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Updated: Sep 15, 2021 363 Comments · by

Wednesday’s Workwear Report: High-Rise Wide-Leg Italian Wool Pant

The Personal Shopper (TPS) |

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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.

These wide-leg, high-rise trousers from Banana Republic are right up my alley for this fall. This turquoise-y color could be worn with a wide variety of neutrals, but if you’re feeling bold, the pants are also available in a bold red and bright yellow.

I’d probably get them hemmed so I could wear them with a flat, because I’m certainly not putting on heels again anytime soon, but I think the look will still work as long as there’s a pointy or almond-shaped toe.

The pants are $149 at Banana Republic and come in sizes 0–20.

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About Elizabeth

Elizabeth is a 30-something lawyer living on the East Coast. She spent seven years as a Biglaw associate in NYC, three years as a partner at a medium-sized firm, and is now in-house counsel for a large company. She loves Diet Coke, '90s sitcoms, and dresses with pockets.

Comments

    • Ellen

      I just saw this on the Today show! Unbelievable that he wanted to get shot so that his son could collect on his $10M life insurance policy. Craig Melvin asked the attorney whether the guy could also have been responsible for the deaths of his wife and other son! I really don’t know what to beleive any more, as male attorneys of a certain age (his) sometimes go nutso!

      That is why I can never understand men pointing to us when we undergo Menopause and say that we are the ones going crazy. This guy can make more money by selling his story to Hollywood because they can make a movie based on the truth of what happens.

      Some people (not me) also say that men with Red Hair may have issues. I have never dated guys with Red Hair, so I do not have personal knowledge of this.

    • Anon

      A theme of The Sopranos is that you can’t get good help these days. An evergreen topic, apparently.

    • Anon

      does he get to plead some kind of insanity defense bc what kind of sane person decides to get shot in the head

      • Anon

        He appears to have a drug habit. He embezzled millions from his law firm. It’s not clear who killed his wife and son, although at this point, my guess is drug lords sending him a message to pay up on his drug debt. While this is not a healthy response, it’s a response that people in that situation sometimes have. He kills himself, the embezzlement and drug issues go away; his son inherits a pile of money; the drug lords maybe get paid off, maybe don’t, but who cares? He’s dead.

          • Anon

            A lot? Opioids especially are not cheap. That’s the least shocking part of the whole thing.

          • Anon

            “Opioids especially are not cheap” – that’s how a lot of users end up on heroin. It’s cheaper and more available.

          • Anon

            Lots to learn here about why internal controls and a good outside audit / CPA review are needed from time to time. I am always afraid of this with my small nonprofit clients. Lots of people think a halo from a nonprofit means it’s OK to embezzle. Like lots.

    • A

      !!!

      And can we talk about that woman who went missing at Grand Teton? The boyfriend is totally guilty.

      • Anon for this Judge

        That was so crazy: “He’s home in Florida and declined to comment through his lawyer.” Uh, sure…

      • Anon

        The “Van Life” girl, to quote the DM, is likely exactly what it seems to be. The SC story, OTOH, what a crazy ride this one has been.

  2. Ellen

    Elizabeth, the high-rise wool pants only work for those of us with flat stomachs. Otherwise, everyone is focused on our wastelines, particularly if the pants bottoms are flared. Because of the pandemic, we need to be careful what kind of pants we go back to work in. If there is any excess weight about our tummies / tuchuses, we should focus on A-line dresses while we work to reduce. If you show us some A line dresses, I think we will be more anxious to get those at this point because of our bodies which have been influenced by our sedentary lifestyles working at home.

  3. Anon

    I am NOT the troll dude, I promise!

    I will be a volunteer usher at my local theatre this year. I need to wear a white shirt with a collar and buttons, tucked into black pants. I never wear shirts like that, because I have a 34DDD chest and a mom pooch. My arms are also very long. Help!

    • Anon

      Borrow a men’s large or See if a thrift shop has a men’s large shirt; otherwise, get the same at Walmart or Sears or Lands End. Use fashion tape if you must. No one will care really if you are a volunteer and trying to follow the script on this.

      • Anon

        Thank you for reminding me that no one will care how good I look. I will just go to the men’s section at Goodwill.

      • Ellen

        In my view, any time you are volunteering (i.e., NOT getting paid), no one is going to fire you for not being a fashionista. To the extent that you have large boobies, I agree having a buttondown shirt that is to tight would cause a problem, and make you look sloppy. Of course, you also want to avoid men who will take the opportunity to leer, not only at your boobies, but at your pooch, as those guys never see any women w/o their clotheing on and this would be something they would get excited about. Needles to say, Men like this are pigs.

    • Anonymous

      I have a 34G chest and typically need to go up a size in tops to accomodate. I would think if you fit your chest you will have plenty of room for the pooch. For sleeve length, maybe try a tall?

      And I work for a theater and agree that no one will care if your shirt is unflattering or slightly ill fitted as long as you make a good attempt to toe the line of the dress code. More critical will be your ability to get guests to follow mask rules and turn off their damn cell phones!

    • Anonymous

      Bravissimo always has at least one shirt like this, in busty sizes (up to HH cup at least).

    • PolyD

      Maybe consider looking for such a top made with a more silky, drapey fabric? I have narrow shoulders but am busty and crisp tops with buttons never work for me. Also by silky, I mean probably polyester or rayon, not real silk.

      Have fun ushering!

        • Anon

          Goodwill is a great idea, especially for something this generic. You will have many choices and will pay next to nothing.

    • Anon

      No suggestions on the bust challenge, but if sleeves are too long/short on a shirt like that, it usually looks intentional if you roll the sleeves to 3/4 length, if you’re allowed to do that.

    • Anonymous

      If you wear a white camisole underneath a button front shirt, the buttons could be left undone at the top.

    • anon a mouse

      Can you get away with no buttons? I hate button-downs and usually cheat by wearing a popover instead.

    • Senior Attorney

      I have a large bust and I love The Shirt by Rochelle Behrens, which has been featured here a time or two. They have extra hidden buttons and really eliminate bustal gappage. https://the-shirt.com/

    • Anon

      It is not cheap, but the Athleta Urbanite top is amazing and comes in a bright white. The sleeves look like they have buttons, but they do not. Silky fabric looks tailored. I have the sleeveless version in all 3 colors.

    • LA sewist

      Having to fit into button down or white dress shirts is the original reason I learned to sew in 2009!

  4. SSJD

    Seeking ideas about how to set up healthy ergonomics for kids who spend all day using a laptop. It’s not possible to have the head at a good position and have the arms at a good position! My 12 year old daughter and 14 year old son use their laptop a lot, but with the device on a table/desk it’s a level above where arms/hands should be (elbows bent at an angle significantly smaller than 90 degrees). One option is to get a remote keyboard for home (assuming desks have a keyboard tray), but that doesn’t solve the problem at school all day. Do kids just suffer with terrible ergonomics? What is the near term and long term implication for this generation’s bodies? How do we make it better?

    • Anon

      Lap desk? It is what I do as a shorter grownup. Dining room table is too high for me and I don’t have room for a legit home office except right next to my bed. I also don’t want work to have a permanent footprint in my home. So lap desk is very flexible and then can be tucked away.

    • Anon

      This might not work in school, but I’ve always done a keyboard, mouse, and a cheap stand (or a pile of books) to get it at the right height. You might be able to find a folding stand they could bring to school with them.

    • No Problem

      For at home, the same as for an adult: raise the chair so that the arms are at a 90 degree angle (basically the top of the desk should be near their waist), add a foot stool if needed so feet don’t dangle, put laptop on a monitor stand or stack of books to raise it up to eye level (top of the screen should be at eye level, so you look just slightly downward), add a separate keyboard and mouse on the desk top.

      I’m assuming that at school they are not on their laptops ALL day like they would be at home and would have more opportunities to get up and move around the classroom or school between classes, which would minimize the effects of bad ergonomics.

    • Anonymous

      We all survived taking notes on laptops in law school without any ergonomic arrangements. Also, how much are they actually using the laptops during school? My daughter’s school distributes Chromebooks and requires all assignments to be turned in using the on-line learning platform, but so far this year they haven’t actually been on the Chromebooks in the classroom for more than about an hour a day. Most of the teachers have reverted to actual lecturing and hands-on in-class learning activities, thank goodness.

      • Anon

        Speak for yourself! I have terrible neck pain from years of bad laptop ergonomics and can’t do any of that stuff any more. It’s a huge drain on my quality of life and I really wish I’d taken it more seriously earlier!

      • Anon

        My back was permanently affected by law school damage. Ditto wrists. The smaller the person, the worse the fit (surfaces are too high, feet don’t rest flat on the floor) , so kids can really suffer from this. I think the poster is right to be concerned, but I have no solution for what to do at school.

    • Anon

      I mean I spent 13 years sitting in a plastic school chair that was often too tall for me and I can’t possibly imagine was in any way ergonomic. I also used to write in notebooks that whole time, so I would have spent a lot of time looking down at my desk as opposed to at an optimal height for viewing straight on. I’ve never heard of a kid having neck/back issues from school, and personally never had any issues with desks/chairs until I was almost 30. I guess kids are just more resiliant?

      • Anon

        I think there’s just a tradition of ignoring kids’ pain. It’s great that you weren’t in pain the whole time, but I certainly was. Now they’re saying I have hypermobility issues so maybe that’s why I had a harder time, but it’s not like that’s a rare issue either.

  5. Anon

    Those of you with a home office, how do you juggle both work computer and personal computer? Multiple desks?

    My home machine is a widescreen iMac, and I use large monitors for photo and graphics editing, so this is harder than just swapping out laptops.

    Interested in any ideas.

    • Anon

      I have a monitor which has two cables – one for Mac and one for PC. I added a quick change adaptor so it’s really easy to switch which cable I’m using. Just a single desk, but I will say that I keep lamenting that I wish I had a deeper desk.

      Is it possible to use your monitors for both machines? Enjoy the benefits of widescreen with a spreadsheet.

      • Anon

        I commented below, but my iMac isn’t a separate monitor – the computer is built in and my company security standards wouldn’t let me use it as an external monitor (not sure that’s even possible w iMacs).

    • Anonymous

      I use a laptop for work and home. Can you connect your work laptop to your home monitors?

      • Ellen

        Yes, as long as you have the right cable. See what kind of cable you have at work and buy the same from Best Buy. If your home monitor is old, you may need to make sure the cable plug will work.

        They have quality stuff that actually works. There is a good store on Broadway around 63rd Street that I go to that always gets me what I need.

    • Anon

      I also do graphics and photo editing on a home Mac, I just bought a giant L shaped desk at West Elm, when we went to WFH – one side has my Mac (the shorter side since I use it less), and the other my work set-up with a large curved monitor, laptop stand etc. Since the desk is nice the rest looks fine too. All the computer stuff wouldn’t be my first choice, of course, but it’s actually a lovely home office set up.

    • Anon

      My large Mac is now sitting on the floor of my home office. I just don’t have space for both. I’m resentful my work has invaded my home office setup, which I loved before wfh.

    • anonNoVa

      A few months ago I bought a second monitor for use with my work laptop, and it has made working from home in my home office much easier. Aesthetically it’s not the greatest (reminds me of a former friend who was a software developer’s desk at his workplace). But it works. So I have two laptops on my desk, cabled to two separate monitors (one wide one medium sized). Plus space to the right of that for my work ipad. I have a compact bluetooth keyboard that can toggle between the two work devices, plus a larger ergonomic bluetooth keyboard that I use for my personal laptop. Plus a mouse for each laptop. My desk is fairly wide and deep, which allows this setup to work. The monitors are on raised stands and I put the laptops partially under the stands to conserve space. Good luck!

  6. LaurenB

    Having worn these types of pants with buttons and tab closure all throughout the nineties, I have to say – I’m team pull-on/slim cut/comfort waist at this point. Those kinds of creased pants need more drycleaning than fits my 2021 life.

    • Anon

      Agreed. I still own a few pairs of these (fully lined, from The Limited, to give you an idea of their age) and while they’ve held up beautifully, I find myself ignoring them out of frustration with the upkeep.

    • BeenThatGuy

      Agreed. I think part of it is covid-times. I think the other part for me is aging. At 45, anything restricting, especially on my waist is panic educing. I regret all the times I (silently) made of elderly ladies for wearing Alfred Dunner pants!

        • No Problem

          I’m not the person you’re replying to, but these also scream early-mid 00s to me. They’re the wide leg dress pants I wore in those days, which were super unflattering on my as a petite person. The button and tab closures have been used by many retailers for a long time. I haven’t bought work pants in awhile but I’m sure some still do. They make a nice unflattering lump under your sweater.

          Why does it matter how old you are? The 00s were the 00s for everyone.

          • Anonymous

            If you’re just starting to work, you weren’t buying work pants in the early aughts and May have no frame of reference. So like how I thought bell bottoms in the late 90s when I was a high schooler were cool and amazing, my mom, who wore them in the 60s and 70s, was over them and they looked dated to her even in their resurgence. I think that’s the case for these wide legs trousers as well.

        • Anonymous

          Because mid-90s/early00s style is very in right now. People start to look dated by only wearing that were popular in their 30s.

      • Anom

        I wore pants like this in 2005-2006 time frame working in an office pre-law school and then again in early 2010’s after law school. It was a look that made me feel put together. Like armor for the office. I’m 5’1”, so the legs were more straight than wide to accommodate the fact that there just isn’t that much of me. Would be happy to go back to that look now I’m ever back in the office…

    • No Face

      I switched the these pants during my postpartum phase and never looked back. My only pants that zip are side zipped.

    • Anon

      I wore pants like this in the first decade of the 2000s and felt like $1m (so like $1.2m today with inflation).

      What I don’t miss is getting everything hemmed to the perfect length and then only being able to wear them with the specific shoes they were hemmed for, wet hems in the rain, and as a poster above said, the perfectly fitted rigid waist band not feeling so perfect after lunch….. I also don’t miss the inevitability of getting the bottoms of these all over the work bathroom floor several times a day.

      But they’re gorgeous! I felt like a curvy version of Katherine Hepburn in mine. I had them in black, navy, and charcoal. Wow, I had it going ON.

  7. heartbroken

    I’m a regular here, but I’m posting this anonymously because it involves so much emotion. My father got a diagnosis of dementia a few years ago and it’s just accelerated over the past year or so. I finally had a chance to go visit a few weeks ago and I can see why. My mother gets him up early, feeds and medicates him, and then he spends the day napping or occasionally watching CNN, until dinner when she feeds and medicates him again. I am being a little curt when I say this – they both have doctor’s appointments, he occasionally goes walking around the backyard in the nice weather, I know she tries to read to him occasionally, but generally, she has lapsed into her preferred mode of being the housekeeper, and is generally happy for him to be quiet and sedate while she does everything she “has to do.” She can’t/won’t accept help like a cleaning person, they occasionally try a new support group or a therapist via Zoom which seems doomed to fail… and he is just deeply, deeply depressed, as seems inevitable.

    What can I do? I don’t necessarily mean about the family dynamic… we talk a lot here about the challenges of people doing their own thing in families and knowing when to leave that be and when and how to try to intervene. I mean more what can be done for him and his depression. I thought about art therapy – he used to be a fantastic artist, but now when he takes out pastels or pencils he just makes angry looking abstractions that make him more depressed. There is even an art therapy cooperative in Greater Boston, where they’re located, but they told me they couldn’t help a dementia patient. He is also one of the smartest people I’ve ever met – got a MA in English literature for fun while working full-time – but all the books for dementia patients I’ve found poking around on the internet are dumbed down.

    This is so heartbreaking and I want to help engage him and keep him interested in something if only to keep the depression at bay. I feel like I’ve rambled a bit in this posting, but hopefully it’s coherent enough. Any suggestions are gratefully accepted.

    • Anonymous

      I think you need to step back. You mom is taking good care of him! She is not causing these changes, dementia is. Absolutely ask if you can speak to his doctor about his depression but you haven’t seen him in quite a while and I think you’re imagining him to be better than he really is.

      • Cat

        Yeah it sounds like you are accusing your mom of worsening his condition when maybe he really isn’t capable of things like art classes? Maybe you could ask to join the next doctor’s appointment (virtually) to ask questions?

        • Anonymous

          That is exactly what it sounds like: “it’s just accelerated over the past year … and I can see why.” Your mom is not going to slow the progression of your dad’s dementia by taking him for walks or forcing him to make art or neglecting the housework to focus all of her attention on him.

        • Anonymous

          Yeah, I think it might be helpful for you to learn more about his condition, and also ask about social services resources in the area. We have a day time program in our area for memory and aging patients where they can sign up for a few hours during the day with professional staff led activities, and their care givers can take a break, run errands, etc. Something like that might be better suited to his condition.

        • anon

          Ugh why is there always someone on here who has to be so rude toward a person who is going through a hard time?

          • Anon

            I appreciate that she’s going through a hard time, but she’s being extremely judgmental of her mom who is going through a much harder time as the father’s primary caregiver. This is the worst kind of Monday morning quarterbacking and I feel for OP’s mom much more than OP in this situation.

          • Anon

            And other than the use of implied profanity I didn’t say anything that wasn’t said by multiple other people on this thread…maybe the fact that multiple people all had the same reaction means something? Just a thought.

          • anon

            I agree with the message, but I thought your delivery was needlessly rude. Is “back the F off” really the only way you can get your point across?

            This is a common occurrence on here (not saying it’s always you) and I find it disappointing that some people love to hide behind an anonymous handle just to kick others when they’re down.

      • anon

        Agreed. My maternal grandmother had dementia and it is an awful awful thing. It sounds like your mom is doing a great job of keeping him safe (which can be very hard with dementia) and also keeping him from experience episodes of extreme distress (I am sure there is a medical term but I am blanking). Trust me that those episodes of distress are incredibly tragic and if they can be avoided, they should be.

        Also echo that your mom is in NO WAY causing any of this. Full stop. You need step way back from that ledge and reframe how you are thinking about this. Your mom is in a really hard place and seems to be doing just fine with it from the information you have provided.

      • anon

        Yeah, you need to back way off on blaming your mom for this. This is part and parcel of dementia.

    • Anon

      I don’t know an old person who didn’t love getting actual mail. Now that my grandmother has died, I have a ton of stationery to send her notes in. She maybe write back weekly but she did love something in the mailbox.

    • Anonymous

      Could you gift him a virtual art class or something? Masterclass? Or even better something you guys could do together?

      • Anon

        That sounds impossible for somebody with bad dementia to figure out on their own and just places a bigger burden on OP’s mother.

        • Anon

          This. OP should not be adding to her mother’s to-do list. If she wants him to do an art class she needs to execute it beginning to end including supervising him while he does it.

    • Anon

      I am so sorry for the pain of watching dementia take a loved one. It’s heartwrenching.

      You mention dementia, but nowhere in your post do you describe what your father is actually capable of. You may want him to take art classes and be active and vibrant, but he may not be capable of that anymore. You say you “finally” had a chance to visit, so it may be that your mom’s care for him is what works for him most days – dementia is, sadly, a progressively debilitating disease, and if you’re not around to see it, it can be jarring to see someone’s current state.

      When you say your mom medicates him, is he already taking an anti-depressant that’s a safe companion for his other medication?

      • Anon

        I’m a caregiver for my mom who has this journey.

        It’s brutal. I’m so sorry.

        We used to do art and puzzles but she has no interest or ability now. I blame myself but we gave her everything and it’s just progressive. It is the most difficult thing to deal with. Again I’m sorry.

        You might want to talk to your dads dr and find out what stage he in. That will help you adjust your expectations.

        There is a musical therapy for dementia patients online for free. That might help.

        Check for a VNA in your area for a day program. That will help him and your mom. Some have shuttle services. She is likely suffering too.

        Puzzles and find a word and coloring help until they don’t.

        It’s a sucky journey. I’m sorry for all of us.

        • wow

          You are such a good daughter.

          Your Mom is so lucky to have you. I’m sure she wants to tell you that.

    • Anon

      Very sorry for your father. Can you send videos for him to watch that might connect more with his interests? For my grandfather who loved classical music we would send DVDs of various symphony performances or operas. I wonder if there is something similar for art? If it’s challenging for your mom to move your dad, would she be open to a caretaker once or twice a week to take him for a walk or a drive? In fall that can be especially pleasant.

    • Anonymous

      I’m so sorry you are going through this. I think I will be too in a couple of years. There are some art therapy programs specifically for people with dementia, but I’m not sure what is available in your area and/or how COVID has affected them. I have some experience with a wonderful program called Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, which is pretty small and I think is mostly based in NYC (http://www.alzpoetry.com/). But they might be able to direct you to peer programs in your area. You could also google “Creative Aging” – this is an emerging field. An adult day care program might also some opportunities. I also think it is probably possible to find an art therapist who would be willing to work 1:1 with a dementia patient if you can pay for it. Art therapy jobs do not necessarily grow on trees. Artists in general tend to be underemployed – maybe you could find someone willing to do a 1:1 class who is comfortable working with someone with his current abilities?

      It also sounds like you mom may be more overwhelmed than you realize and finding a way to help her that she values may go a long way. She may be clinging to things she CAN control, like cleaning the house, but might appreciate help with things like going to doctor visits, managing finances, or things your dad used to do.

      • heartbroken

        Thank you, anon, and the rest for this support. I absolutely am not lashing out at my mother. I see how awful this is for her. She’s working all day long to take care of him… and she’s lost her life partner. But yes, she lapses back into things that she is best at and is capable of, when I would really just like her to, for example, take him for a walk once a day. It would be therapuetic for both of them. And I don’t want him to take art classes – my idea was art therapy. But yes, it’s hard to find someone with that specialty, who wants to travel during COVID… etc. etc. I’ll look into some of the ideas offered here, but please keep any more coming.

        • Anonymous

          Even getting him out for a walk might be terribly challenging. The idea for a day support program is an excellent one.

        • Anonymous

          My MIL had dementia, and when she moved to memory care quality of life improved exponentially both for her and for her daughter, who was not her full-time caregiver but lived nearby and took on the most responsibility for visiting and coordinating care.

        • Anonymous

          Please, for the love of God, don’t say any of this to your mom. She is probably hanging by a thread and it will be very destructive to your relationship with her. Long time spousal caregiver here. If you want him to do extra things, please step up and do them yourself.

          • Senior Attorney

            Amen to this. Also if there is money for this, how about some adult day care a a few times a week so she can get a break?

        • Anonymous

          It seems absolutely normal to me that your mom would “lapse back into things that she is best at and is capable of” in the middle of one of the most stressful and painful seasons of her entire life. This is likely something that is helping her cope. She may even be battling grief, anger, and depression herself, and lack the emotional energy needed to get your father up on his feet and out the door.

          I’m sorry your family is going through this. I lost my mom to dementia, and those years were agonizing; the grief starts early, since you lose your parent progressively over time.

        • anon

          As has already been pointed out, even things that you are thinking are simple, like going for a walk, can be very hard and potentially unsafe for a person with dementia. Your mom is there daily, she knows what he is and isn’t capable of, and frankly, if keeping him safe means keeping him inside, then that is what needs to happen. You need to not hold your mom to some level of care that you *think* he needs when you are not there on a day-to-day basis and you are not his medical care provider. You need to also be supporting your mom, who is going through a very difficult experience.

          • Anon

            +1. Your mom is much more affected by this situation than you. Your only job is to support her. Lean on friends and extended family for your own support, i.e., circle of grief theory.

    • Anonymous

      I would encourage you to take a realistic view of your father’s actual capabilities and ease back on your judgment of your mother. It sounds as if you expect your mom to give up keeping house and anything else she’d like to do and spend all her time providing enrichment for your dad, which she probably isn’t trained to do and would be miserable for both of them. If the art therapy cooperative turned your father down, why do you think that your mother should be able to do better with no training and resources? I’d channel your energy into locating a music therapist, art therapist, etc. with skills and experience working with dementia patients who can come to the house, along with respite care so your mother can have a break from caregiving. Or look into a high-quality memory care program for your father where the professionals will provide therapy and enrichment that reaches him where he is and allows him to enjoy himself to the limits of his capacity.

    • Anon

      I just lost my dad to early-onset dementia last month, he had it for over 10 years. I also cared for his mother before that, with the same diagnosis. This really sucks, and your dismay and confusion are valid. I’m not going to sugar-coat, this is going to really suck beyond the telling of it.

      If you’re not able to be physically present, engage him with video calls as best you can. You will need to get him used to the format while he’s still able to process short-term memories, but there’s no guarantee how long he will retain it. You may need to switch to regular phone calls, and he will eventually lose that too.

      Later stages will change from him being withdrawn to lashing out physically, so you also need to worry about your mom’s safety. Keep good communication with her, so you can judge when they will need outside help.

    • Anon4this

      My mom had early onset dementia and it was so challenging. I’m so sorry for you and your family. My mother had an MBA and had been a C-suite executive so it was a huge shift for our family. She enjoyed going to a dementia / Alzheimer’s day program where volunteers read books to patients, there was music and dancing, and occasionally art / craft projects. A lot of communities have something like this. I’d look into your local chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. They should have lists of programs that might work for your dad. The program my mom went to was a drop off program, and so helpful for my dad who was the main caregiver to make sure he got a break. My mom also enjoyed going to church (even though she hadn’t been since she was a little girl). Initially she went on her own, then my dad went with her, and eventually we hired a caregiver to take her (my dad really couldn’t stand church). There was a local thrift store where she went to sort donated clothes (make a pile of shirts, hang the shirts, etc). Again initially she went alone, then with my dad, and eventually with a paid caregiver. She also liked going grocery shopping so he’d take her to do that (he would donate food she picked that they clearly weren’t going to eat). And once a week she “played” golf with my dad (she rode in the cart). Basically, my dad tried to make sure she had one outing a day and I think that helped a lot, but there was still a ton of time watching TV, listening to the radio or audiobooks. It is so hard, and don’t forget to look after yourself while going through this. As my mom got more sick, I realized I was basically grieving the loss of my mother which seemed so odd because she was still physically present.

      • pugsnbourbon

        Wow – I’m actually a little teary after reading everything your dad did for your mom.

        Your post jogged my memory about a local historic interpretive center that has a program for adults with dementia. That might be something for OP to look into.

    • Anonymous

      Your mom probably needs the help more than your dad does at this point. Their support for caregivers like her – try the Well Spouse Association. Zoom support group meetings for now, and in-person support group meetings when Covid clears, and many members’ partners have dementia and Alzheimer’s. And then find a support group for yourself as well.

      • Anonymous

        Yes, this. She probably needs days off, and glimpses of time to be a normal functioning adult instead of the caregiver using all her strength and will to only be able to watch a loved one deteriorate, probably with terrible mood swings, anger, depression and bad behavior towards her.

        You can probably do a lot more for them both by helping her cope and giving her time to be herself and keep a life of her own going. If she’s more rested, he’ll also be safer and able to live at home longer. But don’t wait too long to find out about assisted living places. Don’t let him be so far in that he’ll only have anger and fear in a new environment when he moves.

        Be kind to yourself as well, this is a terrible situation. I’m so sorry.

        In terms of what might help him – music might be something he’ll be able to enjoy still. Old favorites, nostalgic songs from his younger years etc.

    • Anonymous

      You don’t mention how old your dad is, and this may be piling work on top of what is already a ton of work, but what about a pet?

      Also, please don’t neglect your mom in this scenario- she’s probably quite depressed/overwhelmed herself.

      • anon

        Please do not get a pet for an additional responsibility for your mother here. Dementia can cause people to lash out sometimes violently and it would really suck for a pet to get caught in that in addition to your mother.

    • Anon

      It sounds like your mom is doing just fine with the care she is providing to him. He sounds safe and cared for, and at home, so ultimately that is the best case scenario. Having cared for multiple family members with health issues at the end of life (mom, older sister, MIL), nothing is more frustrating than having someone who lives X number of miles away (too far for frequent visits) tell you what you should do or how you can do it better, when they are not the ones who have to deal with the day to day care.

    • Trixie

      Gently, perhaps it would be wise for you to find a therapist for your own grief. As a 66 year old woman myself, having watched multiple relatives decline, this illness will only go in one direction…it will progress. There is little that anyone can “do” that changes dementia, and maybe anti-depressants can help with his depression. I suspect he is already on them. And, do you know what medication your mom gives him 2 x a day? It sounds like you suspect a sedative, but that may not be true. Depression goes with getting old and facing death and dementia: it can only be helped so much, as people have to process their sadness about mortality. As a suggestion, many old folks like watching re-runs of tv shows they enjoyed in their youth. The Honeymooners, Bonanza, etc. Long term memories support watching these sorts of shows, and they are more relaxing and fun than CNN. Hugs and best wishes to you.

    • No Face

      Sorry for your loss. Dementia is just so hard for everyone in the family.

      I agree with the advice that an adult day care or other structured program for people with dementia would be great for both your parents. Look into respite care at home as well. I am an excellent mother (if I say so myself), but my kids thrive at daycare/school in a way that they could not if I was homeschooling full time. I also think your dad could be cared for very well by people who are specially trained to help him, in a non-home environment that was designed for his needs.

      Also, take care of yourself. You are grieving and it is okay to acknowledge that.

      • Anonymous

        My dad had Alzheimers for 12 years and my mom was his primary caregiver – here’s a few ideas that worked for us
        — look into palliative care. His pcp may need to prescribe it. Opened up a number of new therapies for us especially ot/pt which was so helpful for him (and us) and helped keep him active
        — look for stuff that engages him now. It may be wildly different than before – my dad loved dancing with the stars something he would never have tolerated before. That said he also loved old familiar tv programs. One of my fondest memories is that last Christmas when my husband found an old Andy Williams Christmas special.
        — if your mom is anything like my mom she is trying to hang on to as much of her life while trying to be the caregiver. Help her do that. Tell her it’s ok. There is probably a lot going on in that house that you don’t see. Find respite care for her. My mom didn’t want it but she needed it. Then she didn’t know how she did without it. But I had to come up with 3 options and pitch them to her. Plus they have strategies that she may not know about and we’re really helpful
        —remind him of stuff he did and just as important stuff you did together. Sometimes my dad would get a kick hearing about himself. Show him pictures. We made him picture books and as he got sicker we would take them out and tell him the stories behind them.
        — if he is at all into music emphasize that – music memories were one of the last things to go for my dad and his neurologist told us that wasn’t unusual
        I wish you all the best this is so hard.

        • wow

          These are wonderful suggestions.

          I’m sorry your family had to suffer through this process as well.

    • Another Anon

      I am so sorry for what you are dealing with – my father also has Alzheimers and I would say since it started, I have been grieving the loss of my a large part of who he is and was. I’ve also found it tough to process how bad the situation is. Sometimes we will have a conversation where he seems quite with it and I’m optimistic things can get better, but the next day he is much worse and doesn’t remember the prior day. It is also possible that he is worse when you are not visiting because I think they can spruce up for interactions, especially with their kids. So what has been very helpful for me is to have a therapist help me process what is going on.

      I agree with the other posters that this is probably very challenging and upsetting for your mother, and as someone dealing with her dad’s alzheimers while he lived alone, I would be so grateful if someone was there to handle the day-to-day I’m not saying that you aren’t grateful for your mother in this, just that wow it would have helped my father’s situation so much. Anyway again I am very sorry about your father’s diagnosis and the road ahead, it really really sucks and I definitely recommend a therapist to help process it (even just a few sessions).

    • busybee

      I’m very sorry for you and your family. My grandmother has Lewy body dementia and my mother is her caretaker. It’s really, really hard on my mom. Everyone is different, but dementia has taken my grandma’s ability to focus and understand complex communication. She used to love to read and watch movies but doesn’t have the ability to follow them anymore. There’s a reason those books you found are “dumbed down.” She also tends to get upset with a change in routine, so it’s best for her to stay home. Lastly, she is very unsteady on her feet so at significant risk for falls if my mom were to walk with her outside. Your dad may be in a totally different position. But I say this because I had been asking my mom to do more with my grandma too. But now that we are all vaccinated and I’ve spent a few weekends home with them, I understand why my grandma spends her days watching baking show reruns- it’s what makes her comfortable and is also safe for her. My mom has been trying to find a home care companion to alleviate some loneliness but there’s a big staffing shortage in our area so it’s going to be a wait. Are there any day programs your dad could attend? My grandma takes Remeron, which is antidepressant. She takes it mostly to help with sleeping and appetite problems but it seems to have helped her mood as well.

    • Anon

      I am so sorry you are dealing with this. My city has a council on aging that provides support services. Please look into whether you can find something like this. For example, mine has a meals on wheels program where they will deliver a daily hot meal. Also make sure to get a medical power of attorney put in place – I would work with his doctor to make sure it is in the proper form that they will honor. Good luck – this is not easy.

    • Nom

      My heart goes out to you and your family. Caring for a loved one as they age is hard, and so much more so with Alzheimer’s and other progressive diseases. My grandmother, who helped raise me and was basically one of my parents, went through a 5-year period prior to her death that was really challenging. As another poster said, you are really mourning the person while they are still physically present.

      To me, it sounds like your mom might be doing as much as she can to help keep your dad safe and as healthy as possible. At the same time, could having more daily activities help with your dad’s wellbeing / quality of life? Possibly — I know that was something that really helped my grandmother. But I agree that hiring someone to help with this will make a huge difference, it should not be something that adds to the burdens on your mom. For example, often getting my grandmother prepared to go outside for a walk was an hour long process, and she would get tired and need to rest in the middle of it, and the same when we got home, so ultimately the whole process would take 3+ hours. It was exhausting for everyone. (Ironically, it got easier to go on outings when she was in a wheelchair—despite her hating the chair—because it was less physically demanding.) I would encourage you to look into an elder care home assistant who could come ~2-3x week and help your dad go on short walks or other outings; this will also give your mom a little bit of a break on those days.

      My grandmother also struggled with depression in this phase of her life. Isolation was a big factor, especially since she wasn’t able to do the social activities that had been how she connected to friends and the community. One of the things that really helped her was talking on the phone, which she would do for hours and hours. She reconnected with a cousin in another state and they would talk for at least 45 minutes every morning; I don’t think they’d seen each other in person since they were children. I am not a phone person but when I was too far away to visit regularly, I tried to call her for 3-4 times a week. It felt like a lot (it’s more than I had ever talked on the phone with anyone in my life), and I often felt like I was repeating myself, but she loved it. Phone calls are a such great way for other people in your family to be able to help from far away. If phone conversations are still manageable for your dad, are there are extended family members that your dad had been close with in the past that you can ask (aka recruit) to be regular callers? Or if there are folks who live nearby, can they do a combination of calling frequently and coming by to chat a couple times a month?

      It sounds like the constant TV presence was troubling for you. For my grandmother, her ability to concentrate declined over time, so reading was hard and no longer enjoyable, but TV remained accessible. Audio also was OK, especially NPR in the morning, but her attention would wander too much for longer audiobooks. For your dad, I would echo one of the other posters who suggested finding DVDs or other materials tailored to his interests. One thing to keep in mind is that consistent structure and smaller segments can be easier to understand and enjoy for someone with cognitive impairments. For example, my grandmother watched a LOT of Hallmark movies and HGTV because the consistent formats made the content more accessible. The consistent structure and routine is soothing, and it might be part of why CNN is the go-to for your dad. You could look for a series, maybe something like an art history documentary program with 30-min episodes?

      I hope this helps— and please take care of yourself and your mom. This is really hard for everyone involved, especially for the family members closest to the day-to-day experience.

    • Anon

      I tried doing art projects with my mom, it didn’t help. She couldn’t remember how to hold a colored pencil and didn’t have the spatial awareness for it. It was stressful for her. She prefers sitting quietly or little walks. The situation sucks but it sounds like your mom is doing a good job taking care of your dad. Also keep in mind that your mom needs support too.

    • Anon

      I agree with others that you seem to be blaming Mom for a situation that’s out of her control. Our minds play tricks on us where if there’s a bad situation, we look for someone to assign fault to, but there’s no fault here. Dementia is at fault, and it’s horribly unfair and painful to watch.

      I suggest therapy not for your parents, but for you, to help deal with your feelings about this and to help you accept the inevitable with your dad. It’s not easy to navigate alone. I’ve been in a similar situation and I am not sure I could have made it through without therapy.

      Hugs to you. It’s terribly, terribly difficult. I hope you take some of the advice you’ve received here to heart.

      • Anon

        I also want to mention that when I was going through terminal caregiving for my loved one, and when my mom was going through the same with my dad, the best thing was to give the caregiver a break – rather than suggesting other responsibilities the caregiver should take on, just take the load off them for a while. When my mom was caregiving, sometimes I’d sit with my dad so Mom could go shopping or get her nails done. Sometimes someone else would sit with him so I could take Mom out to lunch.

        My mom told me years later how those visits were a lifeline for her, something I understood years later in my own caregiving situation when my sister would come and stay at the hospital so I could just …. sometimes I just did nothing, but I wasn’t sitting at the hospital and I wasn’t in charge of care for a couple of hours, and it was just lifesaving for me.

    • anon

      My mother died last year, after a several year decline with Alzheimers and depression which accelerated distressingly during the pandemic. I saw your follow-up post that said you don’t actually blame your mother, so I won’t repeat the other posts that say it’s not your mothers’ fault.

      I disagree with the commenters who say your mother is doing the best she can and you should just back off. I am certain she is doing the best she can. But that is not necessarily what is best for your dad. Your mother is better situated to gauge what works for him, and for herself, than you are given the distance. But there’s also a good chance that she is ‘too close’ to the situation to consider trying new things. My dad and local relatives who helped with caregiving were quick to dismiss suggestions we received from my mother’s doctor or the geriatrics’ practice social worker as things that ‘just wouldn’t work’ for my mom. While that didn’t cause my mother to deteriorate (the disease did), I believe it reduced her quality of life.

      It’s heartbreaking as a caregiver to see your loved one decline to the point where he is unable to do things he previously enjoyed. It becomes more comfortable, and emotionally protective, to just stop offering opportunities to do those things, and to avoid trying new things. There is comfort in routine, both for the dementia patient and the caregiver. But dementia progresses and changes, and the fact that a person got frustrated with an activity once doesn’t mean that person can never try it again. Or that there aren’t easier variations that might work.

      It’s too much to ask the primary caregiver and spouse to play activities director and come up with these opportunities. They are continuously grieving the loss of their normal relationship with their spouse. But I would suggest that you ask her doctor for recommendations, and if there is a social worker affiliated with the medical practice that person should be a tremendous resource. Look into senior centers that have activities for people with dementia and whether any of them may be helpful. Also, if you can, spend some time with your dad (preferably while giving your mom a break) and try a few things to see how he responds. If he’s still mobile, maybe you could go to a museum and look at art even if he can’t create it.

      This is a hard terrible journey. It broke my heart over and over again until the day my mom died. My dad had various coping mechanisms that were not what I would have chosen, but it became clear to me near the end that he was juggling to balance self-care with spousal care, and I can’t fault him for that though I regret the impact it had on my mom.

      • Anon

        Happy safe clean and dry.

        This is my mantra for what we want for my mom in this journey. It keeps us focused on Good versus Should.

        I hope it helps.

  9. Anon

    Is he depressed, or is it the dementia, or is it the meds? I can’t really tell from what you’ve written, but I would want to know what those AM meds were in case they’re a bit too much.

  10. Anon

    Tell me about your favorite way to get toned.

    I tried SWEAT, Madeleine moves, peloton barre/yoga, and now have just been doing Peloton strength, but looking to switch things up because I get bored easily and still searching for something that will give me the optimal results while still being fun.

    • Anokha

      Have you seen results with Peloton strength? I just got one yesterday and I’m trying to stack classes…

    • Anon

      Have you tried Beachbody on demand? You get access to their entire catalog of programs – lots of 30 minute videos with weights.

    • Anon

      Join the Peloton “HardCORE on the Floor” Facebook group and download the monthly calendar. It’s a curated calendar with daily “stacks” of thee classes. The woman that puts it together is a certified personal trainer and it’s actually amazing. The bike or treadmill are only ancillary to the daily programming. I still ride but there are a ton of people who do only the calendar so if you only have the app you’d still be able to do the whole thing. Tons of variety.

      • AnonInfinity

        Yes! I love Fitness Blender! Their videos are free but they also have a couple of low cost programs aimed at building strength.

      • Cornellian

        +1. I’m not comfortable in public gyms right now, but some heavier kettlebells can help at home, too.

        • Anonymous

          Yes. The best thing I did to plan for SIP was to buy adjustable kettlebells (Bowflex). And then I was able to support a local cast iron business that started making them to meet demand when I wanted heavier ones.

    • test run

      For legs/glutes, anything with ankle weights is what has made the difference for me. I like LEKfit videos but I think the instructor is love/hate – you can do a free trial with them (I think it’s maybe seven days?) to see if you like them. Also if you already have a peloton subscription you might already be doing them but the Jess Sims flash 15s are my favorite.

    • Macros

      Counting macros. Body comp. is mostly food-related (if you’re already doing other training).

    • anonymous

      Are we concerned with the precedent set by Milley going, not only outside the chain of command, but actively colluding with America’s primary foreign adversary to subvert the chain of command and civilian control of the military? Part of me appreciates Milley’s (and apparently others’) actions in light of 45’s unhinged behavior, but it also seems to set a dangerous precedent… and perhaps ironically lend support to the right’s fever dreams about a “deep state”.

      • X

        I’m very glad that he did it, and I do remember that it was reported that Pelodi wanted something like this to be done. It was clearly an extraordinary circumstance.

      • Anon

        This was after he lost the election, right? US is unique in that we have such a long time between election and inauguration, and I’m ok with the military taking authority from the President-elect after an election. I realize that isn’t exactly what happened here, but I don’t think taking the nukes away from the loser of a presidential election sets a dangerous precedent.

      • anon

        From the link posted above, this sounds mostly hypothetical to me. Milley called a secret Pentagon meeting, instructing the people with the nuclear codes to speak to him first before following a direct order from the former President. And he connected with the head of the NSA and other peers, and they all agreed to stay vigilant. The latter seems eintrely reasonable. The former would have been a violation of the chain of command, if it had actually happened, and everyone involved would have been fully aware that they are taking a great personal risk by violating the chain of command. So it’s not the same as an unhinged president breaking norms with no legal recourse. They would have risked their career at minimum to carry this out.
        It’s interesting that he ordered the Afghanistan withdrawal by Jan 15. That should be talked about more.

    • Anonymous

      This is so tough, sure it was wrong of him to do, but not protecting the planet from an unhinged lunatic seems important even if it is technically wrong. It was just an impossible situation and this was the best possible option.

  12. Work Travel Backpack for DH

    Good backpack to give DH for work travel? He travels for daytrips or one night fairly regularly and I think he’d like to even forego the rolling carryon. C-suite level and late thirties if that matters. Thanks for any suggestions!

  13. Anon

    I want to start growing herbs! Tell me all your tips and tricks. I have killed all plants I have ever owned, but I love cooking and cocktail making so I figured it would be so nice to do that.

    • anon

      Mint is very robust, as long as you give it water and fertilizer every now and then. A good starter plant. I’ve only figured out fertilizer once I started jotting down when I was doing it. Otherwise, there is no way for me to remember whether I fed my plant 3 weeks or 3 months ago.
      Mint, Oregano and probably lots of other herbs ‘get complacent’, i.e., when they are not cut back regularly, they grow spindly/woody, the leaves look ugly and new growth isn’t happening. If you cut or pinch them back, it tells them that they better grow some new lush foliage. If I need to cut back the plant but I cannot use up the herbs, I dry them for tea or home made dried herbs. Since I WFH, I put the herbs in my car in the sun — solar dried herbs in a day or two.
      Look up how to pinch basil (can’t describe it well), it makes all the difference in shaping a bushy plant. Works the same way for sage.

      • Senior Attorney

        Just make sure you put your mint in a pot, not in the ground. Otherwise it will run wild and take over the whole joint.

        • MagicUnicorn

          So true. I had a bare spot in my yard where no plants would grow and that is naturally limited by walls and the topography. Planted mint and oregano several years ago. They happily filled in that whole little corner. Glad there is nowhere for them to escape to or my whole place would be an herb garden.

          • No Face

            I have a spot just like this! I never considered mint, which grows like a massive weed in my yard. I’m buying mint today.

            I love the absolutely random life tips I get from this page.

          • anon

            If it grows all over your garden, take cuttings, pop them in a glass of water in front of a window. In a week or two, the stems will sprout roots and you can plant them in your dead spot.

  14. Anon

    I want to start growing herbs! Tell me all your tips and tricks. I have killed all plants I have ever owned, but I love cooking and cocktail making so I figured it would be so nice to do that if I can figure out a way for them to survive.

    • Anonymous

      My experience with herbs is that it’s only worthwhile to grow the ones that you use in small quantities, like rosemary and mint. With basil, cilantro, and other herbs that you need 1/4 cup or more of at a time, you need to have a whole lot of plants to keep it going.

    • Emma

      Herbs are pretty easy! And I really don’t have a green thumb. Keep mint in a separate pot because it’s invasive. Basil, parsley, thyme, rosemary and tarragon are successfully cohabiting in a large planter that lives in my garden in the summer and on the windowsill in my kitchen when it might freeze. Water regularly, cut off flowers, make sure your planter has drainage.

    • Anonymous

      Herbs are pretty easy. Mint is especially easy–make sure it has its own pot or it will take over everything. It will die back in the winter but come back on its own in the spring. I have rosemary, sage, and thyme in pots that will survive my southern winters outdoors as long as I keep them next to the house. Parsley, cilantro, and basil I start growing in the spring in my garden. The only thing I don’t have great luck with is dill because it doesn’t like the heat/humidity.

      • Anonymous

        Oh, and oregano also spreads rapidly–it now gets its own pot instead of a spot in my garden because it was taking over. It will also survive mild winters.

    • Anonnymouse

      Herbs are pretty easy! If you have a sunny spot, rosemary, thyme, oregano all are very hardy. Basil is easy too, just requires more water than the others, and will generally not grow back after winter.
      Where to you live? What’s your climate like, and are you looking to grow in a yard, pot, or windowsill? That will determine a lot.

    • London (formerly NY) CPA

      Love my Aerogarden. Fool proof.
      Basil grows really well. Thyme, rosemary, and tarragon are also good. Haven’t had much luck with parsley or cilantro. It’s often good to trim plants back, especially if they’re growing more straight up, rather than becoming nice and full. Also, consider plant heights when planting things together so that taller things don’t take all the light and crowd out the lower plants.
      Mint is a weed and will take over everything it touches. I have learned my lesson and it’s getting its own pot if I ever grow it again.

    • Cornellian

      Can you post what region/growing zone you’re in, and whether you’re in a house, apartment, have a balcony, etc?

    • OP

      Thanks everyone!! I am in southern CT and have a backyard. I literally know nothing, like where to buy or what to buy.

      • Anon

        You can buy at any garden center or even like a Lowes or Home Depot. Better to buy the small plants that are already growing, rather than seeds. If you buy and plant outside now, I think (but not sure) that they will likely die over the winter. Might be better to do inside plants now and plant outside in the spring. When you do plant outside, plant somewhere with about 6 hrs of sunshine a day (so partial sun). Indoors, you need a window that is sunny much of the day, and put the pots right by the window.
        You can try a bunch of herbs. When you buy them, they often have a little label stuck in the dirt that says if it likes full sun/partial sun, and how tall it will be; just put like things together. Don’t plant mint with anything else. It will take over everything around it. Put it in its own pot.

        • PolyD

          Also, for mint and basil, look up how to trim them. It makes a difference for whether you get nice bushy plants or leggy ones. There’s lots of instructions out there on the web.

          • Anon

            It’s unfortunately a bit late in the season for basil, but I agree. Every so often pinch back all shoots on your basil to two or three leaf sets down to keep it from bolting into bloom. You can make a basil plant last most of the summer this way (rather than lasting a few weeks)

            For this time of year in CT, I’d start with some windowsill plants maybe in an Aerogarden as others have suggested. Thyme, chives, and oregano are pretty foolproof in those things, and extremely useful for all kinds of cooking.

  15. Kelsey

    What’s the best mask to wear while working out? I’ve tried some that are touted as breathable but they don’t seem that way after awhile. I have the under armour sportsmask but don’t want to wear it because it was banned in the UK.

  16. TheElms

    Looking for something similar to the Old Navy Stevie maternity pants ( so basically ponte maternity pants). They are sold out and have been for a while. I’d prefer a full over the belly panel, but if something is great but only has the stretchy side panels and goes under the belly that could work too. Has anyone seen anything like this? I need a 12-16 or L/XL depending on how they run.

  17. heartbroken

    Thank you, anon, and the rest for this support. I absolutely am not lashing out at my mother. I see how awful this is for her. She’s working all day long to take care of him… and she’s lost her life partner. But yes, she lapses back into things that she is best at and is capable of, when I would really just like her to, for example, take him for a walk once a day. It would be therapuetic for both of them. And I don’t want him to take art classes – my idea was art therapy. But yes, it’s hard to find someone with that specialty, who wants to travel during COVID… etc. etc. I’ll look into some of the ideas offered here, but please keep any more coming.

    • Anonymous

      It would not be therapeutic for both of them to take a walk. Getting a patient with serious dementia out of the house and keeping him safe during the walk is a huge task, and it would likely cause your mother more stress with little to no benefit to your father. There is NOTHING wrong with “lapsing back into things she is best at and capable of”…that is likely the best thing for both of them. If you want to help your mother, get a home health aide so she can get a break or show up in person and take your father on a walk yourself. I’m sorry you’re going through this, but your instance over and over again that your mother should be doing more than she currently is is really off-putting coming from someone who is not your father’s primary caregiver.

  18. Sarah

    What are people wearing as wedding guests these days? And where does one shop for such a thing? I have completely lost track of fashion for any occasion during the pandemic. I’m going to a family wedding (indoor, ugh…) in a small Midwestern city next month, and feel like I really ought to show that I care by wearing a dress that my family hasn’t seen on me before. But a little at a loss. I can’t do strapless, but otherwise pretty open. The bride is having the children in the wedding wear leopard print dresses, so I get the sense that a wide variety of fashion senses will be present at this wedding…

    • Anon

      no one other than you will notice whether you are wearing a dress that your family has seen on you before, especially if the kids are in leopard print. perhaps wear a fancy mask?

    • No Face

      The beautiful thing about small Midwestern cities is that no one really cares. I recently attended a wedding, and the outfits were similar to what people wore before the pandemic. (Knee length dresses of varying silhouettes, jumpsuits). We all just threw on whatever fit and partied. One major difference is that there were very few high heeled shoes!

      I wore a sold colored shift dress with statement earrings.

    • Anon

      What type of venue and what type of “small Midwestern city”? My advice would be different if you’re talking about the Hilton in Beavercreek vs. Churchill Downs.

    • Anon

      I like to keep an interesting black dress in my closet that I can change the accessories with for different looks. Just got this one for some weddings next year, link to follow. It’s gorgeous in person and has an easy waist, which I’m all about these days

    • Anonymous

      I wore the same dress to the weddings of two nieces and a nephew from the same family. Nobody noticed.

    • Senior Attorney

      I’m mad at the bride for having an indoor wedding, especially if it’s not vax-only, but my hat is off to her for the leopard-print children in the wedding party!

        • Senior Attorney

          Of course I’m mad at the couple, but this post is about the bride specifically, most notably her fashion choices.

          • Anon

            The post is about the wedding, with a comment that the bride’s fashion choices include leopard print. What the flowers girls wear =/= venue considerations.

          • Senior Attorney

            Oh, my. This is why people are loathe to try to have fun on here…

          • Anon

            Alternately, you could have said, “Good point! Both parties are responsible for choosing the venue and throwing this party. Mea culpa.”

    • Anon

      Your family is not going to notice a new dress and they’re definitely not going to take that a sign you care.

  19. Anonymous

    Plus size moto jacket recommendations? I’m a tall hourglass shape. I generally hate pleather (makes me sweat), so that makes it a bit more difficult.

    • RR

      I got a gorgeous one at Nordstrom a few years ago, but I haven’t looked at current offerings. I’d start there though.

    • Anonymous

      Look at poshmark for Lafayette 148 on sale. Iro is amazing not sure if they go beyond size 10.

  20. Anon

    I would appreciate advice from any drs on the board how to handle an initial consult with a new doc.
    I have a dr’s appt next week to discuss hormonal imbalance and associated impacts (anxiety, brain fog). The data I have to back up my assumption that I have a hormonal imbalance is 4 years of period tracking that shows extremely irregular periods. I want the doc to take me seriously (because I want to resolve these impacts) and recommend the next steps on testing. What could I expect and is there anything I should ask for specifically?

    • Anon

      Not a doc, but consider changing the power dynamic here. Think of yourself as interviewing them – you’re looking to see if they meet your criteria for what you’re looking for in a healthcare provider. Don’t go in thinking you’re trying to convince someone you’re not crazy – that gives them the power. “Hi, Dr. Smith, would you mind if we just chatted? I’m looking for a healthcare provider to X. Can you tell me about your views?”

    • No Face

      I agree with the other poster that the initial consult is an interview. If this doctor does not take you seriously right off the bat, find another doctor. It can be a long process, but I finally have a primary care physician and specialists that listen to me, respect me, and give me good advice. Not something I take for granted!

      I would say, “I track my periods and they have been very irregular for four years. I also have side effects like anxiety and brain fog, so I’m concerned that I have a hormonal imbalance. What do you recommend?” Then monitor how he or she responds. A good doctor will ask follow up questions, raise other potential causes, and talk about recommended next steps. Good luck!

    • Patricia Gardiner

      Bring your data in an easy-to-read format. Succinctly describe your most worrisome symptoms, and be prepared with specific examples of things that worry you (“I feel off” is much different than “I had no recollection of a long conversation I had with my husband about when his mother was coming to visit.”). Don’t bring 100 difficult to read handwritten pages that list every time you ever had a funny feeling.

      • Anonymous

        Echoing this! Can you make a visual representation of how irregular your periods are? I once brought a bp scatterplot to an appointment and it was really helpful. Doctors are under such time pressure and that both shows you’re serious and makes it easy to digest quickly so they can move onto actionable steps.

  21. Anon

    I was recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and the more I learn about it the more I realize various issues I’ve been struggling with for years are likely attributable to fibromyalgia. The main thing I’m struggling with is: brain fog and chronic fatigue from not sleeping, and burning hot feet at night that keep me from sleeping. I think it may be restless leg syndrome because I also feel the need to reposition every 2 min- my legs and hips get super uncomfortable and hurt otherwise. Anyway, I know there are fibromyalgia sufferers here, if anyone has advice for managing these symptoms I’d love to hear it!

    • Anon

      If you weren’t tested by skin punch biopsy for small fiber neuropathy, you should know that 40% of fibromyalgia patients are testing positive for SFN in recent studies, so it may be worth pursuing; sometimes the cause of SFN turns out to be treatable. If hypermobility is a factor for you, I’ve heard the right PT can help.

    • Anon

      I have Fibromyalgia and while I tried many, many things, the one thing that helped the most was getting out of a stressful job. Once I moved to a less stressful job (I took a step down in my new job), my symptoms got so much better. This was more than just “managing stress”. But I know this is not an easy solution.

      The other things that do help with restless leg is taking magnesium before bed. If the RLS is really bad, taking some Advil helps too. I haven’t had to go on an RX for RLS using these two things.

    • Anon

      Low dose naltrexone. Lots of research online and guides for your doctor if she hasn’t prescribed it off label before.
      Cannabis helps with pain and better quality of sleep at night and everything improves from there.
      Some form of stress relief: I like yoga and guided meditation but I know that can induce eye rolls in the chronic illness community!
      Autoimmune paleo diet works for me, it’s made a huge difference and definitely worth the effort.
      Hope you find something useful.

  22. Anon

    Resume question for lawyers. Under what circumstances is it acceptable to leave a job off a resume? I recently left a firm I worked at for only 3 months. It was a really bad fit and I’d rather not discuss it in interviews, but also don’t want to appear like I’m misrepresenting my experience.

    • Anon

      I was always taught that you can leave off jobs that aren’t relevant or that you’d rather not discuss. If they ask specifically what you did in x year you should be honest, but a resume is a highlight of your most pertinent experience and I don’t think you have to include a job you held briefly that didn’t advance you towards your career goals. But I learned here that some people think that’s sketchy.

      • Anonymous

        It’s not just sketchy. A lot of job applications, including ours, explicitly require you to provide a complete employment history.

        • Sarah

          But a job application is different from a resume. I agree that when you’re filling out the form you have to list all your jobs, but a resume is a marketing document. I already pare out things like consulting work I did randomly just because of lack of space

        • Anon

          A resume is NOT a complete employment history, that’s the point. Once you get to a certain point in your career, you likely won’t be able to list all your jobs on one page and I assure you hiring managers don’t want your resume to run 3 pages so you can include all your college internships and jobs you held that weren’t relevant to the position you’re applying for.

          A job application that asks for complete employment history is completely different than a resume and I agree you should be truthful.

        • Anon

          Wow, really? NAL, so trying to imagine how I would do this if needed. Every job, ever? Like summers in HS and college, and all the odd jobs and retail I had to do to get through after the crash of 2008?

          • Anon

            Maybe a certain type of govt job? But the only time I’ve had to list everything since age 18 was for a bar exam application.

          • Anon

            Even government isn’t that bad. The fed gov security form only asks for employment that is within the last 10 years, but nothing before age 18. So, a 32 year old has to list jobs since 22 and a 25 year old has to list jobs since 18.

          • Anon

            GE required every job I held since age 18, including the date (not just year and month – date of the month) that employment started and ended. It was a stupid way to go about hiring.

          • Anonymous

            Most jobs don’t demand a complete employment history. The longest I’ve seen was 10 years and it had a caveat that you didn’t have to include internships or other jobs that were intended to last less than six months.

      • C

        Interesting. I worked at a job for about 6 months that was a bad fit. I’m job searching now and have some offers, and honestly was never even really asked why I left the bad fit project. My previous role was more prestigious anyways, and people often take like a sabbatical after it + the pandemic. So maybe in the future once I have a new job I can take this bad fit job off my resume.

      • Anon

        Agreed. It’s not quite the same but I’m 10 years into my second career and don’t list my first career jobs (or education) on my resume. I’m always honest when asked what I did during the apparent gap, but I found that listing my first career on my resume was distracting because people would get very focused on that. My first career was something that many people think of as prestigious and high-paying, and I found people who saw my resume with first career included assumed I was trying to get back into that career eventually (even when I’d been in my second career for years) or that my salary expectations would be out of sync with what they could offer. It was much easier to leave it off the resume and explain the situation in an in-person interview once I had my foot in the door and could talk about how much I enjoy career #2.

        I’ve been hired for multiple positions with this resume (with the first career stuff coming out during the hiring process) and no one has ever suggested I did anything improper.

    • Anonymous

      I don’t practice but do hire people into JD-preferred positions. If you concealed your most recent job I would suspect you were hiding the fact that you were fired for misconduct.

      • No Problem

        Really? That’s your first guess as to why someone would leave a short stint off their resume? You wouldn’t suspect it could be due to bad fit (with the job itself or with the new boss), health issues (the employee’s or a family member’s) that could require quitting, just not wanting to talk about it, or one of the other dozen of perfectly legitimate reasons to leave a job after a few months? If someone does have such a short stint on their resume, do you also assume that they were fired for misconduct?

        A resume isn’t an exhaustive list of all of your employment history. It’s a marketing document. People are free to market themselves in the best light possible, including leaving off jobs that were a bad fit.

        • Anon

          Agreed. A resume is a highlight reel that presents your most significant and relevant experience, not a sworn statement of every job you’ve ever had.

      • +1

        Agree with this. Particularly if at a law firm–people are going to ask what you did during that gap of time and it’s going to seem less genuine when you say “it wasn’t a good fit” instead of just including it and saying, “It was not a good fit, etc.”

        Maybe different for non-law jobs? Source: Sit on hiring group at my firm.

    • Anonymous

      I wouldn’t. They’ll find out as part of a conflicts check, and you don’t want to be that far down the hiring process only for it to fall apart.

      • Anonymous

        I think it’s okay to leave the job off your resume to get to the interview stage, but I do think you need to be very prepared to talk about it and maybe even bring it up proactively so you avoid any surprises at the conflicts stage.

        I usually am not a fan of legal recruiters for law firm jobs, but I think you could benefit from talking to someone reputable to get advice on questions like this and how to talk about the short term role.

    • Hollis

      I have a slightly different take. I don’t think you need to keep it on later on, but if this was your most recent job and the reason why you’re now looking for a job, I do think it’s relevant to the question of why you are looking for a job and why you quit before getting a new job. It does raise the question for me as the hiring person (just being honest here) because if I were in your shoes of being at a horrible place, I would still have tried to find another job while still employed. There is also the conflicts issue that someone else mentioned above. And also probably the ability for the interviewer to find out about this job (isn’t it on the bar website, aren’t you on the law firm’s website, linked in, etc.)? I think you stand to lose more from omitting it and would be better off practicing your framing of why you left (keep it short, focus on the positives of the new firm). Good luck!

  23. anon

    Do any Canadian readers have a good calculator/rule of thumb for determining whether it makes financial sense to break a mortgage and refinance at a lower rate? I’ve googled but am really having trouble assessing the pros and cons. The system is 110% different than the States, so Canada-specific advice would be best…

    In short, we are 2 years into our 5 year fixed rate at 2.54 – our break fee is around $13k. Looks like we could get a 5 year variable for around 1.3, or a 5 year fixed at a bit under 2. Remaining mortgage is around 660k. I can’t see any situation where refinancing makes sense, but I also haven’t been able to conclusively prove that to myself.

    • Anonymous

      Canadian here… back of the envelope calculation says yes, this is something you should do, as long as you can tolerate the risks on the variable mortgage. (I had nothing but variable mortgages in Canada). I look at it through the lens of how long it will take to recoup the fees to refinance.

      I am doing the math as you are saving 1.3% if you go to the variable mortgage.
      At $660k balance, you would save $8580/yr in interest under the new mortgage, and it would take approx 1.5 yrs to recoup the savings from the break fee.

      By the same calculation, it would take almost 4 years to recoup fees for the fixed mortgage, which seems less interesting to me.

      Actual math will be slightly less favorable as you will pay less interest as your balance declines.

    • anon

      No specific advice but we sold this summer with 18 months left in a 5 year fixed at 2.54 and the payout fees ended up being more expensive than we expected, even after estimating using the formulas on the mortgage docs.

    • A

      Canadian banker here, with the caveat I don’t work in credit but risk/ compliance

      We sold our house this summer, bought a new house mortgage free and neither me or my husband could figure out the penalty on the bank of an envelope

      We had our account manager calculate the penalty, there is some vague policy on the penalty is 3 months interest or the interest differential (either way we were miffed)

      Side note, we’re both staff at a large bank, been with the bank for 30+ years as clients. We owed $345000, 2.5 yrs left on our term and the penalty was $17, 000

  24. Monday

    Any comments on the recent news stories about men’s college enrollment falling even further behind women’s?

    I know this points to a lot of broader problems beginning in childhood, but I admit my first reaction was “great, now even a lower standard of mediocrity will be considered special for men, while women have to compete even harder against each other for the same opportunities.”

    • Anon

      I read some articles that said colleges are now doing affirmative action for men! I was horrified. I thought the whole point of affirmative action was to provide more opportunities to those who historically haven’t had them. White men have had plenty of opportunities. If women make up 60% of the top applicants, women should make up 60% of the admitted students. Men made up the majority for centuries.

      • Monday

        I had that thought too. “Isn’t affirmative action intended for disadvantaged groups? Men still hold the advantage in every context–now they get this too?”

        Apparently when the woman : man ratio on a college campus gets too high, the college becomes less attractive to all students. So obviously I can see why the school would do it. But…see above.

      • Anon

        Higher education institutions (excepting to a limited extent those with special missions like single gender colleges or religious institutions) want a student body that is diverse in many ways. The idea, of course, is that this increases the intellectual discourse and prepares students for the broader world. Gender could very well factor into an institution’s holistic review of applications in efforts to create a diverse student body. This is not “affirmative action” per se.

    • anon

      I think we want a society where everyone is able to pursue reasonable goals and achieve their “potential”, however that is defined. The article suggests that for a bunch of reasons, this may not be happening for some men and I do think that is concerning.

      More selfishly, I think having a bunch of disaffected, uneducated, hopeless men is bad for society – it means there won’t be enough quality partners for quality women, and lots more Trump supporters…

        • anon

          Sorry, the Atlantic has an article on this that is trending today, that’s what I was referring to. No link to avoid mod.

        • anon for this

          It follows up on a WSJ article from last week on the same subject, which had a very predictable “oh poor, white men, they are going to be outnumbered soon” angle.

          I agree that having uneducated hopeless men is not good for society. The question is whether or not men will hear the same message that women have heard for 3 generations now: that to succeed, you have to work your tail off.

      • Anonymous

        Are those men going to be more disaffected and hopeless if they have useless college degrees and work in dead-end jobs, or if they enter a high-demand career that requires training other than a college degree?

        • anon

          I think the focus on “college” is a bit of a misnomer – at least my understanding is that the decision not to go to college is also a decision not to do anything else for a substantial portion of these men, and often is reflective of limited educational attainment before that point. Like, it is very concerning if men/boys graduate high school in substantially lower number than girls/women, and the Atlantic article suggests that is also true.

          • PLB

            I haven’t read either the WSJ or The Atlantic articles but a friend gave me the rundown. I wondered, to your point, what these men who are foregoing college are doing with their lives instead.

      • Anonymous

        Your last paragraph is really classist. Just because a man doesn’t have a college degree doesn’t make him disaffected or uneducated or hopeless. I have many friends, family members, and clients who have very happy and successful careers in various trades and in the military. And btw I’m a biglaw partner who went to fancy schools, my clients have no problem paying my $1k/hr rates without a bachelor’s.

      • anon

        Yeah. Large numbers of disaffected young men is a recipe for very bad things in society.

        A lot of my second cousins are aimless working class recent high school graduates. What I mostly see is a lack of college-educated male role models. Their dads don’t have college degrees, there are few male teachers at their schools, and they live in working class communities were a lot of men have jobs that don’t require degrees. I think there is a subconscious perception of college as a women’s thing less than a men’s thing. School is also a pretty feminized space for a lot of them (female teachers, girls tend to be more successful and hold more leadership roles, etc.) and so you start getting this idea that education, generally, isn’t a guy thing.

        I want to see a society where everyone flourishes, so the fact that these guys have male privilege doesn’t matter a lot to me. But even if you don’t care about men on their own, you should care about them because we are all better off when more people in our society believe that they have a path to a successful and self-sufficient future. We need more male teachers, we need more male leaders who will promote education and post-high school career paths (whether 4-year college, community college, trade school, the military, or something else), and we need to think about how to reach young men who look at our post-industrial late capitalist society and do not see a path for them.

        • Anon

          Thank you for this. Also, a lot of kids don’t have great relationships with their dads, so not having male teachers until high school just adds to the problems.

    • Anonymous

      As long as colleges and employers aren’t applying gender quotas, this might be a good thing. I would want to see the impact on graduation rates and employment. A lot of kids get pushed to enroll in 4-year colleges who really shouldn’t go. They either drop out or end up underemployed, possibly with tons of student debt. If some young people are choosing to enroll in trade or technical school to pursue a solid career instead of floundering aimlessly during and after college, that’s a good thing for those young people and for the economy. The question then becomes whether more young women should also be choosing a non-college path, not just young men.

      • Nancy

        That’s what I’m wondering – if some men are going to trade school instead of college because thats a better fit, that sounds like a good plan.

        • Monday

          Totally agree with this, but in that case I want it to be an equally viable option for women! From all I read, it still isn’t. The trades can bring good money and security, but they’re rough for women to enter and advance in. Instead, non-academically inclined women may be in cosmetology, childcare, home health, etc. which are low-paying and not secure.

          • Anonymous

            So maybe our efforts should focus on increasing the number of women in the trades, not increasing the number of men in colleges?

          • Nancy

            This is a very good point! I work in a male dominated industry, but I still don’t think its as rough as it would be for a woman entering a trade, and thats not fair.

    • Anon

      Free advice: look to what white men are doing to see the where the money will be going in years to come. The top universities are gender-balanced, and STEM is still male-dominated. Graduates of those schools and STEM do quite well for themselves, even as college degrees are becoming overvalued. It’s the graduates of Podunk East Mountain Campus’ sociology department that are overwhelmingly female, which means that the money is no longer in having “a 4-year-degree” as seen in the “requirements” section of job openings. The money is in the trades or in work experience that comes from doing something, anything after graduating from high school and moving up; the degree isn’t paying for itself anymore.

      • anon

        While that’s true of one segment of men (and women), I think the concern about lower college enrollment for men is that a good proportion are not doing ANYTHING valuable with their time – they aren’t going into trades, they aren’t starting a business, not staying home to raise kids, whatever. They are just opting out of society because they feel it has nothing to offer them and, for some proportion, turning to drugs, alcohol, Q Anon, Trump, etc. to explain and soothe their lot in life.

        • Monday

          I’m concerned about this too. They may end up on 8Ch@n or in jail? Not useful to themselves, their families or their communities.

          • Anonymous

            And they wouldn’t end up there if they had gone to college and then come home to live in their parents’ basements and maybe work a minimum-wage job?

          • Monday

            No, they still might. I was responding to a comment about men who don’t do anything constructive as an alternative to college.

        • Nancy

          This is a valid concern. The thing is, if these men are not motivated enough to do any of the valuable things you mentioned, are they really going to be motivated enough to do well in college and put in the work to find a strong or fulfilling career after? I’ve heard this group called NEETs in the UK (I think?) but I’m not sure what the actual recommendations to get these people into something are.

          Its so disheartening that we have to think about how to babysit this group of men so that they don’t cause problems for the rest of us.

          • anon

            Agreed – I think viewing the skew in college enrollment is like a canary in a coal mine, and the solution isn’t to just let more men into college. Rather, the systemic issues that are leading men to not pursue opportunity (however that is defined – college, trades, etc. ) in early adulthood should probably be looked at by society, as women as a whole are better at pursuing what they perceive as “opportunity.”

          • Anon

            Don’t “babysit” them or act like their existence is a problem. Bring back manufacturing and see if that doesn’t solve half of your problems. Added bonus: American/European manufacturing is done in a way that is very protective of the environment.

          • Nancy

            Woman cannot innately or magically be better at pursuing “opportunity”. Women haven’t always had many opportunities, so perhaps they are now being raised to jump on it when it comes up. Men should also do that, especially if they don’t have other options.

        • PolyD

          I think these are all great points, but I am musing on whether low enrollment of women in college ever evoked concerns that they’d become hopeless and disaffected and dangers to society.

          • Nancy

            Definitely not! When there’s a male (white) mass shooter we hear about how he was bullied and had a tough childhood . . . but women are bullied and have tough childhoods and manage not to become mass shooters

          • Monday

            Of course not, you said it! But we do see a lot of puzzling and concern over numbers that women are marrying and having kids later or not at all. Pretty clear what the expectations are all around.

      • Anon

        Of course not, you said it! But we do see a lot of puzzling and concern over numbers that women are marrying and having kids later or not at all. Pretty clear what the expectations are all around.

    • Anon

      Oh goodie, more coddling. They’ve had the world handed to them on a platter for thousands of years, but whatever will they do if they aren’t prioritized anymore? LOL, get bent.

          • Anon

            The white male privilege of dying earlier, having a higher likelihood of winding up in jail, and being much less likely to earn a degree? Some men benefit from male privilege, especially those who are already privileged. I would rather be an ambitious man in finance than an ambitious woman in finance, but would rather be a working-class woman than a working-class man.

          • Anon

            I don’t think a lifespan of 78 vs 80 or whatever it is is front and center in most 18 year olds’ minds, but if you want to talk about lifespan and healthcare, there’s lot of evidence that women (especially women of color) aren’t taken seriously by the medical establishment and suffer and die preventable deaths because doctors don’t give their complaints the weight they deserve. The lifespan gap would likely be much greater if we got the medical care we deserved. Until the 1990s women weren’t even included in clinical trials! We just got medicines and vaccines dosed for men and if the dosing was wrong and caused unnecessary side effects or even death for us, so be it. Don’t even try to tell me men have it better when it comes to medical care.

            Men are told literally from birth that they can be anything and do anything they want. Teachers assume they are smarter and stronger, especially when it comes to STEM subjects. They’re not taught to subvert their personalities under the guise of “niceness.” Assertive boys are labeled with positive words like “leader” and girls who display the exact same behaviors are labeled with negative words like “bossy.” I can already clearly see the impacts of this already in my 3 year old’s preschool class and this is in a community of gender equality-conscious parents. It literally takes like 30 seconds of googling to find dozens of examples of the ways in which males benefit from privilege. There are studies that parents of boys most often google questions like “Is my son gifted?” whereas parents of girls most often google things related to appearance like “Is my daughter pretty?” You think that parental attitude has no impact on a child’s development!? Men’s worse outcomes (with respect to jail, etc.) happen DESPITE their privilege, not because of it. I’m sure the achievement gap would be even greater if society treated men and women more equally.

          • Anon

            “You think that parental attitude has no impact on a child’s development!?”

            Unload elsewhere. I never said that and I do not believe that; I just think it’s an individual problem, not a “male privilege” problem. My mother is 100% responsible for the sexist and cruel way she’s treated me, not “male privilege.” Beating down men isn’t going to fix her.

          • Anon

            All the evidence suggests this is a societal problem. Even people who believe they’re not sexist have implicit bias (and the same can be said of “good white people” and implicit racial bias). Please read the actual studies. You have no idea what you’re talking about, and there is abundant scientific evidence that contradicts what you’re saying. Even when parents work very hard to counteract these messages at home, it’s very hard to fully overcome the influence of society at large, teachers, peers, etc.

            I’m sorry for your experience growing up, but you have a lot of internalized misogyny if you don’t see that there are enormous differences in how society treats boys and girls. If we’re sharing anecdata, my mom sounds like the opposite of yours. She was one of the first tenured female profs in her field and she told me my whole life I could do anything and my gender was irrelevant. I still experienced countless forms of sexism before the age of 18, from teachers who told me I probably got into my top college because of affirmative action for girls to peers who told me boys would like me better if I acted dumber to sports coaches who told me I didn’t need to focus on school because I would have a husband to provide for me. I saw mediocre white boys “fail up” over and over again while smart, capable women got passed over for opportunities they deserved, or shamed for displaying the same assertive traits the boys did. Every accomplished woman I know has similar stories, regardless of how supportive her parents were.

          • Anon

            Anon at 2:32, CALM DOWN. Take a deep breath and stop unloading on me. I do not deserve it and you have no right to treat me this way.

      • Anonymous

        This is harsh but I sort of feel the same. I just can’t will myself to care, they can have a tiny violin.

    • Anonymous

      I’m really dismayed that low enrollment among men is being portrayed as a bad thing. Men have so many more opportunities than women for jobs that don’t require college degrees, of course women’s enrollment should vastly outnumber men. The choice for men is, do I go to college or explore trade school, the military, apprenticeship, union work, the list goes on. Those options arent exactly as welcoming to or enticing for women; the path to success is much narrower for us.

      • Anon

        My son is entering college this year and two of his friend group decided to “defer” college to try the trades. There’s a thing among Gen Z that college is a rip-off, the jobs their parents had aren’t there, they’re sick of sitting in school listening to The Man, and the trades pay $$ right now.

        Not sure why it’s not the same for their female friends, but in my junior in college daughter’s group, only one friend deferred college for a gap year that has become permanent, not to do a trade but to loaf around and take a break from school.

  25. Cora

    I currently have the title of Senior Analyst, but I’m considering taking a new job with the title Analyst. Do you think its worth asking for the “Senior Analyst” title. All these titles are wishy-washy in my field and it was probably inflated at my last place, and this is definitely a lateral move. Just think it might be weird on my resume to go from Senior Analyst the last 2 years to Analyst

    • Anon

      No harm in asking. A better title is free to the employer, so they may be more likely to say yes than if you ask for more money or benefits.

      • Anonymous

        No, a title is not free to the employer if it’s tied to a pay band. And I have never heard of titles not being tied to compensation.

        • AZCPA

          This totally depends on the size and industry of the company! While large corps are super likely to have paybands like you reference, so many small places don’t.

        • Anon

          I think this is highly dependent on the organization. Large ones may have pay bands tied to titles, but most smaller organizations don’t, in my experience.

    • Cora

      Follow up: If I don’t get it changed, would that be a reason not to take a job?

      • Anon

        Depends how badly you otherwise want the job and what they are offering that might offset it, but yes, I’d be generally reluctant to take a title demotion.

      • Anon

        If you’re moving to a company that carries prestige on your resume, or if you have the chance to learn new and more relevant skills at the new job, take the new job. In the future I would just say “analyst” as the title for each job so that it doesn’t look like a demotion. It will be seen as stepping into a more challenging role.

      • Anon

        I don’t think anybody else can answer that for you. Title isn’t going to be the only thing people look at when you eventually move on to other roles. What you do should be more important to future employers than what you were called.

    • The Frenchie Is My Favorite Kid

      It’s OK Not to be Ok on netflix is THE BEST (finished last year)
      My Roommate is Gumiho is ridiculous and just started
      Marriage ft Divorce on Netflix is amazing for fashion

      I could go on and on! haha

      • Anon

        I can’t find “Marriage ft Divorce” on Netflix, and I can’t figure out which series you’re referring to. That’s a typo, right? Can someone help?

    • Anon

      Yes! Love it. Can’t wait for it this weekend.

      Recently been stuck on the sofa holding a sick baby all day (literally) and have watched a lot of Kdramas. Deserter Pursuit, Move to Heaven, and You Are My Spring were both surprisingly good too.

    • Anonymous

      Buy a brand-new house with enough rooms for two home offices, furnish said house, and order a handmade 14K Muramatsu flute with offset g, open-hole keys, split E, and C# trill. Just hypothetically.

    • Anon

      Pay taxes (womp womp). Now I have, I dunno, $700k? I’d save at least $500k and put the rest towards fabulous vacations and building a sunroom addition on our house. I’d try to give some to my parents but they wouldn’t accept. But I think I could convince them to let me take them on some $$$$ vacations.

      • Anon

        My imaginary million is an inheritance on which no taxes are owed, so I am dreaming bigger than $700k, lol.

      • Anonymous

        A windfall like this would take our expected family contribution for college from close to $0 to $300k+. We could afford it if we inherited $1M, of course, but we could also afford the $300k now. It’s interesting to me how an affluent family can pay almost nothing at certain schools (since your primary residence and retirement savings are generally excluded when looking at your assets) but any non-retirement savings are held against you pretty much dollar for dollar. A $300k inheritance could actually result in a family like mine being worse off than before the inheritance as far as college tuition goes.

        • Anonymous

          This is wildly inaccurate. The EFC formula takes something like 3% of parents’ non-retirement savings each year, but something like 30% of “discretionary” income. Pretax retirement savings are excluded from assets but are penalized in the income calculation (the entire amount of the pretax deduction is added to income, even though if it weren’t being directed to retirement savings it would be reduced by taxes).

          • Anonymous

            Our income is under the threshold at which free or deeply discounted tuition kicks in at many elite private collages, and these are the schools our child is looking at. We have high assets relative to our income level (almost $2M in retirement accounts and a house worth $600k+), but none of that is counted against us because of the sheltering of retirement accounts and primary residences. I’m just quoting what we’ve been told by multiple college admissions and financial people – that our expected family contribution is likely to be somewhere between $0 and 10% of our income based on our current assets, but that would all change if we had significant non-retirement savings and we would be expected to spend down those non-retirement assets first.

          • Anonymous

            Most people whose income is low enough for an EFC of 0 don’t have space in their budgets to save enough to amass that kind of net worth.

          • Anonymous

            That’s not the point. The point is that retirement assets are sheltered and non-retirement assets are not, so getting a sudden windfall like this could result in a much bigger college bill for some families. A college doesn’t care if you have $500k or $5M in assets, if you have significant non-retirement assets you generally have to spend those down before you get any aid. Someone who had nothing saved for retirement would be in the same situation I am, in terms of how a windfall would affect their expected family contribution.

            Also I don’t agree with your conclusion about how anyone with an EFC of close to zero won’t be able save that much. Elite private colleges offer significant aid to families earning less than like $150k, so you can be doing pretty well for yourself – especially in a LCOL area – and still qualify. In my small Midwest city, most doctors, lawyers, CPAs and university professors earn less than that. It’s obviously a different story if you have to spend $1M+ on a house, but in a place where a nice house costs $200k, a professional earning $100k can easily amass significant retirement savings.

    • Anon

      Renovate our house and build the addition ($700k) and buy my mom a house ($300k).

    • Anonymous

      Assuming $1mn on a post-tax basis, spend $10-20k on a fun splurge, create a giving plan for about $25-50k, and put the rest into savings for longer-term goals (including longer-term charitable giving).
      While not $1mn, I received an unexpected payout of $400k this year (on top of normal salary and bonus) and spent about $10k of it on fun things, donated $25k, and put the rest into savings, so I know from what I speak, haha. (That being said, I already own my apartment, a car, and have no debt, so I couldn’t think of anything I needed to spend a large amount on.)

    • Anonymous

      Hire historic master craftsmen to finish my home, pay off my mortgage, then get a dog.

    • Anonymous

      Buy a house with a dedicated office space. (Note that in my market, that would take the million plus the equity I have in my current house…)

    • Anon

      Nothing. Put it in Vanguard, figure out the tax implications, and let it gel for a year or two while I get my head on straight.

    • Anon

      Assuming that’s after taxes, I can now afford a 3 bedroom 1.5 bath home with a parking spot and a small backyard in the neighborhood where I grew up and have lived my whole life. I will have a mortgage but one I can actually afford. I am ecstatic.

      If that’s before taxes, then I pay them, sigh, invest it and add to it diligently until I save enough to be able to afford said home.

    • Senior Attorney

      Breathe a sigh of relief that I don’t have to worry about my dad outliving his money.

    • No Problem

      Pay off my house (my only debt), then quit my job and get a much less stressful part time gig where I can still earn some money. Spend the rest of the time volunteering or on hobbies. $1M isn’t enough for me to retire on, but it will certainly get me much closer to my goal and if I can get rid of half my expenses (housing) I sure as heck don’t need a full time job.

    • Anon

      Upgrade my house or at least furnish it more and do some landscaping projects. This market is crazy. So maybe sit on at least half of that money until market dies down. My house is pretty nice but the houses I love in my neighborhood are 150K or so more than I want to spend (and including equity of my $500K house). Take a nice adult vacation ($10K). Put the rest in savings, including college savings for my kids. Try for another kid.

    • Anonnymouse

      Pay off all mine and fiance’s debt (except our house), let him quit his job so he can finish school this year without working, remodel some small parts of our house, get a housecleaner, save some for our honeymoon next year, invest the rest. Probably earmark some for donations and family.

      • Anonnymouse

        We’re getting married next year – so I would love to mostly put the money toward us starting our life off together on the right foot and with minimal stress. Would love to bulk up our retirement savings since both of us haven’t been able to do much of that up to this point.

    • CHL

      You all – we have such practical responses to a fun question! I guess a million dollars isn’t what it used to be. Would your response be different if it were $10m? $50m? My responses now would be in the vein of the ones above – but if I truly had some F U money, I would pay off all my siblings and parents’ mortgages and college tuition, buy a home with a lazy river and go on a trip around the world with geeky historical and food guides!

      • PLB

        With 10M I’m definitely balling out first and being practical later.

        What does everyone here want?! My hypothetical self’s got it!

      • Anon

        Maybe unpopular, but with 10M I would still save most of it. I’ve seen how expensive end of life care can be, and I want to do everything I can to avoid burdening my kids. 50M is way more than I would ever need, and my instinct would be to give most of it away. Immediately, not just in my will. I love to travel and I love luxury, but I don’t know how I could ever spend $50M on travel, nor do I think that would be a good thing for the environment or society for one person to spend all that money on private jets and second and third homes. Part of what makes traveling special is that it’s different than everyday life and not something you get to do that often. If you’re on a different continent every week, I think it would get boring, just like anything else. And if you’re only taking a handful of trips every year, they can be pretty damn fabulous on waaaaay less than $50M. I also have no desire for a second home – thanks to a family home my mom inherited, I’ve seen how much work it is to maintain one, and I’m also not a fan of returning to the same place over and over again. I like traveling to new places and staying in nice hotels.

        Sorry, I’m a wet blanket I guess, but I just don’t fantasize about having this kind of money. Would I love it if our household income doubled or tripled and we could do fancier travel and save more and give more to charity? Sure. But I don’t need or want $50M and that kind of wealth is sort of obscene to me.

      • BF

        I’d buy a house at Blackberry Farm, reduce my practice to ~50% or less, have several babies. :)

      • Anonymous

        I think that’s just a sad commentary on how little money a million dollars actually is in the grand scheme of things anymore. It barely purchases a college education. It may not purchase a house of any real size in some places. It definitely makes things easier and nicer, but it is probably not enough to dramatically change the lives of many on this board.

      • Anon

        My brother is 45, never moved out of his childhood bedroom or worked a day in his life, and my dad gives him money out of his pension to go out and get loaded every night. Nobody in my family is ever getting a dime from me to support their awful choices, however many digits the windfall has.

    • anon

      Pay taxes, pay off my SL and mortgage, buy a fancy campervan, then continue to work in my current job while exploring and actioning my next career pivot. I don’t love what I do, it’s fine, but I am sure there is something out there which would be more enjoyable to me but which pays less. Without my mortgage and my SL debt, I would be debt free and could definitely have a good life with a lower salary.

      • anon

        Should have noted that my SL and mortgage combined are about $250k, so I would have a lot left, but not enough to retire early! I’d invest a good portion of it and then also amp up my savings a bit for my own comfort.

    • PLB

      (Hopefully $1M post-tax). I’d put a large down payment down on a new build and furnish it for about $450,000, save at least $250,000, invest at least $100,000, take my daughter and mom on a splashy vacation to Europe, pay off the mini’s state 529, and give $25,000 to a charitable cause.

    • Anon

      Decide to move out of the Covid-festering, hellscape that is my native state because now I can afford to maintain my lifestyle somewhere I have more shared values with people.

    • Anonymous

      Pay off my husbands remaining student loans ($75k), save $300k for kids’ college accounts, down payment for a house ($300k), and take a really fantastic vacation.

    • IL

      Plan a fancy destination wedding and pay for our friends and family to attend instead of the current plan of a trip to the local courthouse without any witnesses we know.

      And then invest the rest, of course.

    • Anonymous

      – Pay taxes: assume I now have $700k.
      – Pay off remaining mine/spouse’s school loans: Now have $450k. (Yes, we have too many loans; we’re working thru PSLF.)
      – Pay off remaining mortgage (our only non-school debt): Now have $350k.
      – Fully fund daughter’s undergrad education (she’s little, we’d buy a pre-paid plan): Down to $230k.
      – Whole bunch of home upgrades we’d otherwise do differently/do over time (these include changing our house over to geothermal energy and several smaller projects): Probably have $100k left.

      We’d put that all into savings and plan on wonderful, memory-making annual family vacations (we have a goal to visit all 50 states with our daughter before she graduates high school) and would see my far-away family more often. Note that we are already disciplined about our retirement savings and would be more so without our mortgage.

    • Anonymous

      But the room and board couch I want. The one that is so expensive, that I can’t justify it.

      Take $10k to Thomas Moser and get dining room chairs that are beautiful!

      Invest the rest.

    • Anon

      I’d quit my job and spend more time volunteering, reading and exercising. We could live very comfortably on my husband’s salary (and he loves his job and doesn’t want to quit) so I work for two reasons: 1) to afford fabulous vacations that would be a stretch on his income alone, and 2) to protect myself in case we ever divorce. $1M invested wisely would fund plenty of vacations, and would be enough of a nest egg that I’d be much less worried about getting back on my feet financially if we divorced. Fwiw, I make much less than most people here (<$50k pre-tax).

    • Debt/House

      Pay off debt, fund downpayment for a new house (instead of doing various needed repairs to ours!), buy a new car (dire need), and travel to some of my fave spots.

    • RR

      Pay off debt, book a very, very nice vacation, buy each person in the family one really nice fun item of choice (e.g., awesome lego set for the kids, coveted bag for me), invest. Maybe do a master bath remodel.

  29. Anon

    Did anyone else listen to the U.S. Gymnasts testify before the senate? I thought that all of them were brave to come forward and I am still sickened to know that Larry Nasser was allowed to abuse so many girls for so many years. It is truly disgusting how the system protected him all of these years.

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