- and 5-year-olds that doesn’t fit any of their individual needs when some need basic phonics and some are reading chapter books, required to nap, and subject to ineffective shame-based classroom management techniques such as red/yellow/green card systems. The goal should be to get kids out of this toxic environment as quickly as possible or even skip it, not to keep them there longer.

      1. This is exactly how I remember kindergarten (as just awful).

         1. TBF I do have ADHD though!

            1. So as a kid with ADHD you definitely would not have done well with two years of K, then?

            2. I would not have done well w/two years of kindergarten; it was distraction upon distraction.

   6. From personal experience, I am always in favor of summer bday kids being old for their grade.

      I was at a private school so summer birthdays were totally up to the parents. I could read by 4, had stopped all naps at 2.5 (the school still had daily naps in K), and was the typical eldest daughter responsible child so they chose to make me young for my class. While I was “ready” in some fronts, I really, really was not ready maturity wise and that continued as a problem for years. Funnily enough, all of my high school and college friends are also young for the class with summer birthdays (or are a year below) – so I guess we found each other

      1. It’s a thing! My oldest-for-her grade daughter has a bunch of old friends; my summer bday kids have young for the grade friends. :)

         1. Can confirm. I was one of the youngest in my class, and most of my close friends were also the younger ones in our grade or in the grade behind mine!

            I have mixed feelings about being one of the youngest. I completely understand why my parents sent me to K right after I turned 5. I was eager and academically ready. But I always felt so behind my grade-level peers in terms of maturity, interests, etc. Some of that might have been the social dynamics of my class (small town, lots of kids in my grade had much-older siblings and I did not). But, if I’d been in my parents’ shoes, I probably would’ve made the same decision. And SOMEBODY has to be the youngest!

            1. My birthday was three weeks before the cutoff. At that time it was more common to skip kids ahead a grade than to hold them back, so there were some kids who were even younger. I was incredibly bored in school and always wished that my parents had skipped me ahead. In high school my friends were all older, so I had to make all new friends my senior year when the last of my original friend group (1-3 years older) had graduated. I was so done with high school my senior year and more than ready to be out of the house after I graduated at 17. Another year living at home and attending high school would have been torture.

               My daughter missed the cutoff by three months but was already reading chapter books and doing about third-grade math when she was scheduled to start pre-K. She moved up to the pre-K classroom at day care over the summer, and the pre-K teachers were actually annoyed that she was reading. We put her in private K a year early because it was the best option available. She was so miserably bored in elementary and middle school that I can’t even imagine how bad it would have been if we’d waited another year. She probably would have been fine in her high school’s IB program at the traditional age, but until high school there really weren’t any viable options other than grade advancement.

   7. I don’t think you can judge this in November. The first couple months of Kindergarten are rough on all kids. By April you’ll have a better sense of where things are and what decision to make. It’s so individual.

      My boys are in the last two months before the cut off for their school (November birthdays for a December cut off) but red shirting is very very uncommon so it would be super noticed and lots of questions around why Johnny has his 7th birthday party if the rest of us are turning 6. They hate being on the younger end of the class but it’s less an issue at 10 then it was at 5. That said, I would have been very reluctant to hold them back because they are both bright and at the top of their class so I think there would be a lot of boredom and acting out if they were held back.

   8. I realize this isn’t what you’re asking, but I offer it to share more context. I have two boys with summer birthdays and did not “redshirt” them because there was no need to. However, every other boy within six months of their birthdays in each grade opted out of continuing on and repeated K, so my kids often feel like they skipped ahead – which is also not great! It frustrates me that schools won’t hold a line on this because while you make a decision for your own child, it affects the classroom dynamic to have a bunch of kids who really should not be in that grade learning alongside kids who are on the younger side but the correct age bracket. I think this will just get harder as kids grow out of the behaviors and habits that caused parents to opt for repeating K – they will be bigger and clearly not in the correct bracket. Also, not what you asked: but if you live in a city where this is common at K, it’s probably likely an option later on – I know in my city, it on occasion happens at the very strong academic 7-12th grade private prep school. I figured if we got to 7th grade and my kids felt too young for their current grade, I could reason with them at that point, talk it through, and move them to advanced academics but placed in an age cohort that felt more appropriate – especially if they are at a point where their friends from elem/middle school will be split up to attend different prep schools.

   9. If he’s doing fine academically, I worry that repeating a year might exacerbate the problem, ie adding boredom in school on top of ADHD. You know your own kid best, though.

   10. I have 3 kids. Two are summer birthdays in a district with a 9/1 cutoff. I sent them both. One was (and is) a no-brainer. One has adhd and academically is fine but socially, even now in 3rd grade, has always been behind. I don’t know if I would have held her if I got a do-over because she’s also gifted and was raring to go to school AND I think she’d resent being so close in grade to her baby sister, but I do opt for any and all opportunities to age her down so she’s in a group of girls more her age. Eg. She does swim team but based on her age she “swims down,” and when I sign her up for blended grade things I always pick the scenario where she is older and even then her behavior is middle of the pack in terms of maturity. This things are non-issues for my other two kids.

       All that to say…I’d hold him, but also, he’ll be fine if you don’t.

   11. OP, my heart hurts for you because I have been there, done that. Honestly, I don’t think redshirting or holding your son back is going to help the behavioral piece. Especially if he is not having academic struggles. ADHD, as you know, is just really hard to manage. And, in terms of maturity and executive functioning, he is going to be behind his peers (yes, even if you hold him back), and that gap will seem enormous at times. My kid is 14 and the differences between him and his peers are still very apparent at times. A few thoughts:
       – Pursue a 504 plan to get him more behavioral support in the classroom. Even small tweaks can help manage some of the impulsive behaviors and distractions.
       – Skill-building therapy — this is for you, the parent, as much as it is him.
       – Build good relationships with his teachers. Go in assuming that they want him to succeed and work with them on a plan for mitigating the trickiest behaviors. You have to see them as partners in all of this. It’s the old “you catch more flies with honey” approach. I have seen other parents turn the classroom teachers into the “problem” and it’s not helpful for anyone.
       – And, maybe not now, but do consider medication at some point. It doesn’t fix everything, but it has been a really important tool in the toolbox.

       1. Yes, he has a 504, but it includes frequest positive reinforcements, frequent reminders for expected behavior, preferential seating, provide calm down area, and provide choices. Anything else to add? The teacher says him and bunch of boys just want to be goofy and play and make each other laugh rather than pay attention and I don’t know how to help with that. She says its less of an issue when it’s hands on or work time vs. sitting on the carpet and listening time. We remind him frequently to be respectful to the teacher, but it’s like he forgets all that once he’s in the classroom for 7+ hours. It’s just tough because he also really feels ashamed and wants the positive stuff the school gives for behavior, but he’s just never going to get those things even when he’s trying his best. I’m not sure how often it happens or how severe it is, but clearly it’s bad if multiple kids are telling me that he is “bad”.

          What kinds of behaviors were you seeing at home with your son? I would never medicate him based on behavior at home, because he’s so easy and can focus for reading practice or math worksheet etc. or playing a board game or playing outside with friends or on a sports team etc. He never seems that out of the ordinary to us in a group of 5 year old boys, but it has always been somewhat of an issue in classrooms across multiple school settings.

          1. My son’s 504 was similar at that age. The carpet time and sitting time was always a problem, and I don’t think that’s something you, as the parent, can fix. You’re correct that even being reminded at home is not likely to stick once he’s in the classroom environment. Redirection has to happen in the moment. And, I have no doubt that it’s a pain from a classroom management perspective. I just want to validate that there probably isn’t much you, personally, can do.

             My son had the same types of behaviors at school, home, and in many other settings. In groups, it was very obvious that something about him was different from his same-age peers. He absolutely couldn’t focus at sports practices. School work came easier to him, so homework was less of an issue. But, the traits of being hyperactive, unable to to follow directions (even when he wanted to), and tons of arguing/emotional dysregulation followed him in every context.

             1. Anon @ 10:07, I’m the Anon below you at 11:05 – and I just want to send you hugs. My son’s ADHD manifested in slightly different ways (and we were seeing consistent improvement in his ability to self-regulate with age), with huge, difficult emotional breakdowns at home. But every flavor has its struggles, and it sounds like you are taking great care of your kid.

          2. Regarding the “academic” piece of this, I have a son with ADHD, and he missed our school cut-off by two days, so we didn’t “red-shirt” him — he was sent when he was supposed to go. That said, my husband joked that him coming a week after his due date was the greatest gift I ever gave to him … behaviorally, I legit do not know how he would have been able to do K the year he was 4 turning 5. He also started K during COVID, and his preschool opened a “private K” that year, which meant he had still got huge amounts of outdoor time for his K year. When he finally headed over to our local school, it was first grade, and he absolutely rocked it (I also think he was one of the only kids for whom COVID worked in his favor, as the year he was 6 turning 7 at the beginning of the year was the first year he was able to really maintain the behavior needed for a traditional classroom).

             But because he was really ready for it when he finally started in a traditional classroom, he has just thrived at school. Academically, FWIW, he would have been just fine starting K a year earlier. But I’ve really appreciated that because he has to work harder at meeting behavior expectations, he’s not simultaneously struggling with school work.

             He’s now in 4th grade, and he’s the student council rep for his grade. His teachers routinely tell me he’s a leader around other kids, and we haven’t needed to implement a 504 or IEP yet. He can still get off track in a classroom if he’s sitting next to certain buddies, but our (small) school has done a great job at making sure that certain kids don’t end up in the same class together.

          3. OP – your problem is your 504 plan. He has a behavioral problem. Where is the Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) and Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP). If they are talking about holding him back they first need to move him to an IEP and give him services to help him behave in class in a way that is structured and measurable. Ideally you want a BCBA to do the assessment and plans with a registered behavioral technician implementing the plan and providing feedback to the BCBA. My kiddies have sensory needs the elder two had OT all the way through elementary. It helped a lot. My youngest doesn’t need it.

             The medication for ADHD is a crapshoot and I found a high dose of omega (DHA) with a specific diet (setout by a registered nutritionist) to be more effective. Take a look at additude magazine. Its online and I found it very helpful.

   12. FWIW… My daughter goes to a private school in NYC where basically every kid with a July or August birthday is redshirted. June is a mix. The “wildest” kid in her class is a boy who turned 6 years old in August before Kindergarten started. My point is that just being the oldest doesn’t necessarily mean that his behavior will be better. On the flip side, there are two June boys in her class (not redshirted) who are doing totally fine socially.

   13. (In case anyone’s wondering, there may be no responses on the moms board because no posts are currently showing up on the moms board.)

       It doesn’t sound like repeating K will solve the hyperactivity and impulsivity issues, and it may be more trouble than salve if he is academically ahead. I know several kids like this and work with them weekly at a regular outside-school activity. If he’s already in kindergarten and you have no academic concerns, what he needs most now are good behavioral supports so he doesn’t disrupt other kids’ learning, and for your family to build a good relationship with the teachers. A formal diagnosis is only as good as the support infrastructure it gets you.

       1. +1

   14. I’m not totally understanding your situation, but I’d just go with whatever your new district’s guidelines are, ignoring the fact that he’s “already” done kindergarten, so he’s the same age as his classmates.

   15. Both my daughter and I have August birthdays. I was the youngest in my class. She’s been the oldest. She was very small — 30lbs on her 5th birthday and I just felt like she wasn’t ready for kindergarten. She also was later diagnosed ADD. I feel that holding her back is one of the best decisions I have made on her behalf. The extra maturity made her more responsive to her ADD interventions, and I genuinely feel that she coped much better with mean girl and boundary testing teen behavior than I did. being a year older gave her just a little more maturity to navigate those things. I have never once regretted it for her.

       1. I have a 5 year old daughter with an August birthday who is being red-shirted for a very specific medical reason. She is teeny, tiny for her age, and your comment made me smile. We could not/did not send her on time for very good reasons. I have worried a lot about the impact on her, however, as academically she’s just fine. That said, her size helps the decision be in her favor, I suppose. Most people assume she’s 3 when they meet her!

   16. I’m not sure you need to figure this out quite yet, unless one of your choices is to pull him from K this year and put him back in a more active/free play preK program. A lot could change by second semester and again by the end of the year.

       I’m a mom of three boys, at least one of whom has ADHD. The older two have July and Sept birthdays and went the year they turned 5 (so, my diagnosed ADHDer started K when he was still 4). I don’t know that another year of maturity will necessarily help, especially if the impulsivity is tied to diagnosed ADHD.

       There are two evidence-based treatments for ADHD: medication and parent training. You probably have noticed these kids needs to learn in the moment, so reminders at home won’t help at school, but figuring out how to develop the skills in situations while you are present might (hence the parent training). And my son isn’t on medication because he is still doing okay at school, but if it’s getting the point where he is being called a “bad kid” I would absolutely consider it. I think that could make all the difference for your son.

       Other things that could help are getting him solid exercise before school (walking to school, running laps in your yard, using a pull up bar and punching bag in the basement, etc), and asking the teacher to incorporate more movement breaks for him. This could be as simple as giving him classrooms jobs like passing out papers or bringing the attendance sheet to the office, etc

       1. +1 million on all of this. If he is getting a reputation and internalizing the “bad kid” thing, I would absolutely consider medication at this point.

          And yes, ADHD kids definitely learn best in the moment.

   17. If he’s doing great academically, do not have him repeat K. My son (who is not diagnosed with ADHD) has a one-week-before-the-cutoff birthday and I had it in my head that he could do Montessori kindergarten, then we could still put him in K again when he switched to public school. We ended up just sending him straight to 1st grade after the Montessori year, and thank goodness. That was a few years ago. He’s a bright kid, and he’s already insufferable about how school is too easy; if he were still working at a grade younger…oof. Your son will likely outgrow the behavior / learn to better control his impulses, but if he’s bored in class because he’s not challenged, that will likely make his disruptions worse, not better.

       I have two kids with ADHD diagnoses. One takes medication for school, one does not. The reason we started medication (in 3rd grade) for the one is specifically because of the social impact of ADHD; the peer conflict was leading to a very bad place. Medication during the school day fully resolved the challenges. K is young to start medication, but if you have a diagnosis, hopefully you also have a doctor with whom you can talk this through.

       Finally, I’ll just say that it is only November. Your son has been in kindergarten for what, 3 months? That type of behavior is still very normal, even for non-ADHD kids, and especially if he was not in a full-day preK before that. A lot can — and probably will — change before the end of this school year! I hope you’re shutting down the “bad” comments, and reframing that for both your son and the kids who are saying those things. If you haven’t already, read up on ADHD and how to support kids who have it. My older ADHD kid had an *amazing* teacher in 1st grade who worked with him and with us as parents to help focus on improving his classroom behavior. If your son’s teacher is just rattling off problems without discussing an approach to solutions, that’s either not great, OR s/he’s not that worried about it yet because… it’s only November.

       1. I hate hearing about schools that don’t adequately accommodate bright students or let grade level get in the way.

          1. Same… makes me afraid to use our well rated public school because of this

             1. 11:11 here and I just need to jump in to defend my well-rated public school. My bright kid is insufferable because he has a massive ego, not because he actually isn’t learning anything at school. :) He does get some great math enrichment with a small group of other math-minded kids, and IMO he’s not quite as awesome at anything else as he thinks he is. He’s abysmal at spelling, for example, he just doesn’t agree that spelling is a necessary skill; and even smart kids need to be taught grammar and social studies. I wouldn’t expect public school teachers to cater to his flavor-of-the-week obsession with whatever science/history/economics topic he’s latched onto at any given time, but the librarian helps him find books, and I’m happy to nerd out with him about those at home.

                All that to say, don’t lose faith in the ability of public schools to do right by bright kids. The well-rated ones often do a pretty decent job.

             2. 12:06, same experience. I am perfectly happy with how my very bright kid has done in public school. Finding him differentiated learning has honestly not been a problem. They also have been willing to accommodate independent study/testing out of classes in high school.

          2. My reasonably-bright kids have done well in public school classrooms, though I have been very grateful for the differentiation they’ve received from time to time. Even smart kids need to learn how to get along with others, how to handle boredom or irritation, and realize the world doesn’t revolve around them.

             1. +1. These are my kid’s biggest issues, honestly. Academics come easily to him, even in the differentiated classrooms. But the soft skills? Yeah, those do NOT come naturally to him.

             2. 100% this

             3. As a former exceptionally gifted kid and the parent of an exceptionally gifted kid, I hate hearing that “gifted kids need to learn to get along with other kids.” That’s what sports, Girl Scouts, orchestra, and other extracurriculars are for. A kid two or three standard deviations above from the median should not be in an academic classroom with median kids, just as a kid two or three standard deviations below the median should not be grouped with median kids. Mainstreaming gifted kids is essentially warehousing them for 7 hours a day for a perceived social benefit that will never materialize, at great academic and emotional cost.

             4. I was speaking to the reasonably-bright, not the exceptionally gifted (which is far rarer IME).

             5. Yes. And as a gifted person with at least one 2e gifted child, I agree. I’m going to say something controversial, but we can’t expect schools (especially public schools) to be everything to everybody. I totally appreciate that you have to cater to the mean, and giving a couple regular g&t or enrichment opportunities is all that can be expected at the elementary and even middle school levels. And these kids DO need to learn to keep egos in check and develop the soft skills.

                As a parent, the ultimate responsibility for your child’s education and well-being is with YOU. We do a ton of informal learning at home, through reading and going places and having deep conversations and helping kids pursue their special interests. And honestly, downtime and boredom can be the perfect spark for creativity for gifted kids to “figure things out.” I am a big believer in preparing the child for the road and not the road for the child.

                For high school, absolutely you need differentiation. And maybe the “profoundly gifted” need more, but the “regular gifted” need to learn to cope when situations aren’t just to their liking.

             6. I was never adjudicated gifted, and I remember clear as day when I transferred to the honors English class in high school and an always-adjudicated gifted kid sneered at my presence because, “Seventh isn’t even smart.” Spite is a great motivator for me, but that child hadn’t been well-served by the system.

             7. I was also talking about garden variety reasonably-bright kids.

                Although, as a formerly exceptionally gifted child, myself, I don’t think I’m any worse for wear after spending most of my time in mainstream public school classrooms. I did skip a grade and was in the G&T pull-out class once a week (which drew from several elementary schools, and based on the small size, probably actually only had kids at least 2SD above the mean, unlike a lot of “gifted” classes). I was also in sports, orchestra, and other extracurriculars, but I don’t think those are great for teaching exceptionally gifted kids to get along with others, because you have a starting point of having xyz interest in common, and you’re mostly interacting in that domain.

                As adults, most high-IQ people don’t have the luxury of interacting only with other high-IQ people in environments designed for high-IQ people. Maybe you get to collaborate with another genius on a research project at work, but then you still need to constructively and politely interact with the intellectually-average people who do all the support functions in your organization. Sometimes you have to train a new employee who isn’t the brightest bulb. And then there are all the daily social interactions at the grocery store, community center, in your neighborhood, with your kids’ teachers… learning to “conform” a little bit is just another skill that everyone – including gifted kids – needs to master.

             8. School isn’t a great place to learn the social norms of the adult world. If you want any child to learn to get along in the real world, teach that and create those opportunities! School is a very artificial environment socially that was never intended for outliers to begin with.

   18. How similar are the kindergartens? My son’s birthday is days after our state’s cutoff, but because the cutoff changed after he started preschool, he was on track to go to kindergarten too early. A number of schools in our area have established a “transitional kindergarten” program to catch the kids in this age hole, which is what we are doing. I would not necessarily want him to do the same program for two years in a row, for various reasons that other people have noticed, but the curriculum plans for the two are actually really different (his transitional K is sort of modified nature school), and I don’t think it will be repetitive at all. While public Ks were giving some waivers for families in this boat, I actually strongly agreed with the cutoff change and didn’t want to pursue it for my kid in particular for a number of reasons.

   19. I held my end of August boy. If you truly think the extra year would help with behavior, I would absolutely hold him. His teacher might have some good insight into that decision and some districts also have people you can talk to about when to start K. A lifetime of being labeled the “bad” kid is going to hurt more than feeling bigger than everyone – and since when do we make decisions based on appearance?

       1. A lot of redshirting is actually based on size. Parents want their boys to be the biggest or worry about their girls being the smallest.

          1. Do you think that’s a good reason, though? I don’t.

             1. I’d rather have my kid be short than bored.

             2. No, I think it’s a terrible reason.

          2. I’m sure this is a veiled response to my post at 11:31. I didn’t red shirt my daughter because she is small, I red shirted my small daughter because she has to undergo a multitude of surgeries that will result in her missing school for approximately three months. Everyone agreed it made more sense to miss three months of preschool, not K.

             1. No, it’s a response to the poster suggesting that most redshirting decisions are not made on the basis of size. All of the big bullies in our schools are redshirted so they can win at sports.

   20. Is there any way you can reach out to the new school and get their guidance? In my kids’ district, you can’t really redshirt since kindergarten and first grade placements are by age instead of instructional level. But some places allow you to do it and I think it can be valuable.

       Frankly, the behavior expectations in elementary school are generally keyed towards the best-behaved girls, especially for things like “circle time” and other activities that boil down to sitting quietly and awaiting instructions. My kid wasn’t diagnosed with anything, but he certainly had disruptive behavior given the increased teacher-child ratio in k as well as all of the “big school” changes. Schools also have to deal with very stringent behavior codes re: hitting or punching, which I think it somewhat counter-productive in early grades.

   21. Another commenter recommended testing as part of your decision-making process. I’ll second with a recommendation for a good vision test – one which takes into account whether his eyes are working together correctly as well as whether his vision is 20/20. Link below to information on convergence insufficiency and ADHD statistics. The link between the two separate conditions isn’t determined by the studies, but the numbers cited are significant enough to warrant an exam to rule out convergence insufficiency in a child with ADHD, in my opinion.
       Full disclosure – my opinion is a non-medical educated based opinion; however, I have adult onset convergence insufficiency. It is terrible. Reading is so difficult. Keeping the words “together” and “singular” vs “double vision” takes a ton of effort and makes me really tense, tired, and irritable. I have to take frequent breaks, get up, and walk around. If I am really concentrating while reading and people talk to me, I miss the first part of what they say and sometimes get the meaning of their communication wrong (if they don’t repeat, start over). All this is new for me (1 year diagnosis) but it’s a huge struggle and I know how to read. My heart breaks for any kid dealing with this condition while trying to learn letters, words, numbers, and how to do school, etc.

       https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/convergence-insufficiency-adhd

   22. OP, I didn’t read through all of the replies but I would be sure to balance academic and behavioral considerations. From your question, it seems like you’re considering holding him back for behavioral/maturity reasons. However, he might act out more if he’s academically bored in class — and it seems like he’s meeting or exceeding all of his schoolwork goals/standards. So that’s something to consider. (Source: I worked in education for 15 years.)

   23. This is perhaps too late, but I thought I would pipe up as an actual red-shirter (not a word I’m certain)

       As an adult whose parents pulled her from the first week of kindergarten and sent her back to preschool, entirely because of emotional/behavioral maturity, I am here to say repeating kindergarten (the first week at least!) was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. For context, I have a late December birthday and was 4 when I was sent to kindergarten for the first round. I was not ready for the “big kid” responsibilities of kindergarten at 4 and came back the next year much better prepared. I always lean on the side of red-shirting or waiting to start school.

7. Any reviews/experience first-hand with Oak and Luna brand jewelry? I am looking for a graduation necklace for my cousin. Thought about putting a custom word or school name/seal but haven’t found the right piece. Budget is $100-200.

   Link: https://www.oakandluna.com/product.aspx?p=2237&m=eadfe4c0-b250-4f00-b231-19d6befc7fac

   1. I have a necklace that I’ve been happy with at the price point.

   2. I’m not familiar with this brand, but is it for high school or college? If for college and she happens to be at a school they have, I have a school necklace from Kyle Cavan that I really like and would be in budget depending on what material you get: https://kylecavan.com/

   3. I bought a necklace from them from a targeted IG ad in 2020 that I still wear and was well made. It’s rose gold which I do not wear much of anymore but this piece survived the purge. No idea the price but no stones just rose gold metal. Chain is decent.

8. I’m so sock and tired of my husband having the bestest intentions and still missing some stuff that i have ad nauseum talked about being important to me. None of it is like a huge deal in the broad scheme of things, but it really affects me: small things that i expect and have communicated and he promises to deliver and keeps telling me wants to do and then doesn’t (because forgot or soemethign random and small) and it just adds up as baggage. Like we actually escalated a very minor thing from last night into “it sucks that we have a patten of just disappointing each other despite the best intentions and may be we should just divorce” that led to a bunch of yelling and tears! Like yeah we should let small things go but how many such small things can you let go? I am beyond mad at him right now for not having the ability despite 20 years of marriage to de-escalate and always leading minor things to blow up. I know it is not supposed to be this hard. But this is not a DTMF situation, he really is a good human being, i just can’t keep settling for a good but oh-i-meant-the-best-but couldnt deliver on this very minor expectation once again! I have already given up on so much like expecting EVER to be surprised by hum etc etc but then all my friends just keep telling me how i should be thankful that he is such a nice guy! Which makes me feel I am the problem and that is how I end up in a crap cycle of anger, depression and self-loathing! HELP.

   1. Have you read the article, “She left me because I left dishes by the sink”?

      1. +1

         1. +1

   2. I mean idk what answer you are expecting but it is clearly marriage therapy.

   3. My suggestion: counseling for only you. This could be anything from “people are human” to a pattern of manipulation and passive aggressiveness.

      With my STBX, it’s manipulation. He knows damn well what I wanted; he would promise to do it; things would blow up when he didn’t; and he would act like I was the problem for being all emotional when things escalated. It’s a control mechanism, and counseling helped me to see that.

      Joint counseling was a nightmare. 0/10 do not recommend. He pulled the big sad eyes and (we live in a deep red, sexist part of the country), counselors would fall for it.

      1. You have described my nice-guy BIL. Some counselors fell for his act. Others saw right through it, but couldn’t get through to him. After many years of trying, my sister is finally divorcing the dude.

         1. Sending my best to your sister.

   4. Nice guys can still be sh!tty partners, unfortunately. This seems like a really long-standing pattern, and the fact that it has escalated into uttering the word divorce is … not great. I would pursue therapy for you, first, to see if this is something you can truly live with. I don’t like that your partner seems to be blaming you and not taking responsibility.

      1. Absolutely agree. “I don’t have a problem, you have a problem, so WE don’t have a problem” is not viable for an even minimally healthy partnership.

   5. The d-word is not one that should be used without really meaning it! Yikes.

      There’s two categories of this stuff – the kind of “everyone is human” occasional oversights or annoying habits that everyone has.

      And then there’s a partner who never does what they say they will. Sounds like yours is in the latter category and unwilling to make the effort to change it (whether it’s writing things down in a different way, putting calendar reminders, or whatever!) and I’d be fed up with that too.

      1. Follow up for the OP: who introduced the idea of divorce – you or him? Because my initial read was he introduced the idea in which case, there may be less to work on then you think.

         1. it was me… coz i broke down into “this is too hard.. i really thought am marrying a nice guy so even if you make mistakes, the least i hope for is when i get upset about it you deal with it in a “nicer” way than i do… and if am yelling you yelling louder at me makes me feel I was wrong and we should probably not even be married if we can’t handle things like after being together 20 years”… he then did the “nice guy” thing of “you’re right i make you upset too much and too often even if i dont want to and you’re right when you said many months ago that divorce is better than you being so miserable for my mistakes”…

            1. He sounds VERY manipulative.

            2. That last sentence… that is quite manipulative.

            3. ick

            4. Oof this is grade A manipulation right there. I’d suggest counseling for YOU first.
               I’d also try radical acceptance/disentanglement – assume you can’t rely on him at all (basically pretend you’re divorced now). Take ANYTHING he does as an unexpected bonus. Once you’re doing everything on your own (or outsourcing) re-evaluate. Do you still see worth in the marriage (companionship? love? intimacy?) Or is it genuinely easier to be alone?

            5. Well give him top marks for being a manipulative martyr. And go to counseling yourself, just to get a handle on your own life. The fallout from that will be whatever it is, but I have predictions based on experience ….

            6. Slightly different take – why would your “nice guy” husband have to handle you yelling at him better than you handle being upset? “Nice guy” does not mean punching bag who never gets angry.

               What types of things is he disappointing you about?

            7. Similar to Anon @ 12:32 – Why do you get to yell but he does not? He may be manipulative, but this statement ” if am yelling you yelling louder at me makes me feel I was wrong” sounds controlling.

            8. Yeah…. I don’t know OP, since you are not giving examples so it is very hard for us to read the situation, but when I read your post I thought….. why are you yelling/what is he doing? And is response didn’t jump out to me as manipulative.

      2. I was in a relationship once that was so clearly over but it took me about 6 months to realize it. (I was searching for apartments I could live in by myself and still didn’t actually dump the guy.) I think that’s where OP is. Deep down she knows it’s not going to change and that divorce is the answer, but it’s hard to get there.

   6. I’m more concerned about the blowing up than the flakiness. If you can’t raise something that’s upsetting you without it “blowing up” (thus manipulating you into never raising any problems), that’s not just “people are human.”

      1. Totally agree that the response to you bringing up the flakiness is worse than the flakiness.
         We all have periods of time where we’ve got too much on our plate, the relationship takes a backseat, and we end up flaking. A good relationship weathers those times, and then gets back to prioritizing the relationship once the storm has passed or normalized. If someone can’t do that, the relationship isn’t going to last because every stressful life event causes the relationship to become less and less of a priority. He needs to recognize the pattern and be willing to prioritize the relationship again if this is going to work out. Therapy can help, but it’s really just about facilitating the conversation about how to make the relationship a priority.

   7. I cannot tell from your post whether this is a you problem, a him problem or (most likely) a “the two of you” problem. I repeat the suggestion for therapy. While you are doing that, I can only suggest that you keep the basic and fundamental issue squarely in mind:

      You cannot change other people. He fundamentally is who he is. You are fundamentally who you are. Only you can decide what to let go and what hill to die (or divorce) on. The question is whether your life is better with him or without him. (Be realistic about what life without him looks like.) If it is better with him, then let go of your annoyance and move forward together. If it is better without him, then file for divorce and make it as amicable as you can.

      Good luck.

      1. +1 to all of this.

      2. Co-sign all of this as a divorcee who is now in a very, very happy relationship.

      3. +1

         This is very good advice.

   8. Your description of things bring to mind some friends of mine. In their case, I’ll say this layman thinks he’s got untreated ADHD and is on the autism spectrum, and, there are so many times where he might have good intentions, but, he just doesn’t remember or follow through. (Or gets distracted by a shiny object on the way). From the outside, I am just sad for the wife because I see there are so many ways he makes her life much harder than it needs to be, even though he’s a nice, interesting, person. If you think he might have ADHD or autism, maybe see if you can get him some support from those perspectives? For you, I’d do some individual counseling to try to pull apart that mine/yours/ours tangles of the relationship – it’s not always easy to figure out what’s you as individuals, and you as a system.

      1. I see this pattern w/ADHD, w/weed and especially w/both.

         My own husband got a lot better w/a CPAP though! I’d been armchair dxing him w/attention issues and it was sleep apnea all along.

      2. ADHD or autism don’t make you a manipulative POS like this guy is.

         1. Yeah, this is not actually a nice guy.

   9. My friend finally divorced her “nice guy” husband. He wasn’t actually that nice, he just had everyone else convinced he was. He turned into a demon from hell during the divorce, tried his best to hide joint assets from her in the property division. So much for nice guy.

      1) was never an equal partner in the day to day household stuff. “But you’re better at it!” despite the fact that they both had big careers.

      2) was incredibly lazy and selfish in bed, despite putting on a good show in the early days of their relationship.

      3) instead of ever trying to improve, when she was at the end of her rope with him, he’d to a “guess you’d better divorce me so you can be happy.”

      So when she finally called his bluff and did serve him divorce papers, he was shocked Pikachu face, because after all he’s such a great guy.

      He was right about one thing, though. She is finally happy. :)

      1. I have seen this play out in a family member’s separation and divorce. Let’s just say he did a really good job convincing the world he was a nice guy, but he’s actually manipulative AF and probably a narcissist to boot.

   10. This sounds like my STBX. He has always been all talk no action. Meanwhile I am a get sh** done person and a person of my word, which is very very important to me. This was definitely one of the big reasons for our divorce. I just couldn’t take it any more.

   11. He may be a “good human being” but he’s definitely a crappy husband. You don’t have to martyr yourself.

   12. A tale of two husbands:

       First husband treated his way as the only way, even on the small stuff. I’m talking things like when we disagreed about the number of Tide pods to use in a load of laundry (by one pod!!!), he bought his own hamper and told me I was no longer allowed to wash anything he used. When I left crumbs on the butter, he bought his own butter and sharpied his name onto it so I knew it was his and I was not to use it. He viewed all of this as my failure to take him or our marriage seriously and as a form of disrespect. And honestly, his reaction to this stuff really did make me not respect him, so I guess it was a self- fulfilling prophecy!

       Second husband and I just … do not fight about laundry or cleaning, although we do them very differently. Neither of us create health or safety issues, and any particularly bad pet peeves are raised and addressed. I know there are a thousand things I am choosing to let go, and I am quite confident that there are a thousand things he is choosing to let go. We really like each other, and this stuff just doesn’t feel like it needs to be a battle because we aren’t already at war.

       I can’t tell from your post if you’re in a husband one or a husband two scenario. Maybe you don’t even know yourself. Nthing that individual therapy, not couples’ therapy, is the way to figure that out for yourself.

   13. You have to talk about the theme not the individual variations of the theme.

       Hyperindependent women tend to partner with men who fall short in being a supportive partner in some way. For me, I’m an extremely intolerant of men who don’t pick up their fair share of housework but I’m too tolerant of men who don’t meet my emotional needs — because I like to think I don’t have any.

       I’m married to a man who is awesome at the day to day stuff, couldn’t ask for a more supportive partner when it comes to getting ish done, but sometimes has the emotional intelligence of mayonnaise. This isn’t a problem 99% of the time but that 1% feels really big when it comes up. I’ve been going through a really hard time lately. We got into a screaming match that left me with no voice the next day over… socks. Spoiler alert: it’s not about socks. I feel alone in my marriage. Strangers have shown more care and concern at times than my own husband. He really is trying, but I recognize that I’m asking something of him that is incredibly foreign to him. So I have to have some grace with him, while not neglecting my own needs. It’s a tough line to walk sometimes.

       1. OMG this is IT!! Part of the reason I am convinced he is really a nice guy is this, he does try to do more than his share of household chores but is always to “make my life easier. I have lost my voice too and it seriously started as the socks equivalent… and yeah if it was a bigger thing i know he would be there… but there is a LOT i have to tell him to do & despite it all, I do feel alone in my marriage very often. When things are good, they are good but then somethign silly/small easily unravels it all.

          1. Feeling alone in your marriage says a lot.

             Just want to say that when he says (but apparently does not do) he wants to do more than his share of household duties to “make your life easier” the implicit assumption is that these are your responsibilities and he’s just helping you out because he’s such a nice guy. That’s a trap.

             Anyway, individual, not joint, counseling for you. Where you are right now, and have been for some time, is on the cusp of a decision. Individual counseling to help you figure out that decision will be better than fighting about sock in front of a marriage counselor, especially with a manipulative man who has everyone convinced he’s a nice guy.

             1. I think we need more context here. My husband does a lot of household chores “to make my life easier”–because I am a control freak who, left to my own devices, would demand to do them all myself, the right way.

       2. That’s my Achilles heel. Super independent, very dysfunctional childhood, trained to believe I don’t have needs and I’m wrong when I do.

          Spoiler alert: I find crappy men.

   14. You expect him to surprise you when you know it’s not his style. Then you yell at him for not reading your mind and get mad at him for yelling back? If a man acted that way we would all be screaming “DTMFA.”

   15. I know that other people have suggested therapy, but I have a recommendation for a specific couples’ modality if you are inclined that way, that seems like a good match for the situation you are describing. The founder of the method is Stan Tatkin – he wrote a couple of good books, I think the latest one is Wired for Love. He has a training institute where therapists who studied with him are listed.

       Here’s why I’m recommending it: The method is based on recognizing and protecting the needs of the relationship (the “us”), distinct from the needs of the partners. People who are well intended but struggling with that don’t need a huge number of sessions and emotion talk to make progress. On the other hand, if by any chance one or both partners are not willing to commit to the needs of the relationship, with this method that will become clear in short order. It’s not even that the therapist will say it, it’s more like the structure of the method works to surface things.

       If you decide to go for individual counseling, just be aware that many therapists who are not trained in familly systems tend to take their client’s side automatically, which in some cases can be life-saving, but in others it can blind them to what’s actually happening in the relationship.

       Good luck, whichever way you go!

9. Can someone tell me more about the LED face masks people were mentioning yesterday? They actually work?

   1. I have used the Omnilux contour face led mask for about a year (last year’s Christmas gift). I use it fairly consistently 4-6 times a week. I notice when I slack off or don’t bring on trips. My skin seems brighter and more even. It has helped speed healing after laser treatments and my upper blepharoplasty.

   2. I use the Dr. Dennis Gross mask. I use the red light mode every day and think it is really firming up my skin and improving the texture. I also get the occasional breakout and use the blue light when I feel a zit brewing. It was expensive but I think it was worth the investment.

      1. I saw a lot of reviews that the blue lights stop working after a few months. Have you had any issues?

         1. I replied below re the DDG mask. I have not had any issue with the blue lights, and I have had mine for a couple years. They still work fine, and I use them regularly.

         2. I have had no issues!

   3. I have the Dr Dennis Gross LED mask. I definitely feel like it has made a noticeable difference in my skin. I try to use it every night, though I obviously miss some. More even tone, reduced sun spots, less noticeable fine lines.

   4. My friend loves her Higher Dose mask. I was all set to buy it but noticed it either had 4 or 5 star reviews (talking about its efficacy) or 1 star reviews telling about how for some people it stop charging or turning on.

      I’d love to get one, but I can’t get myself to pull the trigger on the DDG one (I can afford it but wow that’s a lot of money) and even the DDG one has mixed reviews

   5. I have the DDG. Have started following Dr. Dray on YouTube and she likes the Omnilux one. I think it might be a better choice b/c after healing from a couple of foot surgeries, would love to have had one that is as malleable at the Omnilux to wrap around my foot for healing post-surgery. Also, would be easier to use on neck and chest area, which are very much in need of this LED therapy as well. Right now. I do the DDG on my face, then turn it upside down, rest on my chin and try to aim it at neck/decolletage, but not sure I’m getting a lot of benefit.

   6. I read that red light therapy is good for fertility, but pregnancy/TTC is contraindicated for the Omnilux version. Has anyone tried one of these for fertility purposes?

10. I need some encouragement. I just went through a pretty awful breakup from someone I was so excited about and imagined for the future. My dating experience was great in my 20s (2 4-year relationships; both ended because of fundamentally different life visions but were otherwise healthy and happy relationships). But my 30s have been so, so rough. 3 relationships, all about a year long, with a 2.5 year break during the pandemic. 2 have been blindside/unexpected breakups of ‘you’re great but not the one’ (one just a day after telling me they were planning an anniversary) and 1 cheated and they left for the AP with the revelation of the affair. I’m now 38. I’m worried I’m not going to find my person. I don’t want kids but I do want to get married and have a meaningful life partnership but the dating scene is BLEAK in this age bracket. I’m also so terrified of getting my heart broken AGAIN in a relationship that felt ‘right’ for a long time until some sudden revelation (yes I am in therapy). Can I be optimistic? What advice from anyone who’s been in my shoes?

    1. Not wanting kids makes dating in your 30s harder than average. I was exactly you. Keep at it. I met my husband right after I turned 40 and it’s been magical. I know people say dating is terrible, but my best advice is have fun with it, it only takes one.

       1. I married at 38 and found the opposite – wanting kids made it harder for me! There were a lot of highly educated single men on the apps who wanted a partner but no kids because they like their life as it is now. It was frustrating because I wasted time dating people who knew I was very clear that I want a family and seemed to think they could change my mind.

          OP, it’s never “too late”. Dating is really hard. Sending you hugs!

    2. It can still happen! I also had fundamentally good and heathy early relationships, and then dating in my 30’s was ROUGH. The guy I thought I would marry broke up with me suddenly at 32 (I wanted kids, he decided he didn’t). After that, it was really a roller coaster. Several ~6 month relationships, some I ended, some they did. Lots of emotions from the dramas of online (and real-life) dating, which took a lot of energy to process. Lots of anxiety from living in a state of constant uncertainty about such an important aspect of my life. (I really wanted kids, which added additional pressure). I met my husband at 39, and have now been very happily together for 6 years and have 2 kids (conceived naturally; if anyone wants a separate thread on that, ask tomorrow). With him, everything was just easy right from the beginning; I knew within about 2-3 months that I’d marry him, and, it’s all been easy and good. I look back on those years of my 30’s as being really really rough. Invisibly hard – from the outside my life looked so great, but, from the inside, so much sadness and uncertainty and energy invested on things that didn’t work out. But during those years, I prioritized and deepened friendships, and invested in some fun hobbies, and I eventually through one of my hobbies met my super awesome husband. Interestingly, he’s 6 years younger than me, so, don’t assume younger guys won’t be interested in you:-P I remember someone here saying that if you are struggling with dating, it’s good to ask yourself 2 questions; 1) Do I have any good long-term friends?, and 2) Have I made any new friends in the last year? If the answer to those 2 questions in yes, then, the issues with dating are probably not a “you” issue, but just a “dating is hard” issue, and time is on your side that you’ll meet someone wonderful and have the skills to form a great relationship! Sending you good luck!

       1. I wanted to just comment that, in contrast to the person above me in the thread, I actually found that my wanting kids stopped things with several guys; I kept meeting guys who DIDN’T want kids, or, were very unsure about it. So, if you’re dating in the same cities I used to live in, you might find it actually makes things easier!

       2. Those two questions are great.

    3. I got married at 38, after several years of frustrating dating after a divorce at 29 (where I was completely blindsided by his affair and worried I’d never be able to trust anyone again). It’s possible! I went on so many first dates, and had one six month relationship and several 3-4 month relationships (with the relationships all ended by me because I didn’t see them as my person at that point). When my now-husband came along, I knew after Date 2 that he was better than all the other relationships and that we could work. We just clicked. But this was after so many disappointing first dates and periods where I got so frustrated with dating that I stopped intermittently. So not really any advice, besides don’t give up hope (but it does suck out there). Good luck and sending hugs.

    4. Someone here mentioned Lily Womble’s dating book “Thank you, More Please.” I just started reading it, and really like it. It’s giving me a sense of hope.

11. I have a very close friend who is engaged. She has been dating her fiancee for a few years, and he has always been a bit of a manchild. Very nice and fun to hang out with, but extremely disorganized, can’t plan anything,etc. In her own words she “mothers” him completely, from day to day things to his career, dealing with his family, and paying for absolutely everything, including their rent and most of the wedding. He makes decent money but spends a lot of it in frivolous ways, which she is upset about. He does not do any housework or cooking – there’s a lot of weaponized incompetence. Or maybe actual incompetence, idk.

    All of this is at the boundary of “red flag” vs “yellow flag”. For the most part I + other close friend have more or less ignored this as something she is willing to deal with but we would not be. We may have said some things in the beginning but I’ve realized that she’s told so many crazy things (latest involved driving drunk) and she seems to find it amusing not bad, so we backed off.

    Is it worth saying anything before the wedding? The details would make it identifiable but it seems like he + her family are taking advantage of her. At the same time I guess its not egregious. I just feel bad when you see those stories of “after we divorced all my friends said they didn’t like him from the start and I wish they’d told me” – but also does anyone listen?

    1. Nope. Not your circus. No one listens and you just lose a friend.

    2. No, I don’t think people actually listen when their friends and family tell them the truth about their partner. I think you can voice your concerns once, and then let it go. This guy sounds like a leech.

    3. I’m in a similar situation except my friends fiancé is a real jerk and firmly in red flag territory. And right before they got engaged, we had a long talk about how things were not good and she might break it off. And yet the only thing you can do is ask if they’re happy and if they are then you have to be happy for them.

    4. I’m probably in the minority here but I would say something like are you sure you want to marry him? One, quick comment that lets her know you’re concerned and after that, I’d say nothing. Maybe encourage her to get a prenup and keep separate accounts but other than that, not your problem.

       1. I’ve said the separate accounts thing. I can bring up a pre nup.

       2. Yep, I think you get one shot. Don’t say you think they should break up but ask open ended questions about how she sees his behavior and their dynamic working 5, 10, 20 years from now, particularly once they have kids. Emphasize that you 100% support her if she’s happy and are there for her no matter what. Then never bring it up again. The last thing you want is her hiding problems from you because she’s afraid of an “I told you so” reaction.

          1. The 5,10,20 is a big part of what I’m worried about. Some of the things that were small things in the past probably wont be once they get married, have kids etc. I’ve talked to her about other hard topics in a “just asking questions” way and she has been receptive to that.

             1. A good question to ask is “What would cross the line for you?” Whether it’s getting into a crash, getting a DUI, or finding out he drove drunk with someone else in the car. It’s easy to rationalize bad behavior when it slowly gets worse over time. Make her say it out loud right now so if it eventually happens it’s harder for to brush off.

    5. I vote say something because driving drunk is a big, big deal. This could mess up her life seriously if he gets arrested, and even more horribly if he kills someone.
       I divorced my first husband and wish some of my friends had said something before I married him. Just make sure she knows that you will support her and be there for her no matter what.

       1. So agree with your first paragraph. She could lose her house and life savings. She could be an outcast in their community. She would carry the guilt of the other person’s death. Their children could grow up with a father in prison.

       2. She won’t listen, and it will likely drive a wedge between you and her closer to the partner. Speaking from experience, except the friend is my sister, and they’re still married even though her husband has been in and out of rehab and even got arrested.

       3. +1 that drunk driving is a big deal and it’s worth saying something specifically on that because it could seriously harm people beyond just your friend.

    6. I would raise concerns, once, when she tells a crazy story. Honestly, I would have not been able to hold my tongue if a friend told me their SO was drunk driving and they didn’t seem bothered by it. But after that one time, you just have to let it go.

       1. I’m now wondering why I didn’t say anything about the drunk driving. Maybe because I am numb from all the crazy stories? But yeah that is actually bad.

          1. I would ask open ended questions about the drinking, especially give the drunk driving (!!) and if they plan to have children. It’s one thing to drink to excess in your 20s. Doing it with small kids effectively makes your partner a single parent and is a horrible example for children to see as ‘normal’ adult behavior. That might open her eyes in a way that other questions might now.

    7. Maybe I’m weird – I listen, and it helped me to end things. I tremendously value the friends who were willing to say something to me, whether it was mild (“you have not been yourself and I hear it in your voice every time I talk to you”), or more straightforward (“you deserve better”).

       I know a woman whose father looked at her the morning of her wedding and said “it’s still not too late.” That marriage lasted for a year.

       Other women felt stuck in their marriages because they thought they were crazy for being upset.

       The best I can offer is that, when something like drink driving comes up, talk to her about it in a VERY non judgemental way. “Emily, are you really okay with this, or does it bother you and you don’t feel comfortable expressing it?”

    8. If you decide to say something, instead of framing it as what you think about fiancee, which might put her on the defensive, you might pose questions that invite her to reflect, like “what did you think when you found out he was drunk driving? had that happened before? are you worried that would happen again?” or “does it bother you when you pay for xyz? do you wish it were different? do you think you could say something to fiance about how it could be different?” or even “what do you think would happen if you paused wedding planning? what if you opted for a longer engagement?” I’m sad to say that it’s possible you lose your friend regardless of whether you say something. She may get lost in this relationship, and it will be harder and harder for you to see why you’re friends. Maybe you’ll remain on the periphery in case she decides to leave and needs a friend, or maybe you’ll slowly grow apart.

    9. Nope.

    10. No one listens.

    11. So, I’ve had two people close to me marry someone who was throwing major red flags. For both of them, I had one conversation – I felt like I just had to. But I didn’t say “don’t marry him girl,” I said “hey, I’m seeing X, Y, and Z, and that worries me, I don’t think it’s good. How do you feel about it?” In both cases, the friend/relative agreed those things weren’t good, ended up talking through them in a really honest conversation…and then married the guy. But also, while I was worried it would put me in a weird “told you so” role in their lives or make them hide things from me in the future, I think the way I approached it avoided that outcome – when one of them did get divorced, she trusted me to support her from the time she was first thinking about it.

    12. No, say nothing.

        I have this friend. She married him, has one kid and one on the way with him, and she needs her girlfriends now more than ever before. Had we said anything pre wedding beyond the very, very early days of dating commentary when she was looking for our opinions, we would have lost her in all likelihood. She was determined to marry him for whatever the reason that I/we decided was not our issue to have to understand.

    13. My anecdotal data says that women (yes, women – never men) will drop their most loyal childhood best friend for a loser guy as soon as marriage is on the table. People who said they wished their friends would have said sometime before marriage are delusional.

        1. Some of us do listen. One of my dearest friends has told me with at least four different men the way things were going to go wrong. It has hurt our friendship exactly not at all.

12. My 4 year old misses the kindergarten cut off by one day. He’s in pre-k now, so we will either need to have him repeat pre-k or test him to see if he is ready for kindergarten.

    What would you do if it were your kid?

    1. Redshirt no question.

       1. What does redshirt mean?

          1. Hold back.

    2. Test him, if you think he may be ready. It’s one day.

    3. If you think he’s ready, test him and go with the recommendation for him and not only because of his birthday. My kid is two days past the cutoff (8/3 bday and his pre-k friends all headed to K at the same time). He’s doing fine. Its one day – if he’s ready, send him. You’ll have more flexibility later.

    4. What do his teachers think? Our four year old is on the cusp, and we got feedback from his teacher that she thinks he could benefit from another year of preschool. It’s very early now, so we agreed to touch base in March to reassess. I suspect he would “test” ready for kindergarten, but he might not be ready socially. He’s in a mixed age preschool class and gels better with the younger students in the class.

    5. Test him. I think people are too eager to redshirt their kids.

       1. +1 I’m always puzzled but the assumption that redshirting is better. Sure there are some benefits for some kids but people seem to ignore the potential negatives, including having a bored kid who then checks out and dislikes learning early on not to mention the down the road impact. Do you really want your kid being the first/only one able to drive, buy cigarettes or alcohol, etc (and likely doing all those things on behalf of their younger friends) not to mention what if you have a rebellious teen who you can’t legally make start their senior year of high school because they are an adult

          1. I legitimately don’t care if my kids are the first or last to drive. People always bring it up but why does it matter?

             1. Because being the first to drive/the one charged with driving friends usually comes with a lot of extra risk that many parents don’t want for their kids?

             2. They don’t have to drive their friends around just because they have their license.

             3. Kids these days aren’t even driving!

             4. My mother said the greatest moment of her parenting career was when I got my driver’s license. It meant that I could take myself to activities, I could take my siblings to activities, I could run more errands for her to help around the house and with the family. My friend James was first to drive in our friend group in high school and he had a car and he was The Driver to so many activities. It really does have impact, but probably not if you live somewhere with public transit that gets teens where they need/want to go, like NYC or something.

          2. I wouldn’t worry about first/last to do any of those things, but, speaking as someone with a November birthday who was redshirted, WOULD worry about the kid being bored in school for 12 years. Being the first to drive wasn’t a problem and I never did learn to like cigarettes and alcohol. I have literally never bought cigarettes and I’m 48.

    6. I missed the cutoff by 3 days. I had started preschool early by request and had to go another year because of the cutoff. Back then, K was a half day, so I went to two. A couple of months into kindergarten, I broke down and begged to be in 1st and after some testing I went to 1st. It mostly worked out and I think would have been even better if I’d not had to “skip”.

    7. Test him, no question. Being bored is hell as a child.

    8. My siblings and I all have late summer birthdays and all did fine as relatively young in the class. We were more than ready academically – if we’d been held back I know I would have been beyond bored. There were 1-2 rougher years in middle school where I was still more on the ‘girl’ side of tween than my then-friends were, but isn’t middle school rough however you slice it?

       1. i wouldn’t want my boy to be the youngest kid in the grade. not sure what your jam is but all the best atheletes in my kids grade have late fall winter birthdays… the summer birthdays are just smaller. Better for boys to be older imo.

          1. Ah yes America where sports ball should dictate academics.

          2. The best athlete in my kid’s class has a May birthday and was not redshirted.

          3. I’ve got two boys, and I’m counting on their future being decided by their academics, not their athletics. High school and middle school and it seems to be working.

    9. Depends on your district. I sent my kiddo who was four days pre-cut off, and she’s fully more than a year younger than a lot of her classmates. I still think it was the right decision, but it just sucks as a decision. In your situation in my district, I’d hold him back.

    10. Are you allowed to send them early? Where I live there is no such thing as testing into kindergarten. You simply cannot go if you don’t make the cutoff, though you can be redshirted. I wouldn’t push him ahead unless he was fairly emotionally mature.

    11. Our district had a December 1 cutoff date for K (meaning 4 year olds started in September as long as they turned 5 by December 1) and my son has a late November birthday.

        We talked to his preschool teachers about whether they thought he was ready and they just laughed. He was still getting in trouble for biting at preschool. I’m not sure he was even fully ready the following year after his “red shirt” year, but he did start then, and we have never regretted the decision to send him to another year of preschool, even though it was expensive.

        For what it’s worth, the district subsequently changed the Kindergarten cutoff to September 1 because it turns out four year olds were not actually ready for Kindergarten.

        1. What kindergarten means will vary locally though. I’m in NYC, which has the exceptionally late cutoff date of Jan 1 and no possibility to redshirt at all within public schools. So every year about 25% of public school K students start as older 4 year olds, and the curriculum is designed accordingly.

    12. We sent my daughter, who missed the cutoff by one day, “early” to K and it was completely the right choice. We got a ton of flack for it because everyone said we should not rush into school, even if kids are academically ready they might not be ready socially, etc. She is in sixth grade (she technically “started” sixth grade at age 10 and turned 11 on the second day; there are several kids in her class who turned 12 long before she turned 11) and is always at the top of her class and does fine socially. She does extracurriculars like chess club and theater at school, but does sports though community-based teams and camps that do cutoffs based on age, not grade, which helps.

        There are disappointments, for instance she can’t be in the same group as her school friends at summer camp (because of the age-vs-grade thing) and we aren’t totally sure it will be good for her to start college at 17. But it would have been a very negative experience to wait a year.

        On the other hand, my best friend had to make a similar decision with her son and decided to send him at the “right” time; he is still not the oldest in his class because of the kids who were red-shirted, and he is also doing fine; loves school, plays sports with his grade, doing great socially.

        I think it just depends on the kid and if you try to take a step back from yourself and consider it impartially, you will know what is right for your kid.

13. Follow-up on yesterday’s Prednisone joke. I’ve been on it 3 times (1x after surgery and 2x after procedures). The first time: did not sleep, rearranged entire house overnight, lost 5 pounds. The others: felt like I had a giant tumor in my stomach, didn’t sleep (and yet was never tired and I otherwise need 7-8 hours), somehow stopped being freezing cold all the time, could not stick to dosing instructions. Everything tasted like metal. OMFG. That drug is so rough. [Apparently it makes some people legit crazy while taking it.] IDK if this is a sensitivity, just side effects living large in me, or what, but 10/10 do not recommend other than not freezing is nice.

    1. Ugh my 5 year old had to take three doses of it over the course of a week for an asthma flare, and it was awful. She couldn’t stop crying or alternately she was a terror. I felt so bad for her. Her stomach also hurt.

    2. There some recent studies on prescribing metformin to block some of prednisone’s side effects.

       1. That’s interesting – I take metformin and I have had zero weird side effects on prednisone (I’ve been on it a few times due to chronic sinusitis issues). Maybe there’s something in that…

       2. Interesting! I take both and the prednisone doesn’t bother me

       3. Unfortunately it doesn’t help the behavioral/sleep side effects. Helps the blood sugar though.

    3. I do med mal defense. I’ve seen cases of people having manic-like episodes from it so I am just underscoring your “legit crazy” comment.

       1. +1

          I didn’t sleep well for weeks, became pressured/racing/could not stop talking and nearly became full blown manic. Just awful awful awful. Anxiety through the roof.

    4. Oh yes, prednisone is the absolute pits, and it’s made me legit crazy before.

       I’ve only ever taken it when the other option was not breathing, and it does help me to take it first thing in the morning instead of at bedtime, but whenever I’m on it I’m pushing to taper down as fast as safe.

14. We are likely retaining a firm for a personal case, on a contingency fee basis. A clause in the retainer reads that if the firm recommends a settlement offer which we reject, we are responsible to reimburse all costs and expenses incurred up to that date and to advance adequate funds to cover anticipated trial expenses. Is this a typical clause?
    My understanding is that the firm gets 40% of whatever we recover. But this is saying that if we reject an offer that they recommend, we also have to pay all expenses, in addition to the 40%?

    1. Forty percent seems high, particularly when this clause shifts some of the risk to you.

       Ask them for their interpretation of the clause. Without seeing the exact language, I wouldn’t opine on it.

       The costs of going to trial can be enormous. They are trying to prevent you from gambling with their money.

       1. 40% is normal in CA now.

       2. I have seen 40% often when the case goes to trial. Just noting that. In my area, it’s usually lower before trial. (30-35%)

    2. Yes. Many clients get out of control and don’t want to take reasonable offers. That clause controls for that behavior.

       1. How do you control for conflict of interest here? Recommending too low offers get taken so you can get paid?

          1. The lawyer has a professional obligation to act in the best interest of the client. If that’s not enough, OP can feel free to engage an attorney at an hourly rate who will push the settlement discussions as long and as unreasonably as they’d like.

    3. 40% is high! It varies by state but in mine it would be 30% if the case settles before serious discovery (when I negotiated this contract I made it the first deposition noticed by the defendant). And be sure it is % after costs are deducted. If this is a potentially very high recovery case, you can also negotiate tiers (40% of the first million and then a lower percentage thereafter).

       That said, it is not uncommon for a plaintiff attorney to shift risk to a client if the client refuses to listen to their advice. They want you to get as much money as possible but they do not want to spend $100 so you can collect another $10 and they really do not want to front costs in a case where their client decides they want their pound of flesh or to make a point or just gets greedy or refuses to understand liability issues. Because most of them have been burned by a client who refuses to settle when there is a substantial chance of a defense verdict and they end up out of pocket tens of thousands of dollars and their time.

       1. Adding to this: clients often have very unrealistic expectations of what their case can net at trial.

          1. +1000

    4. I am on the defense side and I think 40% is now pretty typical if a case goes to trial. I actually really like that this agreement controls for the unreasonable client factor (not saying you are unreasonable but many are so this makes a lot of sense).

    5. This exact thing is in my contingency contract and the contracts I see from clients who switch attorneys. That fee is negotiable usually.

    6. Very normal and some states do not allow attorneys to front expenses for ethical reasons such as they charge interest and send you to collections if you lose. It’s cleaner.

       If there is any settlement, attorney gets 40% off the top then you pay your expenses.

       If it seems high, look for a VA disability attorney. They lowered the attorney fee rates and now there are none because you cannot make a living doing it.

15. Outfit help needed! I’ve been invited to a dinner sponsored by a professional legal group in SF Bay Area. Attendees include some very senior folks, and I want to fit in and make a good impression. Not sure if this is a new event but there are no pics publicly available for what has been worn in the past. WWYW?

    1. Dress with a blazer and low block heels or boots.

       1. lady jacket and pants or a very current pants suit. a silky or colorful (pussy bow maybe) festive blouse.

          1. + 1 to the pants look from a Bay Arean.

             I’d skip skirt/dress looks.

    2. I’d go column of black (top and pants) + tweed lady jacket.

    3. I see the advice to “skip the dress” here all the time, and find it as odd and parochial as the advice “skip the pants” would be. I agree that the pants/skirt balance has shifted somewhat on the past few years, but I just can’t imagine feeling out of place at a professional outfit (*especially* a dinner) with lawyers because I’m wearing a dress, even in the Bay area. Am I missing something? I’m 30s in major coastal city, so I don’t think I’m stodgy…

       1. Pants are more modern everywhere, but in the Bay Area in particular, there’s this “cool but didn’t try too hard” vibe that you may not experience elsewhere.

       2. The bay area is weirdly wildly parochial

16. Anyone have any words of wisdom for going to a town meeting to oppose a proposal that would result in six public tennis/pickleball courts being built within 50 yards of our house? It’s a semi-rural area that paradoxically has strict planning rules and code enforcement, so I think the city will listen to me. I had a good call with a town planner already, but I’m just nervous about the meeting. That said, I don’t think anyone in the room will be able to look at me with a straight face and say they would be ok with this going in right by their house!

    1. while no specific experience with this, it’s generally a good idea to have alternatives to propose rather than just shooting down this specific plan. Where might there be a similar amount of square footage, ease of road access, etc. that is not within close earshot of homes?

       1. Pickleball is LOUD. I’d definitely go and try to prevent that.

          1. um, I agree? Was just sharing a way to make the feedback more useful and productive than just being a NIMBY.

             1. No lights, so the noise stops at a decent hour where ever they go. Also: just because the courts are for pickleball doesn’t mean they won’t have skaters, dogs, and others using them, and our city has people with pointy elbows bumping around the same space. Is that land zoned for this? How many other neighbors? What you need is an ER nurse in the night shift who needs to sleep during the day.

       2. +1 The town cranks in my town just reflexively try and shut everything down and, consequently, nobody takes them seriously. Go in with the confidence that you’re a reasonable person and this is the one thing you have a vested interest in. Be serious, be courteous, don’t exaggerate, and propose a work-around if you can think of one. If you can’t, the go-to move is to ask that more studies have been done. Frequently, things get studied to death in my town as they try and find the perfect solution where there is none.

       3. Agree with the idea of an alternative. At least try to consider if you’d accept an alternative such as noise abatement hedge or wall. That way you have your reasons ready if it comes up.

    2. Have you checked in with your neighbors what their thoughts are? Do they have the same concerns?
       If you have what you feel are valid concerns (noise levels, traffic concerns, etc.) Putting those in a letter and entered into the meeting work packet would help get your point documented without singling you out.

    3. Most town meetings have a specific way of doing things — you sign in for a time to speak, you get 3 minutes (or whatever the time limit is) and then you sit down. So find out how your town meeting works, plan your three minutes, and then stand up and say it when you’re called to the podium or microphone. You can read it if you like. Unless your town meetings work very differently than mine, this won’t be a back-and-forth, so this will not be you getting into an argument or debate.

       Beyond that, there are various things you can do, depending on your town’s regulations. You can start a petition. You can send letters/go talk to your elected official.

       1. +1 to it not being back and forth. Don’t expect to ask questions and have them be answered right then. That’s generally not the purpose of public testimony.

    4. I know pickle ball is louder than tennis, but I don’t find it louder than being right by a playground with kids. Personally, I’m quite hesitant to shut down something that is healthy, gets people moving, and can build community. Plus, the fad will probably pass in a few years and it’ll go back to being used on occasion

       1. +1 OP, can you request modifications that will help address your concerns? For example, if your concern is noise, maybe some sound dampening walls/plants.

          1. Or ask for more regulations/monitoring of parking. That’s a big issue in my town near where the courts were put in. It’s the shoulder time before/after games when you have theoretically two sets of players from each hour there at the same time. And lots of people come to spectate… so much traffic that was entirely unaccounted for in the plans.

    5. Isn’t the recommended distance to residences more like 150 yards because of the decibels associated with pickleball vs tennis? There’s lots of info online about noise mitigation for pickleball courts so you could ask about what they are planning to use.

    6. If you have any other neighbors who can attend with you (or write letters opposing it) show up en masse. That made all the difference for us when dealing with something similar. You can put notes in your neighbors mailboxes about the situation and the concerns you have (noise but also traffic, light pollution, parking, operating hours, litter, etc) and note the day/time of the public hearing so your neighbors know about it, since they may not have been notified through the public channels. Go through the proposal closely to see if there’s anything that is in violation of the current or planned zoning for that area. Look to see what other local communities require for their pickleball court sites. Most local rules are available online these days. And fingers crossed for you!

    7. If you’re doing public comment at a meeting, just know that you will make the same point in one minute as you would in five or ten. Having been on the decision-making side, I can tell you everybody thinks they’ll persuade you if they can keep talking, but all of the pertinent information has been conveyed in the first 90 seconds of somebody’s testimony, anything after that is repetitive, and if somebody tries to keep going and going it’s just annoying and starts to hurt the cause.

       1. Oh, and this probably goes without saying, but be polite and don’t be a jerk. Especially if this is your time speaking on the issue, don’t start from a place of belligerence. The people making decisions are human and behave like humans. You catch more flies with honey.

    8. If it is going through anyway, be sure to ask about lighting. At 50 yards, they’re lighting up your backyard. Suggest a curfew, i.e., lights off at 9 PM or whatever, in addition to noise-reducing measures (trees, shrubs, etc.) and maybe timed locks on the access gate. Our old neighborhood backed up to a baseball park, and it was actually delightful, but the rules about lights and restrictions on access helped make it so.

    9. a city proposal for a new pickleball facility died in our town after the noise issue was brought up due to noise ordinances. In that case I think 1000 feet was too close. this wasn’t semi-rural though.

17. Very specific travel recommendation request–any suggestions for a company to take a surfing lesson with in Kona, HI? This is for me, a grown, middle-aged adult, not a child:-) Never to old to learn, right?

    1. I do not have suggestions, but as someone who took surfing lessons for the first time as an adult on vacation in Costa Rica, I love this for you. Have so much fun!!

    2. Are you staying in a hotel in Kona? I’d call and ask for the concierge. They will have recommendations.

       Mostly I’m jealous that you’re going to Kona.

    3. Super late reply but I have take multiple lessons with Kona Town Surf Adventures and really like them.

18. I don’t know what I’m looking for, maybe commiseration? Shopping for Christmas gifts is triggering some anticipatory grief in me. My mom was recently diagnosed with a terminal illness. She is doing OK right now, and she might be fine 6 months or 12 months from now. But also? She might not be fine by then! I don’t want to go into this season wondering if this will be the last, but it is so hard to not let my mind go there. And I definitely don’t want to purchase gifts that are going to be reminders that she’s ill, and my family is not big on sentimental gifts (other than photos). So, I guess I’m going to try to act like things are normal even though they very much are not, and I miss my mom already, even though she’s very much here.

    1. I think an amazing gift and meaningful thing would be photos with your family – you can typically hire someone to take photos in a special-for-you location. So sorry about your mom.

       1. That’s a lovely idea. Maybe you can hire a photographer to come in your home and you can stage some Christmas-y shots (i.e. you make cookies and hot cocoa together in the kitchen)? My photos never come out as vividly as memories but professional photos might capture her smile, you two together, etc.

    2. I am really sorry. I am dealing with this same situation right now (but my father and most likely less than six months) and I was having the same thoughts today, I don’t know what to do either but you have my commiseration.

    3. I really wish I had taken a lot more photos of my dad’s last Christmas.

    4. Plan some kind of experience together. Now that my mom is gone, I don’t regret any trip or play or special thing we did together. Do something that makes memories and take photos. If she gets better, you’ll still have the memories.

    5. I’m sorry it is so hard.

       Whatever you can do to make Xmas something Mom can look forward to is a good thing. She desperately needs distractions and a reason to keep pushing. I’m speaking from my own experience with my Mother’s advanced pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

       Please bring your phone/favorite recording device, and ask her to tell stories about her childhood/where he family came from/how she met your father/your childhood/her childhood. Record her telling them and write important things down. Your interest also shows her how much she means to you, and how you want to remember her ongoing. It is important that she sees this.

       So no – don’t act like things are normal. Bring out all the traditions that you know she enjoys, and lean in to them. Ask her to help with them as much as her energy allows.

    6. One idea is to just really embrace that this is not normal, and instead of feeling pressure to make this the most perfect holiday season with all the traditions, to just do things differently – go on a trip together if you can, sit somewhere beautiful outside or in a botanical garden or to a sports game or the opera, get her favorite takeout and manicures instead of cooking a huge meal. Just really enjoy each other as much as you can.

19. I’m massively burned out at work and having the hardest time concentrating. I’m working on applying to other jobs, but in the meanwhile I need to keep up with my regular work and it’s incredibly difficult. I took a one week staycation and it was glorious but now that I’m back at work, it’s all the same problems.

    Anyone have any good mantras or reminders to put on a post it on my computer? I can’t really think of anything else to do at this point.

    1. Set timers. Break into small tasks and make lists. Try to make unbearable things a game. Take as many breaks as possible for walks.

    2. Accountability buddy. Tell a friend at work you’re planning to get X done today and then check in at days end.

20. Finishing up the planning for a quick London trip with the family next month, and want a gut check on what’s on the list. It’ll be me, husband, and two daughters (4 and 6), staying for 4 nights in Mayfair.

    In no particular order:
    Hyde Park winter wonderland
    Notting Hill (probably for breakfast one morning)
    Buckingham Palace/Big Ben/10 Downing/Westminster (stroll bys)
    Jubilee Gardens playground
    Princess Diana playground
    Kensington gardens
    Borough Market for lunch
    Christmas pantomime show
    Afternoon tea at the Sofitel (kid friendly)
    Liberty London/Hamleys for shopping
    Covent Garden – dinner/Christmas lights
    Tower of London
    Ride a double decker bus

    Are we missing any must-sees? Any bookstores you’d recommend for casual browsing, which include a kids section? Any thoughts appreciated!

    1. Tbh this seems like a long list for a 4-day trip with two little kids. I wouldn’t try to add more, but would instead expect that the kids may need more down time or playground time than you think. YMMV.

       1. Appreciate this – other than the pantomime show and afternoon tea, which I reserved/paid in advance, everything else is optional/can play by ear. Will definitely prioritize the playgrounds and Christmas markets/outdoor time.

       2. I’m stuck in mod but I would swap out Notting Hill for a visit to the Science and/or Natural History museums which are also very close to Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park.

          1. Ah thank you – I do have the natural history museum on my list, forgot to include it in my post. Noted re: Notting Hill!

             1. Re: Natural History Museum – I actually would pre-book the tickets and pick the timing for your visit carefully (definitely not a weekend, ideally right when it opens). It was so packed on a Saturday afternoon when we went that it was difficult to even walk around.

    2. Waterstones

    3. Is there any reason you’re not going to the Natural History or Science museum? They’re specifically geared towards kids and my then 10-yr old loved both. You can also hit them in the AM, have lunch, and then stroll through Kensington Gardens up to the Princess Diana Memorial pretty easily.
       YMMV but I found Notting Hill pretty meh, it wasn’t anything wildly different/special for food or shopping. Tower of London was a huge hit and I’d give yourself at least half a day there vs. some of the playgrounds as it is VERY interactive with lots of kid friendly activities.

       1. I also enjoyed the Tower of London, but a 10 year old is much different than a 4 year old. Spending half a day at a museum (even if interactive) with a 4 year old while traveling in Europe will be tough in my experience.

    4. Coming from where and how do your kids do with jet lag?

       I’d cross a few off your list more likely – like the tours are good but not geared to the kindergarten set. If it’s the jewelry they’re after, duck into the V&A (free) instead while you’re in that neighborhood.

       1. sorry I meant the Tower tours are good but…

       2. Coming from the East Coast. We did elsewhere in the UK with them last year and they did fine in terms of jet lag – we were back on a regular schedule the first day.

          Will add the V&A to the list, thank you!

    5. This is a lot. I would cut Kensington Gardens, 10 Downing and Covent Garden esp if you are doing Hyde Park.

       Look into double decker bus routes. Sit on upper level and they can see lots juts by driving by. Kids are free on public transport.

       Have you travelled much with kids? At that age my budget was generally one or two sites per day. More than that and they were overwhelmed and exhausted.

       Are you stuck on tea at Sofitel? I’d be more inclined to do the Paddington or Peppa themed teas on the tea shop double decker bus.

    6. That’s a lot for four days with little kids. I would cut Winter Wonderland (overcrowded rip-off), breakfast in Notting Hill (not special enough to be worth dragging hungry kids there), possibly Liberty London/Hamleys (depending on how late in December you’re going, the closer it gets to Christmas the more of a nightmare the famous shops will be), Borough Market (also overcrowded). Coram’s Fields playground is worth a look. London bus routes 24 and 11 tick off the double-decker and the Westminster sites in one. Foyles for books and the original Daunt branch in Marylebone (more for the location, although they do have a kids’ section).

    7. I have done this trip with kids that age and am also going alone in three weeks. My experience says:
       YES: Hyde Park winter wonderland
       SKIP – nothing special for kids: Notting Hill (probably for breakfast one morning)
       Just do stroll bys: Buckingham Palace/Big Ben/10 Downing/Westminster (stroll bys)
       SURE, if easy: Jubilee Gardens playground
       SURE, if easy, my kids didn’t like it: Princess Diana playground
       ADD: Peter Pan statute (we always read topical stuff before a trip and I just read a vintage version of this to my five year)
       Consider skipping: Kensington gardens
       Depends on Kids, but maybe since you need to eat, go there and and catch the Cutty Sark on a walk back: Borough Market for lunch
       Yes! Christmas pantomime show
       Yes! Afternoon tea at the Sofitel (kid friendly)
       I would probably skip with kids but am definitely going alone: Liberty London/Hamleys for shopping
       Quick stroll by: Covent Garden – dinner/Christmas lights
       Consider doing jewels if the kids like that type of thing: Tower of London
       Yes: Ride a double decker bus
       CONSIDER ADDING: boat trip on Thames to Greenwich to walk the green up to the museum. We absolutely loved it, the kids got a huge kick from standing on either side of he Meridian.

    8. I would ditch Notting Hill, Liberty London and Tower of London.

       Would add Natural Science Museum, the John Lewis Christmas floor for everybody to pick an ornament (less fancy than the Liberty’s one, but more kid friendly).

       Waterstones at Picadilly and Foyles on Charing Cross Road both have good kid’s floors for books.

       The Design Museum at High St Kensington currently has a Barbie exhibition on, if that might be something they’d like.

       See the London Peppa Pig episode before you see Big Ben. Are you arriving at Heathrow? If so, take the express to Paddington station, and see the Paddington Bear films before you go.

    9. Your list seems a bit heavy on the “ambiance” activities (gardens, markets) and a lot is outdoors. I was in London with our 7 yr old this January, and for the age your kids are, I would add a few kid-friendly indoor options:

       – in Greenwich, the National Maritime Museum is free and amazing for kids (ships!!!), it also has an amazing outdoor playground (The Cove)
       – London Transport Museum is in Covent Garden, and is wonderful for kids (and adults) of all ages, it has so many things you can climb, touch, tube simulator etc
       – Tate Modern is my favorite kid-friendly art museum, and it’s free unless you want to see special exhibitions. It’s an easy walk over Millenium Bridge towards St. Paul’s from there
       – a personal highlight for my son: if you’re strolling along the Thames and at low tide, you can walk down a few steps to the river shore and go treasure hunting (aka mudlarking): lots of artifacts like clay pipes, fragments of old tile and tableware, some date back to the 1600s. Obviously wash hands after you’re done with mudlarking. (Also, tons of bones, I believe from the slaughterhouses that used to line the river.)

       Also, for playgrounds be aware that some have opening and closing times, and if it’s very cold or icy, they may be closed altogether for safety reasons (metal bars, freezing/slipping danger).

21. I like this dress but it is so overdone. can’t imagine buying it especially now with all the knockoffs.

22. How much would you be comfortable spending on a house with a $425k HHI? We live in a VHCOL area so unfortunately any advice to buy a 300k house is not happening, a broom closet would cost about 800k around here. We are early 30s, one kid and would like another. We own our condo and will probably net about 400-500k from the sale.
    (Yes, I realize we are very privileged)

    1. Sit down with your financial advisor and ask this question. Run through the numbers of after-tax income, what you would have after the mortgage, insurance, home repair, etc. Discuss things like schooling for the kids: do you want to live in Wellesley MA and pay a small fortune for a house, but send them to the outstanding public schools, or are you going to also pay for private school?

       1. +1 You need to sit down with a financial advisor. What people think of as fixed costs aren’t evenly spread across families. You should think about: (1) car payments (2) how much you spend on activities, after-care, and summer camps for kids (3) health care premiums and out-of-pocket expenses (4) how much utilities and property insurance(s) cost in the neighborhood you are looking at. Some families spend thousands on each of these categories each month while others do not.

    2. If you’re ruling out $300k advice and $800k advice, I assume you have a price range in mind, and are wondering how high to go within that range? If so, what is your range? And are you debt-free, meeting savings goals, secure incomes, no health issues, etc.?

       1. So in the neighborhood we are targeting, 1.2M will get you a large condo or duplex, 1.5ish will be a modest 3 bedroom house which needs updating, 2M gets you a pretty nice house but I don’t think we can afford that. Excellent public schools. We may need to compromise on location a bit, but won’t get much cheaper without going significantly further/in a bad school district. I’m really struggling with these numbers and wondering how other people in VHCOL areas handle this. No other debts, savings are in decent shape but all our other savings are already earmarked for other things (retirement, education, emergency fund). We are looking to move in the next 2.5 years (before our toddler starts school).

          1. I have a very hand time believing that you can’t afford a 2 million house when you have 500k in equality from your current home and a HHI that high

          2. Down here in SoCal you’re spending ~1.1M for a townhouse, detached/patio/no yard. If you can reasonably expect your income to be at the same level for some time, I’d go to at least the modest house at 1.5M. I already feel a bit locked into our detached condo/patio and the next step up seems like it’s just going to get more expensive over time. You could also try for a long search and see if you can get a large but outdated house/yard closer to 1.5M than 2M. I would also keep 6 months to a year of liquid assets in case of layoffs to keep that mortgage going. Also don’t increase your lifestyles much (one trip a year, a couple of activities for the kids). Ride it out for 5 years and you’ll be in a nice position even with an expensive house.

             1. Following up on my thought, you can also price out local private school options and see how sustainable a house upgrade is versus local private school, versus choice into another school and having a commute/paying additional childcare.

    3. Do you have any other debt? How stable is your job/income? What are the property taxes & insurance like? What’s your childcare plan for two kids?

       Assuming you have no other debt, your jobs are reasonably secure, you don’t live somewhere that’s about to become uninsurable because of climate change, and you’re planning to roll the gains from your condo into a down payment on the new house… probably 1M. Maybe max out at like 1.2M if you want space for an au pair and you still have upside salary potential.

    4. I would do the same as a person with a lower income. Figure out how much you can afford monthly on a payment and work backward from there.

       1. Looking at your actual budget is the only way to go. Rules like a certain multiple of income don’t factor in child care expenses, tuition, college savings, etc. I’d try to keep it so that you could handle the mortgage and basic expenses on one salary if necessary.

    5. I have always assumed I could comfortably afford a house worth 3x my salary (although I was lucky enough to never have a high interest rate). I’m on my 6th house and I’ve never bought more house than I could afford using this math.

       1. When I look back at my two home purchases in my VVHCOL are, this rule of thumb is about right. Sold the first to buy the second, but it still worked out that way.

          My mortgage broker is a straight shooter and gave us some really clear benchmarks for price range we should be looking at.

       2. That metric puts us around $1.2M. That’s so much money in the general scheme of things, I know, but it’s not a lot for our area unfortunately. Like not much more than what our condo is worth. We would stay in the condo, except the school options are really bad and we ideally would like an extra bedroom for baby #2 (and in an ideal world a back yard and an office but hey who knows). We have pretty stable jobs with upward trajectories, but we aren’t suddenly going to double our incomes or anything. We are going to wait and see if rates go down a bit + try to save up more. We went to an open house on a $2.1M house (just for fun, we know we can’t do that) and it was so packed with young families and they had 2 offers by the end of the day. Who are all these people buying $2.1M homes? Is everyone making $500k +? Is it family money? I know this is a classic case of “we make good money and are frustrated that we can’t get all the things” but… oof.

          1. If it makes you feel better, yes, it is a LOT of family money combined with people who get large cash bonuses. My husband is in finance and we basically banked his bonuses for 4 yrs and then rolled every bonus thereafter into house improvements/paying down our mortgage (we bought a fixer upper and have gradually been rehabbing it over the last 15 years).

          2. Just throwing this out there, as someone with a similar HHI in a HCOL. We’d probably net about $400k if we sold today, too: There are so many things I would love to change about our 3BR/2BA house. We could really use at least one more bedroom and/or an office, a mudroom, a garage, a slightly larger kitchen (or at least one that’s not essentially a hallway on the way to a primary living space). But we’d have to spend at least $1.2M to get a house I’d consider worth moving for, and with interest rates where they are, that would triple our monthly payment. Could we make it work? Probably. Do I think I’d get 3x the enjoyment out of a bigger house? No. So we’re fitting our family of 5 into our current house, and it’s fine! Our neighbors are great! Our neighborhood is safe and has lots of kids, and parks (where my kids play much more frequently than in the back yard), and is convenient to all the places we need to go regularly. If you like your locale and the main reason you’re thinking of moving is for a bigger/better house, wait and see as your toddler gets a little older. You may find that your current one isn’t so bad.

             The wildcard is schools, though. Our public schools are pretty good. We’d have to spend at least $1.5k to move into the “excellent” part of the district, and that money would probably get us a house very comparable to our current one. There are excellent private school options near us, and I would think a VHCOL area would have some, too. If the public school you’re currently zoned for is truly bad/unsafe and the main reason you’re thinking of moving is for better schools, private school may be an easier fix than a new house.

             1. OP here. This is helpful, thanks. Yeah I’m thinking we need to stay put for a bit. I love our current area, but it’s a gentrified area very close to downtown and the schools are really not great. Public school is not well rated and most private schools are in historically wealthy parts of town. But it may be worth driving to private school in our area of choice and not move until rates get lower or our financial situation gets better.

    6. I spent $1.4MM with the same income and equity from prior sale, but when interest rates were around 3%. Also, no kids.

       WITH kid(s) and double the interest rates, I would not want to spend more.

    7. Similar HHI, bought our first house carrying about 500k in the mortgage. Biggest regret is not going up a bit more to have a bit more space. In addition to talking to your financial person, I’d look at different price points and decide what they mean for you – e.g., what is the price point for an extra bedroom, a yard, etc. Go tour the houses and see what you can live with – we ended up deciding that increasing the budget by 100k for an extra 500 sq ft was good trade. You are in the financial position that you probably have more “room” in your budget to get to choose.

23. Has anyone had success using eyebrow growth serum? If yes, please share your recommendation.

    1. I use RevitaBrow to help fill in my sparse ends and after about 2 months of use have visibly thicker brows.

    2. I used GrandeBrow and it worked, but there was a lawsuit and there are stories out there about side effects. One of the potential side effects is orbital fat loss. Most of the lash and brow serums seems to have the same synthetic prostaglandin that can potentially cause those issues. The side effects may or may not be a big deal, but it’s worth doing some googling before selecting a product.

    3. Yes. I use and love Rapid Brow (and Rapid Lash too!)

24. All this talk of entertaining has me thinking about seating. We have a fairly small house and our dining table only seats six. There’s no room for a bigger table on a regular basis, but we could get a extra small table to extend it into the living room when we have a bigger group, and we’d also like some extra chairs if we have people over for a non-sit down party. Any recs for chairs that fold or stack and could be stored in the basement most of the time? Don’t want to spend tons of money, but willing to go a step up from super basic IKEA ones to get something more comfortable.

    1. I’d just get a card table and folding chairs. If you’re having a nice dinner, put a tablecloth on the card table. This has been the way forever. You don’t need to go fancier.

       1. This, and they make plenty of “nicer” folding chairs now – they’re not the ugly and uncomfortable metal ones we all know.

       2. This is what we do.

       3. I think the question is *which* folding chairs.
          I got some from Target many years ago that were padded and look like regular dining chairs but fold flat. I preferred those, and also noticed that they were much better about not scratching the floors than the other set I had (which were typical light-weight unpadded wooden folding chairs).

          1. Yes, this! We tried some at Ikea recently and they were so uncomfortable that there was no way I’d want to sit on them for even 10 minutes, much less an entire dinner. Where would you look for more comfortable folding chairs? Target is a good next try.

             1. I have outdoor patio folding chairs that I originally got for my patio, but use them indoors when I need additional seating too. they’re great.

    2. They often have really nice padded folding chairs at Costco.

25. After our initial plans fell through, my husband and I are planning a trip to Colombia (probably just Medellin, open to maybe 1 other region) for 5-7 days over Christmas/New Year’s. Would love any recommendations for sightseeing and food!

    1. May I ask how you arrived at Medellin as a travel destination? I’ve been for an extended period of time and it’s…not great. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. It’s certainly not a place I’d ever go back to. In Medellin, because of their isolated geography and history, their cuisine is very plain – plain meats paired with plain beans. Find a Colombian restaurant near you and order a platos tipicos (“typical platter”) and imagine being served that three times a day. Sightseeing options are limited – there’s an aerial tram that takes you to a nature preserve; there’s a reservoir where you can go canoeing; there’s a mall (standard American and European stores); there’s a zoo. And unfortunately, Medellin is pretty divided class-wise – we found the upper class denizens to be pretty snobby, and concerned about appearances and wealth in way we’d never seen before in real life, and we were discouraged from interacting with the other 85% of the population deemed poor and undesirable.

       I say this as gently as I can, please change your plans. Go anywhere else. I hear the coast is lovely and their food is great because they had outside influences, though I never went.

       1. Mainly due to convenient flight time and decent pricing. What would you recommend instead? Need direct flights to/from NYC.

       2. I stayed there for nearly three weeks—I was taking half day Spanish classes. But I loved it. Great weather, a couple interesting museums, I went to a big soccer game, did some tours, there are some day trips you can do, eat all the arepas con choclo y queso (fresh corn arepas with cheese), take a fruit tour of the Minorista market, a walking tour…I think 5-7 days is totally fillable!

          I hated Cartagena just because I can’t handle heat and humidity but if it weren’t for that might’ve been nice. Didn’t get much of a chance to see Bogota.

    2. Cartagena is lovely! We stayed at Casa Pestagua.

    3. Agree with both of the comments above. Medellin is not somewhere I’d recommend spending a lot of time. Cartagena is lovely and far more appealing for a visitor. Go there!

    4. I liked Cartagena but the historical part/downtown felt way more touristy and kind of Disneylandish. The coast and mountains nearby are beautiful if you’d like a few non city days; Bogota felt more like a normal city. Plusses and minuses to both – Cartagena had a fun, party vibe & it was much easier to know where was safe when (and generally safer); Bogota required more thought & planning for safety. Domestic flights in Colombia are super cheap, even basically last minute so there’s an option to change your mind later on.

26. I’ve posted here before about my mom being scammed online. (The scam is the never-ending, “If you send me $3k, I’ll send you $300k, but if you send me $7k, I’ll send you $700k…”) I thought it was taken care of in September. We had a big talk, she watched the online documentaries, I blocked the scammer on FB. Mom said she was going to straighten her finances back out and be all set.

    And then she texted me last week from the dollar store about cute Christmas decor. Do you know where my mom has NEVER gone in her 78 years on this earth? The dollar store. She was there for Apple gift cards to pay the scammer.

    Mom makes about $34k annually between Social Security and her pension and she’s easily given at this point around 1/3 of her annual income. She’s behind on all of her bills because “the pay off is just around the corner.” No matter how much I love her, I have to realize there is no amount of logic or anger or pleading that’s going to get through to her. It’s like she’s lost to cult. She genuinely believes that money is going to come in – and this is the part that gets ya – because she wants to pay me back for all the times I’ve had to step in and care for her financially. So sweet! Except you’re making it SO MUCH WORSE.

    Clearly, I now need to get forcefully involved, the way I would as if she were an incapacitated adult or minor child. Unfortunately, I don’t live in the same state as she does, though I visit about once a month. What are my legal options here?

    — I am on her bank account – can I freeze her debit card?

    — Every time I block the scammer, they seem to find someway around (a new profile, etc) – can I block Facebook from her devices somehow?

    — Is there anything else I can or should be doing? I’d love to send her to therapy, but mom’s just kind of sweet and gentle and not the self-actualizing type. She does have a fantastic relationship with her PCP though.

    1. Tell her that the best thing she can do for you is to stop with this nonsense. “I do not expect to be paid back. I NEED for you to stop throwing good money after bad.”

       She thinks that this is a win-win-win: scammer will be happy with her, you will get your money back, she gets a big payoff. She needs to understand that you lose by her continuing to do this, and she can choose to appease this scammer or choose to do right by you.

       1. I sincerely doubt these are the magic words that are going to bring OP’s mom back to reality. OP needs to go with the big guns here.

          1. What are the big guns?

             1. >Clearly, I now need to get forcefully involved, the way I would as if she were an incapacitated adult or minor child.

    2. Get Power of Attorney;
       Talk to the bank about notifying you or preventing transactions in excess of $X and let them know why you have these concerns – the smaller the bank the more they will help you;
       Move most of her savings to another bank or account so that she has to go through more steps in order to get access to the funds, and periodically flush her operating account so funds don’t accumulate there;
       Make sure she knows to call you first before sending any of these payments, cards, whatever;
       Change her phone number and email and facebook passwords – there’s probably more settings on FB that can limit third party contacts;
       Freeze her credit;
       Report the fraud – you can do this federally although it doesn’t do too much;
       Put her number on the Do Not Call list.

       That’s about how far I would go unless the problems keep happening.

    3. Take her devices away. Have her sign on to her accounts, change the email to a Google or Yahoo account she doesn’t know, and the phone number to a Google voice she doesn’t know. Then, delete her accounts. Get her a phone with voice only, and change the number if feasible — this might be difficult. If she needs email, set up a new account but get her a child account so you can also see the emails. You might need to fudge her age, but who cares? In fact, I suggest always using a fake birthday. All of my mom’s email comes to me, and I let her know what she needs. All of the contact numbers on her accounts are my cell number.

       To make this palatable, you may need to tell her the once the accounts have cooled off a bit, she’ll get devices back. You make the judgement call in a year.

       1. How does one just “take her devices away?”

       2. You can’t just do this….?

          She’s an adult woman with no medical diagnosis or legal authority granted to OP (that we’re aware of) that would warrant this. This is insane advice. I mean, sure, yes, it would fix the issue, but you can’t just cut off someone’s access to everything that is theirs because you want to.

          1. She seems mentally unwell though given what has occurred. I’d question dementia and whether she is actually remembering conversations with OP accurately.

             1. Again, absent a diagnosis or any legal rights granted to OP, she cannot just do what you/Anonymous is suggesting because you THINK she has dementia, making the advice horrible and possibly illegal. JFC. The woman is not a child and has rights, ill or not.

                OP needs to start with the PCP if she thinks it’s medical. Based on the limited information we have from this post and the previous, this is the course of action I’d take if it was my own mother. And, if you can’t get her to the doctor because she refuses, you can send an email to her PCP. The PCP can’t respond with anything other than a mere acknowledgment, but you can absolutely send the email about what you’re observing and a good PCP will keep that in mind at next appointment. We did this with my grandmother.

    4. You need to get her doctor involved!

       1. +1 involve the PCP and look into freezing her credit and changing all emails/phone numbers/social media.

27. If you were doing a late weekend / very early spring trip to Europe, where would you go? Assuming a long weekend, from the East Coast (most likely flying out of EWR). I don’t mind cold / dark (but prefer to avoid wet – snow would be fine, rain would not) especially if the charm makes up for it – for example, I went to Central Europe in November a few years ago and the mulled wine, cafe culture, and well heated outdoor cafes compensated for the cold and gray well!

    1. I went to Amsterdam in February several years ago, and it was great. It was chilly, but fine. Barcelona or Lisbon would also be good options if you want a bit warmer weather.

    2. Madrid is lovely in winter or early spring if you are not looking for a snowy place.

    3. I really enjoyed Lisbon in March – it felt nice and warm to me coming from Boston

    4. We did Florence, Venice and Rome in early March and it was perfect. Outdoor seating was available, and major sights were not completely overrun.

28. I have done search after search and I don’t understand and want to defend my position on vaccines. A recent conversation went like this:

    “If there are not mandates, measles will come back.”

    “I got the HPV vaccine and it working wasn’t based on all HPV being eradicated. The vaccine protected me from that danger. There aren’t worldwide vaccine mandates and we get vaccinated before we go to protect ourselves.”

    Please help me write my response.

    1. Measles =/= HPV. What do you not understand?

    2. Multiple things are true.
       Vaccines protect you.
       Vaccines protect you and everyone better when more people get them (which ideally would occur without a mandate).
       How much you rely on herd immunity vs. individual vaccination for protection depends on the disease, how transmissible it is, how many people don’t respond well to the vaccine or lose immunity over time, how many people can’t get vaccinated (too young, allergic, other health conditions, etc). etc.

    3. I don’t understand your stance. Measles is incredibly infectious and an acute disease. It can have devastating affects on children and pregnant women. Herd immunity and mandates are important to protect these vulnerable groups
       HPV is very common but the disease progression to cervical cancer is very different.

       1. My stance is pro vaccine. I’m preparing for Thanksgiving like an oral argument over here. But I want to remain scientific and not say things that make them feel like I think I am so much smarter because frankly, I don’t know the answer exactly. These comments help. The more information the better.

          This is an extreme anticipated hypo FWIW.

          1. hypo based on an actual conversation*

          2. Look at some of the past columns from Your Local Epidemiologist. She may have some useful talking points.

             No vaccine confers 100% protection. Some fraction of immunized people are always going to get sick, even with a very effective vaccine, so if not everyone’s vaccinated then the disease will spread and even vaccinated people will be at some risk. You need a critical mass of vaccinated people to prevent spread.

          3. You could also just not engage?

          4. This is not at all what you asked, so feel free to ignore.

             I have found at venues like Thanksgiving, if I’m needing to prepare statistics and arguments ahead of time, it’s not really the place where people are going to participate in rational arguments. I typically come up with a phrase like, “It has worked for me.” Or “That hasn’t been my experience.” And then change conversation to tv or mosey to a different group of people.

    4. Huh???

    5. From what you wrote, I do not understand what your position is and what you’re trying to say.

       1. I am trying to respond to the HPV comment to keep an intelligent conversation going regarding the counter argument of vaccines do not help unless everyone gets them.

          1. It sounds like you don’t know a ton about this but trust that others do. It’s okay to say that you trust your doctor or some public health authority or academic medicine or whoever it is that you trust!

          2. Vaccines help way more if everyone gets them.

       2. Agree

    6. Vaccines are tricky because they benefit you and they benefit society, and the balance depends on the vaccine. Measles is really dangerous! It erases your immune memory by screwing with your B cells, so you get all those diseases that you’ve already had again. Unfortunately the best protection against measles is getting everyone else vaccinated, which means that if you can get the measles vaccine, you should.

       Measles is so goddamn contagious that one person at Disneyland with measles effectively exposes everyone at Disneyland. Its reproduction number is 16- an infected person in an unprotected population gives measles to 16 people while they’re contagious. For covid it’s ~2, and for HPV it’s a little over 1.

       For herd immunity, i.e. to keep the disease from spreading in the population, the higher the reproduction rate, the higher the vaccine uptake needs to be to protect the population. For measles, you’d need >94% of the population to be immune to prevent an outbreak, and some people can’t take the vaccine because they’re allergic to eggs, or too young, or immunocompromised.

       It’s a rough sell to say that you need to get the measles vaccine to protect the people who can’t get it, as much as to protect yourself.

       1. TLDR:
          HPV most of the protection goes to you, the person getting vaccinated. Get your HPV shots to keep from getting cervical cancer.

          For Measles, most of the vaccine protection goes to everyone around you who can’t get vaccinated. Get your MMR shots to protect yourself and also to protect your uncle going through chemo, and your sister who’s allergic to eggs and your cousin’s tiny newborn, none of whom can get vaccinated themselves.

          1. for HPV, you are also protecting future sexual partners and their future partners from HPV but the R0 (typical number of people an infected person spreads it to) isn’t as high as measles. Yes, men get HPV too. They get cancers from it – the mouth and throat cancers can be particularly awful.

             1. Absolutely! HPV driven head and neck cancers are super dangerous! and preventable! and in a large study of women who got the HPV vaccination in time there were no cases of cervical cancer at all! Speaking from the cancer research field, get the HPV series please!

                My point is that getting either vaccine protects you. Getting the measles vaccine and the HPV vaccine also protect society, though the degree is different. The measles vaccine is really important because we need 19 out of 20 people to get it to keep epidemics from popping up.

    7. I don’t understand the question

    8. Your second statement is confusing as written. What point is that person trying to make? That lack of worldwide mandates means there’s no value in having mandates in the U.S…..???

    9. Is your position that measles vaccine mandates are unnecessary because the people who *do* want to be protected can still get vaccinated, and therefore no harm no foul if their neighbors don’t want the vaccine (or don’t want their kids to have the vaccine)?

       Measles is an extremely contagious disease that is spread through the air. That is very different than an STI, or any other disease spread only through direct contact which is what HPV is.

       Vaccines are imperfect, although most are very, very effective. Herd immunity is A Thing and far more important for diseases that are spread by indirect contact, like measles is, because a small portion of the population will always be unable to be vaccinated (due to age, allergies, etc), or have a less-effective immune response. The entire community has the potential to be be impacted by a measles outbreak (healthcare capacity, safety in public spaces), so I’m pretty comfortable mandating a safe vaccine to prevent them.

       The only rational argument I think you could make is along “my body, my choice” lines. There’s a philosophical discussion to be had on an individual’s responsibility to support the public good, vs right to privacy and bodily autonomy in this context, but I can’t see a reasonable scientific argument against a measles vaccine mandate IF we all agree that minimizing measles is a worthy goal.

29. I know I cannot control my siblings’ choices only my reactions, but I’m really fed up with my two older siblings and how they handle holidays. My sister (late 40s) is the eldest, lives in NYC burbs with her Canadian husband and two tweens. My brother (mid 40s) lives in SF with his wife, they’re child free by choice. Both of my siblings and in laws do very, very well – money is certainly not an issue here. I live in DC with my husband (late 30s), we’re TTC (and have been for a while) and both work in government. My parents live in Baltimore. For years, neither of my siblings have come home for holidays and only occasionally invite my parents, let alone the rest of the family, to join them. They’re also not great at coming to visit at other times because they’re busy, though they do visit my parents’ vacation house and my nephews spend a month at “camp grandparents” in the summer (both of which feel exploitative to me but my parents don’t turn them down because something is better than nothing).

    Usually my brother and SIL do a fancy vacation over Christmas and a fancy staycation / smaller vacation over Giving – they say that this is the only time of year they can really travel due to work. My sister and her family used to come down to Baltimore for all of the holidays and then slowly stopped – first was skipping Easter (which makes sense that’s a lot for a weekend), then it was Christmas (when the boys were maybe 6 and 4) to spend Christmas in their own house, and now it’s Thanksgiving too because they’re busy (I pointed out above that my BIL is Canadian to say that there is no splitting time with the in laws issue for Thanksgiving). They used to invite my parents up for Christmas, but that’s stopped. Also, the boys are old enough that they could travel for Christmas again. They usually do a vacation after Christmas, which they invited my parents on once but not since.

    I know it kills my parents that they won’t get their kids together for a holiday, probably ever again (or really, ever getting the 3 of us in the same place is unlikely). As the nearby sibling, I feel obligated to ensure we see my parents for all holidays (this obligation isn’t from my parents, but I feel bad for them so I want to make sure they’re included). My husband’s family lives in Philly, so we’ve been able to combine families – luckily both my parents and ILs are easy to get along with, gracious people who live near enough to each other and to us, so sometimes we host and they both come to us and sometimes one side hosts and we all go there and it’s been totally fine. We also include whatever extended family and family friends are around in our holidays, so some years we’re able to get a big gathering and some years its just the 6 of us – my ILs, my parents, DH and I.

    This has been bugging me for a while, but it really came to a head this year for two reasons: 1) DH and I are likely to pull the plug on TTC if this round of IVF is unsuccessful and 2) my in laws suggested we travel together for Christmas this year. I think I’m having anticipatory grief over really never having holidays with kids again (DH is an only child) since my sister no longer attends family holidays as well as anticipatory grief for well in the future when my parents and Its are gone and its just me and DH for holidays. I’d be fine with traveling, but my ILs didn’t outright invite my parents and I won’t leave them on a holiday because then its quite possibly just them which makes me sad, but its also unfair to DH and my ILs to always choose to celebrate with my family over what they’d want to do. For the travel, it feels like the very easy solution here would just be for ONCE for a sibling to invite my parents (who they have a good relationship with!!!) to join them.

    1. “Anticipatory grief” is borrowing trouble. You can call whichever of your siblings you think should be hosting your parents and ask them directly to do so. Beyond that, you can’t control what others choose to do for their own holidays. I actually suggest a few therapy sessions focusing on acceptance. You’re kind of tilting at windmills here. You’re not going to be able to turn your family holidays into one big Hallmark holiday. That train has left the station.

       1. There’s been a lot of types of grief about various situations throughout our infertility journey, this is just the one that’s hitting me this year.

    2. It’s pretty normal to not have big family christmas’. We live a plane flight away from my sister in one direction and DH’s family in the other. We’ve never been with DH’s family at Christmas but we visit for 2 weeks every summer. My sister’s only been home for Christmas once in the last 7 years. I wish we saw people more but I don’t think your expectations are realistic. Family get togethers multiple times a year are hard to arrange.

       Maybe Thanksgiving is the window to encourage a family get together with your nephews? Or offer to host. Or make July 4th weekend the big annual tradition when nephews are with your parents?

       1. I grew up in a family where both sides were nearby and every holiday was a big gathering with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, 2nd cousins, etc. – usually between 20 and 30 people. I know that that’s not going to happen in my generation, and while its a bummer, I’ve long made my peace with that. Heck – we grew up with 10-15 person family dinners at least once a month with whatever relatives were around.

          I never anticipated neither of my siblings ever coming home for holidays and most holidays being just 6 people, 4 of whom are over the age of 70. We see my parents and my ILs frequently (usually each at least once a month, my parents more since they’re closer) and it’s very, very weird to me that Christmas or Thanksgiving meals really feel no different than a random Friday in March.

          I tried a few times to encourage Thanksgiving but my siblings have made it clear it doesn’t fit into their plans. Basically my brother and his wife said if they were going through the hassle and expense of traveling over Thanksgiving they wanted to go somewhere better than home and my sister said they can’t get away for the weekend because of kids’ activities.

          1. For another perspective, my family moved a long flight away from the main nucleus of extended family, and so it was really normal for us to have just our immediate family for Thanksgiving or Christmas. The food and traditions made it feel different rather than the guest list.

             Maybe 25% of the time we traveled to family for the holiday and it was just… exhausting traipsing around 4 people’s different houses and answering the same questions about your favorite classes or do you have a BOYFRIEND yet and I would be counting the minutes until we could go home.

             1. This. It’s just us and my parents for Christmas dinner so we have our own traditions that DH and I started that are unique to our family. Like we always cut our own real tree. We both grew up with artificial trees. We bring hot chocolate and make Christmas cookies the day before for our snack in the woods. And on December 26th we always bake a gingerbread house. My parents went out to fancy parties for New Year’s Eve every year but DH and I spend it with the kids and have a special meal we only make once a year.

                You don’t need lots of people to make the holidays special and you can make up new traditions.

             2. 12:26 sounds like you have kids though?

             3. @ Anon 1:55

                Yes we have kids now but we started these traditions pre-kids. We were married for 4 years before we had kids.

          2. You really don’t sound like you’ve made peace with that.

             1. I’ve made peace, long ago, with not having the big entire extended family open house style Christmases that I grew up with. I haven’t made peace, and frankly don’t see myself easily making peace, with never seeing my siblings and nephews for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

          3. Hmm, I just don’t think you’re going to get these kind of family holidays, but it sounds like you value big get togethers. Have you thought of putting time in to become the couple that throws Friendsgiving or big holiday parties? That’s something you could build over years and invite local people with kids to see your friends’ and neighbors’ kids growing up over time.

    3. Disappointment over life not looking like you thought it might is very understandable. I’m sorry to hear you are going through this. Would your siblings be open to it if you ask them if you can visit, versus waiting for an invitation? They may assume you don’t want to travel.

       1. I think most of us understand that as adults we won’t have the same type of big family Christmas’ we had as kids (I loved growing up seeing all of the cousins as a kid, but I know logistically that’s very complicated and very unlikely to happen, people move, get married, split time with inlaws, their parents go and visit them for holidays, yada yada yada), but I think most of us also expect to, at least every other year or so, see our own siblings for holidays.

    4. I think you need to separate these things out.

       1- maybe not having kids and eventually having holidays alone. Maybe one of your nephews will turn out to be a grand host. Maybe not. Maybe you’ll start a new tradition of traveling over TG when international demand from the US is lower. Maybe your close friends or neighbors will include you in their meal. Don’t borrow trouble.

       2- feeling responsible for having your parents for every holiday. A lot of families set it up so alternating holidays are ‘all or nothing’ meaning it’s all the “kids” at home for TG and then none for Christmas, and reverse the following year. On the off years the parents know it’s coming and can make plans to be with friends, their own siblings, etc.

       FWIW, I don’t blame your sister for wanting a home Christmas with the boys. It’s so much more relaxing as a kid to be chilling at home, playing with your new stuff, rather than on a long drive to see relatives you don’t know very well.

       1. How TF are the kids supposed to get to know their relatives if you don’t ever bring them around?

          1. it sounds like there’s an annual vacation house trip… a month with the grandparents… togetherness doesn’t have to = a literal holiday.

             1. sorry hit post too soon. and maybe that’s enough to be the fun aunt and uncle at the beach house for a week or weekend. not every family is going to be super close knit across generations.

             2. My parents house is a 2BR condo in Florida, so we can’t all go there together – my brother doesn’t really use it, but my sister and her family usually go for the kids’ spring break (my parents are not there for that trip). I fully admit, DH and I use it too but usually when my parents are there (they go from after Christmas – just before Easter – then my sister uses it Easter week for spring break) so we will go down 1-2x in the winter.

                My nephews spend time with my parents in the summer (I think mostly so my sister doesn’t have to figure out camp), but my sister and BIL usually meet my parents somewhere along the way for the pick up and drop off, so they only see my parents for like 15 mins then.

                I admit that I feel like my sister is “using” my parents and that my parents don’t push back at all because they want grandkid time.

             3. Your parents are adults and they can decide this for yourself. Your niblings are getting to know their grandparents over these summer weeks. Stay out of it.

             4. You can rent a condo nearby and spend a week with your parents and nephews. There are a million inexpensive condo rentals in Florida.

                We visit DH’s family every summer for two weeks. We rent an AirBnB in their town because there isn’t room for everyone to stay at his mom’s house or his brother’s house.

             5. Anon 12:26: My parents are not at the condo when my nephews are. If they were then I would definitely get a hotel or condo and enjoy that time together.

                Anon 1:10: I don’t think its absurd that I as an aunt want to have a relationship with my nephews. I can stay out of my parents / siblings / nephews relationships, but I get to have a relationship with them too. This is two sided – my nephews text me frequently throughout the year, get excited about traditions I’ve made for us in the summer, mention they can’t wait to see me, etc. I love being an aunt and wish I could see them more. Also, to get ahead of those comments that I know are coming – my relationship with them is totally independent of my childfree status – we’ve been close since before I was married or TTC and I’m careful to not overstep and try to do too much with them since they’re the only children in my life.

       2. I agree wholeheartedly with Cat. OP, I think your feelings are valid but you’d benefit from confronting them vs confronting siblings.

       3. I definitely understood it more when they boys were young – I get wanting the magic of Santa in your own home, but they’re 12 and 13 now. They’ve very close with my parents and I also have a good relationship with them (I come over at least 1x a week when they’re visiting my parents in the summer, now that they have phones we text pretty regularly). But, it does stink that I only see them while they’re at my parents’ in the summer. My parents see them more, but I know not as much as they’d like to (aka when my sister calls them in for babysitting help when she or her husband are traveling for work).

          As for your second point – my parents are great about “do what you want over the holidays” to me and I know they’re quite appreciative that we make sure to include them in our plans. There’s no guilt trip from them, but I know they’d be sad to be alone for a holiday and I don’t want to do that to them because I love them and that would make me sad. We do see family friends and extended family for holidays when we’re able to – but that comes together relatively close to the holiday – we’ll all chat and see oh is Aunt Sue in town or is she visiting cousin Joe in Atlanta this year.

          1. OP, again, I think these are all really, really valid feelings. But, I don’t think anyone is being unreasonable and think you need to process these feelings on your own. Your parents are TELLING you to do whatever you want over the holidays. Maybe they’d be sad to be alone, but also maybe they’ve also processed this inevitability and are just really proud and grateful their children are grown and flown.

             This internet stranger is giving you so much grace because this is the hard stuff about getting older and families aging/maturing/morphing, but I’m also granting you permission to not make your parents the centerfold of your holiday plans. IVF is THE WORST – I was in treatments for nine years in two large chunks – basically all of my 30s. I’m feeling for you so deeply. Now on the other side of it I realize that the holidays were extra hard because we didn’t have the holiday card/traditions/magical Christmas morning that I’d always had myself with no kids running around and seemingly everyone around me did. One year I even refused to put up a Christmas tree because I didn’t see the point (DH knew better and did it himself on xmas eve to surprise me… what a guy). Do something for yourself this holiday season, whatever that may be. And, if that really is just being with your parents, that’s a-ok, too. But, if it’s not, listen to you parents and take care of yourself and these feelings.

       4. Agree with your last paragraph. Especially when kids are little, there is a lot of energy that goes into making Christmas magical: stockings, treats for Santa and the reindeer, snuggled up in their own beds as they wait for Christmas morning, and the gifts that have to be carefully hidden and then brought out after the kids are asleep.

          One year, I did Christmas away from home with my son. He was a toddler, so it wasn’t hard to fool him. It involved a lot of Amazon boxes being shipped to my mother’s house, gifts being wrapped and hidden in the car for the drive, and then carting the entire haul home.

    5. I don’t know…I do not have children so I kind of accept that it is on me to travel to relatives with kids. Travel with kids is exhausting and expensive. If your sibs “do well” they are probably in demanding jobs that leave little energy or inclination to travel. I don’t blame parents for wanting some time to enjoy their own families.

       If my brother starts a family, I won’t expect him to invite me or our parents for holidays. What I might do is suggest an alternate time for me to visit him, offering to care for kids in the evenings so he/wife can have date night, etc.

       1. And I”d be fine traveling to them – but that was an offer that was never made to me and only occasionally made to my parents.

          1. I kind of think you’re wallowing at this point. It may be the hormones, but to repeat advice from above, this is about acceptance. You’re not going to change anything.

          2. Well have you asked to go visit your sibling and their children? “Hey Susan, I’d love to come see you and the family for a long weekend in January (or whatever!) and get some aunt-time in with the kids!”

             I’m single, located far from my siblings but close to my parents and I’ll go have aunt weekends with my siblings’ children. They love showing me their school or having me there for soccer games or whatever—it doesn’t have to be a holiday to feel special.

    6. I also admit, that I think the fertility is really hitting me this year – I used to be like great, if they don’t want to partake I’ll be able to have the traditions and fun that I want to have with my own family but as stated, that’s looking less and less and less likely to happen for DH and I. It sucks that when your family of origin is disappointing that I can’t even take things into my own hands because of fertility.

       1. Just on the fertility piece, I’ve done 5 failed rounds of IVF this year, ending with my only chemical, and I’m moving on to donor eggs. The only thing keeping me going is a trip to Europe. I’m leaving in the evening on Christmas Day and staying through NY. See your parents Christmas Eve and then get out of town! Fertility treatments suck and you need time and space to recover.

          1. I wish we had done that! Unfortunately, IVF is pricey and so we’ve had to put travel and other fun expenses on the back burner.

             Enjoy your trip and best of luck with the donor eggs!!

       2. Can you refocus on building new traditions for you and DH? Do you have local friends to build traditions with?

          I take the kids to the Nutcracker ballet in our local city every year. I love the tradition but once they don’t come home/are not interested, I’m looking forward to going to the evening show with DH which features the orchestra and getting dressed up for dinner beforehand instead of enjoying the ballet surrounded by wiggling little kids.

          1. We have several couple traditions / fun things we do just ourselves or with friends (lots of local friends, thankfully) in December, but not much for the holiday itself. I think part of that was holding out hope that this would be the year (for the last several years) that we’re celebrating Christmas with a child. About half of our friends are having kids, so traditions have changed a bit, and half are either single, CFBC, or also struggling with fertility. Personally and selfishly, I’m thankful to have friends without kids because I need people to lean on, besides DH, in getting through this. And, our friend traditions have changed enough to accommodate kids (which I’m happy to do), I’m glad there are still enough friends to do non-family friendly holiday stuff with.

             I am, I think, afraid to really embrace child free holiday traditions because that marks the acceptance that this isn’t going to happen for us.

             1. Traditions are not carved in stone. Embrace some childfree holiday traditions this year and adapt in future years if kids come your way.

    7. You are trying to be responsible for way too many peoples’ feelings here! Your siblings aren’t doing anything wrong and your parents can handle one holiday season on their own. None of this needs fixing and none of it is your responsibility.

       1. This. Also, OP, stop judging your siblings for being well off and moving away. As the sibling that moved away, it is exhausting to travel for the holidays especially when people are not reciprocating. I’m willing to bet that your siblings have “soft invited” you out, you haven’t come, there are two sides to this story.

          1. Christmas is a nightmare time to travel for some families especially with financial year end stuff. I babysat for a few families in high school who worked everyday but Christmas day and then took a ski week with their kids in late January or February.

             1. I very much get that, but they also usually leave Dec 26th for their ski trip.

          2. I flat out asked my sister several times if I could come for Thanksgiving or Christmas or sometime in that general time of year and have been told no, they have too much going on. I travel to NYC probably 3-4x a year and always reach out to my sister and say hey I’ll be in town these dates lmk if you’re around and I think I’ve actually gotten to meet up with them three times total (over several years).

             I have not asked my brother to join him on his vacations because I cannot afford the type of trips they take and frankly I don’t want to spend my holiday on some crazy trip, I want to spend it more traditionally.

          3. You moved away – that was your choice. So, you need to spend the time and effort coming back to visit.

             1. THIS

             2. Unless you don’t want to? There’s always another side to the story.

    8. Wow I”m shocked at the responses here. Sure OP’s siblings have the right to not spend holidays with family, but it’s selfish of them. Fertility issues aside, I feel for OP and her parents, but I truly can’t imagine the grief of all of this PLUS fertility issues.

       1. They’re probably going to dump all elder care on OP and her husband too because they’re nearby, have less flashy jobs, and are childfree. Ugh.

          1. Oh yes, when my mom had a preventative double mastectomy a few years ago guess who was the only child to be in the country for the surgery, let alone visit her while she was in the hospital or help take care of her when she was released home?

             1. Not to dump on you, but the nature of a preventative mastectomy is it can be scheduled whenever. if she scheduled when the rest of your family was gone, she is the one dumping on you – not your siblings.

             2. Maybe preventative wasn’t the right word – it was for what they were calling “stage zero” – the doctor was adamant it was done quickly, but she didn’t need any follow up chemo or radiation.

    9. Yikes – I’m sorry OP this sounds really disappointing and I totally agree that I’d want to at least occasionally see my siblings and nephews for holidays!

    10. Oh, OP I’m sorry – it seems to me that you feel like you’ve lost your family of origin and are looking at the real possibility of losing a future family you’d imagined. I’m sorry, that stinks.

        I also very much understand why you want to cling to celebrating with your parents and ILs – as they’re the only reliable family you have aside from DH.

        1. Yeah, I think OP’s grief is really understandable. She’s grieving the past, present, and future, and that’s just a lot to take on. I also think OP’s siblings sound kind of selfish, but hey, everyone sees these things differently!

           1. +1 that they’re selfish. I can see not wanting to do a big family holiday for every holiday, but they’re not willing to compromise at all. I think that’s rude in general, but even ruder when they have the families they want and OP doesn’t.

           2. I agree that the siblings are selfish and I’m also surprised at how many people are taking their side. I agree that holidays ought to be spent, at least occasionally, with family beyond your nuclear family.

              1. Traveling to a much colder place while everyone else is traveling during flu season is a big ask.

    11. It seems like your siblings do not share the same feelings of obligation or prioritize your family of origin as much as you do. They don’t have to. The fact that you’ve invited yourself over to their Thanksgivings and they’ve declined…well. I have a sister who thinks we are much closer than I do. She moved several states away and honestly, her presence does not make or break holidays for me. It barely registers.

        I’m sorry you’re going through infertility. I know the struggles all too well. I think you need to come to terms with the fact that your future, and in this case, your future holidays, are not going to look as picture perfect as you’ve always planned. Your siblings have made it very clear, over and over again, that these are not the holidays they want. You’ve made your preferences known, and they’ve told you many times that it is not a priority for them. Why are your wants more important than theirs? Your parents are adults and can voice their own feelings and needs regarding their relationship with their grandchildren. You need to stop repeatedly forcing your thoughts on “how things should be” on them and work on your resentment in therapy.

        1. I get you can’t make people see eye to eye on things, but I think the siblings are being so rude. They can’t throw a bone and do like every other Thanksgiving as a whole family or something? Really? Poor OP and her parents

30. “Capitol Hill assistants”?????
    Like, the only women working on Capitol Hill are assistants?

    1. No, the only women seen wearing this dress were.

    2. No. There was a specific article about the attire of today’s CH assistants, and that is what the post is referencing. I only briefly skim.ed it, but if one of them was wearing this, which I think is iffy for work, then I missed it but she should be advising all the others, as the rest of the outfits were terribly inappropriate.

    3. Mid-level policy staffers on the Hill are indeed called [legislative] assistants.

       1. This. The title is LA – legislative assistant. But considering that literally every staffer there serves at the pleasure of their boss and is assisting their boss in achieving his/her political goals, assistants isn’t an inappropriate word. It is not a synonym for secretary in this instance.

          And yeah, this is 110% on brand for Hill staffers. I’ve been in meetings with junior and senior staffers alike wearing dresses like this.

       2. Right. When you work for an elected official, it’s an assistant role, even in fairly difficult positions.

          1. For example, Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor.

31. Big law counsel here. When would you announce your 2nd pregnancy? Before or after annual evaluations?

    I’m about 12 weeks pregnant but only about 17 months post partum, meaning it’s only been about a year since I returned from my maternity leave. Maybe I’m overthinking it but I’m also 40 and previously went through IVF for the first pregnancy and this was a total surprise. Also so so tired and “hungover.”

    1. After. Why taint the review over a few weeks?

    2. after, no question.

    3. My kids are 20 months apart. When I “announced” the second pregnancy aroudn 15 weeks, one coworker said “You’re STILL pregnant?” thinking I was still talking about the first. Head of office said “did you think I was blind?” I showed a lot earlier with the second!

       I’d announce it after the evaluation for sure.

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