Splurge Monday’s Workwear Report: Tartan Trouser

405 Comments

1. Those pants are unflattering, to say the least.

   1. I love them, but the price is head-turning.

   2. +1. When they look that bad on the model, who is probably 5’10”, I know they will be laughable on me!!

      1. Agreed. Flair pants do nothing unless you are wearing 4″ Heels to keep the pants out of the puddles and poopie all over NYC these days. FOOEY! Of course, you do ruin the heels on the pumps walking in the city streets, and it is all but impossible to wear pumps in Central Park, which is muddy and full of poopie just waiting to attach itself to your clotheing. DOUBEL FOOEY!

   3. I liked them! Thought about buying them but remembered it was Monday and checked the price– yowza

   4. I know – the model likely has a gorgeous figure and if they are unflattering on her, then I don’t want to think what they will do to my 5’4” self. How could anyone not see that?

   5. I like them. They’re very Shiv Roy.

      1. my first thought!

   6. I am picturing them on my 5’2″ not particularly svelte self. Whooo boy. They might be great on someone who can physically carry them, instead of the other way round.

2. Happy November! I watched the Today Show and I just want to remind the entire hive to go out and vote tomorrow! There’s a big election for alot of jobs, and Al Roker said the weather will be good everywhere in the USA. Some of us were lucky enough and able to vote early, but others could not. They say to bring your own pen, and make sure to wear a mask and sanitize your hands after touching anything. Dad says you should do as much as you can do contactless. Tho they said you do not need gloves, I would wear my own leather gloves, and then take them off if you have to to sign your name.

   On another note Sean Connery died. I am very sad. He was the BEST James Bond–who can forget “A Martini, Shaken not Stirred!” He also dated so many pretty women also. He was an ICON!

3. The other day, I was reading (either WaPo or New Yorker) about the election race in WV. What struck me was a statement that the state has the highest percentage of white people with only a high school education. As a POC from an Asian country that sees higher education as the only way out of poverty, this puzzled me. The article didn’t explain the reasons.

   And so, I wanted to ask if people can enlighten me. Why would you not pursue higher education if you could? Doesn’t have to be a posh college, a state school or community college atleast?
   I’m not a troll, I’m not American. Just a puzzled person whose family studied their way out of poverty.

   1. Higher education in the US costs a fair amount of money. It’s hard to work and go to school at the same time. Few people can work enough hours to pay for college and their living expenses and have time to study. Further, I don’t know much about the WV economy but if someone plans to stay near family and there are mostly blue collar jobs available, a college education doesn’t help much and just costs money compared to learning a trade.

   2. It’s a very poor state. They have high rates of drug addiction and teenage pregnancy. When you don’t have many role models who are pursuing higher education, it can be very difficult to see a way out. Really, same explanation as for any other poor population in the U.S., whether urban or rural (aside from perhaps the drug issue which is uniquely a challenge).

   3. West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the country for a variety of reasons. Many people do not finish high school. College costs money they do not have, requires knowledge they do not have, and is inaccessible to many. I wouldn’t frame this as “why wouldn’t they get an education” but rather “why does the USA, one of the richest countries in the world, not provide poverty alleviation and access to education.”

   4. The ‘if they could’ part of your question is key. Many can’t – they are working jobs to help supplement their parents income. It’s a poor state with not a lot of people who have money for college.

      1. +1

         I have a cousin in state very similar to WV. She wanted to be a nurse. She was SO motivated to have a better life than her rural, poverty-stricken upbringing. She started school, had a plan to transfer out of community college after a certain point. She took on debt, too. Cousin ended up accidentally getting pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. Her family and church wouldn’t allow it (her words). She had the baby at 20 years old, dropped out and now is struggling to simply exist and raise her toddler (dad is long gone), plus the debt from a year+ of undergrad she attended. The painful irony is she’s in a state that gutted social services so she has very little support of any kind. Her family, which “made” her have the child, has no resources to support her either. Desire often isn’t enough. Social constructs are sometimes too much for a single person to overcome.

         1. +1. I live in a state that has gutted social services, education, and support for the poor over the past 30 years. I have a good friend who got pregnant and had a baby when she was 17 years old, 30 years ago. She attended a local 4-year university (not a flagship state school, but not community college) on full scholarship. The university provided full-time daycare. Medicaid actually covered her child’s medical expenses while she went to school. She graduated from university with a paralegal certificate, has worked consistently since she was 22, and supported herself and her son. Public schools for her son were good enough, and he was able to attend very good public magnet schools for high school. He received a scholarship to an elite private school, graduated during the last recession, and has had a full-time job and supported himself while pursuing a “dream” career (screen writing in LA) for the past 10 years.

            None of that story would be possible in my state now. The 4-year university she went to is in danger of being closed by the state. Its programs have been cut. There is no university daycare. Medicaid is available, but the coverage is terrible, and there are not enough participating providers. Funding for our public schools has been gutted, and they are among the worst in the country. The magnet schools he went to still exist, but the majority of the kids who test into them either have private tutors or enter from the private school system, so they’re filled with the kids of rich people. My friend is an amazing, accomplished person, but even she admits her path would have been very different without the state support she had from 18-22.

         2. I grew up in western Kansas. Very small school: there were 14 people in my graduating class. The class behind me had 5 girls. At graduation, 3 had children. The first one had arrived during their sophomore year. Girl #4 was in foster care and was on birth control, because her case worker was determined that she would make it out of high school without repeating her mother’s mistakes (T was born when her mother was 14). Girl #5 was the smart, “big” girl that none of the boys wanted to date.

            The three girls who got out? Smart girl (physical therapist), foster kid (social worker), and the teen mom whose child arrived when mom was a sophomore. She did because she found out what she needed to take to be accepted to a cosmetology program that would net her an associate’s degree and that would let her teach in a barber college. The other 2 girls are still there, 30 years later, and their kids are repeating the cycle.

      2. Agree. It’s important to remember it’s not just tuition costs but being able to support oneself while going to college. That’s a luxury out of reach for many.

   5. When I taught in a rural southern area, I would make statements about a student being a really good candidate for college, scholarships etc. The response from the parent would be “why do they need college? I didn’t go to college, are you saying there’s something wrong with my life?” The only people around with college degrees were pastors, teachers, and the doctor that drove up from the city. It’s a different culture and overcoming the cultural disbelief in higher education is a large burden.

      1. I personally experienced a lot of values dissonance in pursuing higher education. Jennifer Morton has a thoughtful book on “The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility.”

         And while we’re talking about ethics, we should remember that a world where higher education is only way out of poverty leaves a lot of people doing essential work in poverty.

         1. I have this book on my wishlist now! Thank you.

   6. Your first question is “why would you not pursue higher education if you could?” But why are you assuming that people who could pursue higher education didn’t?

      A bit of Googling tells me that about 1 in 5 adults in WV have “level 1 literacy.” I’ve personally met rural US school teachers whose own literacy level is not much better than this. Other teachers are simply not skilled at teaching reading and writing to students who are struggling, and many teachers who are skilled in teaching reading and writing are held back by administrative policies that require them to spend class time on other things since “basic literacy” isn’t in the 6th grade curriculum, even if the 6th graders aren’t reading successfully yet.

      I personally think that we should be working on making literacy less crucial for getting by in life as an accessibility issue, but realistically, an adequate level of literacy is a sine qua non for higher education. I picked literacy as just one obstacle to higher education, but there are many others. There are family obligations that keep people home because they are caretakers for family elders or children, or because they are needed in other ways. There is a very well-founded fear of debt–remember that a massive percentage of the student debt burden in the US is held by students who attempted higher education but never successfully graduated. There are obstacles related to healthcare access (if you feel terrible all the time because your health issues are untreated, you’re unlikely to do well in school). The list goes on… and on.

   7. First, there are a lot of jobs that you don’t need even a high school diploma for. Let me tell you about a lot of the people I went to high school with. They work hard and see a lot of people who went to college as ‘stuck up’. If you go to college, it’s to be a nurse or a teacher. You love your family and nature. I’m not talking about people who are stuck in cycles of poverty, drug addiction, and teen pregnancy. I’m talking about people who straight up see college as totally unnecessary.

      School was necessary to get to play sports. They stopped taking classes like science and math as soon as it was possible. Maybe they took trade classes, maybe they took some but didn’t finish.

      When you’re 16, you want to drive. Okay, so you need a job to buy a vehicle and gas. Your uncle (who didn’t go to college) offers you a job with him doing roofing. It’s a solid job and you’re able to make enough money. Your parents are proud that you’re a hardworking kid. You have a good reputation. When you graduate, you think about going to college but all people can tell you about are loans and really – you’d rather spend that $20,000 on a truck. Your dad didn’t go to college, why should you? Next thing you know you’re 28 and married with a kid or two. You inherited some land and built a house with your cousins and dad. You never needed college and you know that one guy who has like $200,000 or something crazy in loans. Why would ANYBODY go to college? You have a good life now.

      Around 40% of the class I graduated with joined the military. A couple used it to pay off/pay down college bills, some of them are still in as a career, others did their 4 years and then came home to settle down and get a job locally. They could use the GI Bill, but by the time you’re out – you’re 24! Who wants to be the old guy in college, anyway? And so it goes.

      1. I will say that the math of not going to law school (why go 150K in debt to get a 50K job) are true for going to college if you are very poor. If a good local job you can live on in a LCOL area pays X, a college degree job is rare and often only pays X as well. How can you justify going into debt to make X when you could make X as a kid fresh out of high school?

         1. That’s a good point about the jobs. I’m from a more rural part of California and once I went to college there is no way I could live in my hometown again because the employers in my field weren’t there. If I had become a nurse or a teacher it might be different, but I didn’t.

            1. Yup. I’m from Northern Canada. I really lost some of my identity after I got my advanced degree. I can never go home- there are no jobs for me there.

   8. I agree with you. I know the counter-argument is the system is crooked, racist and you do not have anyone to look up to. But I can’t understand why white people think education is for “nerds” and waste their opportunityties. I grew up in a household where a day trip to a neighboring town is the trip of the year. My parents did not graduate from college because of the cultural revolution. By contrast, my BIL (white) grew up in a middle-class family, went to a UC school but ends up living with his parents at the age of 30 without a stable job (this is even from before covid). Sometimes, it is frustrating to see people waste their opportunities when I had to study 14 hours a day 12 years in a row to even stand on the same footing as those white people…

      1. I think your education has some serious holes.

         1. Yea why were you studying 14 hours a day? That also seems like a gross exaggeration

            1. Cultural revolution reference — she was in China.

            2. I am not sure I can really prove as it was more than 15 years ago now. But I was waking up at 6 to practice English by the BBC radio recording that I made myself before school and typically did not go to sleep until midnight to finish my homework on top of studying for TOEFL (a test obviously Americans do not need to take). I was studying a second foreign language in the meantime as well as my parents preferred that country to the U.S.

            3. 14-hours of studying (including the actual 7-8 hours of school) isn’t uncommon in many East Asian countries. See cram schools, bushiban, etc. basically, you had no life outside of school, which is a cultural thing and why most teenagers in high school in Asia don’t work side jobs unless they’re really poor and had to drop out of high school or vocational school.

      2. You’re talking about something different than the OP, though – your BIL with a college education that he doesn’t use is light-years away from people growing up in extreme poverty in WV. The latter aren’t willfully ignoring oppotunities; there are significant barriers to college education for them (from the low quality of their primary/HS education to inability to afford even community college to the need to start working immediately to support a family).

         1. Yes, agreed. That is true. I guess my thinking (which may be wrong as I do not know anyone from WV) is it is still easier for a white person born in WV to get into a decent college here in the U.S. than someone born in a working class family in a developing country whose parents do not speak English at all and who needs to work through the whole system by themselves (through a firewalled Internet nonetheless so you can’t even google).

            1. I think part of is it about what we’re willing to sacrifice. I am someone who wanted to leave it all behind, who hated where I grew up, and who avoided community ties there. I still had a lot of guilt when I heard about the food security issues my family faced after I’d left. I chose myself over them, and they suffered, probably more than I know. If I had been happier there, or if I hadn’t chosen to put myself first, would I have ever left? I’m still not really comfortable among college educated people, but I no longer fit in where I’m from either. If I valued community more, would I have been better off staying?

               When I hear of small town problems, my first thought is still: There’s a big world out there. Get out. Find something better. Shake the dust off your feet. Even if it’s you against the world. But that’s not the solution for everyone.

            2. I think part of what you are missing is that what you are interpreting as exclusively internal motivations are actually lit by external motivations. You clearly had parents and other cultural forces pushing you, instilling education and upward mobility as values. I grew up a few miles from West Virginia and those cultural forces just don’t exist among large swaths of the population there (including in my own town in my day, but WV was considered the dividing line to “backwards”), so it is cyclical. In fact, it can be actively discouraged among some. Imagine if your family routinely ridiculed you for getting up at 6 a.m. and staying up late and for dreaming about visiting, much less moving to, another country. And then add additional financial and systemic barriers to achievement.

            3. I think you would probably be shocked by the degree of poverty in some parts of the US (and you should be shocked, bc we are a wealthy country and we should do better). There are parts of this country where people live without reliable electricity or running water, where the nearest hospital is more than an hour away, and where the public schools use thirty-year-old textbooks. There are basically regions in the US that are developing countries. Do those people have white privilege? Sure – but they are heavily disadvantaged in many other ways.

         2. It may be easier to “get in” to college in WV but if you have parents who are living at or around the poverty level, they can’t pay for your living expenses for another four years. They need you out of the house and off the payroll. That makes going to college very different than most people’s experiences on this board.

            In fact I was in this situation and fortunately got full financial aid. My parents could not not afford the $500/year they were supposed to contribute to my tuition/room/board so I had to get an additional hardship Pell grant for that amount. But I don’t think I could have have done that today. So much of federal and state funding for lower income education has dried up.

   9. Interesting viewpoint. On the other side of the coin, I grew up in an area where college was very much pushed as the way to do better and a lot of my peers ended up going to college who probably shouldn’t have and are now saddled with student debt that they’ll likely never repay, working jobs that don’t require a college degree (or any college at all). There’s a lot of resentment among that cohort who feel they were promised that college was a golden ticket and it ended up being nothing but debt.

      1. Yep, same.

   10. My observation (higher ed) is that there are plenty of kids from poor areas who know that they “could/should/want” to go to college. But the hurdles are often huge – it’s not as simple as “study hard and apply to some colleges.” There’s a whole wealth of institutional access/knowledge/awareness that makes college prep and application a natural thing in some circles and a giant obstacle in others. There’s also money – money to pay to apply to college, let alone go. I see some amazing students from poor backgrounds and I think they almost have to be amazing because they had to scale the college application mountain, often more or less alone. My parents looked at the financial aid forms and said “We’re going to do this part for you.”

       You don’t say what Asian country you’re from, but my understanding is that many of them have a national exam that everyone takes and that exam is the entire college application process, so students there “just” need to study and don’t need to navigate the Byzantine bureaucracy of American-style college and financial aid applications.

       1. Fair point. But if you want it enough, you’ll make it happen…no?

          1. Why would you want it all that much, if there are alternatives in your view?

             Those aren’t always great alternatives, but 18 year olds aren’t the best at figuring out what the best decisions will be for 30 years down the road.

             1. Of if you read here:
                SF and NYC rents are north of $3K/month (and how do you cobble together first month rent + same as security deposit if the pad rent on your inherited paid-off trailer is $250/month and your parent has to pay that + electric + groceries + gas on disability pay???)
                student loans may cost the same
                not to mention MeeMaw won’t be able to help with day care
                Oh, and private school
                And commutes are 2 hours/day

                I mean, why join the rat race when it hasn’t worked out so well for us (and we are the “succesful” ones)?

                My cousin went to Party State U and has no debt (teaching scholarship) and lives a house as nice as mine back where our family is from (BigLaw Partner, big city ;I don’t think I’m the smart one, to judge by lifestyle, I just took a different path to essentially the same place, but she gets summers off and never had to pay a stranger to look after her kids; by stress level, she and her children are in a much better place than my children and I are in)

          2. I mean, some people will make it happen. But when the institutional barriers are huge, fewer people will be able to do that. Even figuring out the logistics of how a person gets into college – the SAT, the ACT, the classes you need to take, how to write the essays, how to research colleges, how to apply for financial aid – if you do not know anyone who is college educated and your high school doesn’t provide help, then it’s pretty easy to mess something up and not make it happen. For example, not understanding how to apply for financial aid, so you don’t get any, or not knowing how to access application fee waivers so you only apply to one school.

             1. This. I volunteer with an organization that is almost entirely devoted to helping high school kids navigate this – how to apply to colleges, how to write essays, how important it can be to do interviews/visit campus, how to apply for financial aid/scholarships. If your parents don’t know how to guide you (or don’t have time!) this is A LOT of stuff for teenagers to navigate on their own. Heck, this is a lot for PARENTS to navigate if they aren’t super savvy. Not to mention the unspoken cultural stuff that goes into this – I flat out didn’t know I should be asking for informational interviews, or crafting a purpose statement, or visiting campuses, etc. That wasn’t done when my parents went to a state school and they didn’t understand the ‘game’ with private schools.
                I had excellent grades and very good test scores, which got me into almost all the private schools I applied for with substantial scholarships from some, but that was with almost no parental help (nobody read my essays or helped my think of my ‘angle’, for example). As an adult I realize now I should have applied for more Ivies (and likely would have gotten into more than the ‘easy’ one I did if someone had walked me through the process).

             2. Yeah, and some of it is as basic as who is going to pay for you to take the SAT or apply to college? I was allowed to take the SAT once and apply to one college, and that was with parents who were supportive of me going to college. They didn’t help me apply and neither did any guidance counselors – I figured it out on my own.

             3. Some states make the ACT mandatory for this reason: they are poor and it removes one small barrier to college access.

             4. I can absolutely guarantee you that if I had grown up in poverty stricken West Virginia or similar, I would not have made it happen. I grew up in a middle class home in the 1970s, with one parent who’d graduated from college (University of West Virginia, as it happens, although she moved to California the second she graduated), and even for me it was tricky to figure out college admissions and financial aid and so on, and I had a rocky path. Even in law school I didn’t figure out that I should be applying for judicial clerkships, even though I was at the top of my class.

          3. Those were the people who got driven right into the arms of the for-profit diploma mills who, in many cases, left the students with piles of debt and no improved job prospects (or even worse than when they started when they put “degree from for-profit diploma mill” on their resume not realizing that it signals to many that they fell for a scam).

             I’m one who “made it happen” at a big state U and I don’t think you quite realize quite what all that entails. Even when you do the work (and no sleep, 2 jobs, the whole bit) to get through your degree, you’re still behind the students who were able to devote enough time to do really well, take the unpaid internships, etc. When you put yourself through school (or at least when I did), the poverty level amount I made was still too high to qualify for financial aid, and my parents were of no help. Being poor is freaking EXPENSIVE. All I had the time and money to do was the absolute minimum to pass and graduate. That is not a recipe for getting the most out of your university studies.

          4. But you’re about 16 when you need to prepare/test/apply & at 16 you may not even know that you’re missing the boat. Without parental guidance & in a poor school system & with peers who are following their parents footsteps instead of going to college … you just don’t even know it’s a thing you should be doing.

          5. I don’t think you appreciate how hard it is to figure all of this out. I’m a first generation college grad. I was lucky to attend a high school where there were loads of “college prep” sessions and my parents knew that it was important to do the college thing but it was still hard to navigate as someone who didn’t have any family members who had gone through it before. Things that seem basic/obvious to many on this board, like signing up for the SAT, are things that I would not have known to do if I didn’t attend a workshop that had “sign up for the SAT” and dates for when to do so on the handout. There are plenty of places where those workshops don’t exist.

             1. The only reason I knew to sign up for the SAT was because my friends were doing it. I knew I wanted to go to college, but didn’t know that was one of the first steps.

             2. I missed every deadline/understood nothing my senior year and ended up taking a gap year to apply to colleges. I didn’t attend the local school (probably also an important step in getting into college for me, really), but I heard that the guidance counselor there was actively hostile to students who wanted to apply to non-local schools (“so you think you are ‘too good’ for the school I went to?”), and the local schools didn’t require tests like SAT IIs. So we were all figuring it out on our own.

          6. No.

          7. No, that’s just magical thinking. It’s like you didn’t take anything away from the post you’re responding to.
             You’re pretending that social and institutional barriers don’t exist or can just be will-powered through (no), you’re ignoring the fact that many kids simply *don’t know* what to do to get where they want to go and don’t have access to that knowledge. You don’t know what you don’t know.

          8. No. You have to have support in so many corners and so many people pushing you to do it, especially when it’s a different path from anyone in your family or anyone you know. There’s no intrinsic motivation here. That is honestly a very privileged viewpoint.

       2. I’m white but an immigrant with family who were not engaged in my life, to put it nicely. I had to figure out the college thing on my own — I went to a HS where 100% of the kids went to college so I picked up a ton from my peers. I remember a HS friend getting one of those giant books about colleges for Christmas our junior year, so I went and took out a similar one from the library. The college counselors weren’t helpful because they assumed a basis of knowledge and parental help that I did not have. I had no idea I could apply for exemptions from fees for the SATs or application fees. I had no idea how to apply for financial aid but figured it out on my own. I had no idea how to write an admissions essay, which teachers to ask for recs — but my friends were talking about these things so I listened to them and read books from the library about the process. It was all incredibly hard and relied on a lot of cultural knowledge and adult help that I lacked. I still remember how stressed and confused I was. If I didn’t have the advantage of a college prep HS and peer group, I don’t know if I could have managed.

          By the time I was 17, I was dying to get away from my dysfunctional home. If the culture around me was that you do that by getting a job and moving out, or by joining the military, I’m pretty sure I would have done that instead. College seemed to me like just another obstacle to overcome on the way to adulthood — I only did it because I was under the impression (from my peer group) that it was the only way.

          1. This story is similar to mine, except that I was very lucky to have an older sister blazed the trail for me. I vividly remember sitting next to her, looking at the paper course catalog when she was a freshman, when she said to me: “That Professor TBA sure teaches a lot of classes.” I think that sums up being a first-generation college student.

   11. In addition to the other reasons and the fact that pursuing higher education is still hard to afford even if you take out a lot of student loans, sometimes people don’t want to move away from where they grew up. The jobs in the area mainly be blue collar jobs or jobs like teaching that would require a lot of debt for probably not a higher salary.

   12. Thanks all for your replies.

       As someone who had to, and sometimes still has to, go a few extra miles to stand on the same footing as the whites in my European MNC, I don’t get the “education is for nerds” thing. Similar to piper-dreamer below. My son now gets mocked in his “mostly white” school for being focussed on his studies….

       Secondly, I find the whole “why do you need an education, I managed fine without one” attitude weird. My parents pushed me so I’d have things they couldn’t access, and the same way as I want my kids to be better than I was, in every way.

       And finally, growing up in S Asia meant we “looked up” to the US. So it was a bit of a shock to see that stat. Where I come from, child labour is rife and kids would do anything for an education.

       Thanks for your thoughtful replies.

       1. Its really complicated, as you can see from replies. The bottom line I think is that the culture doesn’t value education in the US– we talk a big game sometime, but relatively few American families (who are not recent immigrants) truly value education in the way that people in Asia and other areas do. All of the other things- the poor public education system in a lot of areas and difficulty in paying for college all stem from the fundamental fact that America doesn’t truly value education. I am a white American from a blue collar background that I thought at least somewhat valued education… until I married a southeast asian guy and saw how his family treats education. Totally different cultural attitude.

          1. THIS. I think this comment totally sums it up. We have cultures in the US that value education, but I don’t think they are the majority.

             1. I’m Indian so you go to college or else. My parents didn’t speak to me for months when I decided to marry a white guy who only had a high school degree.

             2. Would this be true in any Indian family, from any state and any community?

          2. I might take a slightly different angle. When Hofstede tried to extend his cultural dimensions model to China, he found he has to add an entirely new cultural characteristic: long-term orientation. No other African, European, or American culture he had studied was so able to reason about and sacrifice for the future as Chinese people.

             Americans are, as a group, short-term oriented. This drives a lot of our decisions, and I think education is just one instance. (Eg, Why would we invest in making it easier for kids to get an education when it pays off so far down the road?)

             Anglo-Saxons also have lower power distance and a higher tolerance for verbal conflict than just about any other culture (we match Scandinavia on power distance). OP, if you’re looking to understand cultural differences, this might be a helpful place to start.

             1. Also — OP, you say you’re from South Asia. Unfortunately I don’t know about what Hofstede’s models said for India etc., but it still might be a useful starting place.

                I also wonder if kids from e.g. Assam or Manipur are likely to have the kind of success you speak of. (Or Uighur or migrant kids in China.) Those might be useful reference points.

             2. Interesting. There was a part of me who was thinking the same question could be asked about pastoralists and foragers who aren’t willing to take up agriculture, or nomads who aren’t willing to settle down, etc. (I’m always a little horrified when people talk about how the Roma need to assimilate already, for example.)

                I remember reading somewhere that Celtic people from the Roman empire would sometimes come to Rome to study Latin and the arts, then finish their studies, take off their togas, and head back to their tribes wearing those barbarian pants the Romans thought were so goofy and unflattering. Why didn’t they trade in their oral traditions for writing? Why didn’t they give up their stylized art in favor of Greco-Roman verism? Why would anyone who could move “up” in the hierarchy choose not to?

       2. Do keep in mind that the US is a really really big and diverse county. Plenty of both of those (and so many more) things exist. We’re talking about a specific sub-culture here.

       3. Well, maybe look at it this way: why do you think going to college and working a white collar job inherently better than working a blue collar job? Does being an electrician mean that you can’t have the same lifestyle as a teacher? Not really.

          1. “Well, maybe look at it this way: why do you think going to college and working a white collar job inherently better than working a blue collar job? Does being an electrician mean that you can’t have the same lifestyle as a teacher?”

             I think this thread is about something different, though — there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being an electrician. That’s a skilled trade that requires education, though it may come in a form other than traditional college. But an electrician can make a good living and a middle-class life. This thread is talking about people who are lower on the socioeconomic scale.

       4. It’s almost like you should spend a long time learning about someone else’s culture before judging individuals living in it.

          1. I mean, yes, but presumably these kinds of conversations are one of the ways that learning takes place?

             1. You can ask “why is the population of white people without college degrees so high in WV” without including your judgy thoughts about how they must just not want it bad enough.

                Here, I’ll demonstrate:
                Why are squat toilets common in some parts of Asia?- totes fine learning
                Why are squat toilets common in some parts of Asia wouldnt anyone want to be clean and use a normal toilet- racist, ignorant, and would rightfully be piled on about how vile it is.

             2. Well, and there aren’t really W Va coal miners on this board, so I would question the value of the conversation here among mainly upper class women.

             3. 100%. Asian immigrant success is a breeding ground for judgment for those who are considered less successful.

       5. A lot of great points in this thread. Just a note on those ‘stats’ (maybe this goes without saying), but you mentioned originally that WV has the highest percentage of White people with only a high school education. I mean, that statement alone doesn’t actually say anything. If you rank things in order, one of the things will always be in last place. If I competed in the Olympics but came last, it doesn’t imply that I am bad at what I do. But maybe you were referring to an actual number which you just didn’t mention in your post.

   13. I’m also from an immigrant family where education was absolutely 1000000% my family’s path to the middle and upper middle class. I never thought college was a “golden ticket”, but I did think that you had to figure out how to go to college and decide what to major in and keep an eye out for what would make good career opportunities. I actually didn’t feel pressured, but college wasn’t just a lark to enjoy learning, it had to be art of my goals for life.

       I think the cultural dissonance Anon @ 9:07 writes about is very real. We were taught that while there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with not going to college you should try and do so, but not everyone is raised like that.

       Another interesting place this plays out is on the high school standardized entrance tests in NYC (and I’m sure in other cities, I just don’t know) where Asian students from a similar socioeconomic background tend to score higher than other minorities.

       What Clementine @ 9:09 wrote seems like a pretty solid life, why do you need a college degree if you can accomplish and are satisfied by that after all. My mom would say for job security, so that no matter what happens you have options or ways to make options happen. I think the issue is that many times you can’t get a job that pays well enough for the spouse and house and kids on a high school degree job.

       Of course, all these high-school-degree-only-or-less jobs should also pay better – we need them, someone needs to do them, and we’ve all seen in this pandemic how they are actually many of the essential jobs.

       I also really dislike it when people look down on people who went to college, calling them elitist etc. Yes there are some senators’ kids, but going to college absolutely does make many ordinary peoples’ lives as well.

   14. JD Vance’s book “Hillbilly Elegy” gives some good perspective on the “why would you want to go to college” culture in the rural Appalachian regions (and the Appalachian diaspora in other areas) of the US.

       1. +1
          Some of this book is problematic but I’m overall glad I read it — it’s a needed perspective.

       2. Of topic but I’m so excited for the movie! I hope amy adams finally gets an Oscar.

       3. This book is trash!

          1. Yep. In the words of Sturgill Simpson: “I’ll give this to J.D.- like so many coastal elites that have come to eastern Kentucky to point out all its problems, much like them he offered no solutions, but just found a way to get f—ing paid for it. Twice.”

             1. Huh. I agree he offered no solutions. But he didn’t “come to Kentucky.” He is from there/southern Ohio. My family has a very similar history and his observations were pretty accurate. My father was ridiculed and shunned for not returning to work at the mill after graduating from college. He was an enigma (and frankly a disappointment) to his own father, even though he was clearly achieving upward mobility for himself and his family through academic and financial success. To this day, people with my last name are clustered in two places in this country, with only now a few individuals born after 1970 scattered in other places.

             2. That’s a really weird take from Sturgill Simpson given that JD Vance clearly grew up in the region. He didn’t jet in from NYC or San Francisco to discover it.

       4. I recommend “What you are getting wrong about Appalachia” by Elizabeth Catte instead (Hillbilly Elegy has a LOT of problems)

          https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/home/whatyouaregettingwrong

       5. I loved Hillbilly Elegy. Didn’t know there was a movie coming out.

   15. Historically a lot of jobs in West Virginia came from coal mining. There used to be more blue collar jobs in which you could make a living wage without a college education in the US, but as the economy has changed and more work has been automated or shifted overseas, those jobs are disappearing.

       1. Exactly this: even when I was living in WV recently, the average coal miner made more money than the average attorney – not just a little bit more, but about 30K more. While coal mining jobs are harder to find than they used to be, they’re still easier to find than attorney jobs.

   16. I live near-ish to West Virginia. You are making a lot of assumptions that are simply not true for the area.

       Going to college does not mean that you can get a better job in your current city or town. It’s not like West Virginia is full of job openings that require a degree but cannot find workers; most of the jobs do not require a degree. There’s no point in spending four years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars for a degree for which there are no local jobs.

       Morgantown, where West Virginia University is located, is a very, very poor city. Charleston is not a great city. Huntington is probably the nicest of those cities and it’s practically in Kentucky. Not only does WVa not have any good city, the areas around it aren’t great for jobs, either. If you want to get a college degree to live in a decent city with reasonable job opportunities, you’re looking at Columbus OH, Lexington KY, Pittsburg PA, Roanoke VA. People do not have the resources to up and leave for those places (financial and family resources), and, pointing out the obvious, when the smart and motivated ones up and leave for nearby states, they are no longer educated, upwardly mobile people in WVa.

       It’s not like there are even a lot of colleges in West Virginia. According to Wikipedia, there are: “[…] forty-four colleges and universities in the U.S. state of West Virginia that are listed under the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. These institutions include two research universities, five master’s universities, and fourteen baccalaureate colleges, as well as twenty-one associate’s colleges. In addition, there are three institutions classified as special-focus institutions.” You make it sound like the place is full of “posh” colleges and community colleges. Not so.

       In my area, I know people who will literally commute 100 miles each way, every day, to go from work to home to night school. Yes, those are the best jobs they can get and the cheapest schools they can find, so they exchange time and stress for a slightly higher salary and lower education costs. People who do that are commendable, but we can’t fault people who do not do that.

       1. I was going to say exactly this. The geography (and topography) of WV is another obstacle to getting a college education.
          There’s also the issue that others have touched on — if your parents didn’t go to college, it’s less likely they will push you to go to college. 30 years ago, it was possible to make a good living in a mining or factory job. But those jobs have dwindled in number and yet, there hasn’t been an increasing focus on education to help prepare the next generation of students for today’s workforce.

          Instead of Hillbilly Elegy, read The People Are Going to Rise Like Waters on Your Shore by Jared Yates Sexton or Heartland by Sarah Smarsh. The forces at play here are complex and intergenerational, and can’t easily be broken.

       2. This. My husband is from West Virginia, and there’s a reason he didn’t stay–there just aren’t a lot of job opportunities, much less ones that require a college degree. He grew up in one of the largest towns in the state (which is actually quite small by my standards–it’s like 30k people), where they lived because it had decent public schools, and his dad commutes 45 minutes every day to a factory in a different town. His dad has a college degree and is a manager, but most of the jobs around there just don’t require it. Most of his high school friends who did go to college don’t live in WV anymore.

          1. West Virginia has a declining population. I know people *from* West Virginia. Many of them are in cities near the border (Morehead, KY); others moved quite far away for job opportunities. The current adults in West Virginia were likely born there; however, many of the people born there move elsewhere. This isn’t a situation like people moving to Nashua NH but commuting into Massachusetts for jobs; they move to live and work in a different state.

             The topography is miserable. It’s hard to grow a city when there are mountains on all sides. Moreover, the driving is just miserable. I’m a road warrior and I find I-64 and I-77 to be just terrible. It would be challenging to have spouses work in different cities and far easier to just both move to Columbus. Broadband internet is not available everywhere in rural Appalachia.

             There really aren’t a whole lot of wealthy people in West Virginia. It’s not just that there are a lot of poor people (which there are); there aren’t many people with disposable income. People with disposable income can do things like buy and renovate housing properties for rentals, own or eat out at nice restaurants, pay for membership at a local art museum, donate money for a local recreational complex, etc. There is money for public works projects: the roads aren’t full of potholes, the library has funding, and there is a city recycling area. That is then an area that attracts or retains young professionals.

       3. There are a not insubstantial number of people who commute hours daily from West Virginia to work at all levels of the federal government in DC – not because that’s a fun option, but because for those who have the qualifications that’s what you have to do given the absence of similar, closer jobs.

   17. I don’t think this is necessarily the best avenue for exploring this question – people familiar with non-college-educated West Virginians are not exactly well-represented here. But, I’ll chime in that I do know a number of people, mostly young men, who started college and just didn’t finish. Why? A lot of reasons – money was one, but certainly not the only one, nor was raw ability. Mostly, it was just having other interests, and the ability to earn some money without college. Some had a hard time fitting in or finding their places or had problems with the usual temptations of the young (alcohol/drugs/girls) that made it harder, but mostly it was just that they didn’t see a good reason to stick around. Some went back, others didn’t.

       FWIW, I don’t blame them much. I was always going to earn a degree, and I’m certainly not sorry that I did, but I don’t think that a third of what I learned in college was more than BS. It checked the box that I needed, but I’m not convinced the actual education was worth much. (I went to law school, too, which I thought was much better.)

   18. I write this a POC of biracial background. On one side of my family, my grandparents immigrated from another country (keeping it vague for privacy reasons) in the 1960s.

       I have only visited the “homeland” once, but there are people of vastly different education levels there. Some people can’t get higher education because it is cost-prohibitive, some could but chose not to, etc.

       So it is in the US. This just seems like an odd question that forgets humans are human, everywhere. No country is a monolith.

       1. * as a POC of biracial background.

          UGH typos…haven’t had sufficient coffee yet :)

          1. +1. Not a POC, but I’m from a country where college education is pretty much free. There still are plenty of people who don’t go, learn a trade, take over the family farm, etc. and your family background and setting really influences what you end up doing.

   19. I live in WV and do not have much to add to what other posters have already said. People who live here often have to work at a very young age to supplement household income, or they are located in rural, mountainous areas with no access to transportation, or they were never encouraged to go to school because their family made six figures as underground coal miners with fourth grade educations until the mining industry collapsed… there are a million reasons that higher education (or even high school education) is not within easy reach of many people.

       This, from another poster, is the best way to frame the issue: “why does the USA, one of the richest countries in the world, not provide poverty alleviation and access to education.”

       Also, thank you for the thoughtful discussion (at least so far) and lack of judgment. West Virginia is a beautiful place with kind people – very different from how it is often portrayed.

   20. My parents are from a rural poor area of a SEUS state that I lived in with mom for a while. A lot of people join the military because it is seen as honorable, gets them away from their family/problems/no-economy area, lets them learn a trade (or at least gives them a job + housing + healthcare + promise of a pension if they stay in 20 years), and lets the very motivated take advantage of schooling benefits (and also a VA loan for a house). If you are disciplined, you come out of a truly rotten school system not able to read or do math well, but you can learn a skilled trade or be a nurse (or LPN at least), which are stable jobs there. But a big key is not to have a baby before your education is done and not to have a baby single (because if you are married, you at least get 2x the relatives, one of which may be helpful to you, whether by watching your kids or by getting you a job where he/she works, which is gold in a small town). But often the military is the way out, people come back in their early 40s as retirees needing a LCOL area, and help support / stabilize their extended families.

       1. this is a whole other issue to contend with – the pregnancy issue and why people are getting pregnant so young. it is always hard to think about the people i know who waited to have kids and then are struggling with infertility issues vs. those who get pregnant so young and then drop out of school. i personally did not grow up in a community with many young unwed mothers, so i cannot offer any kind of perspective as to why that happens

          1. Yes, my community had many young unwed mothers, but I did everything right and waited… not knowing that I was missing my chance. Scarleteen has some good resources on young motherhood (whether planned, semi-planned, accidental, or crisis). It’s actually not always a bad plan!

             It’s also important to think about who the dads are, especially with teen pregnancy. Is it another minor? Or is it an adult? Too often it’s an adult who has a pattern of dating minors in controlling, manipulative relationships. This was very often the story where I grew up.

          2. Because you grew up somewhere where they taught s*x education

             1. is this not required teaching in every school?

             2. LOL to Anon at 10:52, oh how I wish that were the case. Parents can opt out in I think every state and a shocking number of states only teach abstinence (no other form of birth control is taught).

             3. Anon @10:52, it wasn’t even part of the mandatory curriculum in my expensive private high school in the SEUS.

             4. In my conservative SEUS state, s*x ed was required, but the curriculum varied a lot and wasn’t necessarily helpful. At my good public high school in a major city, I only learned about STDs, and then I think they gave us c*ndoms– didn’t explain what they were for. This was in high school. In middle school, we learned the biology of how a baby was made in the body but had no idea how that happened… I remember asking my mom if I could get sp*rm from a boy from kissing.

                A friend that went to a decent rural high school said her s*x ed was mostly scare tactics and encouraging abstinence. They were never taught actually how someone got pregnant or that it could be prevented… so a lot of girls at her high school got pregnant when they only had s*x one or two times.

             5. Also consider that not all teen girls take pregnancy prevention as seriously as they should irrespective of how much sex ed is offered. Again, it comes back to what motivates you and what your models are. It’s unfathomable to me, from my perspective, that any teen girl would ever have a baby in high school or instead of college. But that’s my perspective — I had specific goals that I knew were attainable which were incompatible with teen motherhood (graduate high school high in class, go to prestigious college, then eventually graduate school). I did not grow up in a family or culture whether motherhood was *the* accomplishment a woman should strive for, or what would give her meaning in her life, or how she proved her value. I was taught as a young girl that women didn’t have to have kids at all if they didn’t want to. I was confident and did not have trouble negotiating cond0m use with boys. None of my friends were having kids. Everyone in my extended family was able to plan families and have kids when they were financially stable, so this was the model I saw. I had a great ob/gyn that I was able to talk to about birth control and was able to access it easily and consistently. (I would have jumped through all the hoops in the world to get it, but again, I had the motivation and the means — internet access, good research skills, summer job money, parents who wouldn’t punish me if they found out I was planning on “sinning.”) Girls do actually have babies because they “want someone to love and to love them.” That’s heart breaking to hear from a 16 year old. That’s not a feeling I ever experienced. I had every incentive in the world to delay motherhood in addition to the ability to do so.

             6. A friend of mine grew up in a rural area of northwest Georgia. The only s*x ed in her school was abstinence-only education. Her county had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country. She took AP Bio, and a local minister monitored the teacher’s instruction on reproduction to make sure the teacher didn’t slip in any s*x ed.

       2. Watching a family friend’s daughter have a kid with an older guy who eventually went to prison for molesting another daughter (who he gave something to that made it so that she couldn’t have kids — early cervical cancer? something else) was all I needed to witness to know that I was not having s*x before I was in college. Close, but nothing that could result in my getting pregnant.

          It wasn’t so much that the teen pregnancy, but the fact that it was a bad-news older (20s, but still, like 25 not 21) guy with a 16YO girl and preying on her 12YO sister. Having a teen dad? Bad. Having a 20ish dad in prison? That the family will never allow in again? And then having the dad’s family cut off the mom for “sending” him to prison? The whole thing was so rotten.

          I think it can be different if you have two teen parents who make a mistake and are supported by the families. But I’d say 90% of the time you have an older no-good dude who deals solely with younger girls who may be from broken families themselves, have issues, want attention and any attention is better than no attention, etc. If you don’t have a baby, maybe you can get saved from all that. But if you do have a baby, it is like an albatross and you will drown (and I don’t know anything about birth control or abortion stats, but would appear that no one uses b/c and everyone who gets pregnant has the baby).

          There are very few babies in town where the parents are in a stable relationship of 2 adults (never mind whether they are married). Those babies will face a rough road. Those schools aren’t prepared for that level of neediness that isn’t primarily academic (but includes academic needs). It’s just bad. Throw in some alcoholism, mental illness, meth, heroin and it gets worse by the generation it seems, not better.

          1. It’s such a common pattern. There are a lot of these guys, they do this again and again, and I would guess that most of them don’t see prison time at all (it’s a big decision whether to prosecute, and MANY parents believe the right course of action is to turn a blind eye to what happened to the kid sister).

          2. It’s a very common pattern. I doubt we’re from the same small town, but we might as well be. Though not many of these serial predators saw prison time where I’m from; it’s a big decision to prosecute. And MANY, many parents believe in turning a blind eye to what happened to the kid sister. It’s one of the reasons I wanted out.

             1. Sorry for the double posting! I thought my first one was eaten and tried again from memory.

          3. So, I was the girl who almost fell into the pattern being discussed: in high school, I dated an abusive older guy who had absolutely zeroed in on me because he could tell I had low self-confidence (the result of a very complex upbringing in a volatile household with a mom who had undiagnosed bipolar disorder). I got pregnant in high school and he tried to persuade me to keep the baby as he was the only guy in his family and social circle in his early 20s without a baby. I very fortunately had a miscarriage. I eventually came to my senses and surprise surprise, after I broke up with him he kept trying to date high school girls – as a guy in his mid-20s.

             I look at situations like the ones being described here and can say truly, there but for the grace of God go I. If I hadn’t had people in my life (other relatives; older friends) encouraging me that I did not have to settle for being a teenage mom and share a child with a loser dude who most assuredly would have moved on to another younger girl in short order, I would have ended up with a very different life. My parents had been to college. But they were caught up in their own drama and after I was about 11, my brother and I basically parented ourselves. I did not get guidance or intervention from my parents keeping me on the straight and narrow path; I sincerely believe that miscarriage was divine intervention because today I have two degrees and a good job, and live in a nice house with my amazing husband and the child I had as a grown adult, and I am not a single mom living in a one-bedroom apartment with two or three kids by the same loser guy who ping-ponged in and out of my life, leaving me with nothing, which is what I see so many women fall into. The solution for that particular problem is that we MUST teach girls they are worth something without a man; they have value and they should put a high price on themselves because they have so much worth and potential. I had people tell me that and I believed it and that’s how I pulled myself away from the life I could be living right now. The pull of “well at least I’ll have a man and a baby that love me” when you come from a house where there is little love, and you are basically seen as a distraction and a burden, is incredibly strong. If you haven’t lived it, you can’t understand it. All of you folks that came from two-parent households where everyone was mentally stable and you were shown affection and told you were a good person that deserved good things? No offense, but you lack the context to understand what some of us went through. At 16 I legitimately felt a baby was maybe my last best hope for love. Resisting the pull of that takes a lot more than logic and mental projection into a future you don’t even know can exist.

             1. Thank you for sharing this; I was trying not to speak for other people in my life, but your story is a lot like the story of someone really close to me (and others I knew growing up as well, with different outcomes).

   21. They can’t afford to not be gainfully employed for 4-5 years. How are you supposed to pay for room/board, books, food, etc.? What if your family depends on you to pitch in – are you supposed to tell them sorry you’re on your own I’m out? What if you have kid(s) yourself, how are you supposed to provide for them and pay for child care while you’re in class? And that’s before we even think about the cost of tuition.

       The real problem with access to college is that it takes 4 years, even though there is absolutely no reason a bachelors needs to take so long. We’ve got to move away from this model of college as a buffer to adulthood. Pare it down to its educational core. Reduce the number of credits required to graduate. Eliminate repetitive requirements. Expand the availability of high school classes that count toward actual requirements.

       1. I think we need to work on K12 to make college less necessary. Good high schools are already outperforming average colleges. Fourteen year olds can learn a lot if they’re in the right environment. But a lot of schools are not actually great environments for academics.

          1. This is very true. My son is in a local public magnet and in 9th grade is already doing harder work than my husband and I did our freshman and sophomore years in college at the state school we attended. His school has a dual-credit program where the stated goal is that by their senior year, the students will be half-time enrolled at the local community college and will graduate high school with at least enough college credits to enter college as a second-semester sophomore. We live in a poor state and they have recognized that giving kids a jump-start on college will mean more of them finish a degree, or at least walk out of high school with enough education to do something besides flip burgers. When you can get done in two and a half years instead of four, that makes a difference. Agree with the sentiment from Anonymous at 10:06; a big part of the problem is the insistence that a bachelor’s degree has to take 4+ years. All of us here who graduated with a bachelor’s know, there is a lot of unnecessary content that has little connection with the job market or future career success padded into those four years. That is done for the benefit of the educational institution, not the students. What would benefit the students is a 2 or 3 year educational program followed by a monitored internship. But you can’t milk as much money from parents or student loans in that kind of program.

             1. I’ll go farther: I think high school should be adequate preparation for job market and career success. Let employers provide additional job training on their own dime. Higher education should be for people who want to advance our knowledge base, not for people who really just need to prove to future employers that they can show up on time and do what they’re told long enough to earn a BA. That used to be what a high school diploma conveyed.

   22. As a Canadian with an American husband I feel this. In his family I’ve been painted as this uppity liberal elite when in reality I’m the only reason their son has a salary. I have had to fight so hard to unindoctrinate my DH and explain the value in critical thinking. Even the basic math of our 30k student loans which got us jobs which pay many multiples of that seems lost on them. Sure one year of student loan payments sucks, but being an hourly worker for the rest of your life sucks more.

       1. I mean your post does come off as uppity liberal elite. What is it about white collar work that is inherently better/more valuable than blue collar work? My friend who dropped out of college after 9/11 to be a firefighter because he realized that’s what he wanted to do and that it didn’t require a college degree is probably laughing all the way to the bank right now as he avoided an extra $40k of student loans, has a job he truly loves, has great benefits and is about to come up on his 20 year term which means he can retire with full benefits/pension and still work in his spare time.

          1. Where we live all incoming firefighters need to have their EMT certification which is a Bachelor of science so your point doesn’t exactly hold for the current job climate. Even my DH who has a “blue collar” job in LE needed a bachelor’s degree. The good ole faithful jobs have higher requirements than they used to.

             1. ok – where I live it is not a requirement (still, today in 2020). And a few more examples of jobs that don’t require college degrees: plumbers, electricians, retail managers/restaurant managers, construction workers, landscapers. Even some (gasp) office jobs that claim a college degree is required is not actually required.

                My main point is that it’s a pretty gross attitude to look down on people who don’t go to college (you have no idea why they didn’t go to college). The attitude of I work in an office and get paid a salary and therefore am better than people who don’t is really really gross in my opinion.

             2. No state in the US requires a BS for EMT certification. There are options for an associates degree, but it is not a requirement.

             3. A lot of those jobs (e.g. electrician/plumber) require trade school which is not university but is a form of post-secondary education. Not just a high school diploma.

             4. Anon 1:19 did you miss the Canadian with an American husband detail or just jump to conclusions?

             5. Yes, trade school is required for some of those professions. But OP’s post was specifically about college and the poster I was responding to was talking about “critical thinking” and looking down on people who are paid by the hour.

             6. The “critical thinking” line always makes me laugh. A lot of people in the trades have much more logical thought processes (and a superior grasp of mathematics) than the arts and humanities MAs and PhDs I often hear going on about critical thinking.

          2. Not anon above but it’s pretty clear that blue collar jobs with full benefits/pension are increasingly rare in America.

             FWIW – in Canada many police forces actually do require a college degree. And firefighter jobs will often give preference to those with a college medical background such as nursing or a paramedic qualification.

   23. I’m from WV and find this so interesting. When I went to WVU (LGM!), the state’s taxpayers fully funded any high school student with an A average. It was amazing. They have since changed the rules so that scholarship recipients have to stay in state for a couple years after graduation, since so many students took the money and then left the state. (Including me.) The state is funding public higher education in a meaningful way, more meaningfully than other more “progressive” states.

       There are a lot of cultural reasons that people don’t pursue higher education – chaotic family lives, teen pregnancy, etc.

       But here’s another thing – the smartest people I know were from my days at WVU. I went to a fancy law school and then Big Law and now a GC. When I was at WVU, I was a science major and a lot of my friends eventually went on to get PhDs or medical degrees. (The professional schools are also amazingly funded for in state students.) These guys came from tiny, tiny Appalachian towns, with no family connections and are completely brilliant. They didn’t have college coaches or years abroad, it was just raw talent coupled with an insane work ethic. I’ve met a lot of super snobby West/East coast Ivy Leaguers who could not hold a candle to these folks – in competence or character.

       Montani Semper Liberi

       1. Thanks for your perspective. Your statement about the smartest people you know being from your days at WVU makes sense–with the cultural and financial barriers to college, many who did attend were those who were very smart and had an insane work ethic.

          I know plenty of people who weren’t that smart and had little work ethic but had family support and money to attend college. They ended up at middle-tier private universities, graduated, maybe even attended grad school. Many are now underemployed or unemployed.

   24. Skilled trades are important and don’t require college. I’m Indian and education is valued above all else. My parents wouldn’t let me get a part time job in high school lest it impact my studies. I went to college (didn’t do the whole doctor thing) and have a well paying job. I can create a great PowerPoint presentation, but I have no idea how to repair my car or build a deck.

       My husband didn’t go to college. He’s been working for the past 20 years and has experience maintaining industrial machinery and systems. You don’t learn those types of skills in college. Sure there are people with engineering degrees designing these systems, but you need someone to build them.

       I remember when I was in high school there was an option to go to “technical college” where you learned some skilled trades. It always seemed like the burn outs or low performers ended up there. Looking back on it, that’s a real shame. More importance should have been given to that option for people that didn’t want go go the traditional college route because that’s what you’re supposed to do.

       1. My dad was an HVAC contractor and repairman for several years and then through some twists and turns of fate, ended up teaching HVAC at a community college. He went on to get his master’s and then his Ed.D. and went into educational administration. 20 years after he taught HVAC, he would run into former students who had their own contracting businesses and were out-earning him, like making 2 or 3 times his salary. If we want our plumbing, heating/air conditioning systems, cars, and electrical systems to work, we need people who can install and repair those systems (and don’t get me started on infrastructure IT folks, without which society would grind to a halt). We absolutely need to stop looking at trades work as inferior. It is not inferior. Trades work creates the life we live and enjoy. It should not be seen as a lesser option for kids who don’t want to go to college, but a great option for people who want to do meaningful work and make a living at it. To me, what plumbers do is far more valuable to society than the work of some computer engineer who’s working for Facebook figuring out how to scrape personal data to sell ads. But society and the market don’t value the work that way, and that’s a problem.

          1. I agree with this completely. Plumbers, HVAC, mechanics, etc. also all can essentially become small business owners. I honestly sometimes wish I had chosen a trade instead of pursuing higher education. I’d have less debt, more control over my life, better hours and probably be happier. I hate how trade school is viewed by much of this country.

   25. College isn’t the golden ticket it’s cracked up to be. I’ve often wondered what my life would be like if I’d kept the job I had before I finished college.

       My story – my parents very much saw money as a means of control. After my second year of college, they didn’t like the guy I was dating so they refused to pay my tuition like the day before it was due (so too late to get financial aid or even loans). I dropped out and started working full time in sales. I ended up being a pretty good salesperson, and within 2 years I went from $8/hr starting pay to about $60k/yr with commission. I was able to finish undergrad with no loans but I took out loans for law school. I’ve long thought that law school was the worst mistake I’ve ever made. I was working crazy hours in midlaw for high but not biglaw pay and there were zero other jobs in my area that would’ve paid me enough to pay the loans. I wonder what friends I might have made, what guy I might have met, whether I would have children now if not for the job I had to keep in order to pay my bills. I don’t think my life is better for having an education.

       1. Likewise, I wish I had stopped my education after college and not gone to law school.

       2. I’m a rare lawyer that likes being a lawyer but the older I get the more I realize that I actually probably would have been totally happy and reasonably successful doing a whole host of things other than being a lawyer. I just sorta ended up being a lawyer because I kept doing what was the expected next step to success (get good grades, go to the best college you can get into, participate in the best “resume boosting” activities, go out for the internship, study for the LSAT, go to the best law school, take the most prestigious job offer at OCI, etc.). I am really grateful that this lead me to a career I actually enjoy but that’s really entirely dumb luck.

   26. I grew up in a rural area of a neighboring state, and the cultural and logistical hurdles can be huge, especially if you have a family who isn’t supportive of education or ambition. Especially for young women, the pressure to take care of other family members (siblings, older relatives) and/or “earn your keep” by working low-wage jobs in high school can be intense. Abstinence-only education sure doesn’t help, I knew so many high school kids who were lackadaisical AT BEST about birth control, and girls were often pressured not to use contraception by their boyfriends. It’s not impossible to go to school as a teen mom, but it’s sure isn’t easy.

       To be frank, I felt like I often got very mixed messages about higher education from my high school teachers. They were happy that I was gong to college because I was smart and well-behaved, but felt like I was going off to try and be “better than everyone else” by going to an elite women’s college instead of the local CC or the State U.

       1. Also, there can be a lot of drawbacks to living in rural areas as a young person – lack of jobs, lack of things to do, lack of people to meet and marry. Family and cultural pressure are one way to keep people in rural areas even if their prospects would be better somewhere else.

          One other point: Americans in general have a very high rate of internal migration – for instance, my parents grew up in KS, their parents had moved to KS from MO and OK, my sister and I grew up in a different state, she lives in TX, I live in CA. None of this is really unusual for upper-middle-class white people. That said, it’s a lot harder to move around if you are poor or have caregiving responsibilities.

       2. This cultural thing of “you must think you’re better than everyone else if you want to go off to college / go to an elite college / go to another state” is a real killer for these folks. Again, I really hate how we have to pretend that all aspects of all cultures are equally good. The studying-14-hours-a-day-and-you’re-a-failure-if-you-don’t-get-into-an-Ivy is not healthy, but “it’s uppity to want to go to college” is not healthy either.

          1. I agree but posts like the OPs and a lot of the responses on this post really do support the viewpoint that (at least some) people who go to college are uppity/think they are better than others.

             1. There certainly are people who are think they are better than everyone else because they went to college, esp. an Ivy. Sometimes I come off as a little bit “sweet” and a little slow with people I don’t know well, so I have born the brunt of more than one super condescending lecture because Miss Ivy doesn’t think a simpleton like me had ever heard of RIE or whatnot. It’s kind of fun to see the looks on their faces when I do say something smart-ish.

                But as someone who “went away,” I’ve also gotten the “you’re so uppity” for the smallest of decisions – preferring wheat over white bread, wearing a black coat, taking a family vacation to London instead of a Disney cruise (which was nearly twice as expensive). People express jealousy or anxiety in different ways, and one way is to attack others for different choices.

   27. I am from a different blue collar rural area. The good jobs in the area are working on the oil rigs, driving long haul trucks, or being in union labor like welding. The acceptable jobs for women are teaching and nursing. There is a huge drop out rate at community college, few women make the transition from the two year school to finish college or nursing school. I made it out by testing high on a standardized test, and having a small local college reach out to me, suggest I apply and make financial aid available. I only learned years later that people study for the standardized test (I took it with a hangover and a broken wrist), and that people apply to colleges themselves.

   28. I guess I’m the only one here who actually lives in West Virginia.

       When I was in high school I made good grades. On the standardized test the entire state took in the 11th grade, I had the third highest score in my school. At this point I was finally tested as gifted but couldn’t participate in any extracurricular things because I worked 30 hours a week to pay my mother’s rent. Still, no counselor ever talked to me about college and I literally didn’t know you could take out a loan for school until I was in my mid-20s. I thought you either earned scholarships or your parents paid for it.

       Keep in mind I went to school with our governor’s children, who were literal Rockefellers – I was at one of the best schools in my state. I was very very poor though and back then there was almost no mingling of the social classes, and my social class did not go to college so there was no shared cultural expectation, and the internet was far off.

       SoI joined the Navy at 17 to get away. The GI Bill paid for much of my college. Those conditions still exist many years later.

       The assumption by some teachers and outsiders that poor kids are trash and are being told that college and education aren’t laudable goals really angers me. In my 49 years I’ve never heard this, even deep in coal mining community hollers. When people say this, they sound like your racist uncle declaring that Black people in cities think it’s “uppity” or “white” to go to college. It’s classist BS.

       Very poor or no internet at all. This is a serious problem that our Senator Joe Manchin won’t shut up about. No companies are clamoring to spend millions of dollars to reach a town of 2000 people.

       The terrain is an obstacle – 10 miles on flat roads to school is different than 10 miles of winding mountain roads. I know plenty of people who drive an hour each way to school, on top of a work commute. My daughter teaches adults and more than one student lives with people in town during the week because they can’t commute 2 or 3 hours a day. So you can either leave your support and move and work full time to pay rent and go to school, or you can stay in your smaller town and just work.

       I worked full time or had two or three part time jobs in another state, where jobs were plentiful and paid more, and went to college It sucked and I am glad it’s a blur. When your folks are poor you either live at home and chip in by working or move out and have an entire household of your own to support by working. It’s easy to take a semester off and never go back because you’re burned out.

       The jobs just aren’t here. Nursing is a good option for working class women, but if you’re going into a STEM or finance or another high paying field you will have to leave if you want plentiful jobs.

       The pay is horrific. I was an experienced paralegal when I moved back here and even now the pay is less than what I made as an intern in 2003. I work as a retail manager – no degree required – and make more than many of my friends with degrees. (My pay is abysmal but I can still afford a home and a middle class lifestyle – if I wanted a bigger life I’d have to leave.) The incentive isn’t as strong as it is elsewhere to go into debt for no payoff if you want to stay here.

       1. Edit: I’m not at home and am typing on my iPad in and just saw a bunch of errors and can’t go back and fix them. Please disregard any missed spaces or periods.

4. Gift source help needed! Looking for a terrarium kit for my 13yo for Xmas. All the kits I can find are aimed at younger kids, and I don’t know where to look to find a sophisticated grown-up version. TIA!

   1. Your local garden center! Two of ours in my city have all the bits and pieces you could ever want and are happy to help you pick out everything you need to get set up.

      1. Thanks! I should have thought of that, but I’d rather not go inside anywhere (we are not doing stores). I wonder if I could do it over the phone?

         1. Probably, if they also do floral arrangements, they’ll be familiar with that sort of thing. I’d just mask up and go, though, if it’s anything like my local center which is mostly outdoors, mandates masks at all times, and even the garden/gift shop has big doors that are open in all but the worst weather.

         2. Yeah if you have a local independent nursery call them and ask! The one next to my folks makes planters and color bowls so i ask them to do something custom each year for my moms bday.

   2. West Elm has cool ones, but you’d have to source the stuff to go in it separately.

   3. Have you looked at Terrain? If you have one by you they specialize in this (and have classes as well) but it looks like you can order all the components online too:
      https://www.shopterrain.com/categories/terrariums?q=terrarium

   4. Have you tried a local plant shop or nursery? I know ours does succulent gardens and has terrarium containers. Maybe buy the container and then a gift card so they can pick out their own plants? Or Etsy- they may have the kits.
      Uncommon Goods sometimes has things like this.

   5. I have found quite a few on Etsy for gifts last christmas!

   6. An off the wall suggestion for not a terrarium but a gecko. They take about the same amount of space. My son got a leopard gecko for this 13th birthday and it’s still going strong five years later. It has taught him a lot about responsibility and caring for others (like staying on top of the cricket-buying schedule.)

   7. You inspired me- my daughter would love one of these. Etsy seller partynplants has a variety of full kits that appear reasonably priced. The Zen garden kits are cute, too.

5. Interesting experiment done in Slovakia over the past weekend: everyone aged >10y was “invited” for voluntary COVID tests. The testing was done mostly in open-air, people were quite responsible in distancing from each other. They managed to test over 3mio out of 5mio inhabitants and detected est 1.5% of positive cases (not bad). Interestingly, higher number of infected was in regions close to Czech and Polish borders (some people work across borders). There should be a second wave of testing in 2 weeks’ time.

6. any recommendations on UGG-like boots that are great for cold weather/easy to put on to walk outdoors with kids, but maybe a bit cuter? Thinking of just getting their tall black ones but want to search for cuter options first.

   Also, if someone has advice on cleaning theirs that would be nice too. I have some very old ones that are worn out/dirty, but maybe I can revive them somehow.

   1. My dry cleaners cleans uggs.

      I get very very cold, especially my feet, and I just wear the uggs when out with the kids.

   2. I’ve successfully cleaned a lot of leather over the years. For Uggs, here is a link that looks similar to what I do:

      https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-clean-ugg-sheepskin-boots-2147176

      FWIW, my local leather shop suggested Fels Naptha soap and a good leather conditioner to clean purses. I wet wash them and very carefully condition and dry them and… It’s literally salvaged a light grey bag that had a cup of coffee totally spilled on it, then it sat like that before it was discovered.

   3. I was mine in the tub with Melp detergent (for sheepskin) lukewarm to cool water. I let the air dry for a day in front of a fan, NOT a heater. Then I use a hairdryer, set on cool air, to get into the boot. If they are not dry, I repeat the two drying steps. If I want the “new” feel, I replace the sheepskin insoles.

      1. *wash, not was.

7. DH is an only child. His parents and only living grandmother live a 30 hour drive/4.5 hour flight away from us. We live in CT and they are in the Houston burbs. We have 3 kids under 8, including a 2 y/o. We have not seen them since last thanksgiving.

   DH’s grandmother and father are both elderly and unwell. Nobody is on their death bed but it would be very surprising if both were alive this time next year. We are trying to figure out how/if/when to try and visit them.

   Thanksgiving will obviously be a cluster. We don’t really want to bring the kids on a plane in a pandemic absent an emergency. But we’ve been saying that since March and I think at some point (?) we have to choose seeing FIL/grandma in person one last time over the risk.

   DH, myself, and the kids are not high risk at all. DH and I WFH; kids are in hybrid school and daycare.

   WWYD? Wait til spring and hope things are better? Send DH (and maybe one kid?) down after a COVID test (he’ll need one on both ends anyway) to visit solo? Have DH drive down? Plan a long drive to visit in the early spring and stay a few weeks? Plan to do nothing until if/when it becomes a “come now” or funeral situation?

   I know the safest answer is do nothing. I want to encourage at least DH to get down there and see his dad/grandma while they are still somewhat healthy (both have chronic illnesses that are getting worse quickly) but obviously not at the expense of their health.

   MIL and grandma of course want to see all the kids.

   1. In that situation I’d send DH alone on a plane with him wearing a KN95 mask the whole time somewhat soon. It seems worth it imho. I don’t think the drive sounds like less risk — so many bathrooms, hotels, restaurants etc. with very different masking expectations in different states.

      1. I agree with this approach – this seems like unnecessary exposure for your kids and they could be a risk factor to your MIL. In addition to a mask, a face shield or goggles might be helpful to keep airborne particles out of eyes while he is using public restrooms.
         While he is there, would your DH’s family open to having him attend to some of the planning aspects? I would imagine it would be a big help if he’s able to help them work through the planning aspects of how they might want to conduct a service, the buying of a plot or making arrangements for an internment, getting finances in order, etc. I know it is very hard for some to families to do this in advance, but as someone that had two sets of grandparents leave estates in such a mess lawyers were involved I will NEVER do this to my family.

      2. This. Keeping in mind too that the first couple of weeks of December are usually slower for travel, so flights might be less full.

   2. I have not seen my sister and my nephews in 18 months now. They were supposed to come for the first time in a year right after all this happened. My Dad will probably go close to 2 years without seeing my sister’s kids. DH hasn’t seen his mom, his brother, his nieces and nephews since August 2019, or met his new niece yet.

      You stay where you are. Maybe DH visits in the spring if things improve. You haven’t talked about the risk to them at all. What if you get covid in transit and give it to them? They might well be still here in a year, they might not be if you visit.

      The separation is incredibly hard. What is helping us has been regular Facetiming (we sent DH’s mom an Ipad that was pre-set up with a kids messenger account), plus sending pictures/drawings etc through the mail.

      1. +1. Why not at least wait until numbers are better, rather than going when cases are ramping up?

         1. Many of us fear numbers are only going to get worse.

            1. Forever? It seems likely that after the winter holidays will be the worst or that it will certainly continue to rise through then (and after may be unknown.) But what makes you think it will rise forever?

            2. Did she say forever?

               It’s pretty clear things are going to continue to get worse in the next month or two with Thanksgiving and Christmas travel/visits that people seem unwilling to forego. Hopefully by the spring there will be a vaccine for at least the highest risk people.

            3. Not forever but if I had a family member not likely to live a year, I wouldn’t put money on things being better than now by March. I think the fallout from Thanksgiving and Christmas travel will take us at least through February. With the scenario presented, now seems the safest time in my calculation.

            4. Well, obviously wait until numbers are no longer ramping up means wait until probably spring. So fearing the numbers getting worse … what? You’re already too late. Don’t go in the very near future.

   3. Really depends on how mobile you are. Could you drive down and quarantine for 10 days then see them?

   4. I think it would be a great kindness if you went the extra mile given their health situation. Can you and your kids quarantine for a week or two (combined with testing for everyone if available) leading up to Christmas / winter break (I’m assuming kids can do virtual learning), then do the drive down, stopping 2 nights at a hotel / motel where you can just walk straight into your room and do not have to interact with anyone? Then stay a week or two with family? The risk from staying at a motel would be very low if you take precautions, do not go out to eat, etc. I totally get this would be a huge PITA, especially with a toddler, but I’m worried if you wait until the spring it may be too late the the COVID situation may be no better at that point.

      I think the alternative is for your husband to fly down on his own (maybe with the oldest kid), arrive 4-5 days early, get tested/stay at air bnb (quarantining), get tested, then go stay with his family for a week or so. But I bet it would be so much more enjoyable for everyone if you all go together and spend what is likely your last winter holidays with your kids’ grandfather and great grandma.

      1. Yes. I would do this.
         Quarantine for 2 weeks before the visit and drive down taking maximum precautions (even rent an airbnb for one night with covid cleaning included) before seeing them.

   5. My family is not flying and choosing not to see family this holiday season, but in your shoes I’d say DH flies down there alone. Planes are actually reasonably safe at the moment (sounds like airports are worse because no one is enforcing masking), so if he wears a mask the whole time he’s likely going to be fine. There’s been some articles lately about planes with covid-positive passengers but it didn’t spread to everyone else because they were wearing masks.

      In an idea world, he’d probably get tested, fly down, quarantine down there for 5 days, get tested again, and only then see his family indoors. (Outdoors/masked/distanced should be fine before then.)

   6. I’d fly the whole family in for a visit sometime over the holiday season. Choose a time conducive to extra quarantine.

      1. This is what I would do in your situation. I think that would be awful to miss seeing them if you think they don’t have that much longer.

      2. This is also what I would do. I’m sorry you’re faced with this decision OP.

      3. This is the worst possible time to visit. Hospitals in Texas are overwhelmed and they absolutely do not want visitors. No one is on their deathbed; I would wait until spring. Biden is poised to win and the control measures may look very different then.

         1. Hospitals in Houston are nowhere near overwhelmed, and El Paso is as far from Houston as several states.

         2. Yeah Houston is not seeing the second wave yet. Lots of doctor friends here. And we’re 750 miles and a whole state from El Paso, where it IS bad.

      4. YES! Family is too important. Go.

      5. I would do this too.

   7. DH visits in March or so, you don’t visit at all.

   8. If this were me:

      I would pull the kids out of school a few days before Christmas. Everyone quarantines and gets tested. Drive down in 2 days (Hartford to Roanoke, Roanoke to Houston), fill the car with food and drinks, use gloves at the gas station, etc. Once down in Houston, quarantine and get everyone re-tested. Then spend Christmas with them, have fun, enjoy their company, and, sometime during that week, repeat the drive back up to New England.

      1. This is what I would do. There’s new research that shows that longer plane rides are more likely to transmit covid and 4.5 hours is beyond my comfort zone. (My answer would be different if it were 2 hours or less on the plane). Add in your time around lots of people at the airport and I think a road trip is far safer. We took a long road trip to see family this summer and it was very easy to pop in/out of a gas station to go to the bathroom, use copious amounts of hand sanitizer, eat outside or in the car, etc. Overall you can limit any given exposure on a road trip — not to mention you can exit a place you feel is unsafe, which you can’t do on a plane if someone three rows back is coughing the whole flight.

   9. If you are going to go, I’d go now before thanksgiving. Things are only going to get worse. I’d fly over drive.

      I’m generally a very cautious person but I also believe that the elderly still have free-will and if they would rather see their grandkids before they die even if it means they die a year earlier, that is their right.

      If you don’t feel safe traveling, that’s a different story. They can’t make you travel. But if your hesitation is exposing them and they want to see everyone regardless, I wouldn’t impose my will on them.

   10. I’m sorry, this is so crappy. What does your husband want? I think that is important– if something happens and his grandma/parent passes before he sees them again, how is that going to sit with him? I think that is where I would start with this decision. And then, of course, having a frank discussion with grandma and both parents about the risks involved and how it is not unrealistic that one of you could have covid and give it to them and discuss how they feel. It could be that grandma says hey, I’m in my 90s, something is going to take me down sooner rather than later so my biggest priority is seeing my grandkids/great grandkids– many elderly people understandably feel this way and I think it is patronizing to disregard their feelings, as long as you/DH can live with the possibility of giving them covid and can live with the possibility of getting it yourself. Anyway, this isn’t an answer for you because I think weighing the risks in these scenarios is highly personal. But these are the things we have considered in terms of how often/under what circumstances to see elderly relatives. If it were me, I would probably have DH fly down sooner rather than later, trying to get tested shortly before, then plan for a trip with the kids in the spring.

   11. this is such a tricky situation. i wish i could trade living situations with you, just for this, bc we live in Houston with two young kids, but all our family is in the northeast. my father flew here once to visit us, wearing an n95, and face shield, with tests before. there is no one right answer to this question. i have one friend who told me yesterday she is flying at christmas with her 4 and 7 year old to visit her sister bc otherwise it will be too long since they will see her again (they saw her sister in August), which personally i wouldnt do, especially over the holidays when rates will likely be spiking an airports more crowded. i have another family friend who was in a similar situation, mother in her 90s and the only way was flying – family friend quarantined at home for a week before going, flew, quarantined upon arrival for 5 days, got a covid test which was negative, so then went to her mom’s house, and on day 14 started feeling sick, got another test, which was positive. fortunately, so far her mother is ok and she is on the mend, but this is someone who i would say generally is on the very cautious side of covid (like has basically only been going to the supermarket) and obviously i wasn’t with her, but i believe took really good precautions and still got sick. your situation sucks. my mom literally was dying at this time last year – she passed away in early December and I don’t know what I would’ve done. i dont know if this is possible for you, but could all kiddos stay home for 2 weeks and then maybe DH and oldest kiddo fly to visit. i personally am of the thought i guess that i’d rather get to see the person while they are still alive, then just show up for a funeral. sending lots of hugs bc i know this is one of those impossible situations

   12. I’d go now, don’t wait until the holidays. Cases are already spiking and it’s only going to get worse. Plus I imagine planes are going to get a lot more full.

       I flew over the summer and it was fine. Everyone was socially distanced and wearing masks on board. The most dangerous part is boarding, but your youngest is small enough that you can preboard, right? Totally take advantage of that to avoid the crowding that always happens at boarding.

       1. No, don’t go now. More people die the more people say “oh better go do the thing I shouldn’t do!” Yes, it’s hard not to see elderly family who might (emphasis on might) not have that many more years in them. We are all in the same boat. Wait until spring or early summer

   13. And this thread is like an explanation for why we are where we are. Even outside the US, the second wave is so strongly linked to families gathering/traveling to gather (Canadian Thanksgiving) or people vacationing (Europe – especially the mutant strain from Spain that spread widely from vacationers).

       Stay the F home or we’re never going to get out of this wave.

       1. I know that your intentions are likely good, but I really don’t think it’s fair to decide for other people whether or not they can say goodbye to dying relatives. It’s fair to say, “No one should be partying unmasked at bars right now.” It’s another thing entirely to deny someone a goodbye to the person who raised them.

          1. They are not dying. OP wants to make a social visit. Yes, those are important for the elderly – but it’s a pandemic and we are all making (or should be making) very painful sacrifices.

             1. OP here. I think the question is really not about me- it’s about weighing the risk vs benefits to everyone in the situation. The worst case scenario of DH getting COVID and ending up in an ICU is not what I’m concerned about (is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? No.) We have access to testing and anyone that goes can test before we leave. The concern is picking it up along the way and bringing to relatives–weighed against seeing those relatives again before any further physical/mental decline. They are not on their death beds. FIL is, however, suffering from dementia that has progressed a lot in the year since we’ve seen them. It will likely continue to progress. Waiting til spring (if that’s any better) means there’s a very real chance that if DH visits, FIL won’t know who he is. Right now, they can still vido chat but it’s….confusing. His grandmother is 93 and in physical and cognitive decline, lost vision in one eye and can barely hear. Phone/video don’t work with her. There’s a really good chance she won’t be alive in the spring.

                Anyway, just some additional clarity on why it’s even a discussion to travel. I think sending DH down for a couple weeks and having him test and do relevant quarantining on both ends (it’s not a full quarantine if you also test negative) while working remotely would make the most sense. We’ll see- it may not even be an option to do that.

             2. She said she wants to see them while they are well and that they both have chronic conditions that are quickly progressing. I interpret this to mean that they aren’t on their death beds at the moment but are headed there rapidly.

             3. Enough. People could be asked to make painful sacrifices for a week or two or maybe a month, but this is absurd.

                My husband and I both have relatives who were not able to travel to our 2019 wedding due to their declining health. We would like to meet them (I have not met some of his family and he has not met some of mine). These people are between 88 and 90 years old. We didn’t go in the spring and summer because of the pandemic but eventually, life is valuable because of the people in it.

          2. She specifically says ‘no one is on their death bed’. They are elderly and unwell but people can continue for years like that. My grandmother lived ten years with congestive heart failure and type 2 diabetes. She’s asking when, in the next YEAR, to go and the answer should pretty clearly be to go in 6 months from now – next spring at the earliest. Treatments will be more advanced by then. The high risk relatives might even be able to get vaccinated. The answer is not to go in the middle of the second wave.

       2. Hi there, OP here. “Stay the F home” works. I actually work in public health/ epidemiology and our family has been masked up, distanced, and safe in our little bubble since March. But the thing about being in a pandemic for 9 months is that things happen. To ask the entire country, for a year, to see nobody– go to no funerals, have elderly or otherwise isolated people double down on isolation–it does not work.

          Anyway, it’s easy to say until you are put in a situation that has no obvious answer. Staying home and not seeing your only immediate family (for whom you are the only son/grandson) knowing that you may never get to see them again is a really tough decision to make. You could argue that it is obvious, but it’s pretty ignorant to say that. We aren’t terribly concerned about our family getting COVID- we are likely to recover fairly easily.* We are far more concerned about picking it up and transmitting it along the way.

          *statistically speaking. My brother, a nurse, got it and is otherwise healthy and it took him a long time to recover.

          1. Also in public health. No one is saying to never see them again. We are all saying not to go right now. It’s literally the worst possible time you could go.

          2. If you really do work in public health/epidemiology then you would know that these things actually do work and they have worked in New Zealand, Australia, and Atlantic Canada (shares a land border with US and with Quebec and tons of cases in both places). Where public health figures model the requirements they are putting out and no one is traveling.

             So if you worked in public health, you wouldn’t even be asking this question. You would know better than having him go right now and risk getting them sick. You would know that even two months will make a difference in our knowledge and treatment of the disease and how it is spread, so it would be safer even absent a vaccine availability. Only a couple months ago there was a demand for ventilators which we now know are not the best treatment, and masks were still being debated. Our knowledge of control and treatment will be better again in a couple months.

             1. This is a crazy hostile response. I didn’t suggest that everyone is going to hop on a plane. Based on the responses, I feel really justified asking a large group of people WWYD because there IS no right answer. I got answers across the entire spectrum, from stay the F home to jump on a plane right now with the family. I had people say they would fly and people say they would drive. Send DH only and have the whole family go.

                Take a breath. I hope you are never in this position.

             2. Virtual hugs to you OP. This is hard.

             3. It’s ‘hostile’ because I actually am in this situation because of people like this who are traveling and spread it and not listening to public health advice. Americans are literally banned from entering other countries so I cannot see my family directly because of people like this. We had a chance to get it under control and everyone decided that summer vacations and BBQs were too important.

          3. It seems obvious not to travel while the 2nd wave is peaking. Don’t let your judgement get clouded here. Celebrating the winter holidays with family gatherings is not the same thing as visiting someone on their deathbed or a once in a lifetime event. It’s certainly not the one time you have or have had the opportunity to go.

       3. Actually, if everyone tested and quarantined for two weeks before they saw loved ones, we would absolutely not be in this situation.

   14. Work through your worst case scenarios – DH getting covid and getting stuck in ICU in Texas while you have the kids on your own for a month or more, grandmother getting covid from DH and passing, your kids getting covid from DH and ending up hospitalized etc. How would you handle work/personal obligations in each scenario. Remember, if he gets it while he is there, he will not be allowed to travel back to you. And the same if you all go, you could get stuck there for months.

       If you can accept those risks, then go in the spring. Don’t risk further burdening the hospital system in Texas now.

   15. I’m sorry—this is so tough. In your husband’s shoes, I’d decide the Covid risk isn’t worth it. It sounds like his mom is caring for both his dad and grandma—what would happen to all three of them if he gave her Covid he picked up along the way?

       If he feels he must go, I think he should take every precaution and go alone. If your husband goes alone, you both somewhat limit the risk and let him focus on the elders. Of course everyone wants to see the kids, but they increase infectious disease risk and require a lot of attention, particularly around elders with cognitive decline who may not interact as expected.

       I’m so glad I didn’t bring my young kids to my dad’s funeral across the country a few years ago—I was able to focus on my grief and attend to all the logistics and tasks that a sole survivor faces. I was glad to have them visit him with me before he died, but I wouldn’t have brought them if my husband couldn’t have managed them and taken them to do fun things while I spent time with my dad and handled details. They were too little to have them bored and sad while I said goodbye to my dad.

   16. My personal view is that I’d rather go now when I could actually visit rather than a funeral situation. I’d rent an RV, try to find a few fun stops along the way, and turn it into a trip. Then if there is a funeral down the road, DH can go solo.

8. In an effort to avoid doomscrolling and undue anxiety this week (since we may not have a definitive winner on Wednesday morning) I’m trying to gather suggestions for comfort reads – anyone want to share their favorites?
   I’m thinking a Man Called Ove, The House on the Cerulean Sea, and anything by Becky Chambers will all be on tap.

   1. Ooh, some whimsical reads. Meet Me at the Museum, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

   2. 84, Charing Cross Road is one for me.

      1. Ooooh I love this one.

         Austen’s Persuasion is what I turn to when I need comfort.

   3. Anything by Maeve Binchy.

   4. James Herriot.

   5. Anything by Louisa May Alcott or Jane Austen :)

      1. Totally. Jane Austen books are so boring you’ll fall asleep before you can doomscroll.

         1. Hey Anon @ 10:11 — people on this thread are sharing things they enjoy. Why the need to jump in to insult them?

            1. I insulted Jane Austen, not Anonie. I’ve got no beef with her.

            2. :) Thanks

   6. I just finished a book called Sourdough, by Robin Sloan, and it was about baking but also about a mysterious starter culture and weird tech people and a secret market in San Francisco. Really fun and engaging.

      He also wrote Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (title might not be quite right) which was weird and fun, too.

      1. This sounds amazing. So many of these light-reads are romance novels, which I’m just not into

   7. I have I Capture The Castle on Audible, read by Jenny Agutter, for comfort – it’s excellent for this purpose. Also, almost anything by Jenny Colgan, Laura Wood, or Eva Ibbotson.

   8. On a similar thread, someone here suggested Rosamunde Pilcher’s Coming Home. I am currently halfway through it and finding it immensely comforting and immersing. Sort of like Downton Abbey in book form, but with less annoying characters.

      Other comfort reads for me include early Barbara Kingsolver (Animal Dreams, Bean Trees) and favorites from my youth (Robin McKinley, LM Montgomery, Madeleine L’Engle)

      1. I love LM Montgomery and L’Engle, so I think I need to check out Robin McKinley!

         1. Sunshine is definitely a comfort read for me. But my comfort read pattern is “overcoming something awful” more than “cheery all the way through.” There’s a lot of escapism with the bakery though!

   9. Agreed on Maeve Binchy and would add J. Ryan Stradal to this list. Kitchens of the Great Midwest and Lager Queen of Minnesota are both cozy and lovely.

   10. A Man Called Ove may not be comfort reading, but it is SO GOOD. I devoured all of his books and they are all amazing, but that one is now high on my favorite books of all time list.

       I escape through fantasy novels, so if you like that genre The Name of the Wind is an entertaining read.

       1. Name of the Wind question -> I started the audiobook last week, and it felt pretty problematic. After 2 hours, there had been no female characters that had been named or spoken, and two out of the three mentions of women had been some phrase about a whore. I hear good things and would like to stick it out if it’s not all like this, but I don’t think I can handle 32 hours of light misogyny.

          1. I would say the series as a whole has both light misogyny and light feminist themes. More enlightened than a lot of books in the genre, but not without issues. Enough to make me roll my eyes, but not enough to make me close the book.

          2. I’m more than happy to read entire books without any women in them and don’t consider them misogynist. But I couldn’t do Name of the Wind either.

          3. It does not get any better. The second book has a few more female characters but is even more problematic for other reasons. Name of the Wind was just gross for me – story was great but I couldn’t get past whatever weird hang-ups with women the author was working through.

             1. Thanks for the perspectives. Given that I have about 20 years of fantasy to catch up on, I will skip. On to 5th Season!

   11. The Bear and the Nightingale series, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, A Deadly Education

       1. I listened to Deadly Education a few weeks ago after seeing it mentioned on this site – so fun!

   12. I’m listening to Matthew McConaughey read his book, Greenlights. It’s kinda wild and all over the place, so perfectly distracting. And its 6+ hours of him speaking, and I find his voice very soothing

   13. The Jane Austen Society, Eleanor Oliphant is Perfectly Fine

   14. I loved News of the World. (Soon to be a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks.)

       1. Yes! One of my favorite books ever. I was reading it when my father died several years ago, and it provided me with so much comfort. I hope the movie does it justice. Love the casting of Tom Hanks, and based on the trailer it looks like it will be good. :-)

9. Happy Election Week!

10. No matter what happens tomorrow and the days that follow, please be careful. I own a handgun for hobby target shooting. I don’t conceal carry or anything like that. I ran out of ammo last month and haven’t been able to get any since. My handgun takes one of the most common bullets – 40 caliber. I know it is hunting season, but you don’t hunt with 40 caliber handgun rounds. Ammo is sold out for other reasons. Maybe it is just pandemic related production shortage from factories having to work with less employees. I’m afraid it is people stocking up for post election civil unrest concerns. Maybe it was people stocking up to protect their toilet paper supply during lockdown. Whatever the reason, it makes me uneasy….

    I’m not trying to be a doom and gloom instill fear poster. I’m just recommending everyone think twice before going to any events that could turn violent and make sure you always have an exit plan.

    1. It is definitely people stocking up because they’re anticipating unrest, whether related to the election or to the global pandemic crisis.

    2. Maybe people shouldn’t get to have deadly weapons for a “fun” hobby. Thanks for the “helpful” warning but I’m not interested in hearing warnings on gun violence from people with guns.

       1. Yeah I don’t get this – people, on this sub, are advertising that they have a gun and buying bullets that, by their own admission, are only used to shoot other human beings, not animals? If the election doesn’t go your way, the option of shooting another human being is a viable one in their mind?

          gun owning anon – why do you have a handgun that is not for hunting? who are these human beings you want to maim or kill, and why do you see that as your only option?

          this post turned my stomach more than anything else election related I’ve seen today

          1. I don’t own firearms presently, but have spent plenty of time on the range. Target shooting is all about control, breathing and form. It’s almost meditative and, TBH, very centering. It takes discipline. The shooting sports are a whole lot more than a bunch of drunk rednecks blasting away at things.

             1. +1 I enjoy shooting at the range, but I have no plans to use a gun outside of the range.

          2. I disliked this post because it is such vague fear-mongering, but you are really putting words in the OPs mouth here. She has a gun for hobby reasons, and isn’t able to get supplies for her hobby. She concludes that people are stocking up and that this is a bad sign. Nothing more.

          3. im super liberal and this is a ridiculous response to this post. it is in fact possible to like target shooting as a hobby and never intend on shooting another human. i do not own a gun, don’t plan on owning a gun ever, but i have target shot before and can totally appreciate that someone would enjoy shooting at a series of circles in a controlled environment, or even clay pigeons in the sky, and not intend on shooting people. that is a ridiculous leap and an example of the kind of reasoning that republians use to die on a hill for their guns. there is a wide range of reasonableness in between.

       2. Who will prevent “gun violence” if not a good person with a gun? The left’s typical bullying tactics like social ostracization and HR complaints might work in civilized society, but they won’t help in the face of violent criminals.

          1. Oh, was it the left who tried to run the Biden event bus off the road? Must have missed that.

             1. My comment was entirely apolitical. If right wing thugs indeed tried to “run the Biden event bus off the road”, it will be good guys with guns who are able to bring them to justice. Or should we send a diversity coordinator to scold them instead?

             2. I have seen claims of this but no video evidence. Can you link to a video of the bus being run off the road?

             3. Anon at 1:18 — Google has created a very effective tool for this.

             4. It was entirely apolitical? You screeched about “the left’s typical bullying tactics.” It’s right there; we can read it.

                “it will be good guys with guns who are able to bring them to justice”

                What scenario exactly are you imagining here? Biden supporters aiming their guns out the window? What about, I don’t know, maybe the legal system? Due process? Which doesn’t generally rely on guns to mete out justice? Good gracious. Also, why do you keep talking about HR programs? This is off topic.

          2. Ahh yes. The “good guys with a gun” and “bad guys with a gun” (aka adult cops and robbers) fantasy.
             Must be nice to live in your world where what constitutes the “good guys” and “bad guys” is so clear cut and well-defined.

       3. Apologies if this shows up twice, I hit back while posting.

          I was a criminal justice major who had close female friends going into law enforcement, a male dominated field. If you didn’t grow up shooting, you want to practice in a safe space before having to qualify in front of a bunch of dudes. The ranges are intimidating. We went in groups. That’s how I got into my hobby.

          I don’t work in law enforcement but a lot of my girlfriends still do and I like to be able to go with them when they want to practice.

          Feel free to judge though. We are all entitled to our opinion.

          1. Okay – so then you I guess need to own one gun, and some bullets. Why would you ever need to “stock up” on bullets, especially if they’re the kind that are not used to hunt animals – only to shoot humans?

             1. Oh! I’m not stocking up on bullets at all. I just wanted to have one box for the next time I go target shooting. The people that were stocking up had the place sold out. Not sure where I gave off the impression I was trying to stock up. I never have more than a box at a time.

             2. I used to shoot, but you go through a lot of bullets at the gun range. It’s not like archery where you go and pick up your arrows and re-use them. In archery, I’d reshoot the same 6 arrows until our time slot ran out, but you have to wait until everyone is done shooting to pick up. Gun shooting isn’t like that.

          2. I’m the OP and this was in response to why do I own a handgun. I also said in my OP I shoot targets, not humans. I shoot with people who have to qualify for their job.

             My post wasn’t to say “run out and buy ammo quick.” My post was to say a bunch of amateurs are buying guns for the first time and a bunch of other people stockpiled a ton of ammo so I’m worried $hit is going to hit the fan post election.

             I also figured most people here have no idea what is going on in gun world and would appreciate a warning.

             For anyone curious, I’m a democrat and I fully support reasonable restrictions on gun purchasing and qualifications.

             If you think it’s nuts that I have a handgun for target shooting, you should have a chat with the people that own ARs for the same purpose.

             1. Congrats on being a democrat

                “My handgun takes one of the most common bullets – 40 caliber. I know it is hunting season, but you don’t hunt with 40 caliber handgun rounds”

                So what are you planning to do with a gun that isn’t used for hunting animals? That only leaves one other purpose . . .

                I think its nuts that you have a handgun for sport, and even more nuts that people have ARs for that. When I play soccer for sport, I am not buying and owning and supporting anything that is used in peoples deaths. I am not practicing a skill that would be useful to kill someone.

                If you were hunting animals, I actually think I would understand that more than . . practicing the skill you would need to kill a person.

             2. There’s been a lot of piling on, so I just want to thank you for being a responsible gun owner. Guns freak me out and I would never want one in my house, but I think that Democratic gun owners who believe in backgrounds check etc. do a good job of dispelling the Republican party’s myths and fear-mongering.

             3. Just want to chime in as a liberal/democrat to also thank you for being a responsible, reasonable gun owner. I don’t own a gun, support gun control, etc etc but have gone to a shooting range and can understand the appeal of target shooting for sport. All of the commenters suggesting that the only reason you’d want to practice shooting is to be able to kill people strikes me as pretty ignorant and justifies all the right-wing caricatures of liberals. I like to rock climb as a hobby – not because I think I’ll ever need it to cross a mountain range or whatever. But because it’s enjoyable to work on the focus and skill to improve at an interesting activity.

       4. +1. Maybe try archery as a sport? Sheesh.

       5. Out of curiosity, I looked it up and shooting is an Olympic sport. There are a variety of categories including pistol and rifle.

    3. This is almost as helpful as the “layoffs are coming for you too” post from last week.

       1. The difference I saw between “the layoffs are coming for you too” and my post was that people could make decisions keeping the info in mind. If you are someone who would have gone to a protest but now realize there is a much greater chance of it becoming violent, you might not go. If you are somewhere public and see a disturbance starting, you might not think, meh, it’s fine, I’m going to finish my grocery shopping, you might get out. It was posted out of care and to inform. I clearly missed the mark, no pun intended, so no need to keep piling on. Point taken.

          1. OP, the topic is super fraught, but I’m still grateful you posted. Since moving to Washington (where concealed carry is legal and at least one close co worker hunts, and where 10% of people are former military), I’ve lost my Illinois quick-flare panic at the mention of guns. It’s helpful to discuss them and the fact that the Proud Boys are stocking up. Putting our heads in the sand doesn’t keep people safe.

             1. Actually — the way I said that was inflammatory. I don’t think the people responding have their heads in the sand. I just… Get where you’re coming from and am grateful.

             2. I’m glad I have Illinois quick-flare panic around guns. Ew, I don’t ever want to be the kind of person who is comfortable around guns.

             3. Thanks.
                -OP

    4. Every time there’s any political uncertainty in this country, this happens. This isn’t news. Gun and ammo companies have been capitalizing off fear mongering “the left is going to take away your guns” line for decades.

       This post is up there with the “be wary of layoffs” post from last week. There is no purpose other than to rile up fear and anxiety.

       1. See my response at 10:49 above.

    5. Every time there’s a shift back to democrat this happens. I wouldn’t be concerned. Some people are concerned that they won’t be able to buy more in the future so they stock up.

       1. Thank you. I appreciate the info. I was less concerned about me not being able to get bullets and more concerned about what all the people stockpiling were planning to do with them.

       2. It’s bigger than the uptick in sales for both the Obama and the 2016 election. The combo of an election, wide reaching willingness in the population to restrict gun ownership, pandemic panic and unrest has caused a larger spike in gun sales, equal to the surge around the time of the Sandy Hook shooting. Graph here
          https://images.app.goo.gl/vEtgpah6X9HLhdZG7

          1. Is that for the same reason though, that people were worried that gun laws after Sandy Hook would restrict their ability to buy so they were stocking up?

          2. I don’t think this changes her conclusion though – it’s consistent with a potential shift to democrat or any movement where people think there may be a crackdown in availability of guns or ammo. I don’t agree with OP’s conclusion that people must be “planning things” and feel like that’s fear mongering to discourage people from protesting if DJT refuses to leave office…which feels like it’s right out of the DJT playbook

             1. Or it could be read to say if you are going to go protest where people have guns, bring your own guns but that sounds like a recipe for disaster for everyone.

    6. I am another gun owner (we inherited several from my FIL when he passed). We have not gotten our guns out of storage. We are not buying ammunition. We are not stocking up on toilet paper. We are not anticipating some kind of civil war. OP, posting this kind of “helpful warning” is fomenting anxiety. That’s all you’re doing. If we do end up having civil unrest it will be because so many edgy, jumpy people are pushing their anxiety off on others, and the spreading anxiety will make everyone edgy and jumpy and people will make bad decisions. I do not believe for one second the Trump supporter who lives down the street from me and pets my dog when we walk by his house is going to come to my house armed and ready to do violence on the night of Nov. 3. I refuse to believe that. I do believe that people like you are whipping emotionally vulnerable people into a frenzy and THAT will create a volatile, unstable situation. Please get off of the Internet, take a walk and look at the real life going on around you. Don’t post things like this online. Don’t believe everything you read. Please just stop, take a breath and think about what you’re doing and saying. If everyone will do that, we will be fine.

       1. Ha, you haven’t seen the folks showing up to protests with guns out here in Washington. I have never been gladder of vote by mail.

          1. Sorry, again, emotional topic. I, like you, hope to heaven that tomorrow and the days following are peaceful. I know many, many reasonable people agree. But I appreciate the OP sharing her ground truth. OP was out in the real world, though (she was speaking to her experiences at a store). And while some Trump voters aren’t radicalized, a vocal few really, really are. My mom’s worried because my dad has made comments about getting a gun to take back the country. People are showing up to protests with guns in my state. Knowing these facts — accepting them and facing them — does spark fear. But I also believe it makes us more able to make good, calm, rational decisions in the moment.

             1. Alternate take: you’re an anxious person who is looking to others to validate your anxiety and anticipation of the worst-case scenario. And in doing that, let me assure you that you and the OP are going to manifest the worst-case scenario, by emphasizing anxiety and fear over rationality and common sense. I wish I could say I was surprised, but given the general tenor of posts here, regrettably I am not.

             2. Okay, calling this “ground truth” is a little…. generous. The only “truth” is that she is having a hard time getting ammo. The rest is just speculation, and that’s what people are objecting to. I agree it seems like an attempt to ratchet up people’s anxiety. Maybe not a malicious one, but still… just making speculative leaps and stoking fear.

          2. Yep, I’ve seen multiple people wandering around my city with ARs when there are protests.

             1. Yep. Granted I frequently see people open carrying at friggin Target, but they sure did bring out the big guns in the spring.

    7. And this type of thread is why Republicans have successfully convinced so many people that “the Democrats are coming for your guns.”

       I understand that many of you live in placed and among people where gun ownership is worse than being a meth addict but an awful lot of perfect decent, responsible people own guns. Sometimes they are for sport (target shooting as the OP), sometimes for hunting (and unless you are a vegetarian who does not wear leather please spare me any diatribes on the evils of deer hunting), sometimes for protection (foolish in my view), sometimes for other reasons (my father has one in his car specifically because he once hit a deer crossing the street in the dark and felt horrible the he could not put it down quickly – and has used it for that purpose twice since).

       The fact that people are stocking up on ammo/guns, like the fact that toilet paper is gone again from my Costco, tells me something about the mental state of my nation that is helpful to know. Jumping all over OP because she likes to shoot at targets is a lot less helpful than the information she shared.

       1. “I understand that many of you live in places and among people where gun ownership is worse than being a meth addict but an awful lot of perfect decent, responsible people own guns.”

          I don’t think you want to play the game of comparing the areas where gun ownership is tacky and déclassé to areas where gun ownership is cool.

       2. I agree with some of this. I don’t own a gun because they scare me but I have a lot of family members that own guns and I’ve shot them before and honestly, target shooting is really fun! I totally get why people have them/want them. Like most Americans, I support rational basic gun control laws (things like closing loopholes for background checks, waiting periods, etc.).

          That said, I disagree with your last paragraph, I think the only thing people stocking up on ammo tells me is that we’re in a period of political uncertainty and that usually means there’s a run on ammo because people are scared that the Democrats will take their guns away so they are stocking up.

       3. +100

    8. Where I live in a blue state there has been an uptick in applications to purchase guns, people attending gun safety courses and people at the local range, which is recreational and usually just has some folks pottering around shoot clays. Some of uptick is in suburban and city residents and small business owners who saw that during the recent protests the police were overwhelmed with crowd management and could not respond to anything other than serious crimes. Some of the uptick is sadly in ethnic groups who have been the subject of hate crime, with anyone vaguely Asian being accused of being the source of what Fox News call the Chinese Virus. The knee jerk reaction that this is just a bunch of rednecks in red states stocking up in case the libs are elected is dangerously blind to what is actually happening, which is that a lot of people who previously felt they could rely solely on the police no longer feel safe.

11. Thanks to whoever recommended “A sky painted gold”. LOVED it.
    Better than “I capture the castle” IMO.

    1. That was probably me! Isn’t it gorgeous! Laura Wood’s new book, A Snowfall of Silver, came out last month – I pre-ordered it but haven’t had a chance to dig in yet.
       I agree that it’s better than ICTC – I use that as a comparator for mood, mostly.

       1. I also read “A Sky Painted Gold” on your recommendation and also loved it. Thank you!

    2. I recommended it too! From Bad on Paper podcast. I still like I capture the castle better but likely related to nostalgia and the film. Glad you enjoyed.

       1. Ah! I’m relatively new to BOP so I didn’t know it was one of their picks too. Sorry if I’ve taken your credit, whoops.

          1. Not at all. Glad we all loved. I’m also new to BoP, I think I got that podcast ref from here too!

12. Looking for a fitness watch that can track my distance/time running. I had one of the early apple watches but stopped using it when I took a several-year gap from running. I tried to update it but apparently its so old that it won’t work with the new OS. Wondering if I should buy a newer apple watch or if there are now others that are better/easier to use. I mainly want the exercise statistics, but I guess the ability to play music and notify you of texts/calls is cool. I used those features previously but always found them a bit tricky to use with the tiny screen. TIA!

    1. I like my coros watch for running. It has a lot of good data and internal GPS, so I don’t have to carry my phone.

       1. + 1,000 to Coros. I had a Suunto that I barely used, now I wear my Coros every day. I love it. The battery life is awesome and I find the app to be really information.

    2. any reason why you wouldn’t go with a Garmin? I’ve been rocking the vivoactive 3 for a year now and love it as a runner. cute enough that I wear it 24/7. I can always trust the satellites, I like the Garmin Connect interface and app and I think the newer models have music included. text/call notifications re nice to have – I can’t reply on my watch, but that’s not really what I wear my running watch for.

       1. Yeah, I feel like Garmin is your best bet here.

    3. Love my Garmin 245. It has the ability to load music, but I usually rely on my phone because I cannot commit to a playlist ahead of time. But it is way more accurate than the Nike app I was using, and has the ability to help with workouts (like intervals) if that need arises.

    4. Get a garmin. The apple watch has to be charged so much more often. And if you are old, I found it hard to see without my glasses (which I obviously don’t run it). I got the Garmin 45S in white. It’s cute and I have tiny wrists and it fits great. Then buy yourself an item called a mighty, which is like a better version of the old ipod shuffle, because you can move music from spotify and amazon music over to it.

13. Inspired by the weekend’s bad date post, let’s share date horror stories.

    By the way, I’m rooting for you, OP. You sound like an absolutely lovely person and I agree with all of the commentors that you did NOTHING wrong. Thank goodness that loser showed his true colors before you could invest more time and energy into him. I know it isn’t helpful now but, someday, you may be like me and look back on your date horror stories as funny memories. Also, all the awful dates from before make me a much better partner to my now fiance…I think I tell him some variation of “I am grateful for you” at least twice a day.

    Three of my most horrific date stories:

    1) On a fourth date with a guy I was really starting to like, we were walking through a wooded park when the topic of Ray Rice randomly came up and my date told me that he was sure Ray Rice’s girlfriend “did something to provoke him.” This was in reference to Ray Rice beating her up…I couldn’t WAIT to get out of that secluded park haha.

    2) A white guy (I am a POC with a mixed-race background) who seemed sweet on the dating app nonchalantly told me on our first date that most customers of X race were rude at his job. I have brown skin, dark hair, and don’t look white, but I also don’t look at first glance like I have ancestry of X race. None the less, X race is about half of my racial background. When I proceeded to inform him of this fact and reminded him that people of ALL races can be rude, this dude actually, verbatim, told me: “I’m not saying all X people are rude. I’m just saying 80% of them are.”

    3) A guy blew off our date, I made alternate plans with a friend, and he claimed that the animals (read: mice) in his lab (he was a PhD student) were drowning because a pipe burst and that was why he didn’t text me until 1 hour past our assigned date time. HE BEGGED when I told him I didn’t want to give it a second chance, so I hesitantly agreed to let him meet my friend and I at the restaurant where we were eating dinner since he had blown me off. He drove to the restaurant and then refused to come inside until my friend left because he was “sure she was judging him.” He finally entered the restaurant, we had a surprisingly decent time, and I agreed (foolishly) to one more date. Between our first and second meetings, he texted me twice and asked me for pictures. Once, when I was at work, he wanted a “work selfie” and once he wanted a selfie while I was literally at the airport with my mom. The first time, I just said “no, that makes me feel awkward” and the second time, I told him that I was completely uncomfortable with him asking for selfies. He apologized and said he wouldn’t do it again. A few days later, he texted, “Send me a selfie before bed.” I responded that I no longer wanted to talk to him, as he failed to respect my wishes. He then proceeded to text me 12 TIMES in a row, call me, FaceTime, etc…all in about a 1-hour time span. He cooled off for a couple days, then began asking if I would “see fit to talk one more time” until I told him in no uncertain terms that he was scaring me.

    WHEW. MEN.

    1. That was me! Thank you for thinking of me and sharing this. For anyone interested, my Bumble horror story is the last post on the weekend open thread.

       1. Oh, man! Just read it! Hugs to you, Anon! It was totally him and not you!!

    2. I don’t have a story to share but just wanted to say to the OP of the weekend post – I am so sorry that happened but now at least you have a great story to tell!

       Also: one of my friends who is dating right now told me that if she meets up with someone and the guy turns out to be a complete jerk, she just tries out a completely fictional personality and backstory. Like she will say she is actually a displaced English baroness who had to flee England because her family was involved in sinister covert dealings with the government and will tell wild made-up tales about her fictional life. Or she will try on a personality she’s seen in a movie – one date she did Helena Bonham-Carter’s character from Fight Club; once it was Natalie Portman’s character from Garden State, etc. If you’re never going to see the guy again it doesn’t matter and it’s a way of keeping yourself entertained and not getting irritated by someone who’s being a jerk. She has a lot of fun with it so I don’t know if it’s worth a try?

       1. Haha your friend sounds awesome!

       2. One of my guy friends used to do this when we were at random bars. He had a job that had a lot sensitive info and if he told people what he did, they invariably asked 100 more questions. So, if we were just talking with some random people we would likely never see again, he’d make up a different story about what he did. Once, he went through a good chunk of the Anchorman movie (claiming to be a newscaster from another state) without them catching on. It was hysterical.

          1. I have definitely either a regional newscaster (don’t you recognize me?) or a zookeeper specializing in reptiles during various bar chats!

    3. In high school, I went on a date with a guy to see Little Nicky, Adam Sandler’s worst movie. The guy cracked up the whole time, and I didn’t. Fine, different senses of humor, I guess. Then in the car, as he was driving me home, he started interrogating me. Did you think it was funny? Then why didn’t you laugh? What about this part? What about this other part? It was so weird and uncomfortable.

    4. I went back and read that. OP, I’m so sorry for you and that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with him. There’s nothing wrong with your “screening” mechanism: the first date is your screening mechanism and you screened him right out. You sound like such a lovely person and you most certainly do not deserve that.

    5. I had a guy stand me up because he “didn’t see me waiting outside the restaurant” and didn’t think to go inside and check there.

       I had another date where the guy got a call about 30 minutes in that his friend had gotten into an accident and needed to be picked up…when I texted him later to ask if his friend was okay, I never heard from him.

       I’ve had guys tell me that they aren’t interested and not attracted to me but would be up for hooking up.

       I had one guy judge me for getting a burger for dinner instead of a salad or “something healthy” because I “looked like I needed to eat a salad or two”.

       Dating is THE. WORST. and men are just completely awful.

       1. “I had one guy judge me for getting a burger for dinner instead of a salad or “something healthy” because I “looked like I needed to eat a salad or two”.”

          Did you throw the burger in his face and walk out? Because that’s what I would have done! OMG.

          1. I was thinking, “take the burger to go!!” lol

    6. I had a guy who was really confused and said I didn’t look like my picture because I was wearing glasses that I was wearing in most but not all of my photos. I definitely looked like the pictures. He kept texting me for weeks but wouldn’t set up another date!

    7. What is the deal with guys asking for selfies all the time? Some of them seem so weirdly fixated on it, it can’t just be like hey I miss you and want to see you. Is it a testing the waters kind of thing? Do they think if I send them a selfie while I’m walking down the street then I must be open to sending racy pics?

       1. Um spoiler: they’re jerking off to them.

       2. I think it is a control thing to make sure you are doing what you say you are doing and not on another date.

          1. This is it

    8. I had a guy who, before even meeting in person, started asking for nud3s in a “plausible deniability” type of way. When I didn’t keep texting him throughout my work day, or send the type of photo he evidently wanted, he huffily cut it off because I “didn’t seem that interested.”

       I had multiple guys from the apps who really wanted to use it as a free AirBnB and/or escort service, but used cute language for it, like “My flight gets in to City at midnight, and I was hoping to have an adventure before I drive home tomorrow morning” or “looking to sleep tonight in State or Neighboring State. Have any space?” I’m sure the sleeping arrangements were negotiable, once you let this complete stranger into your home for the night on a few hour’s notice. The one thing I miss about online dating was the hilarious things you saw on profiles like this.

       Several guys lied about their ages and then gaslit me when I noticed it. No man should claim to be a feminist who does that.

       I had a guy leave in the middle of our second date (between movie and a planned post-movie drink) because his ex was demanding he immediately come pick up something he had left at her house. He said he had been there because they still shared a dog. He showed me her angry texts and a photo she’d sent of the contraband, but obviously something larger was going on.

       I went out with someone who turned out to have a felony conviction and at least one restraining order against him from an ex.

       I had dinner with someone who started discussing all his possible mental health diagnoses within minutes of us sitting down. He listed off basically everything in the DSM, and there’s nothing wrong with having mental health challenges, but this is not first date behavior. I learned from both this and the above guy NEVER to agree to dinner as a first date, no matter how promising it seems.

       I’m sure I have more that I’m forgetting!

       1. Oh, I’ll add one more. I had a drink with a guy who really wouldn’t tell me where he was from. He just said “around these parts.” I said “Current City?” (where I also grew up) and he vaguely said yes, as if it was one of several places. Trying to grasp reality, I said “where did you go to high school?” (the city only has a few possibilities, one of which was my high school) and he said “a few different schools.” He just would not commit to an answer. He was incredibly sketchy and I think he might have been high.

          1. Hahahaha I don’t know why this one made me giggle so much

       2. I had a few men lie about their height, then tell me that I was the one who was wrong. If you’re going to lie to me, straight to my face, about something I know to not be true, there is no second date.

    9. I had a guy tell me at the end of the otherwise pretty great first date that I was a little chubby for his taste and I should go on a diet. I should have shown him the door, of course, but I ended up marrying him instead. And it went downhill from there. :-/

       1. Ah oh no! Good riddance to him!

          Haha if it helps, I was foolish enough to go on not one but TWO additional dates with the guy from my scenario #1.

    10. I had a date with a super, super good looking guy who, looks-wise, was way out of my league. Like, WAY. He looked like JFK junior, and I look maybe like a character actress on my best days. I was kind of surprised he wanted to go out with me.

        He wanted to go to a very high end, hard to get into restaurant for our date, and I was able to pull some corporate strings and get a close-in reservation, which I knew impressed him.

        We met for our date and I was surprised at how good looking he was in person. Like his profile pics totally undersold him. But reader, he was the most boring person I ever went on a date with. It was as if being extraordinarily good looking had excused him from any need to develop a personality throughout his life. The only thing he could talk about was other online dates he went on and on about how drop-dead gorgeous some of the women were (which made me super self conscious of my own looks) but then listed a litany of nit picky things he didn’t like about them. Listening to all of this, my thought process was – this is an ok date because the food is good and he’s great looking, but it’s not going anywhere.

        I insisted we split the check at the end of the date, and said goodnight and wished him well. Then, the next day, to my great surprise he asked me for another date. He kept saying I was the smartest person he’d ever dated and he was really impressed that I paid for half the check. I tried to graciously say no, that I didn’t think we were a match, and then he got mad and started calling me names (over text). I don’t think the man had ever been rejected in his life.

        It was all very weird and unsettling and I will probably always remember how it made me feel.

        1. You dated Jon Hamm’s character from 30 Rock!

           1. Kind of! He described himself as a foodie and a wine connoisseur, but he found the farm-to-table menu “confusing” (American food with descriptions of where the meat and vegetables where from and how they were prepared, like Taylor Farms heritage Duroc Pork Chop, brined with fennel pollen, grilled and served with Yukon gold mashed potatoes) and ordered the cheapest merlot by the glass on the menu.

              But I think he was confident that he was a true foodie and gourmand.

              His description of the food after eating was that it tasted good but $30 was a lot for a pork chop.

        2. Haha too funny! There is zero excuse for his rude name-calling, but I kind of love that the smart, self-sufficient girl was his “one that got away.”

14. Recommendations for custom puzzles using your own photo?

    1. I got some good ones from Shutterfly last year. The gift recipients really loved them.

15. OMG randomly locked out of work e-mail and intranet today. For hours so far; virtual help desk is nonresponsive (it’s all robots, from what I have seen; that is the degree that we outsource to the lowest cost provider). All I can think is that maybe they fired me (but surely they would have me send out my invoices and then fire me after that?). OMG hate WFH pandemic when we know times are not good economically.

    1. Hi! There was an IOS update that locked me out of my work email on my phone. I was able to get on via the server. I bet there is some kind of tech snafu. Can you text a colleague to see if they are having issues? Last time I got locked out it was because the main office had a power failure. There are reasons beyond getting fired.

       Maybe your caps lock was on and you tried your password too many times and got locked out?

    2. I’ve had weird issues like this all morning. Help Desk is no help. Very hard to stay motivated.

16. This probably sounds crazy but does anyone else do this thing where you like subconsciously pretend you’re being watched, and behave accordingly? It’s something I started (consciously) doing as a very young child, pretending boys I had crushes on were like watching me doing mundane activities. Now I’m in my 30s and this mindset is so ingrained. It’s really weird, like I think I’m in my own Truman show. I swear I’m not a narcissist, but I think there must be something very wrong psychologically? Anyone else?

    1. I don’t now but I think I did something fairly similar as a kid haha!

    2. I have imaginary running conversations with people in my head. The people are all real but for one reason or another not a part of my life — old friends I lost touch with, former teachers etc. I update them on my life in my life in the minutest detail, like telling them the story of how I bought this piece of furniture, what I think about these leggings — stuff that no sane real person is interested in hearing about!

       1. I do a lot of reading of books set in the Tudor period. Sometimes, on a long drive to pass the time, I imagine that a young Henry VIII is in the car with me and imagine how I would explain the modern marvels at hand (the car! the radio! roads, buildings, planes! smartphones!)

          1. oh my goodness, this is EXTREMELY endearing

             1. I also take pleasure in telling him that, after all his machinations, Anne Boleyn’s daughter ended up on the throne in the end, LOL.

    3. I don’t know if there’s something “wrong,” but I do this too!

    4. No, but I don’t think it’s cause for alarm. Just a sign that you have an active imagination and a rich inner life.

    5. I do this when I really need to be motivated for something but I also pretend I’m someone I’m not as I do it. Have to clean my house? I’m a housekeeper for a famous person and the paparazzi could burst in at any minute so I better hurry up!

    6. Not like people are watching me per se, but I sometimes do a narrative in my head a la the Spenser mystery novels: “I took a couple of shallots from the fridge and diced them, then sauteed them in some butter and added a splash of white wine…”

    7. I don’t but I do have imaginary conversations where I clear up long-standing conflicts with friends and loved ones through reasonable conversations. I even have regular dreams of these conversations. Of course it won’t work that way in real life because the real people on the other side don’t behave in reasonable ways, which is why we have conflict in the first place. I think it is my very math oriented brain trying to solve something that is really not solve-able.

       On the childhood thing, though, I remember taking the idea that both Santa Claus and Jesus could see me at all times very seriously. Every time I went poop I was worried that Santa and Jesus were grossed out. It took a long time (and some atheism) to get past that.

    8. My mother, who was very into “proper” behavior would always say to me, “You never know who is watching you.” And then chide me for not behaving like a “young lady”. I found it (and still find it) super cringe-y, but it has definitely left a mark on me.

    9. Oh no advice, but that just reminded me of this Margaret Atwood quote:

       “Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it’s all a male fantasy: that you’re strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren’t catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you’re unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”

    10. I’m not a psychology expert, so I can’t tell you whether it’s wrong or not – I think there’s a point at which it becomes something called “maladaptive daydreaming,” but MD tends to be really intense and disruptive to your normal life, and it sounds like this is just a thing you do. For what it’s worth, I do something similar, although my imagination had the person (usually a crush too, heh, or a celebrity that I’ve managed to somehow befriend) hanging out with me, not just watching. I still do it sometimes, but it’s not as vivid as it was when I was a teenager.

    11. I am in m0d forever but I posted about believing that both Santa and J3sus could see me p00ping when I was a kid. Yes, that is what omnipotence meant to me.

17. Any real estate appraisers here? Looking into becoming an appraiser part-time/on the side and trying to figure out how feasible it is to get through the trainee requirements this way? Also, what is the best resource for classes? TIA

    1. Not an appraiser, but in the housing industry: there is possibly no greater buggy whip kind of gig than that. They are being replaced by “automated valuation services.” I’d strongly recommend dropping this idea.

       1. +1 I am not in the industry but as anecdotal, I just refinanced my > $2mm house (bay area, not as impressive as it sounds) and they used a Zillow type valuation rather than a live appraiser. I’ve refinanced several times and this was the first time they relied solely on that.

          1. Interesting. I am currently in the middle of buying and selling as are several friends and all have had a difficulties thanks to the high demand for appraisers. Seems there are not enough appraisers for the work and causing closing delays.

             1. IDK, maybe that’s why the lender decided it was ok to use Zillow or whatever they use. It might have helped that my loan to value ratio is fairly low.

             2. There are select corners of the market where they’re still in use, like the high priced areas of the Northeast, but this has been a decade in coming. The subprime bubble bursting pushed a lot of them out of the industry, so there were shortages, and then the industry learned how to make do with robots instead.

          2. +1. Same in New England for a refinance. I’m in data science, and I’m not surprised they are being replaced. Its such an easy ML problem now with so much data and pictures on the MLS/internet.

18. Any recs for indoor stair treads? We have that vinyl flooring that looks like wood, which is kinda slick in socks. Flooring is light grey. TIA!

    1. We just installed the same flooring (grey, vinyl) and our dog started slipping on the stairs. I ordered these, and it has solved the problem. Has only been in place a few days, but i am happy so far. They blend in well.
       https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085LTZF4F/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    2. Both Young House Love and Yellow Brick Home have tutorials for installing runners on stairs if you want to go that route.

19. I remember you guys talking about weighted blankets here, and hope folks who have some trouble sleeping can give me some recs.

    I wanted to put together a “sleep” care package for a relative (she’s a high schooler/teenager) who is having a lot of trouble falling and staying asleep. She has anxiety issues too. I was thinking about a weighted blanket, maybe some cute comfy PJs, sleep socks and a cute snuggly stuffed animal. Any thoughts on this, or recs for specific items?

    Thanks!

    1. Every teen is different, but many may feel too “grown up” for a stuffed animal. A pretty journal could be a great replacement! And also maybe some kind of lavender-scented lotion? Love your other ideas, too.

       1. I was so curious if you would say that about a stuffed animal! When I was going to college, my Mom bought me some cute things for my dorm room, and my father absolutely forbade her from buying me a teddy bear, which she had wanted to. Secretly, I would have loved a snuggly teddy bear, and was sad when she told me she didn’t get me one.

       2. My twenty-something daughter has a weighted, stuffed animal that she can warm in the microwave. She loves it as a sleep aid.

       3. How about one of those lavender-scented animals? I got one for my late mom a few years ago and she loved it!

          OMG look at this one: https://warmies.com/collections/plush/products/sloth-warmies?gclid=CjwKCAiA-f78BRBbEiwATKRRBCXLIzX5lsD7-NWhaOCq4vgieTmp5bbUhFnuvTq8PVZy6Pn8gNnzXBoC1wUQAvD_BwE

    2. Sleepytime tea and a cute or pretty mug would be great, as would bath bombs or bubble bath in a calming scent.

       1. I like these ideas! But wouldn’t tea before bed make her need to get up and pee? I love the idea of a sleepytime tea though.
          I nighttime routine with a bubble bath sounds wonderful. Anyone have a favorite brands/scents of bath bombs or bubble bath?

    3. Deep Sleep pillow spray maybe? I feel like teens love scented stuff.

    4. This is a wonderful idea! I bought my son a weighted blanket last Christmas, and it has really helped him sleep through the night. Honestly, I bought one that was well reviewed from BB&B and chose it because it was on sale. I think you’re looking for a few key things–removable cover so it can be washed, pellets sewn into individual squares, and the correct weight for the size person–but there are SO many brands, and I don’t think any one brand is “best.”

       I agree with Anonie that a stuffed animal would likely be put to the side, at best. I like Anonie’s idea of a journal, but you could give her a good book if you know her reading tastes. Other ideas–a silk pillowcase, an eye mask, a sound machine (sure, you can use your phone, but she may sleep better with her phone in another room).

       1. Great ideas! Which BB&B one did you get? I wouldn’t have thought to buy a cover so thanks!

          1. I checked my email, and the brand was Therapedic. It was a kids’ one (for a 4 year old) that happened to be 50% off last December. The cover comes with the blanket, but the description should say whether the cover is removable for washing. That may be more important for a kid than a teenager, but the full blanket is harder to wash and dry than just the cover.

    5. Could a year’s subscription to a meditation app work? Whenever I’m having serious issues falling asleep, I put on one of the meditation app’s sleep-focused meditations and I usually fall asleep by the end of it. I personally like the app Welzen, but I’m sure Calm or Headspace or others have similar sleep meditations.

    6. A nice eye mask. I sleep much better since I started using one every night.

       1. +1 to this. I like this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VJ3GBND/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    7. What about a subscription to a meditation app? My tween goes through cycles where he has trouble falling asleep, and the Calm app sleep stories have been sanity saving.

    8. What about one of those lavender-scented snuggly animals that you can heat in the microwave and place around your neck or on your body? It’s a more grown-up stuffed animal.

       1. My sleep-challenged teenager really wants one of these. I ordered her one for Christmas.

    9. I enjoy my weighted blanket that I got a year or two ago but think there are much cuter ones out now! Bearaby ads keep following me on social media— theirs just look like cozy throw blankets. I haven’t tried them so cant personally vouch but especially for a teen, might be nice to get a prettier one— mine is kind of industrial looking.

    10. I would recommend magnesium oil, which can come as a spray or a roll-on. It is supposed to help with restless legs, etc., and maybe it does, but the ritual of it is soothing enough for it help me sleep. I apply it to my legs before bed and then rub it in.

    11. What about an animal water bottle cover (and water bottle of course)? Kat posted them here many months ago but there are tons of cute ones on amazon. I’ve never seen them in an in-person store but maybe you could. Like a stuffed animal with a purpose.

    12. One of those anti-blue-light apps for her phone.
        Maybe a (silent) alarm clock to avoid having her phone near.
        A really nice pillow with a silk cover.
        Yoga mat.
        Audible subscription.
        Diary.
        A nice mug and some classic evening drinks: hot chocolate, milk with honey, lavendar tea.

    13. Ear plugs
        A sound machine or sound app for white noise (I use one of these, it’s great)
        5 minute journal – the gratitude portions may help with anxiety
        If the stuffed animal thing is a no-go, then do a body pillow. Same effect.
        Tell her about Gratitude ABCs (as she’s trying to fall asleep, instead of “counting sheep”, think of something she’s truly grateful for to coincide with each letter of the alphabet – can be super mundane like A is for air, B is for books, etc.). I’m usually out by H. (life long insomniac – trouble falling asleep in particular)

    14. I’m very late to respond, but Lush – sleepy lotion is amazing. I also like these sleep chocolates by the good day chocolate company, with melatonin, they have a kids version is she is petite. This is so sweet of you.

    15. Thanks to all of you for your wonderful suggestions. I really appreciate them.

20. What about a white noise machine?

    1. Ugh, nesting fail.

21. Any recs for a mattress topper? I have a casper mattress which I’ve liked but I’ve had trouble falling asleep and would like to make my bed cozier. Thinking about a down or down alternative topper – full size bed, do have some allergies, sleep hot but keep my bedroom pretty cold. Any favorites?

22. I know there are some avid bakers on here

    I’m looking for a sugar cookie recipe that I can mix up and keep in the fridge to make small batches of cutout cookies – that is, I don’t want to make the whole batch at once, but I’d rather only mess up my kitchen making the dough every third time or so. Any suggestions?

    1. Finally a question I can answer with authority.
       Sift together into bowl:
       2 3/4 c flour
       1 tsp baking powder
       1/2 tsp salt
       Put 3/4 c soft margarine in large bowl of electric mixer.
       Add 1 c sugar
       2 eggs
       1 tsp vanilla
       Beat with mixer till fluffy and light.
       Beat in flour mixture till smooth.
       Chill at least 1 hour in three parts.
       Roll to 1/8-in. thickness on floured surface. Keep remaining dough in fridge (it will last a while).
       Cut with cookie cutters.
       Put on greased cookie sheets. Add sprinkles etc.
       Bake at 375 for 8-10 min.
       Cool.

       1. Thank you! Making this today!!

          I know most people think of cutout cookies as Christmas things, but I made the mistake of buying some fall themed cookie cutters several years ago. So now my kids (teens) think cookie season starts November 1 !

       2. Also, do you think margarine is preferable to butter in this recipe? And if so why? I would have to get some margarine to make it exactly as written.

          1. +1 the call for margarine really stood out to me but assuming there’s a reason. I must have been in my mid-20s before I started cooking with/eating butter, and I’m not sure I can go back to margarine. That neon yellow is unsettling.

    2. Check out Sally’s Baking Addiction for recipes. You can make a full batch and then divide the dough into smaller portions to freeze. Or you can roll out all the dough, cut out the cookies, freeze them and bake as needed.

    3. I would freeze portions of this dough rather than refrigerate. It has so much butter it will get to the right texture in no time even from frozen.

       https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/10402/the-best-rolled-sugar-cookies/

       1. Thanks to you and Vicki Austin for suggesting freezing. My kids may not be that patient (and I don’t have a lot of freezer space) but how long does it take for the frozen dough to get to a roll-out consistency?

       2. Agreed, freezing is the best option. Most cookie recipes will stay good for ~3 months if frozen. I make a giant batch (as in, it fills up my largest mixing bowl) and then divide it in to smaller amounts to freeze. Then just pull one out of the freezer a day (or two) before you want to bake and stick it in the fridge.

          Also, I roll out my dough between silicone baking mats and it has changed my life: I add way less flour in the rolling process and the dough stays more tender, esp when re-rolling scraps. You can also use parchment paper, and then just bake the cookies right on the paper.

       3. This is my go to recipe – just made them this weekend actually! My go-to tip is to roll them out using powdered sugar instead of flour, because the recipe calls for a lot of flour given the amount of sugar, and I find using powdered sugar to roll them out creates the perfect level of sweetness.

    4. I think you really can’t go wrong freezing cookie dough most of the time, especially if it already says “chill” in the recipe.

    5. The sugar cookie recipe from the 1979 Fannie Farmer cookbook is by far the best:

       https://www.recipelink.com/msgbrd/board_2/2007/NOV/21727.html

       1. Sounds like these are drop cookies. Have you tried rolling them?

          1. Sorry, forgot to mention – they work either way!

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