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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
The print on this top from Love by Design is one of those things that’s not for everyone, but it’s for you, it’s really for you. I love the mock neck and pearl buttons at the back.
I would lean into the retro print and pair it with some high-waisted flared trousers.
The top is $29.97 at Nordstrom Rack and comes in sizes XS-XL. It also comes in two other bold prints.
Sales of note for 8.30.24
- Nordstrom – Summer Sale, save up to 60%
- Ann Taylor – 30% off full-price purchase; $99 jackets, dresses & shoes; extra 50% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50-70% off everything + extra 20% off
- Bergdorf Goodman – Final Days Designer Sale, up to 75% off; extra 20% off sale
- Boden – 20% off
- Brooks Brothers – Extra 25% off clearance
- Eloquii – Up to 60% off everything; extra 60% off all sale
- J.Crew – 40% off sitewide; extra 60% off sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – Extra 20% off orders $125+; extra 60% off clearance; 60%-70% off 100s of styles
- Lo & Sons – Summer sale, up to 50% off (ends 9/2)
- Madewell – Extra 40% off sale; extra 50% off select denim; 25% off fall essentials
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Rothy's – End of season sale, up to 50% off
- Spanx – Lots of workwear in the big sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – 25% off regular-price purchase; 70% off clearance
- White House Black Market – Up to 70% off sale
Anon
I love this but I can’t risk the mid drift gap for work *cries*
Anon
You couldn’t wear a slip or body suit or similar underneath? I might even have a full fledged dress I could pop this on over though I’d have to see if the waists lined up.
Anon
Not the OP but same thought.
My long torso could only make this work under a vest or dress, something long enough to reliably cover my midriff on its own over top of this. I would look like a color blocked sausage trying to wear something underneath to fill that gap.
Cat
Same. On me this would look like a weird mashup of the 1960s and like, the kind of snug jacket thing that Jane Austen characters would wear that stopped just under the bosom of their empire waist dresses!
Anon
OP here, could I? Sure. Would I be comfortable doing that? No. Would I constantly be pulling at the top and wondering if someone thinks my nude colored underlayer is my skin vs clothes? Yes.
TLDR: I want to wear clothes that don’t require extra close and constant diligence/stress on my part. Not worth it to me.
anon
Preach. I don’t have the patience for that anymore.
Anon
In case it helps, your under layer should match your pants, not your skin.
Anon
That’s great in theory except that so many tops are see through so if I add a navy underlayer under this patterned top and the white bits are see-through then it adds a whole other level of wonkiness that makes me even more mad than when all I thought I had to do was add a nude colored underlayer!!
Anon
I’m beating a dead horse but having the same color camisole or bodysuit as your pants makes it look intentional, even if it shows through. I was once styled for a work event by an actual professional stylist, and this is the biggest piece of advice I took away. It always, always works, even with a sheerish white blouse, which is how I was styled for that event.
JD
Exactly, this is the kind of purchase I regret. At the end of the day, I wear the easy clothes in my closet. I’m tired and in a rush most days. Adding trickiness isn’t worth it.
Anon
I have a 3 inch torso, so it may work for me. But YAAAS I am here for the print.
anon
I love this too but also tall so I don’t think it works. But that print!
Anonymous
I’m not sure where I’d wear it, but I am really tempted by the maxi dress version:
https://www.nordstromrack.com/s/love-by-design-rebel-twill-maxi-dress/7325023?origin=category-personalizedsort&breadcrumb=Home%2FBrands%2FLove%20By%20Design&color=002
Anonymous
That dress would be heading my way but for the puff sleeve. Just not an option for me but I am in favor if you can.
Anonymous
:) on the flip side, the sleeves are part of the selling point for me. I love the wrist too.
Anonymous
Yes. Good. It’s just a body-type thing. I love it and would honestly wear it anywhere and everywhere.
Anon
Love that! And I’d wear it on a resort vacation, or frankly, to work for something fun.
Anonymous
Hmm, maybe I should buy it to manifest a resort vacation…:)
I am stewing on how I could make it work for work….At first I was thinking that layering the right sweater would work (since it’s a shirt dress the collar popping out at the top would be fun) but then the sleeves don’t work with that.
Anon
I plan to just a e it for spring and wear on it’s own with heeled sandals, if that helps :)
Anon
I’d wear it to a wedding.
Anonymous
Right? Alas I have zero weddings in my future.
Anon
Right? Alas I have zero weddings in my future.
Anon
I’m here for the print, but the way it doesn’t match along the back seam sadly disqualifies it for me…
pbj
A link to share some nuance/opinion from the Anne Frank House re: criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism for those who see the issue as black and white.
https://www.annefrank.org/en/topics/antisemitism/all-criticism-israel-antisemitic/ – good read
AIMS
Thanks for sharing.
I thought this piece in the Atlantic was also great and much more thoughtful than most things I’ve read, both for context and how the issue is being taken up: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/decolonization-narrative-dangerous-and-false/675799/
Teeth whitening strips
Teeth whitening strips – do they work and which ones do you recommend?
I get staining on my teeth within weeks of dental cleanings, even though I rinse after drinking coffee, use an electric toothbrush, floss, interdental brushes and mouthwash. Stains are mostly near the gumline. I’m not primarily looking to whiten the whole teeth, actually, but to get rid of that stain near the gumline.
Would whitening strips even work in this situation?
Anonymous
About 6 months ago I switched to hydroxyapatite toothpaste rather than fluoride. It has been a game changer for keeping my teeth white and reducing sensitivity.
Teeth whitening strips
Wow, that is something new to me, will look into it.
Anon
It’s so much better cosmetically, and the studies seem to show comparable efficacy, so I’m a convert.
Anonymous
Interesting! Brand recommendation?
Anonymous
Personally I use X-Pur Remin, but I’m sure there’s lots of other great brands too
Anon
My favorite was a Korean one I can’t find anymore. I used to have get them from UK, Italy, Korea, or Japan, but there are a ton of stateside brands now, more than I can keep up with. The one I have right now is Biorepair.
Anon
I lied; the Biorepair is gone. It’s Bioniq.
Anony
+1 I use Dirty Mouth Tooth Powder by Primal Life Organics (purchased via the river store) and it’s amazing. My sensitivity is almost completely gone and it got rid of the staining around my 30 year old veneers (knocked my baby front teeth out and it stained the adult teeth, hence the veneers). It has nano-Hydroxyapatite in it, plus bentonite clay and some other things (I prefer the peppermint flavor). I use it at night then use a regular fluoride toothpaste in the AM. Highly recommend.
Anon
Do you have buildup near the gumline that you need to clean off better?
That is why I prefer a manual toothbrush personally. The electric ones never have the right shape to get in all the tight spaces in my mouth and I can feel the gunk they leave behind with my tongue.
Teeth whitening strips
I go over the area pretty diligently, but I can try paying more attention to that.
Anon
My gumline stain is actually from exposed dentin that stains more easily than enamel, but I assume the dentist would have mentioned it if that were the issue!
Teeth whitening strips
I will have to ask next time, since it does look like a specific area is affected on the tooth.
go for it
1x a week you can wet your toothbrush, dip in baking soda & use that. (I add a bit of toothpaste too for taste).
I learned that tip from Julia Roberts ha ha
Teeth whitening strips
Interesting. Would this not damage the enamel, though?
Go for it
Many years later still great dentist reports :)
Anon
Counterpoint, my friend has permanent grooves in her enamel from DIY baking powder whitening.
anon
I’ll be in Zurich for 1.5 days before heading to Lucerne in a few weeks. Any recommendations for what to see or do or eat in Zurich for a day?
Posting again from yesterday afternoon-thanks for the responses I got!
editrix
I did a quick Zurich circumnavigation from the train station with Viatour, and a walking tour through the old city. Both were informative and interesting. The Frietag flagship is a bit out of the way but it’s a stack of shipping containers and fun to visit.
CMS
Lunch at Confiserie Sprungli (upstairs) and shop for treats in the downstairs
Dinner at La Pasta was lovely (needed a reservation)
A self-guided walking tour (this one looks good: https://jennamorrissey.com/zurich-walking-tour/)
AnoNL
My friend is local and a big foodie and took us to a Peruvian restaurant (among many other places). Low key, but the food was delicious. Several years after, I am still dreaming about it. The name of the restaurant is Barranco.
I was there in early September, weather was great and we did lots of walking and eating in the city, swam in the river and went for a hike to a nearby mountain.
Anon
If any of you has bought black lower-heeled or flat boots this year and loved them, what did you get? Puppy chewed up my pair.
Chl
What shaft height? I have been loving my cole haan Hampshire flat boots but they are ankle.
Anon
OP. I don’t even know. Mine were mid, not ankle, but they are older and I wore them even if they aren’t current. So I’m open. Low fat heel or flat is more important to my feet. I decided to just go with what I had vs try to figure out what boots work with the various sorts of pants and dresses that are current. Pants are IMO harder to figure out but I guess my time has come.
Anon Elder Millennial
I have had the 2019 version of the Cole Haan Greenwich bootie and I wear them most days November-March and they are amazing. I get them professionally cleaned and the heel redone at the end of each season. If my puppy ate them, I would order new ones the same day. They don’t really go on sale that I’ve seen.
Runcible Spoon
I LOVE my Ariat brand Scout Paddock boots, which are technically lace-up riding boots, but I don’t horseback ride, I just use them with slacks or dresses and I can walk for miles in comfort! Here is a link: https://www.zappos.com/p/ariat-scout-paddock-black/product/8586056/color/3
Anonymous
I am 17 weeks pregnant after multiple losses, so have been incredibly cautious about basically everything, but I am finding it shocking the number of women I know who seem to be okay with regular drinking (1-2 glasses of wine per week) throughout pregnancy. These are all women similar to me (relatively well-off, highly educated, professional) and all seem to cite the book “Expecting Better” as evidence or support for why drinking regularly isn’t a problem, but I am skeptical.
I have been reading a lot about how FASD and ADHD present very similarly in children, and there’s been recent discussions here about the stark increase in the rate of diagnosis of ADHD in children and adults. Does anyone else worry that it’s actually just FASD, rather than ADHD? And that the rate of adult diagnosis is also just people whose mothers drank in pregnancy but went undiagnosed as children because FASD used to be classified and diagnosed differently?
Anonymous
No no no stop this nonsense
Cat
lol my first reaction to this whole post was hot d-mn I’ll be doing a lot of ‘collapse all’ today.
Anne-on
Seriously. Also this post smacks of ‘autism mom’ content where somehow the very worse thing that can happen to you is to have to parent a neurodivergent kid.
Anon
What? No. There is no safe amount to drink when pregnant. And I smoked when I was pregnant, which was terrible is a different way.
Anon
Exactly. Micromanaging other women’s pregnancies isn’t going to make your own any better.
Anon
Do I worry about any of this? No.
If I were to become pregnant I wouldn’t drink. I’m sober anyway but when I was drinking, I would have quit if I became pregnant. I also am fine letting other women do what they think is best for them and their families.
Anon
I am surprised at the women defending drinking when there is so much hate for smokers. Alcohol is worse than crack or smoking.
Anon
I’m sorry for your prior losses.
I think that this likely is just a bunch of things happening at the same time vs a firm case of causation. Look at people in their 40s and 50s: their mothers likely smoked and drank. Kids are diagnoses more with ADHD because we now know more about it, including that girls can have it and it’s not just disruptive boys. That is a good thing — early interventions may really help those kids think that they are differently wired versus stupid, and they and their families may not view them as people that it’s OK to give up on.
My understanding from a friend who is a neonatologist and my mom and sister who are special Ed teachers is that FAS often has effects at the most alcoholic end of the spectrum for mothers. Are you sure you see celebratory drinking vs what happens 7 days a week over 40 weeks?
anonymous
My understanding is that it’s a spectrum disorder, so while your mother and sister are probably seeing the most severe cases of FAS, which is where people have central nervous system issue and physical signs of the disease, e.g., facial features, and growth problems as well as the neurological difficulties like memory, learning, attention span, etc., there’s a host of other symptoms that don’t present as strongly as FAS. A lot of these symptoms are things like hyperactivity, attention span difficulty, speech and language delays, sleep problems, etc.
And yes, in my view this is not “celebratory drinking” unless a weekly date night and relaxation drink at home are cause for celebration. I think it just brings to light the fact that so many women in my social circle/demographic have a relationship to alcohol that probably isn’t healthy, but it’s cloaked in a veneer of acceptability because it’s a rich white woman ordering a glass of wine at a fancy Manhattan wine bar, not a younger woman ordering a well drink at a dive bar.
Anonymous
If you hate your friends make new ones. There is no evidence that a glass of wine from time to time is a problem.
Anonymous
Oh come on, she didn’t say that she hated her friends. Lighten up, it’s not like she’s saying these things to her friends.
FWIW, I wouldn’t drink while pregnant and a pregnant friend holding a drink would trigger a, “oh huh interesting” in my brain. It just would. Now I wouldn’t travel down the judgement lane, it’s really not my business at all and I trust my friends to make their own decisions, but in OP’s case since she’s currently pregnant, I see how she can get there.
Anonymous
This isn’t how I speak about people I like!
“so many women in my social circle/demographic have a relationship to alcohol that probably isn’t healthy, but it’s cloaked in a veneer of acceptability because it’s a rich white woman ordering a glass of wine at a fancy Manhattan wine bar”
Anonymous
You might not speak that way about them, but it’s really not hateful to muse on the thoughts anonymously on an Internet forum.
Anon
I mean, this happens in Utah also and that population drinks very much less than the other 49 states. Lower FASD is just not a Dx I’ve seen kids have like AHDH and autism.
AIMS
No. I think we are just diagnosing ADHD more and I think that at some point maybe even over diagnosing it because if everyone has it, does anyone have it? (i know some people actually have it, my point is more rhetorical).
There is also a host of other factors that can contribute from environment to maternal age. Have you actually read Expecting Better or are you just skeptical theoretically? Oster talks about a lot of this. One of the points she makes (unless I read this elsewhere) is that you could expect different rates of diagnosis in Europe, where a bit of wine is not as stigmatized, if this was a factor and you don’t have that.
Anonish
No, to be honest, other women drinking or causes of ADHD isn’t something I worry or worried about while pregnant. Pregnancy is a very stressful time, and for all sorts of reasons, including medical history, causes more stress for certain people. There were things I absolutely worried about that others didn’t worry about, and vice versa. My best advice is that pregnancy really truly is the best time to run your own race. Find a medical professional you are comfortable with – doctor, midwife, etc – and do your best with the information you have available to you at the time. Other women will do the same, but you can neither control them nor change their views by assessing their behaviors. I also promise you with 100% absolute certainty that if your kids have kids, they will be shocked and appalled that women in our time were advised XYZ.
Anon.
This is a great answer.
I can totally see where OP is coming from, especially with a history of pregnancy losses. I would do the same, and I agree generally that there is a drinking culture in some circles tht I would consider questionable.
.
You are trying to do the best for your unborn child, and it’s so so easy to judge others for what they are doing or not doing. This starts at alcohol consumption, goes on to raw meats and fish, extends to what kind of fish and how much of it, to organic food and supplements etc etc. For me, I asked myself whether it would be a burden to not drink or eat certain things during 9 months, and the answer was a firm No, it was easy for me to avoid and easy to implement.
And unfortunately, pregnancy is just the beginning of what will be many many choices you will make as you enter the parenthood phase of your life. As you are probably aware from this page or the mom page, EVERYTHING is going to be a decision you will have to make: breastfeeding/formula/hybrid, daycare/nanny/stay-at-home, baby-led weaning vs purees (bought or cooked yourself from organic veggies), sleep training, screen time, enrichment activities, public/private/charter school, whether and when you will lean out of or into your career… I think you get my point.
It would be a great time to start getting really comfortable with your own decision making – of course seeking input from those you trust is always great, but you should take everything with a grain of salt, and also be ready to adapt your own views over time.
anon
This is so true. And tbh, I didn’t share any of these choices with anyone other my mom and DH, not even my closest friends. For example, I was on an SSRI and had to make a decision whether to stop or continue. I ultimately went ahead and tapered off with the help of my doctor, but I didn’t really talk about it with anyone in part because I wasn’t really interested in unsolicited opinions on this, which I knew even my closest friends would have.
Anonymous
I’m sorry you’ve had a rough journey. I don’t think that excuses judging other women. It’s truly insane to be blaming ADHD on moms drinking and lying about it. For goodness sake not everything is mom’s fault! As you know, “being careful”
Isn’t a magic bullet to no negative outcomes and “being careful” can cover up a lot of anxiety. I’d urge you to spend less energy judging how other women do life.
anon
Yes, this. I bristled at your comment a LOT, OP. My kid has ADHD. Like a textbook case of it, and life was very very very difficult before his diagnosis and before we got help (and medication). I can tell you, with certainty, that I didn’t drink a drop of alcohol during my pregnancy with him. And yet, of course I wonder, deep down, if it’s somehow deemed “my fault” or something I did.
Anon
I didn’t interpret the comment that way.
I don’t know enough about the data to know if a good link between ADHD and alcohol in pregnancy exists but even if such a link exists, it doesn’t mean every kid with ADHD has a mom who drank. That’s not how statistics work. You can say that something is risky and should be avoided because it increases the risk of a certain condition without blaming every person who has that condition.
Anonymous
Not the OP, just one internet commenter wanting to let you know that I never, ever have once known about a child with ADHD or autism and thought that it was caused by something the mother did during pregnancy and it was their fault.
Anonymous
Same. I do admit that I’ve met kids and not known they had adhd and thought they were badly behaved (and perhaps badly parented) but now I know many more kids and families and I have a kid with adhd myself now and everyone is out there doing their best.
Anonymous
I’m Anonymous/9:42 AM – one thing I’ll add, I’m childfree by choice. Still recognize all the parents are out there doing their best. There is at least one person in the world not judging you (or your kid) for your kids wild meltdown in a store, I promise.
Seventh Sister
Me either.
As a GenX, there were so many kids I knew that were diagnosed with nothing at all during the 70s and 80s (except maybe being “bad kids”) and would probably meet the clinical definition of ADHD. To quote Pedro Pascal on SNL, it was a “my son my just likes to jump” type of era. I’m glad kids are getting help now.
Anonymous
+1 same here for my AuDHD son.
Anon88
My best friend is a pediatric surgeon and she drank one glass of wine at events/occasionally throughout her pregnancy. Her doctor friends also did this without reservation. Also, if you look into the history of fetal alcohol syndrome, it’s largely socially constructed– that is, the original studies were on mothers who drank very heavily throughout pregnancy, and that the directive to not drink at all is overly cautious and because as a society we love to police the behavior of women–especially pregnant women.
And anecdotally my mom was one of those organic-only, never touched a drop of alcohol when she was pregnant types and I have ADHD. I think attributing it to drinking during pregnancy might be you trying to control something that you don’t have any control over.
Anon
I had an occasional glass of wine throughout both of my pregnancies. So no, I am not worried about it. It seems like an odd thing to worry about, frankly. I have too many friends who didn’t enjoy the early years of motherhood because they were consumed with anxiety.
Wine mom
Me too. I think 4 small glasses of red wine (one per sitting!) over my entire pregnancy. Only second and third trimester.
Why, you ask? Because it made me feel normal and not just a child vessel, and it went with the food.
I am a tall person with lots of muscle. I have always been able to handle alcohol well. I drank a lot of water with the wine and had it with a large meal. I did not feel effects, other than enjoying the taste.
My kid is 6 and in the gifted class.
You do you but I hated the policing of every morsel and the judgey stuff around pregnancy (and breastfeeding for that matter).
Anono
Same. I had a handful of glasses of wine at most over the course of my pregnancy. Usually with a very hearty meal, sipped slowly, and with plenty of water. It was so much about feeling like a normal human and not an incubator. I also drank while nursing.
I did the research and felt comfortable with the risk.
Anon
A reason I love working as a mom is that it gets me away from the mom-judging. I work in a mainly male field and it’s so liberating in many ways.
Anon
You’re my soul sister. Exactly this.
Anonymous
This post sounds so much like my gay friends who felt like they had a very difficult time getting pregnant and then spent the whole pregnancy being like “well I guess straight moms don’t worry about using foil in pregnancy cause it’s easy for them to get pregnant again” and “well when you only have one chance you don’t risk your baby’s life eating grapes.”
It’s an ugly attitude.
JD
I think pregnancy has so many things truly outside of your control that people go crazy if they’re at all prone to anxiety. With my first pregnancy, I was so worried about some awful genetic diagnosis being missed. I work in genetics and have heard the really sad, but rare stories. With my second, it was much more, let’s not think about that as there’s nothing to be done.
Anonymous
I don’t worry about this because I chose not to drink while pregnant.
That said, Emily Oster is obnoxious. Her basic argument that everything is a trade-off and women need to make an individual assessment of the risks and benefits of each choice is sound, but she and a lot of wealthy women use it to justify choices that have no benefit. Sorry, but nobody needs to drink while pregnant. There are other ways to relax. What is really sad is that the drinking thing makes it easy for doctors and society to dismiss the very real problem of women’s being treated as mere husks for their babies, which is what we should be focusing on.
Anon
You really disagree with the idea that risks are all tradeoffs and people should make an individualized assessment? Wow.
Anonymous
No, I agree with that 100%. The problem is that Oster twists this analysis into “I am gonna do whatever I want no matter how objectively stupid it is” and thereby makes herself a poster child for those opposing women’s autonomy and personalized risk-benefit analysis.
Also she is just a rich selfish whiny brat, as evidenced by her pandemic writings.
Anon
The thing about Emily Oster is that she’s very comfortable with trade offs that involve risks to other people.
Anon.
Exactly this.
Anon
There is a long list of things that no one “needs” to do that are nonetheless enjoyable, valuable, and mo one’s business.
Anon
No, I don’t worry about this. I think your anxiety is affecting your judgment.
Anon
Yup. It seems like you’ve had a tough journey and that might impact the way you assess risks. Other women may have had easier pregnancies/healthy deliveries and that could impact the way they make decisions too. Life isn’t fair or equal
Anon
You’ll get a lot of pushback, but I agree with you and if giving up alcohol completely for 9 months is a struggle, I think that person likely has an alcohol problem. I enjoy wine but pregnancy is a short blip in your life, and I didn’t see any upside to drinking while pregnant.
Anon
I think that advice in Expecting Better is misleading. When I had my kids there seemed to be a trend of people having a glass of wine or two to show how smart and modern they were just for the sake of it. I did not drink while pregnant. I’m not sure that FASD = ADHD, though.
Emma
I think Emily Oster actually explains this pretty well in the book – the short answer is that we don’t know how much alcohol is safe to drink in pregnancy, because testing that would be inherently unethical. So the official recommendation is to not drink at all, and Oster makes it clear that she’s not recommending drinking per se, just that everyone can make their own determination. I personally did not drink at all (except the night of conception, ahem) except once for a wedding in my third trimester, I dipped my lips in some champagne and had a tiny sip. But lots of people seem to think that a glass or two a week, especially later in the pregnancy, isn’t that bad, and my doctor said the same thing. My OBGYN SIL works in a community with high levels of alcoholism and said she’s seen some FASD, but we’re talking people who drink a bottle of vodka a day, so she basically also told me not to worry about the occasional small glass of wine.
I don’t think the increase in ADHD is correlated with drinking in pregnancy, especially since most women abstain fully these days (vs my parents’ generation) and yet ADHD is more prevalent/better diagnosed. But if you want to abstain fully you should! But also try not to judge other people unless they are guzzling alcohol or something. I think everyone gets to make their own decision, within reason.
Anon
But there are ways to test alcohol in pregnancy other than a randomized RCT, right? We do animal studies, we do observational and retrospective studies, we do in vitro studies, we do autopsy studies. We know that both alcohol and acetaldehyde are teratogens. We know that FASD is only one of the potential outcomes among many others.
Anon
I mean… the whole reason it’s inherently unethical is that we have so much reason to believe it’s harmful.
Emma
Sure, I don’t think anyone is denying that excessive alcohol is harmful. And Oster makes that clear in the book too. I think we don’t know exactly how much is harmful in humans and can’t test that accurately without giving some humans too much alcohol, which is obviously problematic. But several countries have guidelines that allow some alcohol consumption and they don’t seem to have more FASD. Clearly the safest choice is zero and again, if you choose to abstain completely, good for you.
In a perfect world we would all only do things we know are good for us, and pregnancy really adds to that pressure. I didn’t drink alcohol but I did drink coffee, have the occasional smoked salmon bagel, and do some gardening (the plant and flowers kind). I know people who had sushi. I know people who only ate fast food because it’s all they could tolerate. Pregnancy (and parenting) is a series of trade-offs because we are imperfect people in an imperfect world. If you don’t want to drink, great, but I hope my friends weren’t as judgy of my choices as OP is.
Anon
We know how much alcohol enters the bloodstream, where it goes and at what concentrations at different stages of pregnancy, as well as what concentrations can interfere with development. That research underlies the recommendations even though we haven’t actually deliberately asked people to drink alcohol while pregnant for research purposes. Though it is looking like we would have plenty of volunteers for a study if people are so willing to risk this.
Anonymous
Wait, you aren’t supposed to garden (the plants and flowers kind) while pregnant?! Honestly given the list of things you aren’t supposed to do while pregnant, it’s a miracle the human race has made it this far. (No kids here. No plans for kids).
Anon
Correct – no plants and flowers gardening.
Anon
My OB said gardening was fine as long as you washed your hands carefully after. I think the rec to avoid it is a little outdated, at least in the US.
Anonymous
Oster is the type to cherry-pick studies that support her preferred conclusion. She would likely harp “correlation is not causation!” against any observational study suggesting that alcohol consumption in pregnancy was harmful, and then in the same breath cite a random blog post as evidence that it was safe.
Betsy
Giving you permission to think that Expecting Better is not great, and certainly not the be all and end all of pregnancy books. I was very excited to read it when I got pregnant and I didn’t end up finishing it. Her approach is not my approach to pregnancy, that’s for sure! Also every anecdote that included her husband made me cringe. Overall, I think learning to embrace the phrase “good for her, not for me” is a big part of pregnancy and becoming a mom.
Personally I’ve chosen not to drink at all during pregnancy, but I had already gone through the phase of reevaluating my relationship with alcohol a few years ago and didn’t drink very much before pregnancy either. It wasn’t hard to give up! On the other hand, I’ve chosen to continue eating sushi from a couple of busy, well regarded restaurants that I’ve gone to for years. I think the benefits of fish outweigh the risks of sushi-grade fish that I trust to be high quality. Some of your wine moms might be aghast at that choice! We all make the risk/reward evaluation that makes sense to us based on what we know and value, and we all come to slightly different conclusions based on that.
Anon
Personally, I think it’s probably more due to chemical exposure in the environment. There have been a lot of articles lately about the dangers of flame retardants (to name just one) and effects on children, including hyperactivity. One of the problems that it’s extremely hard to study chemical exposure during pregnancy (dozens of overlapping exposures, you can’t do an RCT, etc) so I don’t think we’re going to have answers anytime soon.
Anonymous
re ADHD being so much more common — don’t forget about the fact that some of the commonly used dyes in food are linked to hyperactivity.
and you can also think about all the other things that have changed over the years – screentime all the time, unregulated supplements and chemicals in makeup, environmental chemical exposure, dry cleaning… (this is where some will add, vaccines, but that theory has been thoroughly disproven as absolute bunk)
plus — when your grandmother carried your mother, your mother already had the oocyte that would one day become you — so it might be linked to what grandma was exposed to or drank.
Anon
You doing everything perfectly won’t make your child perfect.
Anon
I think a huge factor in increased ADHD symptoms is screen time and kids with screen additions, but I also agree that a lot of women in my demographic have issues with alcohol. Whether one drink/week contributes to FAS, I don’t know, but not being able to give up that one drink/week when you are pregnant when there is any chance that it does is, in my opinion, a problem.
Anon
*addictions.
Anon
+1 to all of this
Anon.
Agree.
Anon
My understanding is that FASD and ADHD are both distinct and distinguishable, but FASD is a risk factor for ADHD. But surely people still drank more when pregnant than they do today? I think the adult diagnoses are more because a whole generation of girls with ADHD was missed.
I will say that, when I was being assessed, the neuropsychologist had a lot of questions about maternal drinking and the attitude was definitely not that light enough drinking would be irrelevant. (I think this came up because I have another relevant disability and because I was struggling with overstimulation and have 0% sensory seeking tendencies.) I read about this some and it looks like you can just draw the short straw on timing; a very small amount of alcohol at the exact wrong moments of fetal development can still have an impact.
My impression is that Emily Oster has built a career on playing games with stats to tell people what they want to hear (she has had so many other bad takes; this is just one of them). I don’t remember her argument, but maybe she just feels that the odds are low that the timing will be bad? Epidemiologically though, surely people used to drink more while pregnant overall than they do today! So I still think the high rates of adult diagnoses at least in women probably have more to do with how it was missed in girls when we were young.
There was recently a somewhat distressing study correlating adult ADHD diagnosis with dementia risk. I’m not sure if that’s from going so long without medications or what.
Anon
Her argument always seems to be “if we don’t have overwhelming, unanimous proof it’s bad, it’s probably ok if you want to do it.” That’s troubling for all kinds of reasons when it comes to chemical exposures during pregnancy (and pre-pregnancy for both father and mother). She never seems to say things like “well, we can’t say for sure, but since alcohol isn’t an unavoidable exposure (like car exhaust), it’s easy not to drink it, and we know it causes harm in ___ circumstances, best to avoid.”
Anon
The point is you can make that choice but it’s not the right call for everyone. I don’t personally limit myself “just in case” something is bad. The point is that a lot of things people base decisions on are just mythology and not actual facts.
JD
Another reason a doctor might ask repeatedly is that people just lie about drinking and other negative things. Or they underestimate how much they use when they have a problem. Asking more questions can provide clarity and get someone to open up.
Anon for this
No, I am not and I will tell you my anecdotal experiences. I personally opted to not drink during pregnancy because the very idea nauseated me. I did have a couple of sips of champagne at a friend’s wedding, but it wasn’t for me. That being said, my observation is that my friends who did have a glass of wine were very metered – 3-4 ounces of wine or 6 ounces of beer or cider, sipped slowly while eating food. I don’t love that people are flippant about drinking in pregnancy, but no. I don’t think this type of behavior is what we need to police.
Anon
I’m sorry you’re getting piled on OP. I won’t speak to the ADHD part, but I would also sideeye people who drink every week of pregnancy. People will justify anything as “not that bad”. And maybe it isn’t…but it could be, so why risk it (especially since the conversations over the risk of alcohol to anyone, period, are becoming more prevalent, and there’s an increasing swell of people becoming sober for general health and well-being).
I drink in my regular life, 1-2 drinks each day of the weekend. And when I’m pregnant, I will occasionally have a drink on holdidays/occasions or later in the third trimester. But I’m talking like 5-6 drinks total during pregnancy, with maybe a few sips of my husband’s drinks throughout.
This is a whole can of worms, but in our culture we seem to think of “sacrifice” as categorically negative, when that’s not true, especially when done for the good of another. I know pregnant women have to sacrifice a lot — I’m pregnant with my fourth, I get it! — but regular alcohol consumption seems like a worthy sacrifice to me.
Anonymous
I have a kid with adhd and two that do not. I only drank alcohol* during one pregnancy and it wasn’t the one with the adhd kid.
*a very occasional 4oz glass of wine.
Anon
Judge much??
Anonymous
I think children with FASD often have ADHD. But remember FASD children have easily identifiable facial differences.
For my first pregnancy I didn’t drink, but for my second I had one specific wine glass that I knew held only 4 oz and I would permit myself one glass, at most, once a week, but often none at all.
I was more worried about listeria for both of my pregnancies, to the point that I didn’t want to drink seltzer at a restaurant where the nozzles might not have been well cleaned.
Anon
Sometimes you can see FASD by looking but not always. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5032242/#:~:text=FASD%20also%20appears%20to%20be,%3B%20attributable%20risk%2086.8%20%25).
Anon
I think pregnancy and parenting (and life) is all about your personal risk benefit analysis.
I didn’t drink any alcohol during pregnancy. I did drink coffee and Diet Coke daily.
I avoided Tylenol and allergy meds, but took Bonjesta and Zofran.
I had elective inductions at 39 weeks.
I let my toddler eat hot dogs and grapes (under close supervision). I’m keeping her backwards facing in her car seat for as long as physically possible.
Good for me! Maybe not for you! That’s okay! We’re both great Moms who have different opinions on the benefits of the above choices.
Anonymous
I had daily caffeine when I was pregnant, partly because I chose to stop my ADHD meds (and then the shortage happened so I havent had my medication in far too long).
I didn’t drink alcohol, but I did go out for sushi once at a location I knew well and trusted. I’d done my research that the main risk is lowered resistance to salmonella poisoning but no direct risk to the baby beyond the risks of me being sick generally. I ate more cooked sushi than usual but some raw. Sushi date night was a regular thing for my husband and me and it was important to me to have some normality when I was constantly aware of little being moving inside me (I know some people like it, but it kind of creeped me out).
My toddler eats so many grapes. They’re one of her favorites. We just cut them up. Its no harder than chopping up an apple but she will actually eat it.
Anon
If you want to have an epigenetic freakout, I have daughters. While I was in utero, my mother carried me AND MY EGGS. So anything happening to my children could have started with my mother (who does not drink or smoke and ate LIVER while pregnant with me because iron is important for babies while grossing out moms was not, back then). I carried my future grandchildren because my daughters grew their egg supply while inside of me. Who the hell knows? Severely overdrinking is bad. Extremes are bad. Everything else . . . out of my hands in any linear cause/effect way.
Anonymous
One or two glasses of wine in a week is not drinking regularly.
I have a kid with both ASD and ADHD and never touched a drop of alcohol during my pregnancy. Not because I was that concerned about a random glass of wine, I just don’t drink much at all.
As an aside, I have a relative who was “extremely cautious” and gave birth to a child with a random genetic mutation for which there is no family history on either side.
Seventh Sister
My friend’s child has a serious hereditary condition that is so rare there is no genetic test for it (Hurler’s syndrome). You can’t account for chance.
Anonymous
No.
My OB always said that pregnancy is the ultimate gamble. You’re taking bits and pieces of dozens of people, putting it all in a blender, and hoping for the best. Sometimes the genetic lottery is not in your favor no matter what you do.
anon
OP, I’ve been pregnant 6 times and have one living child. I’m currently7 months pregnant, and have felt an incredible degree of anxiety throughout my pregnancy. So I understand how deeply stressful this can be. I found myself being much more nervous about risk in this pregnancy, because I’ve lost so many and because, at 43 and as an IVF non-responder, I know that if this pregnancy doesn’t work out, I almost certainly will not have another one. It is an incredibly stressful situation.
In that type of stressful situation, it is pretty easy to try to make yourself feel psychologically safer by thinking about all the risky things others are doing that you aren’t. I did it myself. But ultimately, that psychologically protective reflex isn’t a particularly useful guide to what is or is not objectively risky – and it can lead you to a place of increasing anxiety, and increasing judgment of others. You will make many, many choices during your pregnancy and parenting journey about acceptance of risk. Other women will also make those choices, and may make them differently than you do. Focusing on your own choices is healthier than focusing on the choices of others…but even your own choices will not determine all outcomes.
Anonymous
This is an incredibly kind response.
anon
I could have written this. Pregnant with #2 (37 weeks!!) and I’ve been pregnant 8 times with 1, almost 2, living children. Post-infertility anxiety/stress is very, very, very real. I don’t know how to explain it but it’s real. You have my sympathies. What you went through is so personal, so stressful and very hard for anyone who hasn’t’ been through it to understand. Heck, I’ve been through it and will never understand the depths of what you personally had to go through.
Move past this, OP. Just move right along. Do not expend mental energy trying to understand why others make the choices they do. Make choices for yourself, your child, your family and with your medical team. That’s all you can do. Comparison to other parents during pregnancy, let alone parenting styles once the child is born, will wreck you if you get all wrapped in it. I hope you have all the supports you need. Congrats on your pregnancy and here’s hoping the next few months go as smoothly as possible for you!
Anon
My stats are 5 pregnancies, three live births, two living children. :/
I did not touch alcohol or raw meat or any of the stuff the books told me not to do, yet here I am. I feel like people forget how fraught and filled with loss the entire process of becoming a parent can be. These restrictions help us feel in control when really, there’s just a lot of randomness to it that’s a lot harder to accept.
Hugs to all of you.
Bette
I’ve experienced similar levels of loss and it’s devastating.
The hardest part is that there are so few answers for the majority of infertility. You can drive yourself crazy with all of the self-doubt.
My heart goes out to you. I think this is more anxiety talking than science though.
Seventh Sister
Congratulations on the pregnancy! And I’m so sorry about your losses, what a tough road. While I understand your shock about alcohol consumption, I think it’s actually pretty common.
Single data point: I had the occasional glass of wine while pregnant, like maybe 2-3 total after I got a positive pregnancy test. While I’m in the US, the UK recommendation at the time (>15 years ago) was something like a max of 1-2 alcohol units a week during pregnancy. A few drinks over the course of the pregnancy was a risk I was willing to take, along with other dubious choices (soft cheese*, sushi at a nice place, pretty robust caffeine consumption, OTC painkillers approved by my OB). To be frank, I found pregnancy pretty unpleasant and breaking a few rules made me happy.
Speaking as the parent of a teenager and an almost-teenager, there are a LOT of things that other parents around you are going to do and say and think that are going to make you wonder whether these parents have the good sense that God gave a gnat. Even your friends and neighbors and professional peers. It kind of sucks, but I’ve had to get used to it.
*The advice about soft cheese was conflicting at the time – some people said none whatsoever, others said it was OK with pasteurized milk.
Anon
You need to calm down. I know it’s hard for you right now after multiple losses – I have been there – but now is not the time to be preaching at other women. Run your own race.
Anon Elder Millennial
Several of my friends have kids who are diagnosed with ADHD, none drank during their pregnancies. All the kids (whom I’ve known since birth and see regularly) present as what would have considered normal in my childhood, and would never have been referred for testing. In fact my sister was one of those kids, but was always “a daydreamer” who needed to “pay more attention and try harder”, but was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. I can guarantee you her mom never had a single drink while pregnant (she doesn’t drink at all, ever).
Don’t get into the habit of judging how other people choose to parent, or it’s going to be a rough and lonely parenting journey. Many of my friends make decisions about how to parent that are different from mine (food, screen time, etc), but as our kids hit late elementary school, it’s becoming more and more obvious that factors entirely out of our control determine who these kids are growing up to be, not how much screen time they had prior to age 2 or the variety of foods they were exposed to prior to age 1. Oh and also, there’s no difference in weight or picky eating or immune systems among the kids based on who was breastfed, combo fed, or formula fed.
Seventh Sister
Having spent the better part of a decade waiting around for my kids at ballet class and getting to know the various parents (mostly moms), the biggest driver of body shape after about age 10 was heredity. The kids who were 100% formula fed looked like their parents, ditto the combo fed and breastfed ones. It wasn’t whether they got sugar as toddlers or not.
JD
Aw, my preschooler is just starting ballet, and at the first class my husband commented to me, I don’t think she’s as flexible as the other kids. I am a runner and the least flexible woman I personally know, as was my mother. I always failed the stretching portions of the presidential fitness tests in school. Some things just are inherited. I’ll encourage her to stretch more, but I know from that first class that she probably will never be a professional ballerina due to our genetics. Maybe not a bad thing, but so weird to realize right from the beginning.
Seventh Sister
You never know! Being the most flexible isn’t necessarily a positive thing. My daughter could explain it better than I can, but if you are too flexible, it’s harder to build muscle and stamina in things like pointe. Her classmate has *the* prettiest feet for ballet, but has to work really hard on keeping them in place for certain steps.
Anon
Dance should help with flexibility. My daughter was crazy inflexible when she started dance at 4 but now at 6 is still probably below average for a dancer but way more flexible than average for the general public.
Anon
I’m currently 22 weeks pregnant, and my mother recently mentioned to me that she had a few glasses of wine while pregnant with me. She also claimed she had zero sugar so, go figure. Either way, I have consistently tested in the 99.9th percentile so it did not have any known negative affects on me. I think your connection between FASD and ADHD is a stretch, but I have seen a similar increase in the acceptance of women drinking during pregnancy in the U.S. Personally, it’s not worth the risk for me and while I have had the occasional sip of my husband’s drink, I am not planning to have a full drink of my own until after the baby is born. I found Expecting Better to be an interesting and valuable read, but like all books I take it with a grain of salt. Her claim about rates of FASD in the U.S. vs Europe didn’t make sense, for example – you can find Reddit threads on this with people in Europe talking about how doctors there are very adamant about not drinking. The view of “oh you know Europeans, the drinking culture is just different over there!” doesn’t seem to ring true for pregnancy.
Anon
This is likely an optimistic view of the diagnostic dilemma. The most common identifiable cause of intellectual disability is FASD (relative risk 19 fold) [6]. FASD also appears to be the leading cause of ADHD as well. A diagnosis of FASD is associated with increased risk for ADHD (relative risk = 7.6; attributable risk 86.8 %). Conversely, a diagnosis of ADHD predicts increased risk for FASD (relative risk 13.28; attributable risk 92.5 %). Thus, ADHD and FASD represent an intersection of phenotype expression and complexity. Both disorders have prevalence rates, course, severity, and lifelong impact that suggest they are going to require ongoing assessments and management [6–8]. This would result in even more demand for multidisciplinary FASD evaluations. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5032242/#:~:text=FASD%20also%20appears%20to%20be,%3B%20attributable%20risk%2086.8%20%25).
Dating again?
For those of you who went through a divorce, separation or bad breakup, when did you know you were ready to date again? How long after the end of the relationship did it take? How did you get over the fear of being vulnerable again?
Emma
So honestly, I didn’t. I tried to date for a while and then decided I wasn’t ready and deleted the apps. I met my now (second) husband through pure coincidence IRL, not on an app. When he asked me out, I hesitated because I still didn’t feel ready, but he was cute and I said yes. For a while I thought it wouldn’t be anything serious and just enjoyed it. When I realized I was starting to fall for him, I massively panicked and almost ended it. We didn’t speak for a few weeks. In the meantime I started therapy and started processing some of my unresolved divorce issues. So when he called again I decided to go for it. I felt extremely vulnerable and scared of being hurt, but I had already fallen for him and I don’t regret that decision, he’s been a wonderful spouse and helped me overcome a lot of my trust issues. But there’s no perfect answer – it’s ok to try and decide you’re not ready, it’s ok to wait, it’s ok to date for a bit but keep it casual, eventually you’ll trust your instincts.
anon
Mine wasn’t a divorce, but a very very bad breakup in my early 30s. I went on a few dates initially right away, but realized that wasn’t going to work (and then for the whole rest of the year, my dad had serious health issues that I was helping with before he passed away, so dating wasn’t really top of mind). After that year and spending time with my mom and grieving my dad, I put my foot back in the dating pool. It took about three years but I found my now husband in my mid 30s. I will be completely honest with you – I don’t think I ever got over my fear of being totally vulnerable with another person. Even though my H is a wonderful partner and father on most metrics, I never really got over how devastated I was after that break up and having let my guard down. I’m working on it in therapy, but part of me thinks that I will not be able to be that open with another person again. Not saying that will be you, of course, but it’s something I didn’t fully expect because I had had several serious relationships before that bad breakup and always bounced back pretty well. But that one really altered me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Hugs to you either way, it’s a hard thing to go through in life.
BeenThatGuy
I was devastated when my first husband left me when I was 10 weeks pregnant with our only (and planned) child. It took me about 5 years to even think about dating and was in therapy for years working on healing. When I did start dating again, I was only capable of having flings and couldn’t stomach anything more than surface left (which I was upfront about). After more work on myself, I finally started having meaningful relationships again. I actually got remarried this summer to the most wonderful man (after dating for 8 years). It was 15 between marriages before I knew I could make that commitment to someone again.
Anon
I’m 5 years out from my divorce (no kids and made a clean break after learning of his affair) and just got married again (now late 30s). It took about two years and a lot of therapy to feel like I was ready to date.
My now husband has been very patient and understanding of my trust issues. I trust him fully and knew I wanted to marry him early on. But, I do have a much harder time being fully vulnerable and open with him, than with my ex husband. I feel like I have a voice in the back of my head that makes me question certain little things, which I never had before. My now husband is aware of this to an extent, particularly my trust issues because of my ex’s affair – but I feel like my ex husband has deprived me of the ability to unquestionably trust anyone again. I’m working on it and am very conscious of it, and hate the effect it has on me.
Anon
One more comment on this – I said above that it took me two years to be ready for a relationship, but very casually “dated” very soon after I found out about the affair. And had a lot of fun doing so! I think it helped with my healing process too.
Senior Attorney
I did a LOT of therapy, both during the awful marriage and after. That really helped. When I left my husband I was in a very public-facing job, so dating on the apps wasn’t really an option because of the fear I’d run into somebody from the apps at work. So I only dated people I met IRL, which cut way down on the opportunities, but… it only took one. I started dating my current husband fairly soon after my divorce was final (met at our local Rotary club), which was about two years after I actually left my ex. Not gonna lie — I had a lot of anxiety over whether he was gonna ghost me or whatever for a good long time, but I just told myself “even if it doesn’t work out, it’s worth it just to know there are great men like this in the world and get a chance to date one for as long as it lasts.” And now we’ve been married for seven years and he’s still a great man and it’s still working out!
Anon
I started dating while my ex husband was still moving his stuff out of the house. I didn’t want anything serious, I just wanted distraction. And I’m here to say it was great.
Anon Elder Millennial
OMG same. The weekend I moved out, I spent on setting up my new place, etc. The following Friday, I downloaded the dating apps.
For me, I had been in therapy for several years trying to make the difficult decision to leave. I was so, so lonely in my marriage. My ex never wanted to… hang out with me, or have a conversation, or go on a date. I was always doing things alone or just staying home and doing nothing. He just didn’t really like me, and only wanted to play video games with his headphones on. Going on dates — getting drinks or dinner, going to a museum with a person, and eventually gardening — was so much fun, it was like entering an oasis after years in the desert.
So you do you. Maybe you need a little time, maybe you need a lot, but there’s nothing wrong with jumping right in if you feel like it.
Anon
Best thing I ever did was stop taking breaks after a bad breakup and start dating again immediately. It was a confidence boost and fun after going through all the sadness of the end of a relationship. I ended up meeting my husband really quickly after the end of a significant relationship. My take is you’re doing all the processing during the ending, no need to prolong your misery if what you actually want is a relationship.
Anon
Exactly. I’m 1:06 and spent literal years within the marriage mourning the marriage being over and just waiting for some signal that it was time to pull the trigger. (Narrator: that time was years ago). I was done done done by the time he finally agreed to leave. What was I supposed to do then? Sit in my now empty house (he took all the furniture) staring at the four walls? (He took all the paintings). I just wanted to get out of the house.
My online dating profile said I wasn’t looking for anything serious and let me tell you that was like the pheromone packet you put in the yellow jacket trap. It worked instantly.
edj3 --calcium req
Re yesterday’s question about supplements–
Per my endocrinologist, if you need calcium, take Tums. I take generic sugar-free Tums with 1000 mg of calcium. I call it my after-dinner mint so it’s super easy to remember to take.
Anon
The body only absorbs 500 mg at a time. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Calcium-Consumer/#:~:text=Calcium%20is%20absorbed%20best%20when,take%20it%20all%20at%20once. If you need to take more, break them up over the day.
Anon
My OB told me this as well when I mentioned my prenatal only had 4% of my DV of calcium.
Anon
I’m OP of yesteday’s post. I didn’t mention taking calcium supplements because I don’t, but I do eat leafy greens all the time, and I usually have a Pepcid Complete for heartburn sometime in the evening, which is like a Pepcid + tums + milk of magnesium. It has 800mg calcium carbonate.
My recent bone density exam (in response to a foot fracture, just to be on the safe side) was completely normal, and my doc says to keep taking the Pepcid complete as needed.
I’ve had chronic evening heartburn since pregnancy, and my youngest is 20!
anon
vent – my 9 year old has become aware of some dark circles under her, big, beautiful eyes. She has big round eyes and large tonsils (ive heard that those can contribute to dark circles). I am heartbroken as she is perfect to me. I wear under eye concealer like once a month and I think she has seen me put it on, so I am also crushed that I may have led her this way. She has a kids makeup kit with fun colors to play with but has also said that she plans to wear concealer under her eyes when she is older. I hate that my amazing child has already found flaws in herself and I feel defeated against the beauty world. I used to always give her compliments about her intellect, her choices, because the current thinking was that we should compliment girls on their looks, not sure which way to go now. Just sad.
Cat
this is part of growing up, unfortunately. At about 10 is when one of my friends started commenting on my leg hair. What I loved is that my mom asked me if it was something that bothered me, she would help me learn to shave, but if I was just annoyed at my friend, she would help me practice what to say.
Anonymous
Your mom handled that moment beautifully. I hope I’ll remember to be similarly graceful when my daughter brings me something similar.
Anonymous
Sadly, this is just the age that it starts. I was a mixed race child in a WASPy, blond hair, blue eyed private school. Third grade, I’ll never forget one of the girls I was friendly with making fun of my lips because they were bigger than hers. Never mind of course that today that classmate and the whole world get lip injections to have fuller lips.
Anon
Haha love that. Joke’s on them!
Anonymous
Omg. Deep breaths today! First of all tonsils have nothing to do with under eye circles. Second of all your daughter isn’t broken.
Anon
Merck says it can if it’s causing obstructive sleep apnea: https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/children-s-health-issues/ear-nose-and-throat-disorders-in-children/enlarged-tonsils-and-adenoids-in-children
It’s fine if nothing is wrong, but it’s also fine to ask if there’s an issue that can be fixed.
I knew someone lovely who had dark eye circles. She still has dark eye circles and is still lovely, but they’re a lot less dark since an underlying medical condition was diagnosed. It is awkward when there are features that are normal and natural but that can also sometimes be signs of something amiss, but it’s also common.
Anonie
FWIW I compliment my girls on their looks all the time – AND their intelligence, bravery, athleticism, etc.
Anonymous
Perhaps shift your thinking from feeling defeated, to moving into the next stage of empowering her to live in this world. There’s no way that she wasn’t ever going to find flaws and differences in herself – it’s just the human brain to notice differences; but now you get to teach her for her how to respond. Of course the beauty culture gives one way to respond, but there are varying degrees to how intense that pressure has to be. It’s empowering to figure out how to respond to perceived flaws in a way that feels good and authentic.
You sound like you’re an amazing mom and doing a great job. :)
Anonymous
My 10 year old asked me to buy her mascara at target yesterday. We had a quick chat about why and settled on us watching TikTok’s about using Vaseline ;).
Anon88
You are doing a great job. If it makes you feel any better, she’s much more likely to be influenced by her peers/the media about this than you, so I doubt it was seeing you use concealer that started this.
NaoNao
I’ve seen some really cool Gen Z makeup content that touches on emphasizing under-eye circles or bags (called “”aegyo-sal”) or even deliberately creating them! One such creator is “zoekimkenealy” I absolutely love her unique and artsy makeup looks—and they almost all have emphasized under-eye area.
If your daughter is at all interested in makeup or artsy stuff, maybe take a peak at that and similar stuff on clock app or IG. I love the way Gen Z is embracing “flaws” and really stepping big into what makes us unique and different.
Anon
Eye bags are different than dark circles. Korean makeup artists will do ANYTHING to minimize discoloration anywhere. While I love that they embrace aegyo-sal, I don’t think that’s the move for someone worried about dark circles.
Anon
Dark circles under a kid’s eyes can absolutely be related to allergies. There’s even a name for them that escapes me right now. I would have an ENT or allergist check her “tonsils” without mentioning the circles (in front of her, at least) and see if there is a connection for her.
Anon
When I see pictures of myself as a child, I am shocked at how my dark circles. Today, I wear concealer every day even if not fully made up. Isn’t it great that we get to enjoy make-up to feel better about ourselves?!
Anonymous
One of my nephews (age 12) is asking for a virtual reality headset for Christmas. He actually asked for it last Christmas, too, and I dismissed it out of hand. But he hasn’t dropped it, much to my frustration. I’m guessing he saw it on YouTube or TikTok? Ugh. Is there some kids’ VR headset that he’s actually asking for that childless me doesn’t know about? Do museums have these things and I could just get the family a museum pass?? Any other alternatives? I hate to disappoint him two Christmases in a row, but that’s a wild gift! (And one he’d get sick of soon, I imagine.) (And, bless his sweet heart, he is forever losing his sweatshirt, breaking his glasses, dropping the family iPad…I imagine this thing lasting 3 days tops.)
Anon
Why is it a wild gift? The cost? I can understand not wanting to spend that much on a gift but I don’t think it’s a weird or unreasonable request from a kid, and museum passes are obviously not a substitute. You sound very grumpy about a very typical tween interest.
Anonymous
If I were OP, I would think it pretty greedy for a kid to ask an aunt for an expensive gift that his even his parents apparently won’t get him. Especially a kid that old who should know better.
Anonymous
This exactly.
I think I would actually laugh out loud if one of my nephews asked me for something like that. Then they would be told it would absolutely never happen.
Anon
Why are you so against it? They’re really popular right now for kids.
Anonymous
Weird thing to get worked up about
Walnut
Definitely ask the parents before gifting this. My kid’s have asked for gifts I won’t give and the answer is simply “I suggest you add other things to your list.”
Anonie
Well if he’s asking for it and you want to know, you should ask him what the specific brand/type he has in mind is – he’s the best person to know whether there is “some kids’ VR headset that he’s actually asking for” lol.
When I hear virtual headset, I assume it’s the Meta Quest. Which to me is waayyyyyyyyyyyyy (ayyyyyyyyyyyyy) too expensive for a nephew-gift, but if you’re dropping 10 bills on a nephew, go for it!
Anonie
Oh my bad that’s the pro version, regular version is 300. Much more reasonable actually.
Anon
There are other VR headsets in the <$100 range. It’s not that crazy.
Anonymous
Links to the $100 ones, please.
Anon
https://www.walmart.com/ip/3D-VR-Virtual-Reality-Headset-Goggle-Remote-Controller-Glasses-Movies-Video-Play-Games-Set-IOS-Android-Phone-iPhone-13-12-11-Pro-Mini-X-R-S-Max-Samsu/1674445101
Anon
I put some links but they’re in m0d
Anonymous
OP here. These things start at $600! Are y’all regularly dropping that much cash on a single Christmas gift for a child? He’s one of five kids! And even if I get him the set, it requires constant cash to pay for games in the App Store. He’s a (again, super sweet) kid who demonstrates at least once a week that he isn’t responsible with his belongings, and two of his youngest siblings (kindergarten and toddler) would break it within minutes.
*The $300 set requires a Facebook account to work. A) you have to be 13 to have a FB account and B) in the words of Mama Boucher, “FB is the devil.”
Anon
They start at way way less than $600.
Anon
Here’s a good option for $80: https://www.walmart.com/ip/3D-VR-Virtual-Reality-Headset-Goggle-Remote-Controller-Glasses-Movies-Video-Play-Games-Set-IOS-Android-Phone-iPhone-13-12-11-Pro-Mini-X-R-S-Max-Samsu/1674445101
If you want ultra basic, Google cardboard is literally $10
The “fancy” consumer option is the Meta Quest, which is $300. That’s more than I’d want to spend, but I’m not sure where “starts at $600” number came from, that’s insanely pricey for this.
Anon
I wouldn’t worry about the cash for games – presumably he has allowance of holiday money he can use for that. I do think you should ask the parents before giving something like this and it’s obviously not a $10 gift, but at least where I live a membership to a museum is $100-200, which is more than a basic VR headset.
anon
Not for a nephew! And not for my 5 year old who would destroy anything that valuable. I can’t tell if you’re against the cost or the concept. Cost – I’m with you. Concept of the gift for a kid – no, I don’t think it’s a “wild gift”. I’d get it for my own kid if they really, really wanted it, it was The Big Gift, and I trusted them to take care of such an expensive gift.
Anonymous
I mean, I wouldn’t get my own kid this and we are a very high income family.
Are you balking start the specific gift or the cost? If it’s the expense, tell him! “That’s a pretty big gift, why don’t you ask Santa?” Or talk to his parents and tell them you need gift ideas under $X.
My nieces and nephews get ~$50 gifts from me and DH; my kids get token gifts from their aunts and uncles and they are just tickled.
Anonie
I mean… sounds like this isn’t the right present for you to get your nephew? So get him something else, or ask for another suggestion? What is happening
Anon
I really read your post as you didn’t think VR was appropriate for a 12 year old and judging from the responses, I think that’s the angle many were taking. If you don’t have the money or think it’s too much, I like the gift card idea where your money goes part of the way toward a VR headset or whatever he ends up wanting.
Around 12 years old is when my No kings started strongly preferring gift cards anyway.
KJ
I’m not regularly spending that much, but I also wouldn’t get exasperated at a child for asking (even for asking *gasp* twice). You can either deflect or gently tell him it’s not in the budget, but I don’t think he’s being rude for asking for something he wants and sees his friends having.
Anon
VR headsets definitely cost more than I’d spend on my nephews (mine are much younger and we’re not into buying tons of stuff in my family), but they seem like the kind of gift that would be pretty reasonable to come from parents or grandparents for a 12 year old, and other relatives could buy games or accessories. You seem unreasonably condescending about his klutziness. I drop my phone and ipad constantly and it’s fine. They have cases, they don’t break. I’m pretty sure that VR headsets are designed to be actually be used.
Anon
Agreed. Also the claim that he’ll lose interest in it in a few days seems way off base.
It’s fine to not want to spend several hundreds on a niece or nephew. I wouldn’t either. But there’s a lot of judgment about the kid in your post that I think is unfair.
Anonymous
Just tell him that won’t work out and ask for other suggestions. I suspect you are right that he’d use it a few times and then forget about it. That is what’s happened to all of the novelty tech gifts my kid has gotten, even ones she has constantly begged for. Only the basic stuff—iPad, phone, headphones, Switch—is really fun enough to get used much.
Anonymous
I got my son a Quest last Xmas – he barely uses it. Keep in mind that the recommended age is 13+ in part because it’s hard to get the headset to stay on if your head isn’t big enough, so if your nephew is on the smaller side it’s better to wait.
I’ve used it some but a lot of the technology is annoying, like you’re supposed to be grabbing something in-game but can’t Because. A lot of the apps shut down on me or glitch midway through. I think a newer version has come out after ours, but I still wouldn’t be in a big rush.
If you’re looking at cheaper ones, the best game that everyone likes is Beat Saber; see if there’s something similar available. If not just give him a check for however much you’re willing to spend and tell him it’s for his Quest fund.
Anon
If you want something in the same spirit as a VR headset, are there any arcades or fun centers nearby that have them? You could buy him and a friend a pass.
Anonymous
I have annoying greedy nieces and nephews too. Just give him cash in the amount you think is appropriate and don’t expect a thank-you note.
Anon
I am team “books on paper that one reads while holding with one’s hands and physically turning the pages” for all gifts to people under 16 (at least).
Anonymous
I would laugh out loud if one of my nephews asked me for something like that. I would then tell him that would never happen, full stop, and tell him to try again.
My sibling and I have always decided on a relatively low per-kid spend limit before asking for ideas, though, so the kids have all grown up knowing big spend items were for parents only.
anon
This is weird. You don’t have to get him a VR headset! Just get something in your budget, or ask his parents for other ideas. But also, cut it out with the judgment of the kid. Regardless of how well he does or doesn’t take care of things, I’m not sure why you’re feeling pressure, as the aunt, to get him a big gift.
Anon
My 12 y/o really wanted a Meta Quest 2 for his birthday, and I got it for him and he loves it. It was around $300, and there are bunch of free games that he can apparently download. My daughter also really likes it. I’m not saying I would buy it for my nephew, but just as a data point that it’s not necessarily a passing fad. It seems pretty sturdy, but my kids are reasonably responsible.
If it were me, I would buy him a gift card for however much I was willing to spend to a place that sells this thing. Like Amazon or Target.
Anon
My teenage son has a very basic one and it is AMAZING. He has some sort of software where you enter from a lobby and then go into different rooms for adventures, and I couldn’t even get past the lobby. The wood floors, the windows, the trees outside the windows. They were completely 100% real for me the second I put it on.
I don’t know what your objection is exactly, but VR is super cool!
Anonymous
People who do evening activities, how do you wind down so you can fall asleep? I am out until 9:30 or 10:00 three nights a week for pretty intense activities. I need to be asleep by 10:30 or 11:00 to get a full night’s sleep, but when I get home I am so wired that I am awake until as late as 1:00 replaying things in my head. The lack of sleep is really starting to take a toll. Next week is going to be even worse, as I’ll be out late doing adrenaline-heavy stuff six nights in a row. Any tips for getting to sleep?
Anon
Now I’m wondering what on earth you’re doing that’s so intense.
It sounds like you need to cut back on the activities or find a different time to do them.
OP
I am a musician. Rehearsals and concerts are in the evening. The problem is that I have a day job so I can’t sleep in.
Anon
My husband is a musician. I go to his gigs pretty regularly. We are both awake for about an hour after we get home. It’s just how it is. You need transition time.
When you get home, do your face washing/teeth brushing stuff right away, get into pajamas, and avoid screen time. Read a book.
Having sec also works, but I don’t know your relationship status.
JD
Can you start doing a meditation after you get home? It probably won’t work at first, but if you practice, that’s supposed to help.
Anon
I do a 20-minute bath while listening to an audio book, then head off for sleep…
Anon
This is the way.
anon
Hot shower, a specific yoga routine that’s optimized to tip the body toward sleep, and then a guided meditation playlist.
emeralds
Bedtime yoga or meditation? Yoga with Bird has some very soothing 10-20 minute bedtime yoga sequences. I do them in my PJs in bed.
Agreed that a warm bath is a good suggestion, too.
Anon
I have sports games that are late some nights, and this is when I rely on hot shower (since I have to shower after anyways) + melatonin + sleepy time tea
Anonymous
Shift as much of your morning routine to the evening as possible. Shower. Lay out your clothes. Make your lunch. These are all pretty low intensity things that can help calm the internal monologue and also give you an extra ~30 minutes of sleep in the morning.
Anan
I work in the arts and have rehearsals or performances at least four nights a week. I’ve found for me I have to put on pjs, brush my teeth and climb into bed as soon as I get home. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. If I don’t go straight to bed, I will end up scrolling or snacking or other idle ways of passing the time. If I don’t fall asleep within thirty minutes, I’ll get up and read a book or do some gentle yoga, but the trick for me is to remove all the barriers between me and bed, so that I don’t have any excuses to not be in bed.
Runcible Spoon
In addition to all the helpful tips here, you could try taking some melatonin to try to fall asleep.
CDMX
Headed to Mexico City soon! Any specific must – dos? A plus if you have recs for kids (4 and 8). We are staying in Condesa. As of now we have plans to go to the zoo, the papalote children’s museum, the anthropology museum, and the castle (all in Chapultepec park) as well as Frida kahlo’s house and a day trip to the pyramids. Oh, and a luchador show with my older kid.
anon
The New York Times had a great review of ice cream shops in Mexico City.
Anon
I’ve been admiring Strathberry bags for years. I’m seriously thinking about getting an Strathberry east west bag but am worried whether it looks current. Is there another rectangular, medium size shoulder bag (love the east west bag’s ability to have shorter straps)?
anon
I think the bag does not look dated but when I’ve looked at them in person I find that bar closure annoying to deal with even though it’s pretty.
Anon
I am not tuned into designer bags at all, but I think Strathberry bags look cool. Get what you like.
Cat
I think they’re beautiful and classic, but loathe flap-closure bags (it’s always in the way!) so am holding for the day they figure out a zip-top option that incorporates their hardware!
Tupperware
Any recommendations for how to store Tupperware? I’m struggling with organizing all the lids and different size containers in a fairly small kitchen.
Anon
I gave up and took anything that was still good to Goodwill and then got a few pieces of exactly the same size/shape that are easily stackable. Thats the only way I’ve been able to keep mine organized. I have 1/2 cup, 2 cup, and 4 cup sizes and that’s it. If I pick up a random piece from somewhere (takeout or whatever) I toss it.
Anon
That’s us basically. I ditched Tupperware for Pyrex that can nest together on a shelf. Lids are in a deep drawer that also holds random water bottles.
Anonymous
the trick is to go all in on one kind of product. for us this is the glass snapware costco sells – all of those are stacked with the lids nearby. anything else i lose the tops, things are falling out of cabinets, and more. not worth it.
Anon
I keep all my lids on their side in a bin. I just have to grab the right one.
Anonymous
Store them with the lids on.
Yes, this means you’ll have room for less, but it’s woth it. Or get/ keep containers in just two clearly different sizes.
Anon
I stack the containers together and keep all the lids in a box. If I ever have the money for a custom kitchen, I am getting custom drawers for storing Tupperware because storing it is my pet peeve!
Anonymous
I put sets together, nest the containers, and put the lids in the top contIner, and/or underneath the bottom container. I also only keep the amount I need to have in regular rotation, so I’m not storing very many at one time.
I only have brand-name tupperware, though, and only sets, so I’m not dealing with a lot of random containers that don’t go together.
Anon
I have one deep drawer with two drawer dividers (adjustable ones from the container store). I stack all the big ones on the left, the small ones on the right, and put the lids vertically in the middle. Almost all of mine stack/match, but not exactly. I would also give a lot of thought to how many you actually need. If the drawer is never bare (ie you never use almost all of them at the same time), then get rid of some.
Anon
I have Pyrex for glass storage dishes. Those get stacked and the lids get shoved in one of the door-mount basket things meant to hold foil and plastic wrap boxes (I browsed until I found one where the slats ran the direction needed to keep the lids from falling through).
My plastic storage dishes are the heavier-duty Rubbermaid ones with the red lids. The lids of one size all kind of click together into one chunk, and the lids lightly click into the bottom of the containers. I nest the containers and then click that stack onto the respective lid chunk, and have one tall tower with a small footprint of all these nested sizes in the corner of one base cabinet. One tip: I put the deeper containers on top of the shallow containers of the same size, because the tower is shorter if I do it that way (and I can see at glance which ones are the deep or shallow versions).
Anonymous
is anyone comparing insurance plans for themselves right now? any tips or resources on how to decide or evaluate? it’s all such a scam.
we spend enough that we always meet the very high deductible. we haven’t been eligible for an HSA before though so i kind of want that this year.
Anon
No? I just get the best one my employer offers and call it a day?
anon a mouse
Best is relative depending on needs. My employer offers about a dozen, and the premiums range from X to 5X, so it’s worth doing research.
OP – it’s worth taking an hour or two to look at things like:
– how many times you went to the doctor, and were they specialists
– if you have a doctor you really like, or has specific skills, call and see which insurances they are in-network for (and ask if they are anticipating changes for next year!)
– any prescription drugs you take and your estimated benefit from this year
– whether you are likely to need major medical care (surgery, treatments, etc) next year
And then you just have to look at a handful of plans and run the numbers. It’s a terrible system and every year I curse all the factors that led us as a country to this point. Think of all the resources that could be saved, for patients and doctors and all the medical universe, if there was one consistent way to handle it all.
Anonymous
She is literally asking how to determine which plan is best. The “gold” plan with the highest premium may not in fact be the best.
Anon
I used to do the math for mom mom’s plans and usually the silver plans were the cheapest if you planned to hit the oop max.
Anonymous
I make a spreadsheet that calculates our family’s total cost including premiums and OOP expenses at various levels of health care spending, factoring in what is taxed and what isn’t. With the plans available to us, the high-deductible plan always wins at any level of health care consumption. I also look at the OOP max, the specific drugs that are covered, the providers covered, and recent news coverage about fights between insurers and health care systems.
Anon.
This is what I do, too.
Betsy
Same. I start with the baseline of what medical needs I know we will have, and then create a scenario with more usage than that, and one where we reach our out of pocket max. My employers have tended to offer high deductible plans with very reasonable out of pocket maximums, and that has worked out well for me. I max out my HSA annually and have always had the money in it to cover my medical expenses.
Anon
This is the case with my employer too. I hate it. My family deductible is $10k and that’s a LOT but I’ve done the math and the higher premium plans are never a good deal.
Anon
I’ve never understood how to tell the difference between plans like mine, where you only have to pay a small copay for doctors’s visits and medications, even if you haven’t met the deductible, and other plans where you have to pay for everything until you meet the deductible. I have a chronic illness and go to the doctor frequently and take a lot of medications, but my out of pocket costs are still low and I don’t come close to meeting my deductible (my actual spending is far above it, though hard to figure out because of the way insurance discounts it significantly from what the doctor bills). It makes hard to determine if I’d actually be better off on a lower premium but higher deductible plan when I don’t really know what I’d actually be spending.
anon
So we have a child with Crohn’s disease who takes medication that’s $25,000 a month. My employer offers a high-deductible plan with HSA and a PPO with copay and a much lower deductible. One basic thing to look at first if you haven’t done it already is what your max out of pocket cost would be under each plan – OOP max plus premiums. My employer makes a large contribution to my HSA, so that’s then netted out of my total out of pocket cost (we use our HSA as an investment vehicle with a view to using it for healthcare costs later in life; we don’t spend it).
For us, the premiums on the PPO are so much higher that our max out of pocket cost is lower under the HSA, even with the deductibles. Like, $500 per pay period vs. $150 per pay period. We will spend about $10000 total this year, between deductibles, coinsurance, and premiums, less my company HSA contribution. On the PPO plan, our premiums alone would be $12000, and we wouldn’t get the HSA contribution or the tax benefits of that. But if the premium difference isn’t that big, then it can be harder to figure out.
Anon
Yeah, I’m in a weird situation where our HSA plan actually has higher premiums than my current plan, which is an HMO, and the only plan with low premiums is really bare bones and seems like a bad option for someone who needs regular medical care. It just seems like you can’t compare things on an equal basis because the plans are all so different that you can’t make a reasonable comparison.
anon
I have worked some place before that was like that and it was so strange for me, like the selling point of an HSA plan is low premiums!
Anonymous
following! i’ve always just done a calculation of “premium * 12 + total out of pocket max” to find total cost, and then looked at doctors covered.
Anon
Different strokes, but I always get the plan that would have the lowest out of pocket cost in any given year. It’s typically the most expensive and usually described that way in the SPD during open enrollment. I see it as insurance against a significant out of pocket bill in the event that a serious illness strikes in any given year. I don’t look at past spending as a predictor of the future.
Anon
PS – lowest cost and most choice in choosing doctors; my employer offers an expensive plan with both of these factors and I pick that one.
Anonymous
The lowest OOP cost always costs me so much more in premiums that total cost is more.
Anon
Same
Anon
Not if you have a serious health event (eg cancer, hospital stay, heart attack, etc). It’s a hedge against that and it’s not intended for coming out ahead in a normal year.
Anonymous
The lowest out of pocket cost plan will also have high premiums. Depending on the options and costs, it is often the case that if you have a catastrophic event that hits the OOP max you will pay less in OOP costs + premiums with the low-premium, high-deductible plan than you would with the plan with high premiums and low OOP cost-sharing because the OOP max is the same.
anon
We are a high-cost healthcare family (child with Crohn’s disease who takes a $25k/month medication plus gastroenterology visits every other month plus colonoscopy and endoscopy annually; I will also have a baby this year) and the high-deductible plan still ends up being the cheapest for us because the premium difference is so great at my employer. And we get a $1500 HSA contribution from my employer for using the high-deductible plan.
anon
Yeah, this is what I do. the lowest cost for copays and greatest choice (usually an expensive PPO plan in terms of premiums). I’ve heard good things about HDHPs from friends, however. Personally I would never ever do an HMO after some bad past experiences with those.
Anon
I take a speciality medication so I pick the plan with the best coverage for that. I pay a flat $20 copay per dose compared to 20% cost-sharing on other plans.
Cat
It’s so fact-specific. A HDHP + HSA is fantastic if you are in good health and don’t anticipate major medical needs, or if one occurs out of the blue that you have the cash to cover the high deductible, whether from prior HSA contributions or just out of pocket. I have this type of plan and, knock wood, the only co-pay I’ve had to cough up this year was for an annual skin check at the derm.
If you are a heavier user of the medical system though, the cost of the premiums for a lower-deductible plan may mean you come out ahead that way.
I actually called my insurance company and asked what my out of pocket for the prior year WOULD HAVE been if I’d been on a HDHP that year. It took awhile before my question got through to the rep but I found out I was spending let’s say 2K on premiums but would have spent only $1500 had I been on the HDHP. Switched then and there and now a few years later, my HSA well exceeds the deductible, so I’m protected for an unexpected emergency.
Anon
I have Obamacare as a self employed person. I bought the gold plan because I have regular prescriptions and that’s all it took to make the increased premium worth it. Take a look at the numbers including prescriptions and see if that’s right for you.
One thing I didn’t buy was vision insurance. Nothing catastrophic is going to happen there (if it were, it would be medical/Opthamologist related and covered by health insurance) and the monthly premiums + copays when you get glasses add up to more than just paying for an exam and new glasses out of pocket.
Anon
I’ve always needed a lot of alone time to recharge, but prior to having kids being alone with my husband counted as “alone time”. Now we have a 1 year old, and I’ve noticed I need time alone from him. It’s like since becoming a mom everyone needs me constantly. That’s not surprising or unexpected, but I didn’t expect it as much from him? When I’m around him it’s like he turns his brain off and has to consult me about EVERYTHING. What really drives me crazy is he’s extremely long winded, repeats himself a ton, talks in circles, and I feel held hostage. I don’t have the skills to end the interaction lovingly. I always end up hurting his feelings and it’s a whole argument. He feels like I always unilaterally end conversations and run away to be alone, and he’s not entirely wrong, but I literally don’t know what else to do at a certain point? These conversations are always about pretty trivial things
Anonymous
It sounds like he needs someone to talk to in order to feel good, and you need NOT to be talked at in order to feel good.
Can you guys set aside the “I’m hurt because you leave in the middle of a conversation / I’m enraged that you trap me by rambling at me” and talk about the larger dynamic, so that you both get some of what you need?
Sunshine
I don’t know what to say to help you here. But I saw this play out with my parents after my dad started working at home with the pandemic. My mom was more on the introverted side and we discovered my dad was far more extroverted than we knew; he had so many words, which apparently were being used at the office and at client development events. And suddenly he had no where to put those words. So he just started telling my mom about absolute minutiae and would repeat it, and she was going nuts. They’d never had this issue before 2020 and had been married 50 years.
I say all of this to wonder whether your husband’s opportunitites to talk to people have declined since the baby arrived and instead of talking to other people, he is talking to you because he needs someone to talk to. If that’s the case, can you guys work on changing something in his routine so he has more opportunities to talk to people while also not leaving you with all of the childcare? Like could he spend more time at the office while you guys have paid child care? Could he go out in the evenings with friends after the baby has gone to sleep? Do dad’s groups exist where men take the kids to the park together on Saturdays?
Anonymous
no real advice except to note that my husband is totally long winded also – i wince every time i hear him leave a voicemail because 90% of what he says is irrelevant.
but: are you criticizing him at all? ive always remembered sheryl sandberg’s advice to not be a gatekeeper, to let the man put the diaper on the baby’s head and find out the hard way, rather than making him feel like he’s not doing it “your way.”
i find it really hard to be a mom and an introvert.
NaoNao
I’m gonna recommend this advice column: “Captain Awkward: My husband stops talking only when he’s asleep and sometimes not even then–for a starter.
Is there a way to redirect this energy? Podcast, D&D game, Youtube channel, personal blog/journal (by which I mean gently but firmly recommend those things.)
NotOP
Just read the column and it’s great! OP- I’d definitely read the column.
Anon
OMG I needed that Captain Awkward column! Thank you, NaoNao!
Anon
Can you schedule alone time? It might help. We used to give each other nights off – the other person would take over the kids and we could do whatever.
Anon
I think this is pretty normal and will improve a lot as your child grows up (one is a very needy age), but definitely don’t have a second kid, at least not any time soon. While I don’t subscribe to the “one is like one and two is like ten” anecdote in general, it is much much harder to have alone time with two kids.
Anon
You need a break out of the house on a regular basis.
My kids are young adults now but I always had one evening a week for solo friend time, and often got together with friends for specific events on the weekends. By the same token, my husband has been in a variety of bar bands since we met and always needs a week night for band practice and a weekend night for gigging.
So we tag teamed parenting so each of us could have our thing. It worked out so much better that way because it helped us be equal parents.
One thing I will say is that you can’t be in charge of parenting and ask your husband to “babysit.” You can’t order him or expect him to do everything exactly the way you do it. You have to let go and just let him parent his way when you’re not there.
And don’t answer every text right away either.
Horse Crazy
Omg you’re married to my husband.
Audrey Walton
I’m a longtime reader, not a lawyer, here to ask for advice. In brief: I’m not sure what kind of lawyer I need to hire, if any, and I could use a little direction. Here’s the situation. About twenty years ago, when he was much better off, my dad lent about $50k to a small, struggling company, with no expectation of getting it back. In fact he didn’t get it back, as the company continued to struggle, though it also continued to survive. These days he’s living only on social security and struggling to get by himself. Recently, he learned that the small company’s founders had successfully sold their business to a venture capital firm. This happened in 2020. The original owner/founder himself passed in ’21.
My dad would like to pursue the debt if it were possible–ideally in the terms of the original agreement, with interest and all, but really even recovering the capital would be life-changing for him. He would like to discuss the agreement with a lawyer, just to see if he has grounds to move forward and how he might do so. But we are not even sure what kind of lawyer we would look up to consult. We don’t have a ton of cash but it’s obviously an important matter. Could anyone advise me as to where we could start?Thank you so much!
Anon
I highly doubt you can recover that. Before you start paying lawyers, check to see if there’s anything written down. If not, you’re probably SOL.
Sunshine
I’m a lawyer. My first thought was: if you don’t have the terms of the loan in writing, you’re unlikely to ever recover anything. Even if you do have the terms of the loan in writing, you probably don’t have any writing showing the loan was never repaid. A VC firm is very unlikely to pay money to a random man who has no evidence of a loan or that it wasn’t repaid (even if you have this documentation, I think likelihood of success is very low). Hiring a lawyer is expensive; the costs add up quickly. For a debt of $50k that you’re unlikely to see, it’s probably not worth it.
That said, if you want to talk to a lawyer, I would talk to a litigator who does contract dispute work and would be willing to give you a free consultation and then take any recovery on contingency.
Anon
I’m a lawyer. If you have a written contract, a business litigation lawyer could review it and advise you. Assuming there’s a claim, I would think the next step would be to ask the lawyer to reach out to whoever would owe the money under the terms of the contract and make a demand. Your dad could certainly swear under oath that the loan was never repaid and there may be relevant accounting records as well. If you know any lawyers in your area, ask them if they can help you identify a business litigation lawyer. The state bar website usually has lawyer referral services as well. Good luck!
Anonymous
Thank you. There is a written agreement, yes, with terms. We just wanted it to be reviewed by someone who might also represent in dealing with the VC firm if need be. It seemed like an area where representation and expert advice could be helpful before moving forward.
Anon
I’m doing a solo vacation to a major European city in a few weeks. I’ll be there for eight days and have planned to visit a lot of museums, walking tours, day trips, etc. but I’d like to add in a few things that are fun and less like being a tourist. Thinks like getting my nails done, maybe finding a yoga class to go to, shopping for regular clothes. Basically a few things that feel like treats and aren’t specifically related to tourism. Any other general ideas?
Anon
Local bookstore.
AIMS
I think you will get much better suggestions if you actually say the major city you’re visiting.
OP
Sorry, I thought it would be better framed as a generic question. I’m going to Vienna.
anonanonanonanon
I used to live in Vienna and visited again earlier this year. I love the Bestattungsmuseum– Funeral Museum– at the Central Cemetery. It’s got a good gift shop, too. Try a variety of coffee drinks, which is a very Viennese thing. Try various Austrian wine varietals that you won’t encounter in the US. The Christmas market will probably be open at the Rathaus? Go, eat, and drink. There’s interesting shopping in various neighborhoods if you wander around. If you expect having to buy baby presents in the near future, go to WMF or a housewares store and pickup some adorable, and inexpensive, baby or children’s cutlery sets (this is not Vienna specific, but applies in Germany as well at least).
Anon
Maybe this falls into the tourist things category, but I’ve really enjoyed going to concerts in random cities I’m visiting. If you’re a classical music fan, Vienna would be wonderful for that!
Anonymous
Sit in a cafe and people watch.
A
I always like going to a grocery store just to browse, or a local outdoor market, and pick up a fun treat. If you are religious, attend a worship service. I also enjoy buying everyday things from regular stores as souvenirs, like wooden spoons or salt shakers, that remind me of my trip but are also useful. If you are feeling really brave, get a haircut!
Runcible Spoon
Go see a local professional sports game: The ice hockey team is called the Vienna Capitals and the volleyball team is called Hotvolleys. According to an Internet search, both team venues appear to be accessible via the Underground. Enjoy!
Anonymous
Vent ahead. I hate gifts so much. My husband is absolutely terrible at gift-giving and knows it. He wants to give me the perfect gift that will delight me, then goes to Target at the last minute and buys novelty garbage that no one wants in the house and gets mad at me when I don’t spend the next few months fawning over how thoughtful his gift was. He asks me what I want and then tells me we can’t afford it or don’t have room for it, then goes and buys something I didn’t want that is just as big and expensive. Then he gets sulky when I give him something he actually likes and needs because I did a better job of choosing a gift than he did, or when it appears that I spent any money on his gift even if he does want and need it. To make it worse there are some things we really need or could enjoy but don’t have because he’s a cheapskate. I would like to just drop the whole birthday/anniversary/holiday gift thing because both of us would be happier, but he refuses and insists that his bad feelings around gift-giving are my fault. How can I convince him just to give it up for the sake of family peace?
Anon
No advice and I’m having the vapors right now because we are married to the same man apparently. Hello sister wife!
This year, I have been sending out husband links for very expensive running gear from a variety of stores and have told him gift cards only. We will see how this goes. I may find a few tangible things and send links to those, also.
I have been married to our husband for 15 years and he has only gotten worse and hit peak/bottom on Mother’s Day this year.
Anonymous
Oh my goodness, this sounds so much bigger than gifts. Does he always dismiss you, do what he wants, and then sulk about the outcome?
AIMS
I think you need to untangle your husband’s terrible gift giving from his terrible behavior around gift giving. He’s allowed to be a bad gift giver, not everyone is good at this and that’s okay. And if it makes him feel bad when you give him nice gifts and he’d rather not get them, you can just make a “no gifts” agreement. But you can and should buy things you need in the regular course of things and he should not thwart that because it’s unreasonable (unless you actually can’t afford it or don’t have room or some legitimate thing – but that is a different conversation than gifts and should not be lumped together).
Iris Apfel
Would he be receptive to a price limit on gifts?
(Also I’m sorry because that sounds EXHAUSTING. I hate when adults sulk over dumb stuff)
Anon
We don’t really do gifts because we’re not gift people and I mostly think they’re a waste, but if he has baggage about this, what if you sit down together before the holidays and your anniversary and decide together on a gift for both of you? Then you could end up with something you both like at a reasonable price point and he wouldn’t feel like a bad husband who didn’t get his wife a present. Presents could be practical (a kitchen appliance or gadgets, new sheets or comforter for your bed), an experience (cooking lessons, a concert, a trip, just a night out somewhere special), or something else I’m not thinking of that makes sense to you.
OP
I have tried that and he still gets mad that he isn’t surprising me with the perfect gift that amazes me with his thoughtfulness. And it only works when he isn’t feeling poor, but he spends most of his life feeling poor.
Anon
I guess my big question in all of this is why he’s mad AT YOU because of HIS inability to do the thing he wants to do? That’s rhetorical, obviously.
I hope you can see how Not Okay that is. He needs to act like an adult who actually cares about his partner.
Anonymous
Marriage counseling or divorce
Anon
Here’s what works for us with the caveat that my husband is the one who hates gifts. We take the amount we would spend in a year on gifts for all the gift things and blow it on something frivolous that we discuss. Some years that means we buy ourselves something we’ve wanted and other times it’s a splashy meal out or weekend away. The only rule is it has to be fun. And the budget can vary too based on what else we have going on and if there’s any milestones in a given year.
Senior Attorney
Oh, dear! What if you just unilaterally stopped? Tell him, “Dear, I have decided that gift-giving is just too stressful for me and so my gift to you this year is that you are absolutely absolved from the obligation of getting me a gift. And the only gift I want from you is to be absolved from the obligation of getting you a gift. Fair warning: This is happening this year so don’t expect anything under the Christmas tree!”
Senior Attorney
Coming back to say he might be disgruntled by this, but the way things are, you’re disgruntled every year. So let him be the disgruntled one for a while. Maybe it will bring him to the table for a discussion of something that will work for both of you.
Anon
I completely agree with this. I don’t like giving gifts for every single occasion ever, and so I told my partner at some point that I didn’t want to exchange gifts on Valentine’s Day or our anniversary. He thought I wasn’t being serious and gave me a gift the next time one of those popped up, and I had only gotten him a nice card. Luckily, he’s not into sulking, so he just moved along. He will still sometimes give me something for those occasions and I have done so ONCE because I found the perfect thing, but we never seem to give a gift in the same year, and everyone is fine.
I will say that I’d treat the bad behavior separately from the gift-giving. He’s allowed to have whatever feelings he has, but he’s not allowed to be nasty to you because of them. That’s an issue that goes a lot deeper than gift-giving and is something I’d really think about and have a very serious conversation about.
Anonymous
Since agreeing not to do gifts is off the table, maybe a substitute “gift” where you both go out to eat, go to a show, etc. instead? That way you both get the same thing and there are no comparison issues.
Anon
I navigated this a long time ago. I don’t know why my husband thought a $50 gift card to Target paid from our joint account was a thoughtful gift, but at least it wasn’t junk I had to throw away!
I just send him links and he chooses from among them so at least it’s a surprise as to which one he chose. Basically I buy what I want for myself whenever I need it, except for the month before Christmas or the month before my birthday. During those months it becomes a link I send him. If there’s a relevant coupon code or a time sensitive deal I tell him that too.
I can’t remember the last time he went rogue on a gift for me. He did buy me a ring I pointed at in the window of a local jeweler’s shop, and I was shocked because even though I admired it I didn’t expect to get it. And I love it! So that one worked out. But generally it’s a cashmere sweater and a pair of earrings from kojima pearl and I’m a happy girl.
No Problem
Man, sometimes I am so happy to be single. This kind of BS would drive me crazy.
Anon
This kind of stuff drives me insane, as well. I’m in a relationship, but I just refuse to put up with this kind of behavior. It’s another example of the bar being below the floor.
Anon
+1 I get lonely for a sec and then one of my friends chimes in with some crap her husband is doing that is unbelievably ridiculous and I am no longer lonely.
Anonymous
my husband is also AWFUL at buying gifts — there have been heart-shaped jewelry purchases, people. here’s what he and i do:
i send him a list of 5-10 links to things that i would like but aren’t necessarily things i would buy for myself. it’s usually jewelry i’ve found on poshmark, etsy, or affordable stuff at department stores.
then, he buys me one. he gets to choose which of the links he’s going to buy, there’s still an element of surprise for me, and ultimately i get what i want. some of these purchases have become favorites and then i can honestly thank him for buying it for me.
Anon
Time to buy yourself the stuff you want.
anon
I had this issue with my husband. For him, giving gifts is an important expression of love, it’s not the same if the gift is something the recipient pre-selected, and my rejection of his gifts felt like a rejection of his love, or a criticism of him as a person. This was a big problem because he could literally never choose something for me that I liked — would often buy things that are very much a matter of personal taste (jewelry, clothing, a purse) and totally miss the mark, or he’d buy stuff I just really didn’t want (like a humungous electric neck massager). Things improved somewhat when I asked him to focus on experiences as gifts – e.g. concert tickets, planning a weekend trip. He’s done really well with that.
anon
Your issue isn’t the gift giving. Your husband doesn’t plan ahead, he doesn’t listen to what you ask for, and he shows contempt when you are successful at something he doesn’t do well because he chooses not to plan ahead and he chooses not to listen. It seems he also determines who gets to spend money on what which means he is fully in control of finances without listen to you. You have thoughtlessness, contempt, and control in your marriage. See a therapist either together or separately.
Anon
+1,000
Anonymous
What are some good socks to wear with shoes at work (like work appropriate boots)? Knee high and black are my preference. I was on the Bombas train but mine are starting to wear through and their happiness guarantee is only for one year.
Anonymous
Honestly I’d just buy new Bombas. I love the fit of their socks too much to mess with others, and I’ve never even tried to use their guarantee, because I don’t really expect my socks to last forever.
anon a mouse
Wait, did that change recently? I definitely contacted Bombas this summer when socks more than a year old developed a hole and they sent me a replacement. I’d give them a chance.
Cat
Same, socks from a Jan 2022 purchase got a hole sometime mid-summer 2023, and had no issues getting a replacement pair!
Anon
I buy compression socks. Mostly from the brand Sockwell. I like patterns but they sell plain black knee highs.
Full disclosure: my sockwell socks brand loyalty is because they’re sold on Amazon and my siblings insist on sending birthday and Christmas gifts from Amazon wishlists. I love asking for practical things like socks and maybe a fancier level of tea so I don’t accumulate too much junk.
Anon
I’ve done the compression sock rounds and TBH I think Sockwells are the best ones. Comfortable, durable, natural fibers, reasonably priced (for compression socks).
Anon
Oh that is good to know!! Thank you for the reassurance. :)
FP
Speaking of this – does Bombas do a Black Friday deal? My whole family needs new socks and I’m wondering if I should hold out for a few weeks.
Runcible Spoon
You might like to look at smartwool thin socks, although they don’t offer many knee-highs.