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Weekend Open Thread

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164 Comments

    1. Not really. If you’re up for a 15-20 minute stroll or quick car ride, go up 14th st to Ted’s bulletin. A classic. Or, head to kramerbooks in DuPont circle.

        2. It’s not about growing up. It’s about whether this is a place you can go on your work computer or not.

        3. I don’t think this is a question of something getting through? There are threads about people’s sex life basically every week on here. This is part of the list of topics that are being covered.

          1. I think some people read here on their work computers. Questions that use euphemisms like gardening are not going to get your browsing history red flagged in the way this one might.

          3. Is that really NSFW? I think of that term as like applying to a large picture of a naked person or something like that, something that people can easily notice from the desk next to you. No one is staring at your screen closely enough to see the word ‘vibrator’

          4. The paranoia is about monitoring software HR may use, not about a coworker walking by.

          5. So don’t read it at your work computer. I find this ridiculous to subject everyone to corporate censorship for your personal convenience because you somehow can’t visit this site on your personal phone and data…

          6. Completely agree – don’t use your work computer for things you’re not supposed to and you’ll be fine. Use your phone like a normal person in 2025.

  3. So i posted earlier about the threat to my kids’ school. I’m learning more than we knew this morning and frankly if I’d known then what I know now I’d have taken the kids out of school. There was apparently a series of specific threatening phone calls by one individual who has been warned they’ll be arrested if they trespass on school property. I’m upset that my kids’ school administrators told us it was one “perceived” threat in a single call, which is different to me. I’m also very concerned that local law enforcement is trying to prevent this person from entering the school but they are freely wandering the community the meantime and we can’t identify them.

    I don’t think accurate information about specific threats to our kids should be reserved for pta moms and gossips. I called several times and everyone said they didn’t know what happened. I realized this is the way of the world; I know threats are ever present. But, given that, why deprive parents of meaningful information?

    The lawyer in me thinks they’re protecting the school from suit by the alleged perpetrator by not allowing us to know details. Fundamentally, this seems unjust. I think the school needs to be incentivized to protect kids by giving parents, all parents, not just the ones they like, full information in real time. Is anyone aware of legislation or proposed legislation that would allow for this?

        1. That is not what gaslighting means. Don’t use pop psych buzz words you don’t understand

          2. Don’t try to convince a poster she’s mentally ill over a threat at her children’s school. THAT is psychotic.

      2. WTF? There appears to be an entire generation of people who cannot handle normal human interaction without professional assistance. Or tolerate the expression of normal anxiety or anger. Do not assume that everyone else has these developmental problems and cannot function without your mom, coach, or chat GPT telling you what to do.

    2. You are asking for something that’s never going to happen. They are not going to release the name of an individual because of a perceived threat. Also, have you ever been in an emergency situation? I have been involved in crisis comms for higher ed. Not often, thankfully, but often enough to know that things change VERY quickly and the priority is to protect the individuals already there. Providing real-time information would only add to the chaos. Imagine hundreds of parents swarming the scene at an inopportune time. How does that make anyone safer?

      Look, I’m a parent of school-age kids, too. The thought of school violence really scares me. But I guess I also have been on the other side enough to know there is no perfect solution here, and focusing on the kids and teachers and staff is the priority. Not pushing out ever-changing information to parents.

      1. My feeling is that as a parent if the school is threatened but not in lockdown it’s my job to evaluate wherever it’s safe for my kids to stay there. The fact that accurate information is withheld makes that impossible.

        I agree that in a lockdown emergency communication is difficult. But reserving the accurate information for certain parents in a non-emergency situation is problematic and dangerous. Non pta parents should also know the nature of the threat. If we can’t trust the administration to relay accurate information that will also lead to panic, likely in unnecessary situations.

        1. The administration is not telling the PTA. The PTA moms are just the connected SAHMs who get information through the grapevine, from teachers, cop husbands, etc.

        2. I respect your feeling, but I think the deal is that it’s the school’s job to evaluate whether it’s safe for your kids to stay there, and they’ll let you know if they need you to come pick them up?

        3. When you say ‘evaluate wherever it’s safe for my kids to stay there.’, you might be thinking about taking your kid out of school, and maybe that’s your prerogative, although I could already the slippery slope of one parent with a different risk assessment starting, and then your kid is asking why you care less than that parent and it becomes a whole thing. But more importantly, I think that assessment can lead other parents to come ‘guard’ the school or show up near the alleged cause of the threat with a firearm.

        4. You are never going to have perfect information, though, and realistically, your kid is just as likely to get shot on a day where there’s no warning at all. I think you have to be able to sit with the tension of “this awful thing could happen but also it probably won’t.” Or you can move or find a different schooling option.

      2. It’s definitely true that uncertain and poorly timed updates can make things worse (I’m glad your higher ed crisis comms team apparently understood this).

        But K12 schools at least need to give the parents a heads up about what their kids experienced, so they have an opportunity to parent. I think this is true even when there’s no general threat (like if the kids witnessed a scary medical situation unfold).

        1. I agree it can be helpful for parents to know, but medical situations involve personal info the school might not be able to disclose.

          1. It’s not disclosing personal information to say “a student was injured on the playground during recess. The other students were taken to their classrooms. Paramedics came with sirens and lights. Then a helicopter landed on the playground. We will provide further updates in accordance with the family’s wishes.” (This scenario actually occurred at my elementary school.) At least with this information I would know how upset or excited to expect my kid to be.

          2. There’s no way they can’t say what all the kids saw. A caretaker lost consciousness and fell in front of the whole class. A child hit their head and bled all over the playground before an ambulance came to take them away. That’s not personal medical information.

          4. So if your child witnessed one of those things, but was struggling to convey to you what had happened, and was really upset, that would be too much detail for you as context for what they were upset about?

    3. I agree that schools need to provide more specific information. Nothing terrifies people more than an uncertain threat and it’s completely needless to do that. There are ways to protect privacy and follow the law without vaguebooking about something serious.

      1. But the school isn’t “vaguebooking”? They appear to have said nothing, and some parents are aware through other channels.

    4. I agree with you that schools need to be incentivized to provide information. Our school district believes, accurately or not, that the way to protect itself against liability and reputational harm is to provide as little information as possible, not just about crisis situations but also about student de@ths. Two of my daughter’s classmates passed away under mysterious circumstances during high school, and the whispered gossip about what really happened was much more harmful on many levels than a clear admission of what had happened (obviously intentional by the student in both cases) would have been. In the second case the parents are suing a large business involved in the incident so I can understand that they’d be cagey, but in the first there was no one to sue. For threats to the school, the rumors that students hear can lead to dangerous behavior as well as to unfounded anxiety.

      1. It’s very likely that the families don’t want that information out. It’s definitely not the school’s place to disclose cause of death of a minor to the wider public. I’m sorry your daughter and her classmates had to go through that.

          1. One happened on school grounds and the other happened within yards of the school. Students were told that they shouldn’t even discuss the incidents among themselves. No wonder teens don’t trust adults.

          2. And the one that happened on school grounds was a 19-year-old senior, so not a minor.

          3. I’m not sure what you think should have happened here. You want the school to have disclosed how the children died? I dont think this is about liability and reputational harm, its about it not being the school’s information to share, even if it happened on school grounds and the student was no longer a minor. Have a little compassion for the family, you are not entitled to this information.

      2. I would think that in the case of the two deaths, it is actually not up to the school to release any information about what happened. The parents of the two girls would get to choose if/when they want to make that information public. My guess would be that in this case, the parents did not want to share the information.

        1. +1 this seems pretty obvious to me. We’d all be criticizing the school if they’d release info against the parents’ wishes.

    5. Depriving parents of meaningful information is pretty much standard operating procedure at my kids’ public school, especially if the information should be coming from leadership (the teachers are great and rarely the source of my agita). For better or worse, the principals and vice principals in my district don’t answer to the parents or the broader community, they answer to the superintendent/district, so are pretty ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ if a parent has a problem.

      That said, I do try to start with the principal and work my way up, probably because I’m an incorrigible optimist. But in general, getting in touch with the superintendent and the school board (it’s a small district) have been necessary and they are more responsive.

      While I’m not aware of any particular legislation, I’m pretty sure that most of the changes/implementations of emergency plans in our district have been made due to parent complaints. So squeaky wheel, grease, all of that.

    6. This must feel absolutely awful as a parent.

      Realistically, it’s not going to change though. For legal reasons (imagine all the ways “we think this person is a threat to kids and we’re going to release their name and picture, without due process and a way for them to challenge that” can go wrong) and practical ones (a bunch of parents showing up to collect their kids in the middle of a situation distracts administrators and police from the work they need to do & makes it harder to see at a glance who should/shouldn’t be on campus). I’m sorry.

      1. They don’t need to give out names. They can say this type of threat was made, this is what we have done to determine that it is not credible, this is what we did in the moment to keep your child safe. That way when my kid comes home upset from a lockdown I know how to deal with it and can provide appropriate reassurance.

        Our school district hides known threats so they won’t have to close school, which is a whole other problem.

        1. The credibility assessment is typically done by law enforcement, who may or may not provide their assessment methods to the school.

    7. Can you clarify what you want? Do you want the principal to send an email in real time while a crisis, perceived or actual, is happening? The gossip isn’t happening because the principal is sending official information out to only favorite parents. It’s happening because someone (a teacher, a staff member, a student) surreptitiously texts a parent with what they know or think they know, and it builds from there.

      Your first step is to find out what your district’s policies and procedures are regarding threats. Then you can try to argue for whatever communication policy you’d like to have.

      1. What I really want is for no parent to have call the school desperately begging for information that was already provided through back channels to other parents. I think the school needs to be incentivized, legally, to tell the truth to the entire community, not just the parents who know the right people. I think deliberately misleading the community about the nature and amount of threats made should have consequences. I’d like to be able to trust that the information I get about my kids’ safety is accurate.

        Finally, in this day and age I think I’d be comfortable in treating people who threaten schools like the community wide threats they are, even if that means people accused in these situations lose some civil rights. If the police are on high alert for this person, the rest of the community should be too. Again, if these incentives are legal we can probably legislate around them. Something like qualified immunity for administrations and individuals that release the descriptions of individuals making an ongoing threat to schools and children such as the situation here might be helpful. It seems unjust that there are parents now who know exactly who to watch out for and parents who are in the dark. Parents should be able to trust that they have the information necessary to keep their kids safe without knowing the “right” people. Thats my frustration and my thinking right now.

        1. This is how public school works. You only get information, the “best” teachers for your child, help with scheduling issues, etc. if you volunteer at the school a lot and are cozy with the right people.

        2. Seriously, your expectations are not realistic nor even what is likely to create a safer environment. And gossip is always going to exist You can’t police that. You’re spiraling here.

          1. Yeah, both the “incentivizing” claims and the civil rights claims are way far afield from what has to happen legally & otherwise. You’re way misinformed about policy here.

        3. I can understand your concerns. But what you’ve written here is actually unhinged (and I say this as a parent who has gone through this exact scenario). First, schools cannot put out a call to parents in this way, on this timeline. Schools don’t call special parents, and I have no idea what you mean by a legal incentive to call all parents. There’s no deliberate misleading here that I can see. {Please note that I am differentiating from school boards, which do sometimes obfuscate. This is not the same situation.}

          Second, the claim that losing civil rights is okay when there’s a perceived community threat is very, very dangerous. I get that this is a complex situation and you want your kids as safe as possible, but your “In this day and age paragraph” is truly off base.

          TLDR: Your frustration is understandable; your thinking is way off base.

    8. A man who ran an afterschool program at my kids’ school was arrested for molesting two young girls at a program he ran at different days at another school. Had they done any cursory investigation on him, they’d have seen prior police involvement that should have disqualified him from being left alone in a locked building with children (or from even being a school volunteer). What did we hear from the school? Not a peep. Of course there is a lawsuit going on now because it turned out that he also victimized one kid at our school and many other kids were likely traumatized by giving witness statements and many of us had rounds of discussions with our very young kids to see if they were additional victims, witnesses, or just scared. I hate every single irresponsible adult for putting everyone through even a small piece of that and the parents of the girls most affected have been treated like dirt. How they haven’t burned that school down is beyond me.

      1. I am SO sorry. A friend of mine basically got drummed out of the PTA for asking questions, then trying to implement insurance requirements and background checks for afterschool activities because “we’ve know Coach Whathisname for years and he’s so good with the kids!”

        1. In my state, cases with child victims are prosecuted in juvenile court, even if the defendant is an adult. That means that no information about the case is available. You can’t even find a record that the defendant was charged or what he was charged with. Thanks to this plus what appears to be the work of a paid internet-scrubbing service, there is a youth sports facility still in operation where one of the owners and coaches had an inappropriate relationship with a teenaged athlete. He was suspended for a few years by the national governing body, during which time his wife and father operated the facility without his presence on site. He went right back to coaching when the suspension was up, and parents either don’t know or don’t care what happened because they keep sending their daughters.

      1. I was thinking this, too. In state government, and we used to get threatening phone calls with some frequency. We looped in law enforcement and mostly they were harmless, the exception being when someone’s violent ex- made a specific threat against that specific person, and a history of DV… Sadly, those were the real ones and we had an action plan for protecting the person and their worksite. If we blasted out notices to our 3,000 employees every time we got a kook phone call, it would be bedlam.

    10. This happened at our school and I really regret not yanking my kid — there was a perceived threat and I didn’t want to freak out and then it turned out ALL the other parents freaked out and pulled their kids. So mine was one of the few left. Ouch.

      Nothing’s going to get done at the federal level. Go to your local school board or city council to discuss reporting requirements.

      1. Ok here. I agree. It would have to be local. But honestly it looks like school boards and even states are bowing to parents asking for much more ridiculous things.

        1. Our school districts bows to parents who want things that are dangerous, like keeping violent kids in general education classrooms. Or harmful, like banning books and not allowing teachers to teach reading and writing. No request or demand for anything that enhances student safety or learning has ever been granted.

    11. It is normal and healthy to not want your children to die. Where it starts to become unhealthy is when you convince yourself that if you just have a little more information or just have a little more control, you’ll be able to keep them safe. There is a line where you slide past healthy protectiveness into an unhealthy desire for control.

      To me, this ask would be beyond that line. At a certain point, you have to trust the apparatuses you turn your children over to, or you should stop turning your children over to them. But you cannot really ask the apparatuses to feed you evermore information, or you’re into that unhealthy anxiety spiral zone.

      So I guess I would ask myself — is this incident enough for me to lose trust in this school district, with all of the implications of that? Or is this a discomfort I have to learn to sit with because we are not moving or doing private school? Asking for instant communication is not a reasonable ask here, so those are pretty much your best options.

    12. “I’m very concerned that…they are freely wandering the community in the meantime and we can’t identify them.” Gently, I’d encourage you to watch more crime dramas. There are so many bad people in the world, and law enforcement catches them by the skin of their teeth every day. There are so many near-misses it’s terrifying. To say this another way, you are in danger every day from bad people and so is your family and so is every one of us. But you just can’t worry about it or you’d go crazy.

      By asking for real-time information, you’re asking for a stampede of hysterical parents to overrun the school at a crucial time when there’s possibly danger unfolding and law enforcement trying to work and certainly administrators trying to keep a school on track.

      What I’ve typically seen is a formal letter from the principal at the end of the school day explaining what happened in vague terms (“Dear Parents, You may have heard that a student brought a w e a p o n to school today…”) . This gives everyone the same information at an appropriate time when school officials have had time to handle the situation. Will they be perfect in how they handle a threat? Not always – see Newport News. But give them a chance to do their jobs without 1,000 hysterical parents clogging the phone lines and the parking lot.

      I agree with the poster who said you should work with your school system to change whatever policies exist around threat communication since this ultimately varies by principal.

      1. to the first half of your post – maybe this isn’t a reason to encourage watching crime dramas.

      2. Honestly I’m not a paranoid person and I generally accept that danger and risk exists in life. My specific frustration here is the school seems like it is incentivized to have a two tiered system of providing vital information: certain parents get more information than others. Fundamentally I’m interested in policies that would required full disclosure to all parents of threats. Right now, im treated like threats to my kids are somehow not my business and there has got to be a way to incentivize disclosure of vital information to all parents; not just some.

        1. I agree with 5:26 above. At some point, either you trust them with your kids, or you don’t. It’s unlikely that it would actually make school safer for all parents to be alerted to every potential threat in real time (if you can’t imagine a parent who can take an action that can make a situation worse, you’re not thinking this through very hard). I think trust also goes both ways (the less you seem to trust the school, the less likely you are to become one of the trusted parents!).

          I think schools prioritize CYA and attendance and enrollment and other institution-serving concerns over student health and safety, let alone transparency, pretty routinely, so I’m not saying you need to trust them more. But they do practically need to be in a position to make collective decisions about the safety of all the children in their care in real time without running those decisions by every individual parent to contest, obstruct, or interfere with, which is what would happen with real time updates.

          I don’t know if you could get some kind of special status of “let me come pick up my kids every time there’s a threat” like the parents who won’t let their kids learn about certain topics in class, but I don’t think that full disclosure to all parents of all threats even if that means parents could all show up in person and obstruct a collective response is something schools are going to be willing to do.

        2. If your school district has an actual policy of providing the details you want to some parents (the PTA?) and not to others, that might be something you could push for under open-records laws, or recording school board meetings that are open to the public anyway, so parents who can’t attend in person can still watch them.

          But it sounds like what is happening is just gossip, almost certainly against policy. It’s frustrating, sure, but that’s a human nature thing that isn’t going to change. You can decide if you want to either try to get into the gossip chain, or let it go.

        3. You really have to stop assuming that the school called some parents and not others. It’s so clearly a gossip train and not about any two-tiered official system.

          Second, you will not get the full disclosure policy. The legality and liability is too much; plus disclosing information in real time is bad practice for all sorts of live issues, whether at schools or not.

    13. I think you have gotten some really good suggestions on where to look for the written policies of your school. I would start there and do some research on Google Scholar to see what your state requires. Then you will know whether to complain about policy non compliance or need to lobby for change. It is definitely the case, though, that information changes quickly in real time and that law enforcement needs space to investigate and handle law enforcement issues. And if the person who is being disruptive is a student, state law likely limits what can be disclosed about them.

    14. A lot of responses imply that you’re being unreasonable. I think you’re being very level headed. I had children at school in America and also found it shocking that a very real risk of shooting was so accepted. It would not be hard to lower the risk; building tall solid fences, doing full background checks, etc…but those things are not commonly done. The lack of communication with parents is on top of that. I genuinely question whether it’s part of what’s driving such rampant use of anti anxiety medication, because it’s so abnormal for parents to be forced to tolerate the dangerous situations young children are put in.

      Before anyone says I’m also nuts, please pause to consider how much unnecessary danger you’d knowingly put your own child in. I emigrated from America in large part due to the problematic gun proliferation, mental illness epidemic, and legalisation of cannabis at state level. Life is way better now, but I miss the America I knew as a child and am angry that it’s been allowed to spiral into the third world.

      2. Gun control, not “higher fences” is the only way to turn toward safety as an American ethic. JFC.

          1. But “building tall solid fences” isn’t a solution to anything. That’s just absurd.

      3. I think you’d have a lot more success pushing the school board for the measures noted above (a background check policy for any adults working with kids, which should absolutely already be in place; a review of physical grounds and safety/emergency policies – ie not just fences, but things like making sure all door locks function, having school visitors enter through a single set of doors, making sure staff are aware of emergency procedures, resistant glass, etc.). You just have zero chance of success pushing a “full real-time disclosure to all parents of any threat referred to the police” policy.

      4. I get that USA makes it pretty clear where children rank in society, and I would really hesitate to leave a child in the care of any of the schools I attended. But classroom education and congregate care are all about compromise between what might be better for the individual vs. what is determined to be overall best for the group. That goes for education, health, and safety. It’s not wrong to look out for your own child as an individual (it’s your job as a parent), but the school is going to keep looking out for all the children as a collective (even when that means not proactively giving you the opportunity to second guess their decisions and come yank your kid out of school when that’s not their plan). I have to assume it works that way in safer countries too.

        1. Disagree, but by your logic, to compensate for the safety aspect, the education would need to be excellent; whereas in reality the schools my children attended lose their best teachers and in a few cases has retired teachers call in on zoom from their retirement home in another state.

    15. Another possible reason that the school is withholding more info about the caller: the caller is related to a student. (Think, parent in nasty custody battle, or abusive.) in that case the school might prioritize silence for the sake of the student’s privacy. They wouldn’t want anyone saying, “well, if Jane’s father is a nut job, just kick Jane out so he wont call the school anymore.”

  4. Why would the government shutdown have an impact on the availability of telehealth appointments for someone who is not on Medicare?

    1. The provider might be participating in a payment or service delivery innovation model that is affected by the shutdown.

    2. Some insurers follow Medicare guidelines for what they cover. And some providers are just canceling all telemedicine appointments due to the confusion because they don’t want to run the risk of not getting paid. I’ve had multiple friends and family members affected by this, people who are very sick and can’t easily see a doctor in person, so this whole situation is really frustrating. I’ve written to my congresspeople and I suggest you do too, if this is affecting you. Technically this is separate from the shutdown, but they seem to be using that as an excuse not to deal with it.

      1. Today my doctor’s office, in a specialty with a high fraction of patients on Medicare, offered me a telehealth appointment, and my 18-year-old’s pediatrician’s office told her they aren’t doing telehealth due to the shutdown. Seems backwards.

        1. In some states telehealth for Medicaid is affected, which insures a lot of kids

          I’m not surprised to see variation by practice though – if they’re going to have to cancel most of their telehealth appointments because it’s *mostly* Medicare, it might make sense to shut down the entire telehealth office & infrastructure; or alternatively, I could also see a practice with a lot of Medicare patients encouraging non-Medicare folks to try telehealth with the hope of opening up more in-person slots for Medicare people. Just a mess all around.

    3. The reason it’s tied to the shutdown is because much of the authorization for Medicare to reimburse telehealth was just a temporary, “experimental” waiver to allow during the pandemic. That waiver kept getting renewed, because telehealth is a great fit for at least some situations – we should have just made it permanently authorized, but that didn’t happen & it wasn’t super urgent anyway, because the renewals hadn’t been a problem. But this time, when it expired, the people who would ordinarily get it renewed are furloughed.
      So providers can either take their chances, cross their fingers and hope Medicare will reimburse them after the fact, ask patients to pay up front and patients can hope they get reimbursed, or switch all medicare visits to in person.

  5. Business formal work shoes and fashion boots that come in wides? I know that the Varas come in wides. But what else that is at that level of formality / niceness is there? Need to widen up due to a neuroma / orthodic situation on one foot.

    1. My favorite wide fashion boots are from Hush Puppies. Every year I do a little happy dance when the season flips and I can pull them back out again.

    3. I buy Naturalizer and Cole Haan. My co worker loves Vionic. Sam Edelman has some but I find the fit inconsistent, so be ready to try on. Do yourself a favor and filter immediately by width – most of these brands’ styles and colors come in standard only.

    5. Trotters. I am so annoyed that Cole Hann no longer has a good selection in wides. Naturlizer is hit and miss for comfort.

  6. If you have multiple schools in your history, which one (if any) do you give money to and why? I give more to my undergrad because I’m in an alumni group, and my law school gets zilch

    1. I don’t give money to any schools that I went to. They all have enough money and I tend to think private higher education is a racket anyway. I do contribute to and serve on the foundation board for the community college from which my daughter graduated.

    2. I give to my undergrad; they gave me a full scholarship.

      I don’t give to my grad school; they got plenty of money from me already and they have billions in the endowment. It is also a much, much bigger school than my undergrad so I feel more attached to the specific program than the school overall (like I’d definitely take a network-ey coffee chat from a student in my program, than a random student from the university as a whole).

      1. Same. My husband got a lot of money from his private school, so we give to them. I paid full in-state tuition and my taxes, so I don’t give to mine.

    3. I don’t. I went to the same school for both, paid full freight (my parents, then me for law school). School started asking me for donations while I was in law school, then as a new grad in the 08-09 recession, engaged in such off-putting fundraising techniques that I was turned off for life!

    4. Nothing to the colleges I attended, but I donate to my high school’s alumni association scholarship fund. It’s a rural-ish, poor-ish school so I figure it’s a better use of my (limited) funds.

    5. We gave for a very specific purpose (to support a special program that helps underserved youth get ready for college with a transition year) that my partner was in and later found out that the school was simply lumping the funding into “general” costs despite assurances to the contrary. Dishonesty about it was a dealbreaker.

    6. Undergrad because it was truly life changing, law school because they do give lots of scholarships and serve a poor first generation population, and my community college because it also changes lives. Because when I was starting out, even $25 showed that I valued them and I’ve raised that as I’m able to do so.

    7. I give to my large urban high public school because I got a great education there and they don’t have a lot of money. I have given money to my Ivy League undergrad, because I also got a great education there and benefited from their huge endowment, but I stopped because I decided they have enough money and my money would make a bigger difference elsewhere. I’ve never given anything to my graduate university and don’t plan to, as I don’t have particularly good feelings about it.

    8. I gave to MIT to support them for refusing to sign Trump’s “pledge”.
      I’m an alumni to a bunch of Universities, and so far the others have plenty of money and don’t need mine. But honestly this year’s chaos has me reconsidering.

    9. I do not give to my law school because it nearly doubled tuition while keeping scholarships flat, forcing me to take out tens of thousands of dollars in unplanned loans. I do not give to my undergraduate institution because I had a middling experience there and because it’s a public university in a state that has made poor funding decisions and set dubious admissions priorities.

      If my daughter’s undergraduate experience ends as amazingly as it has begun and if I am fortunate enough to be able to afford charitable giving after she graduates, I will seriously consider donating to support merit-based scholarships so other kids like her can have the same life-changing opportunity.

    11. Undergrad because it’s an incredible community and an unusually good curriculum. But I only give enough for it to count towards “percent of alumni who give” because their tuition is a fortune and they got enough money from me.

      None to university I guess because of hard feelings and because I think gets a lot of funding relative to other schools that could use it more.

    13. Nothing at all. I paid full freight to attend and they pay their football coach more in a year than I will make in my life.

    14. I’ve never given to any school I’ve attended or worked at. My undergrad has a huge endowment and my parents paid full freight (>$250k) for me to attend, so I feel like they got enough money from our family. I also didn’t have the best experience there, especially in terms of support from faculty and staff.

      I went to law school after college and feel a little bit of guilt about not giving them money because they gave me a huge merit scholarship that allowed me to graduate with low five figure debt, which has been pretty life-changing financially. But I don’t feel very connected to my law school community – I lived off campus with a college BF and had a big friend group from college in the area, so I was basically a commuter student and felt like much more of an adult than my classmates even though I went straight through K-JD and most of them were a few years older than me. I’ve never attended reunions or alumni events because I know almost literally no one, so it feels weird to give the school money. I’ll probably leave them something in my will if I end up with a lot of extra money and would earmark it for scholarships like the one I got.

      I now work at a State U and they ask us employees to give them money constantly, which I think is so tacky. I have never given them anything because they give us terrible “merit” raises that don’t begin to keep pace with inflation. If they gave us real raises I would consider giving to them, or at least to specific depts/programs that are important and underfunded. I do support the school by buying athletic tickets & college apparel but mainly because my kid wants that stuff.

      The only school I’ve ever donated to is a really niche SLAC in the coastal New England town where my family has a vacation home (not as fancy as it sounds – it’s my grandparents’ primary residence that was passed down when they died). My kid attends day camp there every summer and has had wonderful experiences, and I like the college’s mission and educational philosophy. And my sense is that they are not doing as well financially as my fancy alma maters or even the State U I work at.

      1. >$250k??? What school is this and whyyyy did you go there full freight? If, like, Princeton and your family is rich, I guess… My friend just visited Vassar with their kid and that tuition is now $90k /year with no merit scholarships. But at that cost, if you can get into Vassar you can surely get in elsewhere with a merit scholarship, so paying full freight is a choice.

        1. It was an HYPSM, yeah. My parents were middle class but hugely prioritized education and really scrimped and saved to have a huge pile of money for my education by the time I went to college. I think they would have been happy to use that money for any reasonably good school, but I put a lot of pressure on myself to get into the very tippy top schools so the price tag would be more “worth it.” Although as an adult I agree with you that the value isn’t really there even for HYPSM because I had merit-based full rides to other very selective schools likes Wash U. I’m also an only child, which is a big factor. Most families are saving for 2-3 kids to go to college, and my parents only had one. If I’d had a sibling they would not have been able to pay full freight.

        2. To clarify, tuition at Vassar is 70k, with estimated total cost of attendance at 90k (ie including room & board, books, flights, etc). Still insane.

  7. Best black footless tights that don’t have seams or otherwise look like leggings?

  8. how do you decide when to sell stock or funds to reallocate assets? i’ll take a big tax hit for capital gains however i do it, won’t i?

    1. I simply do not. I just stop buying in the category I’m overloaded in for a while.

    2. To avoid capital gains taxes, don’t sell. Turn off automatic reinvestIng, and have that money put into whatever cash account you have. Then, invest that money plus any new investment funds into your portfolio to balance to your desired mix.

    3. Most of my investments are in retirement accounts, so I don’t worry about paying capital gains there. You should consider asset allocation across all of your accounts, though you also need to think about the tax treatment of the different accounts and possibly different time horizons for using the money. But mostly I decide to sell stock when I need to rebalance to meet my preferred asset allocation or because I need the money for something (I’ve done this once, for the down payment on our house).

  9. I will be in DC next week. I am in search of a dress to wear to the opera, ballet, symphony, and theatre. Somewhere between c-tail and black tie in formality. Style aesthetic is sleek and classic with a slight edge (“French ninja”). I have had no luck on line: Tuckernuck is too preppy, Sezane is too fussy, Reformation is too trashy. Need to shop somewhere that reliably stocks non-vanity sizes 2 and 4. Budget is ideally under $350 but might go up to $500 for something really amazing. I will have limited shopping time and need to make it count. What independent boutiques should I target?

    1. I don’t know about boutiques, but it seems like Marcella NYC might fit your aesthetic. You could check out their website. Also, Nordstrom sells some of their clothing.

      1. Yeah downtown DC was really hollowed out by the pandemic and isn’t a shopping Mecca. If it were me I would head to Tysons Galleria (the fancier of the two Tysons malls) via Metro or Uber. I am quite sure you would find something there.

  10. Worst experience with a retailer and need to vent.

    I bought two pair of Express Editor pants last month. They arrived and I was really disappointed at how awful they are now compared to how they were back in the day.

    Fabric is so full of wrinkles that don’t wash out, don’t iron out, and don’t steam out that the pants are unwearable. Chat representative asked for photos and upon seeing them promised a full refund for sending me defective fabric. I tucked the tags and spare buttons in the pocket, shipped them back, then got the pants sent back to me two weeks later. They came back with a note refusing the refund because the tags were not attached and the fabric is not defective. I called customer service and they refuse to do anything further and told me my bank needs to deal with it because they won’t. They said they won’t accept my return for any reason now that their warehouse has said the fabric is fine. The wrinkles are so bad, like they were melted into the polyester fabric as it was all crumpled up in a wad. They sent the spare buttons back, but kept the tags so I can’t even try to return them in store now and hope a clerk will be reasonable.

    I tried leaving this review on the Express item listing and they apparently won’t post one star reviews. I’m disputing the charge with my credit card company. Do not buy from Express.

    1. This is the kind of helpful vent I am here for! Thanks for the warning. That’s awful.

    2. FYI, Lululemon also does not allow critical reviews. I reviewed something once and noted that the pictures were deceptive, which they were. Lululemon refused to publish it. Anyway, what an awful experience. Thanks for the info.

  11. What happened to fall?? Can’t believe the weather this week puts us into winter. I’m not ready!

      1. Not OP but I’m in the Midwest and it’s lovely now but it’s supposed to snow on Monday. Fall came late this year, it was mid-80s until early October so I’m kind of grumpy about the short fall too. If September had been more fall-like it would be easier to let go now.

      2. MidAtlantic. Expecting lows in the 20s on Tuesday. Brrr! (Transplant from a warmer clime out west so that will be very cold for me.)

        1. Lows in the 20s are not bad if they come with highs in the upper 40s or 50s. You just need to bundle up for the morning commute.
          It snowed in my part of the Midwest today so I feel you. It was supposed if just be flurries but it’s really sticking.

  12. If a massage therapist has a 30% higher hourly rate for “Therapeutic massage” that “relaxing massage” would you assume that is inclusive of tip?

    3. Of course not. It’s a different type of massage, so it’s a different price. Just like you pay more for a hair cut and color than just a cut. It has nothing to do with tip included or not.

  13. Any suggestions for a casual jacket for the weekends, must be black. I don’t want a hoodie and I already have a jean jacket. I’ve been looking, but can’t quite find the right thing. Under $150.

    2. Check out WHBM. I have a black jacket from them that I wear on the weekends. I think they have a few others currently.

    3. The Evereve Lena moto jacket in black is on sale. Marrakech is another brand that might have what you are looking for.

    4. Lululemon Always Effortless jacket. I wore it to a relatively casual conference last week and it was perfect and very comfortable for traveling too. It does run big; I have a size 4 and I usually wear 6-8 at Lulu.

  14. Just ranting into the void- my sister is married to the most useless man. Normally, I do a decent job just ignoring the imbalances because it’s her life and her decisions. This past month, however, their kid has had a major medical crisis. My Mom and I have been dropping everything to be there for them and it’s so hard to ignore that the jerk is nowhere to be seen.

    1. Genuinely, good for you for venting this outwards here rather than inwards towards your sister.

    2. I have a friend in this type of relationship and I sometimes want to point out to her that this is how he will be if she ever needs him in a medical emergency or old age. But there’s just no way to do that, is there…
      I guess maybe there’s some kind of amazing trade-off we don’t see.

    3. Can you help her afford a divorce? I stayed married for two reasons, the finances and the children. Once the children were self sufficient I worked on building my income so I could afford life as a single mom.

      Divorce is expensive because of the legal costs, but also running my own home and paying for 80% of the children. As an example, I am the parent who has purchased coats, snow boots and winter clothing. He bought poor quality clothing so the kids bring from my home. He has the children until bedtime once a week. Handover to me should be post dinner bedtime. He never feeds them on handover nights. That’s an extra meal I have to buy for which adds up. My lawyer told me he just has to offer a meal. Well it’s at least $20-30 to feed my children for dinner. Thats on average $1300 im out of pocket for each year. Add that to him not paying for half of childcare as well as the other stuff like not paying for medical premiums, I’m out by about $30-40k a year. If you guys can help your sister with childcare, clothing and the housework, it will help her massively.

      1. You had an absolutely terrible lawyer. I’m sorry you’re stuck with this arrangement.

        1. No, I had a good lawyer. I had a bad husband and a terrible father to our children. The courts can’t make him pay or parent. He is self employed and operates his business in Europe now that we are divorced.

          Unfortunately family courts are more concerned about parents rights and not the responsibilities parents have for their children.

          2. He isn’t in Europe. He is an American citizen living here in the US but his business operates out of Europe. His income is based on his distributions, not the loans he takes against the business. It’s frustrating because the judge went off tax returns which don’t include the company as that return is foreign. The judge only wanted his U.S. tax return and said it will include his worldwide income.

            Welcome to family court. This is why people like the OPs sister don’t get divorced.

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