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For busy working women, the suit is often the easiest outfit to throw on in the morning. In general, this feature is not about interview suits for women, which should be as classic and basic as you get — instead, this feature is about the slightly different suit that is fashionable, yet professional.
This suit is definitely on the more casual side — but I've heard that the pieces are incredibly soft, which could work if you want a suit-but-comfortable look. (The fabric is a blend of 42% linen, 39% tencel, 19% cotton.) The pull-on pants are among the brand's best sellers, and I kind of feel like the suit vest is going to be big for the next few seasons if you're into trends.
The brand is new to me, but is apparently the brainchild of Alex Drexler (son of Mickey, who had been focusing on making the perfect shirt) and Somsack, previously design director at J.Crew (and before that, Madewell).
The pictured blazer, vest and pants are between $135-$225; there are also matching shorts.
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- Target – Circle week, deals on 1000s of items
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Another Anon
I called my senators (Louisiana friends – Kennedy @ DC 202-224-4623 and @ Nola 504-581-6190 and Cassidy @ 202-224-5824 though this mailbox is full and @ Metairie 504-838-0130).
Script: Hello my name is [name]. I am a constituent from [state]. My zip code is [zip]. I don’t need a response. I strongly encourage Senator to support the vote and passage of HR 8 and HR 1445. I also urge him to vote to confirm Steven Dettelbach as director of the ATF. Thank you.
What else can I do? Should I call back every day?
AIMS
Call every day. So many Rs are just waiting for this to “blow over.”
Maybe you can make flyers and put them up with this info to encourage others.
Anonymous
Curious how others thought about this. If you make 200k (single income), what is the max you’d spend on a house? Current rent is $2100, though I know I’d spend more per month on a house payment including taxes etc. Assume a down payment of 200k saved up though that doesn’t mean I HAVE TO use all of it; l don’t think of it as well that’s 20% down for a million dollar home, million dollars it is. What else did you think about here? Single/no kids so saving for college is not an issue; I do max out retirement savings though at the IRS 401k max and would continue that.
Anon
IDK how old you are or where you live, but I’d be reluctant to go over 800K, pref. not over 600K. If you are 30 vs 50, the calculus is different, but I wouldn’t want my house to handcuff me to a high-paying job (and in the event of a layoff or recession, the odds are your next job could pay a lot less). Also, 2BR or extra bedroom in case you ever needed to take on a roommate to make your house payment.
My rule for my first house was not to buy at more than 3x my salary (but borrowing most every penny so as to stay liquid w/r/t cash savings).
Anon
Our HHI was $150k when we bought and $500k was the top of our range. We ended up at $350k +$120k of immediate renovations and that was very comfortable. I think we probably could have gone up to $550 or $600 but any more than that and we would have started feeling house poor. We wanted a kid (and had one a few years after buying) but we have grandparent help for college so that wasn’t a big factor.
Anon
As little as possible to get something that meets my standards. When I lived somewhere where a brand new 2500 square foot house in a decent neighborhood reasonably close to work was $250k, I didn’t spend any more than that (I actually would have preferred a smaller house, but there weren’t any in the areas we were looking). Where I live now, there are literally no houses for less than a million, and they’re small and crappy. The answer just completely depends on your local options.
Anon
+1 I am same HHI and I went with a nice small SFH (1600 sq ft, 3 bed, 1.5 bath, almost 1/3rd of an acre) at the price of $170k. It’s plenty for my needs and I have more disposable income.
Anon
To add, I put the bare minimum down and would not even have remotely felt comfortable spending more than $200k! I have SL still and do not want to be house poor. Bought in 2019, refi’d in 2020.
Anonymous
I encourage you to get pre-approved with several banks (you have some time, I think 30 days, to get pre-approvals and your credit takes only 1 hit, so it doesn’t matter if you get 1 quote or 3). They take your down payment and then calculate PITI, principal, interest, taxes, insurance/HOA, and they’ll give you a hard limit based on income. I was renting for $2K, salary $140K, and I recently bought a condo. The PITI is $2046, so basically the same. My PITI calculation came back with the result that I had to stay under $2800/mo.
anon
Your answer will vary greatly based on the interest rate you lock in and the taxes and HOA for the property you are looking at. I am in a high property tax ($1,000/month) area, but with no HOA and a 3% mortgage rate. With a HHI of $160,000 before bonuses, I bought a $600k place with 20% down. If you have $200k saved up, that has to cover closing costs and moving costs (ran me about $20,000 combined) and immediate purchases for your house (blinds, closets, washer/dryer, lawn mower and snow blower if appropriate = another $10,000). I didn’t budget for renovations as it was a brand new house.
Basically, you need to think about a lot more numbers than just the list price of the house and how much you have in savings. Contrary to some of the advice here, I bought as much house as I could afford and don’t regret it. The transaction costs are significant and this is not a process I wanted to repeat in five years.
Anonymous
The way I thought about it as a single earner was that I did not want to have more than 2.5x my salary in debt. I am not certain where I got that number, but it felt right for me. Since I already had school debt, I included that. I ended up buying a pretty modest 2/2 home in a neighborhood with a lot of upcoming development. I am glad I made the choice I did because I took a salary hit not long after that and the house note is still manageable and cheaper than rent. I have built significant equity in the property and it has served my shelter needs well but also put me in the exact neighborhood where I want to live. Without the extra income, it has been harder to make the improvements/timely upkeep I’d like but I’m working back to a place where I will be able to address all of that soon while still never worrying about not paying the mortgage and loans (which were not subject to pandemic deferment).
Anonymous
In addition to cost of purchase I would think strongly about long term upkeep costs, the rate of tax increase over time, and maintenance. A $750k apartment or a $700k condo with fees is different than a $750k 3000sq ft single family.
Anonymous
We have a HHI if $350k and live in a home that between purchase price and immediate Renos we spent $950k on. We have 3 kids. If I were you I’d buy a 3 BR 1.5 bath that didn’t need work. I’d try to spend less but keep my max at $700-$750k depending on taxes. And I’d put a bunch of money down.
Emma
Generally, the 2,5 times income is a good rule. But it also depends on what the market is where you are and what you want. We also had about 200k saved, were hoping to buy at 800k and ended up just short of $1M because the market reality was that what we wanted didn’t exist at that price. We don’t own a McMansion, we have a nice historic townhouse in a HCOL city with a little room to grow, good neighborhood and short commutes to work (joke is on me, I’ve barely been to the office since). We luckily bought when interest rates were low and it’s appreciated in the almost two years since we bought it, although we are hoping it’s our forever or at least long term house. We wanted our monthly payment including all house stuff (mortgage, tax, insurance, utilities) to be 1/3 of our monthly budget or less.
Anon
We bought a house for $850k with a $100k down payment at that income, and it has worked out fine.
BeenThatGuy
Counterpoint, at that income, I bought my home, as a single woman (with a toddler) and spent $450K with $150K down-payment. For me, buying as a single person, I just wouldn’t take anymore of a financial risk than that. Also a factor for me, my R/E taxes are $1300 a month.
Anon
Would +1 this – do not forget the TAXES. If you’re in NJ, you cannot afford the same amount as someone in DC – the property taxes are wildly different. Similarly, if you’re in NYC, the maintenance will decrease your actual purchase price while increasing your monthly cost.
Anon
I’m in CA, bay area. I am not aware of any $450K homes!
SF Attorney
Not even a studio-size condo.
BeenThatGuy
I should have clarified that I bought in 2010.
Anon
I went through this – I made 225k at the time. For me it was the middle point of getting what I wanted in a place that I could stay in for a reasonable length of time, while keeping the price as low as I could for the features I wanted. For me that wound up being about 600k, but I’m in a HCOL and was happy with a 2BD condo.
If I lived in an MCOL or a LCOL that would have been lower – I wouldn’t have needed to spend that much to get the house I’d ideally want at this stage of my life.
HowDoYouDoIt!
Crying at these responses. Single mom of 3 kids (all the same gender so could share a room but not willingly). $150k and cheapest places are $1m. Seattle (a houseboat would be great but also kinda unsafe for kids as I don’t know how to drive or maintain a boat and the kids need storage). So…going back to online school at night and cutting back on sleep to bring my salary up. Feel like I’m missing something! (But still wouldn’t stoop to Mr Gatew iykwim)
Peloton
There are absolutely 3-4 bedroom townhouses and condos in both Seattle proper and the Seattle area under $1mm. A SFH of that size might be tough, but there are options for you if you want them.
Anonymous
Houses exist for you. They are not ideal. But you are a single mom of 3 making 150k. You are not poor. Your kids can share a bedroom if it means better location/school district. I grew up in a 3BR/1.5 bath home with two parents, a brother, sister, and two dogs ;). We survived!! (Fwiw if you have 3 girls I’d look hard for a home with 2 full baths, if possible. Makes live better!). Finished basements are also awesome.
Another Anon
Does anyone have a Rothys code to share? Going to get the men’s sneakers for my husband.
Anonymous
Yes, enjoy! https://share.rothys.com/x/knZ2OH
Anon
Anyone else following the Josh Duggar sentencing? Crossing fingers over here the book is thrown at him. Still in shock his mother signed the I in her name with a heart in her letter to the judge!
Anon
I’m really cynical so I don’t find that “heart over the i” to be all that surprising. The entire ethos of people like that is that grown women are basically children.
Anon
This.
Anon
I can get by with him going away forever. His mom and wife are in such denial. I do not get that family. I read once that Oprah passed on having the family on her show b/c someone in Arkansas tipped her off to the Josh situation, so it was knowable before they ever got their TLC shows (like there were police records in Arkansas and certain people who knew). One of his original victims was not a family member, so probably who was originally talking. Small towns have no secrets, only poorly kept ones.
AIMS
You would be surprised how many convicted criminals write out their statements in precise bubble letters with big circles over the I.
Anon
I’m trying to ignore the Johnny Depp / Amber Heard case, but in light of yesterday’s events, it was the better thing on the Daily Mail today. One think I spied was a picture of Kate Moss in a suit — she could have been a fungible BigLaw associate and looks much younger to me than what I expected. At any rate, where to you think Kate Moss gets her suits (or where Kate Moss’s people get her suits)? She probably has every option in the world, but it could have been any black suit and she probably would have looked good in it (if it fits, most people look good in a suit, IMO). Worn with a silky blouse.
Anonymous
I don’t know what brand of suit Kate Moss would wear, but I am a little surprised by your comment about her appearing younger than expected. She and I were born in the same month and without taking heroic measures, or really even basic measures, I think I look younger than she does. (Obviously she still looks “better” than I do.) I am told that I look young for my age, and I get stunned looks from people on occasion when I mention it, but this all makes me wonder if we are all just confused about what a woman in her late 40s looks like these days.
Anon
She’s a known smoker, so maybe she looks good for what you’d think for a person who put the miles on when she was younger. Also, that old Heroin Chic look probably would not age well. I think she looks good (but get how a nonsmoking office-dweller of the same age would look more youthful).
Anonymous
Agree. I am (happily!) 38 and a female client who is 55 recently pondered how I could have made partner so fast, given I’m what, 24 or 25? I do not look “that good” (I have an athletic build but definitely have wrinkles and gray hairs) so I think it is we don’t know how to judge age anymore. And that’s fine with me :)
Anonymous
I’m also 38 and still get carded. Servers and bartenders have been surprised at my age. Sometimes I feel like I’m 58 LOL so tired…
Anon
She’s very thin. As you age, your face looses fat. Having more fat in your face and generally weighing more makes you look younger.
BeenThatGuy
This is why I keep the extra pounds on ;)
meds
+1
Very thin smokers do not age well.
Anonymous
I love Kate Moss. She’s stayed with me as the supermodel who looks lovely and fun and true to her daily life, ups and downs, since the late nineties. She looks just like herself, only 25 years older. She’s got an older face and older body, but it’s still the same, she’s the same person, the same style family, the same visuals. She’s still a London girl, and she’s still rock chick, because that’s who she is, not because that’s how she’s styled.
If this had been 20-25 years ago, her suit would have been Stella based on the what’s wow now at the time. Now, it could be anything, but she and her daughter wore Burberry to the Met Gala, so it there’s a current connection there.
Anon
I think it was Dior (since the Daily Mail includes such minutiae).
Anonymous
Did your parents get to an age where they seemingly “cared” much less about their kids? And is that age younger than you’d expect? Not suggesting anyone loves anyone less, but conversation/visits are ALL ABOUT THEM in a way that’s bizarre when the “stress” of the day is laundry or the cleaning lady coming or how dare the landscaper touch my hose or whatever? They’ll barely ask me or my husband a question and by the time we’ve finished our one sentence response, they’re onto complaining about whatever the DVR didn’t record; to the point where my husband is like, we drove hours for this? I hate to make this generational but is this certain generations that are like this? I don’t recall this from grandparents at all, though of course maybe they were different with grandkids.
anon
You have described my mom, and it makes me really sad. She’s 66 and has become pretty darn self-centered since she retired a couple years ago, and about the dumbest stuff. And yeah, I know that sounds really bad to say out loud. Her world was never large, but it has shrunk to my dad, the house, the yard, and whatever my brother’s wife is doing that ticks her off.
Anon
This is normal behavior to some degree. Everyone is focused on themselves, and when you get older you don’t care about masking this.
Anon
I hear your point, and I definitely think that my own character flaws come out more when I’m tired or feeling sick, which I assume is what getting older feels like. (I wouldn’t say I care less, but I have less energy to do anything about it.)
But I agree w/OP that I just do not remember my grandparents or their generation being like this to this degree. Maybe because they had richer community and neighborhood lives it was just different.
Anonymous
There is pretty good evidence that Boomers have a high incidence of narcissism. I don’t want to start a war of generations (or maybe I do, but not with Boomers), and of course generalizations are often unhelpful, but you may be observing a true contrast.
Anonymous
This is definitely my experience with my parents. If there were something very positive with absolutely no potential downside/risk to it, I would offer it up for a discussion point and they would probably engage on that. For example, an acceptable discussion starter from me would be “I am marrying a very wealthy, stable, humorous white man with no baggage and a passion for European culture, we will be moving into a move-in-ready mansion, and I have been named managing partner with a massive salary jump and no extra responsibilities.” Otherwise, we talk about the most mundane things, from neighbor gossip (including which neighbor washes items in hot water) to the return process at the Big Box store to which foot or skin issue is bothering which one of them the most currently. We can also talk about their puppy and issues of interior decorating at their home. They don’t ask questions of me, and I don’t offer things up because they always decide it is either a) a failure that reflects badly on them or b) a problem I am dumping at their feet to solve (never ever) that is otherwise likely to result in a failure on my part that will reflect badly on them. Oh, well. They live far away now and I can be perfectly content talking about customer service issues, purging boxes of old recipes and magazines, and eating good cheese with them two weekends a year.
anon
My grandma is like this. She wasn’t when I was little (or it wasn’t obvious–I understand from my parents she’s always been a bit of a complainer) but it is *a problem* now. It makes conversations with her almost intolerable. I think it’s a product of simply not having as much of an outlet as she used to and, like you said, her world is smaller and getting smaller every day. There’s not as much going on for her to pay attention to or care about. I could not possibly summon up the mental bandwidth that she pays to things— I’ve got way too much on my mind/going on to still be upset at 2:00 pm that the quality of the eggs at the hotel breakfast buffet was “just horrible!” or whatever. The only effective strategy I have found is to expressly redirect the conversation to something engaging and happy. She wants to connect and be heard and seen, so finding a way to do that seems to calm the impulse to complain.
A Nonny Mouse
This is my mother-in-law exactly, with a side of how busy she is (she is retired). We live several states away and in our 30 minute Zoom calls we literally speak less than 5 minutes (one time we timed it). It is like she can’t stop talking, even interrupting us mid-sentence when we are sharing something from our life to tell us about someone we don’t know at all. We find it very frustrating and honestly makes me not want to talk to her.
Anon
When she is talking about the person you don’t know, she is sharing something from HER life. She probably doesn’t know your boss, or your kid’s friend, or your new neighbor either. I think sometimes adult kids think their parents should still be focused on them (and maybe they should?), but the parents may also feel that their kids are grown and they don’t have to listen when they’re not totally interested (like they did when you were young).
A Nonny Mouse
I get that, but we’ll be talking about our daughter after she asks about her, or big things like my job hunt that she asks about. We can’t fit the unimportant stuff about bosses or neighbors into our allotted 5 minutes. She does it with my brother-in-law and his wife (who is terminally ill) as well. She has always been self-centered, but it is super obvious now.
Anon
So, she should show the interest in your daughter (of course), and it’s incredibly sad that she can’t be there for her terminally ill DIL. That’s out of line. But she might not be able to muster interest in your job search even though she knows she should (because she asks about it) – because she figures you are an adult, you know what you’re doing, she doesn’t know the nuances of your industry, etc. To me that’s normal. I’m much older than many of the posters here, I have adult kids and a few young grandkids, and my own parents were that way – they wanted to know I was doing ok, but they couldn’t understand my professional life, so sharing the details quickly bored them. Although they’ve been around us our whole lives, our parents are not our peers and there are a lot of generational things they can’t relate to.
Anonymous
I see we have the same MIL. I can only hear so much about the neighbourhood drama, it’s really hard to be polite.
Anonymous
Yes, pretty much exactly as you described. They are mid-60s.
anon
My parents are younger, in their early 50s, and have been like this since I was in high school. It makes me pretty sad they never asked me about law school or about my current job. It has gotten to a point where I have put them on an information diet and don’t go out of my way to engage with them. It’s exhausting to hear complaining constantly. I am also a solution oriented person, so it pisses me off extra that they are both happy to sit in their misery without a plan to do anything about it.
Anon
Their world shrinks when they retire, so the old “my boss is an a-hole, worried about layoffs in the coming recession” has become “that darned garden hose wasn’t supposed to kink, but it kinked up the week we got it and now it’s too late to return it.” Especially during the pandemic, everyone’s world shrank, so it’s understandable.
If you’re expecting your parents to be the kind of super involved “did you do your homework? You got a 95 on that test? I’m so proud of you!” in their older age, it’s unrealistic, and it’s just setting you up for disappointment. The good news is, they think you’re an adult now, which is something that doesn’t always happen with parents and which creates its own problems.
Anon
+1, it interests me that the commenters here assume they won’t get old themselves (or if they do they will always act young and will NEVER be boring and self-centered)
A Nonny Mouse
I am on my way to old, and have been boring for quite a while, and still choose to show interest in others. My other mother-in-law (husband is from a blended family) is the same age, yet is able to carry on really interesting conversations, and act like she actually cares about her children’s lives.
Anonymous
I fully get that I’m an adult and I’m not expecting mommy or daddy to ask if I did my work assignment or how the meeting with the boss went, nor would I want that. I do expect them/inlaws to be polite regardless and part of politeness is asking something about someone else’s life and letting them speak for 2 minutes without expressing your boredom by turning on the TV. Sorry MIL/FIL but it’s only fair for you to allow DH and I to speak for a few minutes when we’ve just spent 45 minutes listening to you complain about your cleaning lady or your next door neighbor we don’t know and we didn’t roll our eyes or turn on the TV or pick up our phones. It’s common courtesy having nothing to do with age. Like OP I don’t recall my or DH’s grandparents being like this either and they were certainly old.
Anonymous
Honestly I worry less about this from my parents or in-laws than I do my friends these days.I would never say this IRL, but I don’t care about every blow by blow from little league, what your kid does or doesn’t like to eat these days or whatever drama is going on with a teacher. I miss hearing about literally anything else but mom talk sometimes.But I also get that everybody focuses on what’s important to them.
Bloedel Babe
Yes, my parents are mid-70s and I feel like they stopped caring about their kids and everybody else after they retired. My dad in particular, devoted 40 years of his life to a not-for-profit career serving ethnic minorities and I’ve rebuked him more than once for borderline racist comments. Nobody measures up to his standards, whether it is his adult children or the landscapers. He is still a politically liberal hippie but man the haughtiness.
I thought age brought wisdom and perspective. Nope. Everything is about him.
Anon
This actually comes up pretty often here, so I think it’s common.
I don’t call my MIL unless I have 1 hour to spare (usually while on road trips) because she will talktalktalktalk without seemingly taking a breath for a solid 30 minutes about everything under the sun in her world – the farmer’s market produce looked good, so and so at church knitted a pretty blanket, the garden hose did kink, etc. THEN after the 30 minutes, I’ll butt in and say, “Well, that all sounds great! I was calling to tell you X.”
And I don’t care if this is shallow, but it hurts my feelings EVERY holiday when ILs say they can’t join us for [holiday] because it might be the last holiday for MIL’s parents. They’re 96 and have been on their last [holiday] for 5 years. I know, I know, I know, it’s so callous, but MIL cares WAY more about her parents and her siblings than she does about her kids, and shows it in her actions every day. Meanwhile, she lives 10 minutes away from her parents and can and does see them ~330 days a year – asking them to come visit us 8 hours away for a holiday when we have a few days off work and can accommodate them is too much…
Anonymous
I think caring more about your parents than your kids when the kids are launched and the parents are pretty elderly isn’t especially abnormal. I do get that it hurts feelings but I kind of got that vibe from my parents and I was just a teen/20 something. It def hurt my feelings but mom was WAY more interested in worrying about grandma/grandpa than in say in anything I had to tell her about college or law school and all the “exciting” stuff in my life as I was launching. In her mind (I think – we’ve never brought it up), grandpa’s high blood pressure is REALLY worrisome, whereas your law school – eh you got into an ivy, we told you we’re proud, you’ll be fine.
With your MIL she may feel like she has YEARS to spend with her 35 year old son and sure by the time she gets around to spending that time with your family those grandkids won’t be cute 5 year olds anymore but oh well so she’ll get to know them when they’re teens, she can’t “risk” it with respect to her parents.
Anonymous
You are describing how a lot of people act when they’ve been retired about a year. Small world, small perspectives, small problems.
Pompom
Hey sis, what’s up. Mom and dad have indeed become this way!
Anonymous
Yikes. I’m a partner at a law firm and I feel like I just woke up. Three of our five firm directors (highly paid) have given notice in the last month. I honestly had no idea that many of my partners frequently yell:scream at staff. I can justify this by saying I work remote over half the time, and when I am in the office, I pretty much sit down and shut my door. I call my legal assistant every day and frequently email but rarely overhear any conversations. Point is – I believe this is happening even though I had no idea/was oblivious. Is there any shot at us changing culture? These aren’t all “old white men” doing the yelling.
anon
Any culture where yelling is allowed is very toxic, indeed. Culture won’t change until there are actual consequences for the people doing the yelling. And no, directors leaving isn’t a consequence. Those people will just find others to scream at.
Anon
I was a Director in a staff function at a law firm and I quit in March. There are just too many good options in the labor market to work in a crappy environment and budgets are flowing more freely. I’m actually amazed how many otherwise talented people stay in staff roles in law firms. Actually I know why- several of them were in therapy for boundaries and related issues:( You can try but I just don’t think it’s important to law firm leadership to set a different tone.
Anonymous
For moms (asking here because this group has older kids): what are your kids taught for active shooter training?
My 10-year-old has an assigned spot by the classroom door with a baseball bat.
If they can escape the school has encouraged them to run in zigzag lines on their way out.
His current school doesn’t even have a meeting place after. Just “we’ll find you.”
anon
I honestly don’t know. My friend wrote this massive Facebook post about all the active shooter tips they’ve given their kids. Part of me thinks I should be doing that, and part of me resists it. Partly because it’s too horrible to contemplate, and partly because I think it would scare the daylights out of them in the meantime. In theory, my first grader could run home, but I also know that she is more likely to follow the crowd and not bust out on her own.
Anon
My kids’ schools seem to want to lock them in their rooms and in a 1-story school, ought to be getting them out via the windows IMO. The last place you want to be is in your room. NOT in the building seems to be the only reliably safe thing given how at most we’ve ever had 2 shooters.
Anon
I’m not sure, but I like that your kid has a bat in his classroom. I’m pretty sure my kids are armed only with their bad attitudes (which would melt away in danger). AFAIK, my middle schoolers only have gym stuff in the gym. OTOH, they all have phones.
Anon
A 10 year old with a bat stands no chance against an AR-15.
Anonymous
This makes me so sad to read…
Anon
I have one kid who is good at lockdowns. BUT in a city school system, they are often on lockdowns due to crime outside of the school that is in the X area radius of the school (many shootings, one broad-daylight murder across the street from the school). It’s not the best area and maybe b/c of that there is a new and fairly large police station 3 blocks away. So far, only 2 lockdowns were to stuff inside the school or with students; all others (and there have been a lot) are for garden-variety serious crime not directed at students or anyone at the school. Ordinary crime is still serious.
PolyD
I don’t have kids and I’m horrified that we are offloading security onto a TEN-YEAR-OLD??
Anon
The other option is what, then? It would make me feel better to have a bat vs nothing — you can’t control things, but a bat at least gives you some feeling of not being helpless. Can’t speak for all 10YOs or kids of any age, but I’d rather go down swinging.
These guys attack the weakest targets — note that they never shoot up football practice or ROTC drills.
anon
“The other option is what, then?”
Gee. I can’t think of anything other than giving a 10 year old a bat, now that you mention it. FFS.
“These guys attack the weakest targets — note that they never shoot up football practice or ROTC drills.”
Yeah a 10 year old with a bat is a much more formidable opponent than a 10 year old without a bat when you’re a guy with an automatic rifle.
Anon
Are you serious?!?
Anonny
Probably because those are out in the open where their victims could more easily run away or scatter.
A 10 year old should not have to be trained on how to take out an active shooter.
Anonymous
My college had a shooting. He didn’t go after after the “weakest” target.
He choose one of our largest classrooms (general studies hall where people had science, history, film and a bunch of other classes) and he shot at anyone who wasn’t lucky enough to run out a side stage exit or be covered by another student. Football players, too. You literally have no idea what you’re talking about.
Anonymous
I agree, the idea that kids should somehow feel responsible for their own or their friends’ security is horrifying.
It’s good to have drills, but their need should be for fire or any relevant natural disasters, not guns. I think it’s an interesting perspective to see Japanese earthquake drills in schools. Pupils regularly train and gain muscle memory and reflexes to survive an earthquake. The idea that something similar would be useful for gun violence in the US is a terrible nightmare.
Anon
This has already been happening for decades. In nice areas not just high crime areas.
pugsnbourbon
A 10-year-old is expected to take down an active shooter with a baseball bat?
What an incredible distillation of how deeply f@cked we are.
Anon
I agree and the replies praising this have me flummoxed
Anon
If you tell the kid he at least has a bat to protect himself, how is he going to feel if you now tell him “no bat”? I couldn’t do that.
pugsnbourbon
The problem is that the poor kid is in this position at all. The problem is that we are the only country where this routinely happens. We’ve decided that easy access to high-capacity firearms is more important than dead kids.
Anon
But what do you do, really? Some kid somewhere is in this situation. Do you say “no bat” and they know they are just waiting to . . . die? I think once you have given them a bat, you do some damage by telling them that you’re taking it away or leaving them to find out that you’ve taken it, which IMO would make any bad situation that much worse. My kids can’t even have plastic take-out knives for cutting food — they know they are sitting ducks. They are there — we are not even giving them any strategies or meaningful first aid training (so, yes, I do have a tourniquet but it’s in my car, but I am trained and would know what to do with it if I rolled up on an accident). I doubt the teachers even have good first aid training and forget about schools having nurses. We have 1/3 of a nurse we share with two other schools.
Anon
I mean – it’s bad that nursing budgets are cut, but a school nurse is not going to be of any help against assault weapon wounds that leave the victims unrecognizable.
Anon
What is the harm in letting the kid know he at least has a bat? Poor kid knows a bit conclusively that no one is going to come rescue him.
Anonymous
Yikes – does your kid WANT to be the one who fights off a shooter with a bat?? More importantly do YOU want your kid to be that person rather than say hiding quietly in a closet?
AnonMom
My elementary kid’s school didn’t have closets, classrooms were just one big rectangle. My then-8 YO was assigned to lock the door after her friend pulled the wedge out from under it, and a third girl was then to pull the shade down and hit the light-switch. Kids on the other side of the room were to close the window curtains. They were all supposed to then move as much furniture as possible to barricade the door, huddle silently in the back corner, and be ready to grab chairs to throw at any intruders.
Anon
My daughter is in her fifth year program to become an elementary school teacher, and I literally cannot watch or read the news today.
Anon Mom
Yes (elementary, middle, and high school) and the baseball bat is not uncommon. They do not really expect a 10 year old to stop a shooter. They are trying to give them something to do and some sense that they could protect themselves to reduce anxiety.
Because with or without the bat, the child will be just as dead. They are just trying to make them feel better is they are the lucky ones who never have to use their training.
The day my daughter’s school locked down because of someone with a gun on campus (he was fleeting police and ran through but we did not know that at the time) was one of the scariest of my life.
Anon
We had something similar and I was livid that teachers were trying to keep kids off of their phones. It may be the last thing they do — let them call. Let them text. Let them film.
anonymous
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if a video taken by a child or teacher was released. It is “easy” to shrug off this horror or distance yourself from the horror a little child feels when you a) lack empathy b) love corporate donors c) your political career/deeply held cultural beliefs depend on your shrugging this off. It won’t seem abstract in a video.
AIMS
It will be labeled a deep fake or someone will say, “oh but the dems staged this whole thing so they could take your guns even if it’s real.”
We live in a dystopian future now. Facts don’t matter. I honestly don’t know what would make a difference – if senators being under assault on Jan 6 didn’t make most of them see the problem, I don’t know what you else you can do.
What’s interesting to me is that we have made progress in so many ways as a society but in this one respect we have just lost all f***ing reason. I would love to live in 1990 for gun purposes.
Anon
what AIMS said.
Anon
Let them be distracted and not pay attention to what is going on.
Anon
OTOH, can you imagine just waiting, trapped, in what might be your last moments? And maybe you are hearing shots? F*** that. Not going to judge those kids who want mom or dad.
Anonymous
Practical. Phones mean they don’t run when they have an opportunity or they make noise when they should be hiding.
Anonymous
There was a terrible domestic terrorist shooting in Norway about 11 years ago, where one single man disguised as a policeman shot and killed 69 youths (69 of 564) trapped on an island after killing 8 government employees in the capital with a bomb. One of every four people in the whole country had a connection to at least one of the killed. There has been raised a monument on the island. An integral part of the art of the memorial to honour the dead teens are copies of the text messages they sent, in terror, from their hiding places on the island. The way they begged “mom, tell the the police to hurry, people are dying!” “I’m so scared, I’m surrounded by bodies”, their messages are a powerful and visceral reminder that a connection to the outside is essential. Hope is important, and being able to tell somebody you love them and is still alive is important.
Don’t take the kids’ phones – teach them to put them on silent.
Anon
I was told by my child’s teacher that the strategy is to slow down the attacker. Yea read it again. They don’t expect to escape, just to slow it down so police can get there. This is not new. Why is anyone shocked, after Sandy Hook et al?
Anon
It’s sounding like not even the police managed to slow down this attacker. They were waiting for even more police or something? I’m trying to wrap my head around this still.
Anonymous
Our schools have different kinds of lockdowns – shelter in place being the most common (recently activated due to the nearby subway shooting and occasionally before that for people behaving weirdly nearby). For shelter in place, everything is normal but the building door is locked and no one goes outside. I’m murky on the details of the other varieties but I think they mostly involve hiding and being quiet, away from doors and windows. I do know that our school safety officers–members of the NYPD–are unarmed, and I can’t decide if this is a good or bad thing. I honestly don’t think the details of the training matter that much, especially for younger kids – it is really what the teacher does that will make a difference (if anything does). My husband is a high school teacher and has thought about this a lot; he also thinks his school’s plans are poorly conceived.
Anon
+ 1M to your last sentence. If something were to happen, it’s not just every kid for himself. But possibly some sort of United 93 situation happens (or there are people who would risk their lives vs just resigning themselves to die in a corner). IDK what else you can do. People get shot on the subway in daylight by strangers. People get shot by bullets meant for others.
S
My kindergartner is taught that if a “scary animal” gets in the school they have to hide from the animal in the dark and be very quiet. That’s how they handle the drills. And yes this is all brutally terrible.
AIMS
Yeah. My 1st grader said they do drills where they hide and stay super quiet. I feel like I really lucked out having a childhood when the nuclear threat seemed to mostly be a thing of the past and before the garbage dumpster fire that we are living in today.
Anon
Yeah, this is how lockdown drills work at our preschool too. They just practice sitting in the dark and quiet. My kid thinks it’s a game (she’s only 4) and doesn’t realize the bigger implication yet but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.
Anonymous
For those of you who wear high-top Chuck Taylors, what sort of socks do you wear with them?
Monday
Ankle socks with the tab in back. They don’t show under the high-tops.
Friends?
I’m finally starting Prozac today. A little nervous. First time someone in my entire extended family has sought medical help for something that’s not an obvious physical sickness. Please tell me anything I should know. I am afraid of going down a rabbit hole of crap if i G oogle and/or go on red dit. Thanks!
Friends?
Should have my mental issues have resulted in obesity which further feeds them and I’m particularly worried about additional weight gain from this.
meds
Actually, if your obesity is related to your mood issues, chances are really really great that once your mood improves your eating issues may evolve too and be more manageable. I’m really hopeful for you!
Good luck, Well done for taking care of yourself and becoming a role model for your family.
Anon
Did you mention that to your doctor? If you’re really concerned about weight, it would seem really obvious to have you try bupropion first. Picking an antidepressant is pretty much a matter of trial and error, but some drugs are more likely to result in weight loss than weight gain, so unless there’s a medical reason to avoid it, bupropion would be a much better bet (I personally lost 20-30 pounds on it, though that’s probably more than average).
Anon
Several of my family members have done well on Prozac with few to no side effects. There’s a reason it’s so often prescribed and has been around so long. Important is that if you do need to go off it, you must taper under your doc’s supervision.
Anon
Tough to reach the big O, but you also don’t care as much, so….. Other than that, minimal side effects.
Hope you feel lots better soon!!
Anon
+1 no weight gain for me in 15+ years of Prozac. But everyone is different!
Anon
I seem to want all of the cute things from Boden. Please keep reminding me that cotton wrinkles and I’ll have to commit to ironing. Ditto linen, which will wilt in our high humidity. But it’s all so darn pretty (and I’ve sized up since 2019, so I am in need of clothes now that I think my size is going to be with me for a while).
Anne-on
Enabling (and I agree with you on the linen) but I have never regretted paying up for Boden’s pieces. The cotton they use is typically thicker than most of the mall brands, wears/washes well, and holds up for years. I’d wait for a 20% off code if you can though, they rarely go higher than 25% and that’s only a few times a year. Returns are also easy. You just have to use their size guides, and reading reviews helps.
Anon
25% off today through the 30th :)
Vicky Austin
dangerous information!
Anon
Omg I’m definitely scrolling through the site today!
MJ
Also, if you are on the East coast, they do sample sales from PA to MA (boston) in ~Feb and October and they are FANTASTIC deals. Look for these–if you can find them using google-fu, call Boden and ask.
Cosign that much of my wardrobe is Boden and it is very high quality.
Anon
I was wondering if any of you were raised by a young/teen mom and whether you’d care to share your experiences in your relationship with her.
I’m very close with someone who was raised by a mom who dropped out of high school when she got pregnant, dad has always been in the picture, but his relationship with his mom is high-drama. She does a lot of yelling and screaming when she feels neglected (often), loyalty tests, etc. Therapy has suggested to my friend that Mom is stuck growth-wise as the 16 year old she was when she became a mom, and that is at the root of all of this.
If you were raised by a teen mom, was that your experience as well? Friend leans on me for help with this, but I’m out of my depth here. (Though this observation certainly explains a lot about my sister, who dropped out of college pregnant and has gone on to become both Mother-Teresa-in-her-mind and the ultimate victim.)
anon
What exactly is your question? Are you asking if all children of teen moms have unhealthy relationships with their mother? It sounds like your friend needs a therapist.
Anon
My friend has a therapist, it’s in the post.
I’m wondering really whether the therapist saying a 16 year old teen mom is a 16 year old forever is too pat of an explanation…. Friend really likes this therapist, but still asks me for a lot of support. Just wondering if this is a similar issue for others, and I guess how they dealt with it.
Lorelei Gilmore
That therapist is just plain wrong. Your friend should find a new one.
Vicky Austin
“Therapy has suggested to my friend…”
Anon
Raised by barely-not-teen parents. Some thoughts in no particular order:
1. It’s tough no matter what because they aren’t mature themselves and struggle to teach that to their kids. They also lack perspective that comes with age, or they get that perspective alongside/after their kids need it.
2. Oh yeah they get stuck. My mother and father have spent a lot of their lives either trying to relive their 20s or be angry at not being able to have done so.
3. Kids in those situations can be both weirdly mature and emotionally stunted. Parents rely on them too much, but can’t give their kids tools to manage their emotions.
4. Therapy. It helps so much.
Yes.
This has been my experience exactly with my teen mom.
Vicky Austin
OK, so I’m not familiar with adult-children-of-teen-moms, but I have a dear friend who realized in college that her mother was a narcissist and has been through a lot of therapy around this. Your friend’s mom definitely sounds difficult to have a stable relationship with. If your friend is stuck on that, he’s trying to fix her when she cannot or will not be fixed. The main thing that helped my friend with this is learning (in therapy) that you might have to grieve the mom you needed as a child and didn’t have, or wanted as you grew older who never materialized. Sounds like your friend may benefit from hearing that as well and/or discussing this idea in therapy.
Anon
This really seems like a not your circus, not your monkeys situation. Or at the very least, not the kind of thing that crowdsourcing therapy is gonna work for.
Anonymous
My mom was 35 so no lived experience but from the 5 or so teen mom’s I know…yeah they are emotionally stunted and stopped growing once the kiddo happened.
Sabbatical
Sorry for a really dumb question but I am just TIRED OF IT ALL. This country (haven’t gotten out since 2019), my job (which I used to love), my issues with my husband and I really want to just TAKE A FREAKING break from it all. I am increasingly seriously thinking of some kind of a sabbatical or retreat or eat/pray/love situation in South East Asia but I do need some structure and have realistic budget constraints. Appreciate any ideas, tips and or resources.
Anon
Do it! I posted the other day about this, but housing in Bali is crazy cheap and really nice. The food and culture are both amazing and it seems like a dream way to spend a year away from everything.
How long can you take off of work / reasonably be away from your husband?
Anon
Ah the good old escape fantasy. Mine was always a cabin in the woods off the grid, but then I guess I’d have to deal with all the heavily armed idiots who are escaping for different reasons.
If you can, take a break. If you can’t, and I couldn’t, deal with your problems – consider therapy or separating from your husband (an apartment of your own might feel like a huge break!), look for a new job, get individual therapy too while you’re at it. It took me writing to an advice columnist about feeling like I was drowning to realize I felt like that because I had let everything pile up. I don’t know whether that speaks to you, but it was the perspective I needed at the time, and things are a lot better now. Hang in there!
Anon
Because health insurance is tied to employment in the US and there are tax issues around working abroad, I think it’s easier to downgrade into a low stress job with generous vacation time and travel a lot than to quit completely. That’s what I did. I take 5-6 international trips per year, so I’m basically always planning or on a trip.
anon
what kind of job is this? I mean, that’s the dream but I’ve never seen something that looks like that
Anon
The dream! Where’d you find this magical job??
Anon at 4:42
I work for a university. I have 5 weeks of vacation leave and a week off between Christmas and New Year’s and I take all of it. It’s low paying with little opportunity for growth, but good benefits, including retirement contributions and healthcare in addition to the time off. Perhaps “easier” wasn’t the right word, because it’s not necessarily easy to find a job like this. But the net worth needed to shift into a low paying job with lots of vacation time and good health insurance and the net worth needed to quit completely are very different IMO.
IL
I don’t mean to be another poster not answering your question, but how about just a week in a nearby hotel away from household responsibilities? Pick someplace walkable with cute restaurants and cafes nearby so that you can pick up food whenever you like, let the hotel provide clean sheets and towels daily, and go on a news cleanse. You can even leave the husband home.
I’ve done this twice since the pandemic started and it’s shocking how much it helps even though I am working normal hours during it.
Anonymous
This is maybe too late to get answers – any shared calendar apps or tricks? My long distance boyfriend and I are having a hard time syncing up schedules. He’s a lawyer who uses outlook, I’ve always used Google calendar. He has confidential stuff I can’t see, I have lots of reminders he doesn’t want to see. Is the right answer a new shared calendar? Siri? I said I’d research new solutions that would work for both of us but I don’t know that we want a new app.
Vicky Austin
Outlook has a setting where you can share your calendar without divulging the meeting details. Also, in Google calendar you can create as many calendars as you want, so you could create a shared one for shared events/things you want him to see, and keep your reminders on a different calendar. I do this.
Anon
+1. Create a new calendar, and just display it layered together with your own in google.
Anon
I have my work stuff in Outlook and my personal stuff in Google calendar. My Android work phone has a calendar widget (on the home screen) that shows both my work and personal calendars together. (Amazing!) My husband’s shared Google calendar also shows up on both my work phone widget and Google calendar.
My husband can’t see my work calendar, as it’s confidential, so I add work travel to my google calendar manually.
Anon
Can he just forward the non-confidential stuff to you on Google? Or set up his own Google acct, forward outlook -> his Google and then make visible to you.
Anon
We just share our google calendars. Husband has lots of meetings that he wants to keep confidential, so he just uses the setting where it says he’s busy, not what the meeting is. This mostly works but is sometimes really annoying if I’m trying to schedule something and can’t tell when he’s really busy with something important vs. a regularly scheduled meeting that could be easily skipped if that’s the only time we can schedule a doctors appointment or something else tricky to schedule. Then I still have to ask or have him add another set of events that are can’t miss.
Explorette
Not exactly what you are asking, but about once a month my SO and I sit down and run through our calendars together, so we can plan what we want to do together. I wouldn’t want a calendar with his stuff on it, nor would he want one with my stuff on it. It’s a fun event for us to do our joint planning, and usually involves a bottle of wine and fun conversation around what we are each doing.
Cat
Husband and I send each other meeting invites to our work calendars for stuff the other should know. We mark them as ‘private’ and set the invite to show as ‘available’ if it’s an FYI that one of us won’t be on normal schedule but it shouldn’t affect the other person’s day like ‘Cat haircut 6pm’ or is just a reminder like ‘buy gift for X wedding if haven’t yet’, or ‘busy’ if it’s something we’re both doing, or ‘OOO’ if it’s vacation we’re taking together.
Otherwise I cannot imagine trying to share the onslaught of daily irrelevant meetings and tasks in a shared one!
Anon
This is what we do too – send calendar invites to the other’s preferred calendar. I use google personally and outlook at work, so I’ll double invite myself and husband to things, ie., invite for a work dinner for me will get sent to my work and my personal, and to my H as an FYI. Usually I just make a new invite though that’s not the official one so it’s just a flag of what’s going on. He sends the same stuff to me.
Prince
As little as possible to get something that meets my standards. When I lived somewhere where a brand new 2500 square foot house in a decent neighborhood reasonably close to work was $250k, I didn’t spend any more than that (I actually would have preferred a smaller house, but there weren’t any in the areas we were looking). Where I live now, there are literally no houses for less than a million, and they’re small and crappy. The answer just completely depends on your local options.