Suit of the Week: The Fold

138 Comments

1. Not final yet so I can’t share IRL but I need to shout from the rooftops! Husband just got offered a new job. It’s a step back and a pay cut from what he was doing before but… it’s looking like almost zero travel, really good hours, and just generally not owning his life.

   It was a multi-year discussion and obviously a really hard choice to walk away from the other high-travel, long hours, miss birthdays/holidays/family events, high-stress, ruled-our-life-as-a-family job. Taking a 40% pay cut isn’t thrilling (especially with the cost of literally everything right now) but I could literally cry I’m so glad that he got an offer for something that is going to hopefully bring balance.

   I just put a bottle of champagne on ice so it’s ready for when the kids go to sleep.

   1. That’s amazing news! I hope this leads to better quality of life for all of you.

      1. Thank you! I want to shout it out but… nothing is final until it’s final.

   2. I did this when I was single. Went from a job that paid so well and owned my life to one that paid 1/2 as much and I owned my life. This was 15 years ago, and I’ve never regretted it. I’d rather have my time than more stuff, and, with a slimmed down life, I could afford the monster pay cut. I hope the change is very rewarding for your family!

      1. I am so glad to hear this! Husband honestly loved his prior gig but it was absolutely brutal in how they owned his life. BUT. I acknowledge that we are able to do this now because we basically took a huge chunk of his earnings and padded our retirement accounts, paid off all debt except for our mortgage, and I kept working and pushing at work versus leaving the workforce.

         I never want to cause my partner to be unhappy at work, but he really seems like this gig is exactly what he needs right now.

   3. Hallelujah! Hopefully the $ cut is far outweighed by the newfound family joy you can cultivate!

      1. From a practical standpoint, there are some costs we can shed because they were needed in order to fill the void in the house from him being owned by work. Lawn service, extra childcare ($$$), even needing to pay higher rates because we would often have to change travel plans last minute.

         We both – separately and together – had some ‘ah-ha’ moments that made us realize that right now, the time is more important than the money.

   4. Relevant to this morning’s discussion where a couple of posters thought you should be able to make a big law associate salary & work 9-5. It’s always a tradeoff. Congrats to you and your husband for making this tough choice!

   5. Congratulations! I’m in the middle of doing this myself – Biglaw to fed government, taking a 60% pay cuts. The cut is less than exciting, but as you’ve done, I’ve been saving for a long time now that’s letting me do this. Glad to hear others were happy about this too.

   6. I was in your husband’s position 9 months ago and it is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much better! Congratulations to you both! I’m glad I did what I did but I am so glad I’m here now.

      1. I’m not nervous about the financial part, I’m nervous about him getting bored by the job… But the big thing that’s different is that our kids are old enough where he’s already missed stuff and wants to be around. His parents are getting older and it’s just… it’s time.

   7. My son made so much money as a contractor but he was gone for months at a time. He started his own business when our son started kindergarten and worked from home for the next 12 years. He was available to our son afterschool and supervised home work and made dinner every night. We didn’t have brand new furniture or cars but we had a happy well balanced life. It is worth it!

      1. Thank you all for sharing your experiences. I am in the middle of this. Although I don’t have any concrete bites for the new jobs,, I am encouraged that this change will be worth it in the end!

2. disclaimer – I fully support keeping your maiden name, your husband changing to your name, new name, both names, whatever YOU want to do. I personally was thrilled to ditch mine!

   So – I got married recently and changed my last name to my now-husbands. I’m thrilled about this for many reasons – not close at all to dad’s family, love how new name sounds with my first name, etc. etc. Now that I’m actually starting to see & use my new name in places, I have this strong temptation to like fully revamp – new hair, new style, etc. Like new me sounds like a different & more fabulous person!
   Just curious if others experienced this!

   1. I love my married name! So much more phonetically pleasing than my birth name. Honestly, that was the main reason behind my decision!

   2. i definitely felt like there was a persona involved in what name i used, if i used my middle name, my nickname, etc. i think i even so far as to get different stationery for nickname-lastname and firstname-middle-last.

      i also feel like that helped me segue into being a mother – it was the newer me doing it all and not the one burdened by my old bs.

   3. I am not a trad wife in any way domestically but having the same name as my husband and son makes me very happy. My maiden name is very ethnic and hard to say so it was an easy decision in terms of my business. On the other hand, my brother didn’t have kids so the family name is gone.

3. my 5 year old son has trouble being impulsive and keeping his hands to himself. when he’s surrounded by calm kids, it’s less of an issue, but both in his old preschool and this summer camp, he’s been with rowdies boys and gets in trouble for hitting, not listening etc. he’s fine at home but at parties etc, I have trouble managing him, like he gets very excited and won’t stop splashing people in the pool, was trying to get his sisters attention by throwing shoes up in the air, touching someone’s hair like just dumb, immature things that are annoying but I was such a rule follower as was mt husband and daughter so I don’t know what to do with him. he did get an ADHD diagnosis when he was 4 but it’s hard at this age to parse out what’s normal immature kid stuff vs an issue. I can’t keep him away from rowdy boys but what do I talk to him about? any anecdata? TIA

   1. i think maybe you meant to post this on the mom’s page? I recall your post over there from a few days ago. what have you done with his ADHD diagnosis? does he do any OT? therapy? i think this is something you can talk to him about in terms of what to look for in other kids, how he can walk away/doesn’t have to participate in other boys’ rowdy activities…you will likely have to repeat ad nauseum and some maturity will also help. in the more immediate moments, if he is splashing other people in the pool and redirection doesn’t work, you inform him that he can either stop splashing or he will need to take a break from the pool, and then if he doesn’t stop splashing, you remove him from the pool to take a break.

      1. +1 million to your last sentence. I have ADHD (as did siblings and a parent) and actions still have consequences. Remove him from the situation when these behaviors present. “Stop splashing or we’re leaving.”

         1. THIS! Virtually my entire family has ADHD, it may explain certain behaviors but it doesn’t excuse it. Kids with ADHD can and should face consequences for inappropriate behavior.

      2. i’m responding to myself here, but i will say that as a parent this can be exhausting to do. especially to remain calm while doing so, which makes it more effective

         1. 100 percent. My kiddo with ADHD is now a teenager, and gosh, those years were HARD. You’re just on top of them constantly, managing behavior, in a way that is exhausting and demoralizing as a parent. Medication helped quite a bit but wasn’t a panacea.

   2. Obviously hitting is not good and it’s a concern if he’s getting into trouble at school and camp, but I volunteered in my kid’s K class a lot this year, and probably 80% of the kids had a hard time keeping their hands to themselves. I don’t really understand the people on the mom’s page who say it’s unacceptable for a kid that age to still struggle with keeping their hands to themselves. My daughter is generally a rule-follower who is liked by her teachers but still has issues with touching people without permission and touching in ways we don’t like.

      1. One thing that I said to a lot of teachers and administrators when my son was small was something like this, “This behavior (hitting, yelling) is disruptive and we want to stop and prevent it. But what I want to know is whether this is behavior within the range of what typical 5yos do or whether this is behavior that is outside the realm of how kids this age behave.” Frankly, I felt like there were some teachers and a rogue psychologist* who felt that all of the kids’ behavior ought to be keyed to the behavior of the most rule-following girl.

         *They were observing in the class and claimed that it was very “concerning” that my kid refused to talk to them and gave nonsense answers.

      2. Yes, rowdy rough play is normal developmental behavior. I about lost my mind when my son was in a tussle with a friend of his at school and the school resource cop wanted written statements! They boys were friends and goofing off in the hallway. As happens at that age, one pushed to hard and it got rougher. They wer both sent to the office. I told the assistant principal that I supported detention or cafeteria work because the behavior needs to be curbed. But it was not a freaking police matter and that is what is wrong with this country. Some people need to watch some kittens, pupplies and baby monkeys while touching grass.

         OP, I had a rowdy kid who is now very active as an adult. Floor hockey during the week, gym, mountain climbing, etc. He was never diagnosed but I suspect ADHD. He did so much better when he got older and joined wrestling. He is also an engineer with a masters degree. The ADHD can be really hard but work to keep the messages from others that he is bad.

         1. Ugh that sucks. I can’t believe they involved the police if the boys were friends and neither was upset. I wasn’t even really talking about rough-housing, although I agree that’s normal too. Some of the people on the moms page are horrified by the idea of 5-6 year olds reaching out and touching a friend’s arm without permission but, like…. almost all of them do? At least all the ones I’ve met. They don’t really have a great sense of personal space at that age. And yes, they should be reminded to keep their hands to themselves when it happens, but I don’t think it’s the Crime of the Century.

            1. I’ve had conversations with daycare workers about how some parents have the expectation that their toddler maintain a personal space bubbles at all times of the day at daycare with a dozen peers. Maybe people whose kids have siblings have more perspective!

   3. this could be adhd – meds helped my guy a lot (guanfacine and vyvanse). someone else a few weeks ago was talking about how you can manage adhd with strenuous exercise; at his age you might want to try putting him in soccer or junior swim team or something like that. if you think that anxiety might be a component of his silliness, think about how you can make things less anxious for him – for my kid it means reminding him about people’s names, letting him know exactly what things we’re doing that day and when, when we’re going to leave, etc. if he’s being silly you might try to take him away from the situation to sit with you in a quiet, dark bedroom and snuggle. you might want to talk about all this before you go with him and expectations for the day like keeping hands to yourself, calm body, etc.

      1. That might have been me with the medium to high intensity exercise.

         What works for my kiddies is 3 miles of running which takes them about 25mins to do. My son is 11 and will run 7 miles with me which is about an hour for him. Some kids do well with swimming, rowing or a game like soccer. I pushed towards running because of its adaptability. You can always find a way to run.

         Additude magazine is good for suggestions but when it comes to parenting I praise the heck out of every good thing they do and only correct the behaviors which are a safety issue. If their social skills are lacking to the point where the interaction with the other person goes badly I will pull them aside and share how they could have done it differently and I will find a positive somewhere otherwise a confidence crash is coming. Splashing in the pool is a safety issue. They get one warning. Second time it’s 5min time out. Third time they are done and out of the pool for a week. I don’t play. I tell my children I had them tested and they are smart. Everyone has problems. Their problem is neurodivergence and I’m doing what I can to help them learn how to best manage that ‘problem’.

   4. Consequences. He’s not going to rein in his behavior unless there are consequences for not doing so. Whether it’s immaturity or some other reason doesn’t matter. He needs some reason not to do whatever he wants to do, as do we all.

      1. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-authoritative-parenting-2794956

      2. It absolutely matters. As a parent your job is to give him the help and support he needs to do better. Not just punish him because you don’t know how to parent him yet.

         1. No matter why, it’s not ok for him to have his hands on other people.

            1. This doesn’t seem like a developmentally appropriate expectation for a three or four year old. Maybe a five year old is old enough?

            2. I don’t know whether the other kid, or the parents of the other kid, would agree with you that their kid being hit or grabbed is “developmentally appropriate” on the part of OP’s kid. Teaching your kid to keep their hands to themselves is part of parenting.

               Of course it’s easiest to do nothing about it, but that’s why parenting is challenging.

               You don’t want to raise a kid who turns out to be the handsy guy when he’s a teenager. So yes, you institute consequences early. There’s no magic age where you’re like “ok he can be all over other kids until he’s 10, THEN we lay down the law!” That doesn’t work. Consistency works.

            3. To me, hitting and grabbing =/= hands on other people (wrestling, playing tag, I don’t even know what, but preschoolers always seem to be all up in each other’s space to me). You shouldn’t hit or grab a dog or a cat either, and much younger kids learn that.

            4. Anon at 5:27: Have you ever met young mammals? They roughhouse. Our children need time for free play and lots of exercise every single day.

            5. “This doesn’t seem like a developmentally appropriate expectation for a three or four year old. Maybe a five year old is old enough?”

               Nope at least not in my experience. The vast majority of the kid’s in my daughter’s kindergarten class struggled with this. I would say second or third grade is when kids can really be expected to keep their hands completely to themselves. Hitting is different than just reaching over and patting someone on the arm without permission though.

            6. Even preschool kids are old enough for discussions about consensual touch.

               If J and I both want to tickle each other is that ok? Yes.

               If I want to tickle J and J doesn’t want to be tickled, is that ok? No.

               These are basic conversations around safety and consent that need to take place from the moment kids can understand them.

               Touch always needs to be consensual. Touch is never a secret. Gifts are never a secret. Really basic stuff.

            7. I never know what parents do when a five year old just… doesn’t consent. My whole life at that age was about being overpowered against my will (to take medications, shots, to go to school, basically just overpowered by adults because they were bigger and stronger than me and I couldn’t stop them).

   5. So he’s diagnosed with ADHD. You don’t need to talk to him about his behavior. You need to talk to a professional about how to better support him.

      1. Exhibit A for how an entitled generation is born.

         1. Not at all. You teach him how to behave better. Just yelling be better or I’ll punish you doesn’t work.

   6. My youngest was the boy who hit and pushed and was just really physical. Things that helped: fast consequences, removing him from the situation if warranted, extra supervision, and time. We also had to look at what his sibling was doing since we hadn’t realized that she would smack at him or pinch him when they bickered, which made him think it was OK to use his fists or kick when he had a conflict with other kids.

      FWIW, I think there is a huge difference between a kid who hits a same-age kid that just hit him, and going after a smaller kid or responding to verbal conflict with punching (though “use your words” resulted in my kid getting in BIG trouble at five for making a threat he didn’t even understand). I remember sitting on the playground listening to the mother of a single toddler girl who told me definitively that her kid never did any hitting because her daughter had been told that “no hitting” was a family rule. That did not work on my kid.

   7. Oh, I feel for you. I had two boys like this. Not formally diagnosed but I had to be on top of them all.the.time. There were situations that just riled them up, and they had to top whatever anyone else was doing, and that meant being the loudest, doing the funniest prank, getting the strongest reaction from the teacher, etc. At some point they outgrew it but OMG those were tough years. At one point the group behavior on the school bus was so bad and we knew that given enough time, they would be right in the middle of it, so we drove them back and forth to school for months. DH also got involved in a lot of their activities just so he could keep tabs on them. Active sports helped (NOT little league – too much standing around) because it really tired them out. Now they’re in their 20’s. The youngest, who was the most active, is a marathoner, plays frisbee golf, hikes and camps most weekend, etc.

4. Quick update from the secrets thread the other day where I mentioned that my friend gets mad at her husband for needing more sleep – things came to a head a bit today when she was really ranting at him for complaining about being tired when he got 10 hours of sleep last night (it’s worth noting that he’s currently in treatment for depression). She admitted to me that the real problem is that they’ve reached a stage where they just aren’t liking each other and so every little annoyance (someone complaining for the fifth time that they’re tired) feels huge and incredibly grating. I tried to gentle encourage separating sleep needs from division of labor issues (which is really their core problem), but it was clear she was in a bad place and couldn’t hear it. Honestly, I think divorce is imminent and would make them both happier. It’s so hard and sad to see a friend you love getting beat down by marriage in this way – and I know he’s no happier either.

   1. I recently went through this with my sister, and it was hard. Really hard, as her primary support person. There may come a point where you need to gently pull back on offering advice or anything else, for your own sanity’s sake. Sister is now divorcing my BIL, and it is very contentious and bitter. It’s been awful in new and interesting reasons. I am there to lend a listening ear, of course, but I can no longer provide much useful advice in a practical sense because what’s happening is beyond me. Sounds like you may be there, too. Is your friend getting professional help and advice during all of this?

      1. They’re both in separate counseling and couples counseling. She loves her therapist, which is great. She also received treatment for PPD and is doing well with it.

   2. I don’t know anything else about their marriage, but I hate the entire world, including my otherwise wonderful husband, when I don’t get enough sleep. My complete and utter inability to function without decent sleep is a huge part of why I don’t have kids and also why I decided to get a phd rather than go to med school. I get that this relationship seems to have bigger problems, but there are a lot of people who really just need more sleep than others and your friend seems pretty cruel to not try to help her husband meet his basic biological needs so that they can actually try to solve their problems. I agree that a couple like this probably shouldn’t stay together.

      1. She said today she feels that she’s been very supportive to him to get his sleep (last night she did all, and I mean ALL, the work at home, which she usually does, so he could sleep early), but that she loses it when he doesn’t even say thank you or make an effort to pull his weight the next day. I think she’s still too angry about him needing sleep period, but it’s clear to me that it’s a workload issue above all and he’s pulling maybe 2% of the weight. They’re just not compatible.

         1. Can they hire a babysitter or a house cleaner or someone to relieve some of this workload? I can’t tell if this is a forever problem, or a “until they’re out of this phase / his depression starts responding to treatment” problem.

            1. +1 Normally I’m opposed to troubleshooting other people’s relationships for them, but also….this really might be a bad phase. I don’t have kids, but having been close with with several friends through having kids, I just think that sometimes raising baby-toddler-little kids is REALLY hard and REALLY challenging on marriages that in different stages of life aren’t as bad.

               Or they could legit not be compatible, totally could be true. But if she didn’t have a problem before the little kid showed up on the scene, they very well may make it work in the end. New parenthood is just so hard.

               OP, I’m sure you’re being careful when you talk to your friend, but I really really encourage you to tread lightly in what you say. I have held my tongue through years of listening to friends complain about their marriages, then had them decide that they were going to leave their husband, and after I affirmed that decision with them (they directly asked me – and I was like YES I totally agree with leaving them), they decided to stay and faded hard out of our friendship. Like just because she says she’s leaving, doesn’t mean you should start hard agreeing and bashing husband. Because they may totally just be venting, stay, and now your friendship is damaged. It sucks when it happens because I felt like I was a good friend through it all, and got suckered a bit to actually saying my opinion, and then lost the friendship anyway.

            2. IMO, it’s a forever problem – he never pulled his weight before kids either. But they used to at least like each other…

               In any case, most of the stuff he doesn’t help with (making kids dinner, packing for daycare) is harder to outsource. I see how she’s working and don’t blame her for getting so angry at him, but it just seems so counterproductive to zero in on the sleep.

            3. It’s just hard for me to imagine a sleep deprived person currently struggling with depression and a sleep deprived person currently struggling with PPD liking each other even if everything else were optimal!

         2. So sleep isn’t the issue. The issue is him not pulling his weight. You don’t get to let your wife sleep 5 hours a night because she is covering your responsibilities while you sleep.

            No wonder she has PPD. It’s very correlated with lack of sleep. So much so that my doctor insisted our health insurance cover a night nurse to cover one feeding shift so I could sleep. I was on my own 3 weeks after delivery and utterly exhausted. I don’t remember much because I was so tired. I do remember a policeman driving me home because I had a migraine. My obn came to my house because she was very worried about me.

            She probably doesn’t want to overly share how tough it’s been for her. It might be an idea to help her with reframing this. If he isn’t pulling is weight, it’s a fine line between ignorance and emotional abuse. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my husband checking out and leaving the responsibility of parenting on me was emotionally abusive. Hidden abuse is hard to identify and the narrative normalizes this behavior in a lot of cultures.

      2. I am also someone who needs a lot of sleep (9 hours ideally) and that is one of the reasons I don’t want kids! I honestly don’t think I could handle the sleep deprivation. I mean, I know people manage, but…

   3. they have a new baby, right? most marriages are not at their best with a new baby at home. i also had extreme rage postpartum and can be a part of PPA/PPD (which I had bad), but there were many times when i wanted to strangle my husband. not sure how far post partum she is or what their other issues are, but something worth considering

      1. i remember a friend getting divorced when their baby was 9mo old and being so sad because it gets so so much better after the baby is just a little bit older than that. but in this case he’d had a side piece since before they were even pregnant (and side piece was pregnant when they divorced) so it was probably for the best.

         1. OK, yeah, that’s a totally different situation!

   4. I get someone feeling they really need their sleep, but not being able to parent your own child & leaving it all to your partner because your sleep is more important to you is not a good take. I would divorce a partner like that too. I read your post about your friend and I think you were pretty unfair to her.

      1. Yeah, it’s kind of hard for you to know the whole story based on two brief posts.

         1. I’m going off one fact you offered: he doesn’t get up to parent his own child & refuses to do so

            There is no universe where this is good parenting or part of a good relationship

            1. Didn’t I call him a man baby in my original post and clarify in posts above that he does very little of the work? That’s 100% true. I think she never should have married him. I also think that yelling at someone for being tired is unproductive, and she admitted herself that everything he does makes her angry now. It really sucks and I think her parenting journey would be better as a single mom, which I don’t say lightly.

      2. Likewise. Everyone sacrifices sleep with a new baby. And it directly affects division of labor because if you’re sleeping eleven hours a day how can you possibly pitch in with managing the household and kids?

   5. I’m sorry, it’s hard to witness. I know a couple like that, where the mother’s philosophy was both parents had to wake up and stay up if their baby couldn’t sleep so that the burden would be equal.

      Fast forward five years, and both parents were just denied tenure at their university jobs and are having to relocate and start their careers over.

      1. I cannot believe you read a post like that about a husband who does less than 2% of the parenting and still managed to hang it on the mother.

         The bar is on the ground.

         1. There is no bar.

            Its buried in trumps rear end. Explains the strained look. He hid the bar from Melania when she found out about Stormy Daniel’s.

            I say this because as awful as the whole Stormy Daniels situation this, a mother was at home pregnant and then caring for their son while he was off with a prostitute. The narrative has been about the lack of honesty of the payment, not his complete lack of respect for his wife. The court case must have been very difficult for her and so unhealthy for their son to hear.

            As a society we need to hold men accountable for their behavior. If you want equal parenting rights you need to take on equal responsibility. We are so used to demonizing the mother when it’s very clear the problem is with the father.

   6. My take is that you have done all you can and should step back. In this situation, the only advice I have offered friends is to ask if they think their life will be better without their spouse and ask them to visualize their lives 1, 2, 5, 10 years down the line.

      She is signing up to be a single parents when she has custody – and one with fewer financial resources. And she needs to make peace with the fact that when he has custody he gets to make parenting decisions she might not agree with, which might be an issue given their disagreement regarding sleep training. She also needs to be realistic about the financial fall-out. She may decide that she would rather have one actual child to take care of rather than a child and a spouse who is not helpful, which is completely valid but there are some downsides.

   7. If he’s clinically depressed and she is recovering from PPD, and they have a baby and/or toddler – they need more help, not a divorce.

5. Can anyone suggest a great nonfiction book? Shopping for a gift for an older retired man who has liked Mary Beard (and has the latest one) but I don’t quite think he’s at The Power Broker level

   1. The Art Thief, Dreamland, and Bad Blood are some of my favorite non-fiction reads recently. The Wager is on my to-read list and may be a good fit for history!

      1. I just finished The Wager, which is about an ill-fated Antarctic sailing expedition, and I loved it. Lots of twists and turns!

   2. The River of Doubt, Say Nothing, Chasing the Thrill, and The Indifferent Stars Above are the three best non-fiction books I’ve read in recent years.

      1. My husband is devouring River of Doubt right now. I thought The Wager was pretty interesting.

   3. Anything by Erik Larson if he likes history.

      1. +1, in particular I liked Dead Wake
         Into Thin Air
         Shadow Divers
         Boys in the Boat

      2. Isaac’s Storm. (Erik Larson)
         I’ve re-read this several times.

   4. Oooh I just started The Power Broker on a friend’s recommendation! I work in parks and she works in city budgeting/planning so it’s perfect. I recently read The Last Castle, about the Biltmore, and enjoyed it.

   5. Boys on the Boat.

   6. Does he like memoirs? Into any particular shows or celebrities? Michael Richards (Seinfeld) just released an interesting memoir. Stanley Tucci has a few related to his journey with food and cooking. John Stamos, Matthew McConaughey, and Prince Harry are also good ones.

      1. Wow, five recommendations written by five wealthy white men. Groundbreaking!

         1. OK, where are your recommendations? I don’t see any offered here.

   7. Prairie Fires, about Laura Ingalls Wilder an her family

      1. Oh sorry, maybe not great for an older man

         1. Men can read books about women!

   8. Any Mary Roach book will be excellent. (‘Spook’ was my least favorite, though)

   9. A few I’ve enjoyed:

      – How to Know a Person by David Brooks
      – The Deadline (Essays) by Jill Lepore
      – Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
      – Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation by Steven Hyden
      – The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation by Rosemary Sullivan
      – The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenburg
      – Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
      – Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman
      – Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom by Carl Bernstein
      – Fiction, but A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
      – The rest lean heavily into feminism and that’s probably not what you’re looking for

   10. This isa completely different type of nonfiction, but I love The Hidden Life Of Trees by Peter Wohlleben so much.

   11. I agree with anything by Erik Larson or Patrick Radden Keefe. I also really liked The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides about James Cooke’s last journey.

   12. A Billion Years if you want to read the autobiography of a high-level Scientology defector.

   13. Young Men and Fire! older but great.

6. Ladies who lived through this fashion cylcle last time… what are we doing about hemming trousers? Do we buy two pairs of each and hem one for flats and one for pumps? Then what do we do about our mid-height heels/boots?

   1. You have to choose whether you will hem to a) the newer top-of-foot length or b) the older “almost to the floor at the back with a clean break at the front of the foot length.” If you choose A, some people will think you’re wearing high-water pants. If you choose B, you have to hem exactly to heel height (flats, 2″, whatever you wear).

      If you want the older, more exact length, and you care a lot about each pant/shoe pairing falling at that length, yes, you have to buy multiple pairs of pants.

      If you don’t care much, hem for flats, and let the pants hem fall where it may when you’re wearing heels.

      1. “If you want the older, more exact length, and you care a lot about each pant/shoe pairing falling at that length, yes, you have to buy multiple pairs of pants” If you go this route:

         Just don’t express yourself via pants and shoes to keep the numbers to a reasonable level. Black pants hemmed perfectly for black pumps (get two pairs of pants). Other colors the same. A pair or two of “dressy” jeans (boot cut of course). And that’s it for pants. You’ll express yourself with the top half and dresses.

         Or, insist on one heel height. Back in the day all my heels were 2″, so all my pants were hemmed for that. You’ll have other pants hemmed for flats/loafers/oxfords.

         Worst case is where your shoes are a mish-mash of everything from ballet flats to 4″ heels so you have to have pants for many different heel heights.

         1. This was what I did–one pair for flats, one pair for heels, and all my heels were the same height.
            I say did because now I’ve decided I’m just never again wearing heels.

   2. I live in Canada where we have very distinct seasons so yes, I have pants I wear in the summer with flats/sandals and different pants I wear in the fall/winter with boots or sneakers. Summer pants tend to be lighter fabrics/colours. I never wear heels so no help there.

   3. Some trousers require a heel/wedge and some don’t. I personally prefer the proportion of trousers with a 2-3 inch heel so I just get shoes with heels all that height and have for 15-ish years.

      You know what fashion trend I’m excited for people to learn about? The back of our jeans were wet anytime it rained… that’s one of the few blessings of skinny jeans. Flares 4-eva over here, but… yeah, the shredded back of your jeans act like wicks to bring that wet sidewalk water up mid-calf.

      1. totally agree – flares 4 eva but if it’s raining or slushy i’m sticking with skinnies or something i can wear with rainboots like a skirt.

         i guess i’ve always had enough pants that the idea of buying duplicates of something never occurred to me? even if i have like 5 black pairs of pants the details of them were different like the cut, the fabric, the drape, the season — so it never felt like a big loss to choose one shoe or type of shoe to wear with each pair of pants. for commuting you have to protect the hems and may need a platform sneaker or something to avoid dragging hems on the ground.

      2. Hahaha, I saw this in action this past spring – high schoolers with wide leg and flared pants that were soaked up to the knee and shredded. We all rolled and tucked our pants into uggs/boots for a reason guys!

   4. I have mine hemmed to like almost grazing the floor with flats on, so that they look nice with pointed-toe flats and are also long enough to look good with more substantial flats like loafers, or 1-2″ heels.

      If I wore higher heels more often, I’d need to have different pants for the different heel heights, just like 2008 :)

      1. +1 – all of my ‘heels’ are now 2 inches or lower so I generally hem pants to work well with loafers which also works fine with Rothys or sneakers.
         I live in an area with serious snow in the winter where I opt for skirts if it’s rainy/snowy since it’s easier to wash tights or leggings than try to get salt stains out of wool pants.

      2. This is how I like to wear my pants, too. I try to keep my closet pretty lean because I am a) cheap and b) don’t have a ton of storage.

   5. You get your pants hemmed to the shoes you will wear them with. Generally you don’t get to wear the same pants with heels and with pants.

      Or you can join me in the world of flats 4 life. You’ll like it here. It’s nice.

      1. *with heels and with flats

   6. First time around I would get them hemmed for shoes with a slight heel (like loafers) so they would work with low heels.

7. Parents of older kids – how do you monitor your kids phone (if at all). Our 12 yr old will get a phone later this summer and while he wants zero limits (of course) he knows that isn’t going to happen. We’re having a discussion about more oversight at first and throttling back as he gets older to gradually almost no oversight other than sharing location (if he wants) as a 17/18yr old.
   He VERY much doesn’t want to hand over his phone for periodic checks as some friends do and is more in favor of an app with a dashboard. I’m leaning towards an app with more oversight than the apple family plan but less than some of the creepy spy ones that some of our other friends have on their kids phones (mSpy? this one sounds like something out of a lifetime movie).

   1. Perspective that you are free to ignore: the fact that he is pushing back on parental controls tells me that he’s not ready for a phone, or at least a smart phone. If he needs talk and text capacity, he can have a “dumb phone,” with of course some basic parental oversight.

      I can understand not reading the texts, which is like reading letters, but IMHO nothing wrong with knowing who your kid is texting with and at approximately what hours.

      1. +1. I wouldn’t get this kid a smartphone yet.

      2. I disagree. There’s a difference between having the ability to see which web pages he’s visiting and apps he’s using vs forcing him to physically hand over his phone so someone else can dig through it. I know my employer can see my browsing history, emails, and share drive files. That’s fine, but if my boss demanded that I hand over my laptop every day so he can look through it that would feel invasive and demeaning

         1. It’s different for adults and young minors. Minors NEED supervision in the online world – more than they need in the real world.

            1. Yep, this. A 12-year-old is still really young. Having some strict guardrails is perfectly appropriate at that age. I would feel differently about an older teen.

      3. If I could go back in time and do one thing differently, it would be to set a rule that there are no phones in bedrooms overnight. My teens use them as white noise machines and wake up alarms, and it’s difficult to walk back once that starts.

         1. Buy them hatches and start leaving your phone in the kitchen and do it over the summer so they get used to it.

   2. I think you have more say over this than you think you do. A 12-year-old is still using tech training wheels, in my mind, and this is not an area where his preferences dictate the course of action.

      At that age, we were setting screentime limits, both in terms of amount of time he could spend on the phone AND time of day. I don’t need a tween texting at all hours of the night. On that note, phones live in the kitchen overnight, not bedrooms.

      Social media apps are not allowed, period.

      Apple family plan has worked OK for us, but I’m not sure what features you’re looking for. We used one of our old iphones and basically made it a dumb phone that only ran on wi-fi until he genuinely needed full texting capabilities at 14.

      And he knows that if we have reason to be suspicious about any of his phone use and texting, we have the right to check his phone. We rarely have, but he knows we can.

   3. He’s 12. He is lucky to have a phone at all and the terms should be set by you. You get full access to the phone whenever you want. Parents be so stressed about playgrounds and then just throw their kids to the online wolves.

      1. Some books lately have addressed the idea that kids are over supervised when they shouldn’t be (crossing the street, going to the store alone) and under-supervised online.

         1. I have absolutely seen this play out among my kids’ peers. Be the parent. Have some damn limits.

            1. Absolutely. people need to understand that Congress, the tech companies, schools, and literally every other entity are passing the buck on this. Only parents can exercise limits for their kids when it comes to screentime. No one is coming to save them.

   4. I agree with PPs that if DS is pushing back on controls, he’s not ready.
      Perspective: we told DD we would ABSOLUTELY scroll thru her phone. We used to do it in front of her, but have really ramped back. Also her phone has a home in the kitchen, and that’s where it lives overnight. I wake up at the buttcrack of dawn, and her phone is ALWAYS where it’s supposed to be. If it wasn’t, she knows I would simply take it. This is also a great time for a quick mom-check.
      What we found when we were scrolling texts: things we didn’t think to make rules for bc we didn’t have to deal with these things as teens. So, although you might be proud of your new airsoft gun… don’t text people pictures of it. Don’t play practical jokes where you somehow impersonate someone else. Etc.
      I guess I am on Team Monitor However You Want

   5. I’ll be a slight voice of dissent here and say that when he DOES do something wrong (it’ll come eventually), don’t overreact. Use it as a teaching moment. I was caught sexting with my boyfriend as a freshman in high school (age 14) – my parents freaked out and took my phone away and I didn’t get it back until senior year of high school. It was embarrassing to have to go through all of high school without a phone, and all my peers found out why.

      1. I’m not sure I think your parents overreacted by much, tbh. 14 is very, very young for that.

   6. OP here – appreciate the insights, and yes – phone will live in the kitchen overnight. He isn’t allowed to have ipads/gaming devices in his bedroom with the door closed at all (this has already come up on sleepovers – all phones/tablets must be turned in at 9am, yes, even your friend’s ones).
      Also I’m always amused at the lack of reading comprehension. If I’m asking for WHICH program/app to use to monitor a phone why are people responding saying that I should have guardrails protecting him online. I know – that is literally what I’m asking for!

      1. The only question you asked was what other parents do, if at all, so…

      2. Highly recommend the FB group Parenting in a Tech World. There are a lot of different approaches there, but lots of people like Bark to alert to high-risk themes in texts or inappropriate websites visited. There is also a lot of support for the movie Childhood 2.0, and suggestions to watch it together as a family so that kids better understand the risks and how to keep their guard up to avoid becoming a victim.

         Also – have the discussion about p*rn and how rampant it is and how to handle it if you encounter it. It is so, so prevalent on the sites that teenagers like to use.

      3. Maybe go back and reread your first sentence . . .

   7. Agree with other posters, and check out Dr Lisa Demour’s advice on this, too. When you first give your child a phone you want it as locked down as possible, with strict controls and their buy-in for full oversight, because it’s very hard to walk it back later. They should be so grateful to get a phone that they will agree to anything. I’d personally allow no apps other than talk, text, weather and maybe maps, and definitely have certain hours of the day (and all night) when it has to be handed over/left in a charging location.

   8. He’s 12. There is no evidence supporting a 12 year old having a smart phone and SO MUCH evidence against it. I’m begging you to not give him one right now. They are not neutral objects.

8. are there any cottage gardeners in the group? i’ve recently realized i really want to have one and i’m trying to build it but getting from A to Z is so confusing.

   1. I’m not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean like an english garden / borders?

   2. Is there something specific you want to know? IMHO, cottage gardening is mostly about the types of flowers you choose to grow and the style you’re trying to cultivate. Any fancy borders or hardscaping is just a nice bonus.

   3. so i would describe a cottage garden as one that is deceptively wild but beautiful because it’s carefully layered in a specific way so flowers and foliage complement each other with height, color, bloom time, etc. No mulch or 1-1-note border. anyway so trying to keep track of what flowers bloom when and just to fill the entire space in a way that also takes into account that the perennials that like it will naturalize and spread. and like whether certain flowers shouldn’t be planted together because there are pest issues or like one likes alkaline soil and the other likes acidic… stuff like that.

      1. Perfectly said. And that look definitely can take a long time to cultivate. It’s not just plant the plants and have an instant cottage garden.

         1. Ok. Now I know what OP means and I agree. Having a formal or informal border requires thought about ultimate plant size and height (too many people cram things in there without consideration that this thing is going to be 4 feet wide, for instance). You also want to think about what is blooming when. Having beautiful blooms in the spring is child’s play. Having something blooming nearly year round takes skill. And of course balancing foliage colors in a thoughtful way is important too.

   4. I really like the book Designing and Creating a Cottage Garden by Gail Harding as inspiration. She showcases different themes like floral or productive, and plants and features that look good in different seasons. I also think it’s useful to have a book about gardening throughout the year, with information about what to sew, plant or prune in which month, which flowers bloom when, and how to care for them. That will help you plan layers and seasons. It’s best to get a book that’s local to your region and climate. I really like the RHS one.

   5. I have a mixed cottage/native. I would first look at what shrubs or foundational plants you want — in my case, hydrangeas, peonies, and camellias. Then think about your color palette if that matters to you and whether you want lots of cut flowers. Look at what grows in your zone because it makes things easier. Fill in with other perennials and annuals. But I would start with a small section and build every year. Also, some things like zinnias and dahlias are easy to grow from seed/bulb. Other things you might want a larger plant.

   6. Boy, I remember the days when gardening meant something else on this site, and I was very confused at first.

9. There is a blog from a Canadian writer who talks about creating a cottage garden
   https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/
   She writes about the process. (And other stuff!)

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