Tuesday’s Workwear Report: The Courtney Dress

379 Comments

1. Stunning pick!

   1. Agree. Though if I traveled in this, I think I’d be constantly tugging it down. Pencil cuts seem to creep up on me pretty badly with a lot of sitting.

   2. Elizabeth, I think the Lark & Ro actually might look better at least on me, but even tho it is less expensive, it is 67% Rayon, which for me does not breathe as much as I’d like, meaning that it retains my body odor much more then cotton. I could not get information on the fabric of the more expensive dress, and would not buy it unless I knew the composition of it. I do still like the tighter look of a pencil skirt on me, but may need to go to a size 4 if it rides up to much in the tuchus; otherwise, I would look silly pulling my dress down in court and at the bar association all the time. Also, the Lark and Ro is actually an Amazon house label, and those that remember Jeff Bezos might want to think about enriching him even more then we have to after he dumped his once cute wife for a newer, younger and cuter woman, after his wife stuck with him for so many years, even driving him out to the West Coast more then 20 years ago when they had alot less money. FOOEY on that!

   3. I have the wrap and the faux wrap version of the Lark & Ro and it is a great fit. I’m curvy with a large top so wrap dresses were something I put in the garbage bin mentally but thought I’d try it out. It shockingly fit super well, and didn’t show any cleavage even without a camisole beneath (though it did dip down so one might be necessary in some work environments). I think it is a good option for many who like the sheath dress look without the figure huggingness of it, or have never been able to wear a wrap dress.

2. I’d like to wire my mother some money for financial support. She is in Canada and Bank of America charges $45 fees per transfer. Any recommendation for banks that don’t charge this type of fees?

   1. Depending on the amount, PayPal might be cheaper but international transfers tend to be expensive

   2. PayPal? She could use it for anything that you can pay online. HSBC global accounts allow no fee transfers but come with a monthly fee.

   3. This is easy. If your mom is not irresponsible, get your bank to issue you a joint credit card (in both your name and hers), but have the bills sent to you. That way, you won’t have to worry about her financieally and as long as you pay the credit card bills, you won’t have to pay even $45 more to pay the credit card bill. That would be silly. YAY!!!

   4. Is there a Walmart near her?

      Alternatively, can you just walk into a Bank of America and deposit money into her account? I’ve done that before – just fill out a deposit slip, write a check from your account to her as the payee, endorse the check, and deposit it. They don’t check your ID when you put money into someone’s account.

      1. This is my suggestion, if possible. Depositing a check into my landlord’s bank account is how I pay my rent every month since they live in a different state.

      2. A number of banks now won’t let non-account holders deposit cash into an account that they are not an authorized signer on due to currency laws. You can deposit a check but if she needs funds immediately, not all of the funds may be available.

   5. I always use TransferWise for international transfers.

   6. Is Paypal a possibility?

   7. Transferwise.

   8. Use Paypal’s XOOM function (assuming Paypal is set up with a link to your bank account). IT will deposit directly in her account in Canadian dollars. It’s about $5.99 per transaction but the exchange rates are good and sometimes the transaction fees are cancelled. Seriously better than a strict bank-to-bank transfer.

   9. I used paypal to send internationally with no fees

   10. Revolut

   11. I just do a plain Money Order and mail it to her. it’s easy, fairly fast and fast to deposit straight into her bank. She doesnot Internet very well.

   12. Western Union can be quite reasonable if there is one near her. I sent money from the US to my husband in Israel while I was traveling in Europe.

3. My and family and I are traveling to Croatia next week and we have a five hour layover in Munich along the way (9:30am-2:30pm). Is this enough time to leave the airport and do anything? Maybe walk around a town square or something for a couple of hours? My family and I have never been to Germany, so we’d like to take advantage if possible.

   1. Are you travelling from outside the EU? If so, leaving the airport in Munich will require you to enter EU land space (I.e. go through immigration) in Munich, which you otherwise wouldn’t have to on a transfer, I think. (I’ve never used Munich airport, but my understanding is that the US is the only country which requires transfer passengers to enter the country on landing). This might have some impact on whether you can check your luggage straight through, etc.

      1. Agree with all of these points. Figure out about your luggage. I don’t think passing immigration should take too long, it’s definitely faster than US immigration.

         1. I’ve never been to Munich, but how long immigration takes is largely function of how long the line is. I’ve had it be as fast as 30 mins and as long as 2 hours in the EU. It just depends on if you land right after a few other international flights, where you are in the land for your flight, and how many people are working.

            With only a five hour layover, I would not leave the airport since there is too great of a chance that something goes wrong. For my family, it would be more relaxing to stay at the airport, have a nice breakfast and long lunch, and just explore. If you do decide to leave, I would figure out a few backup plan for getting back to the airport.

   2. The airport is not that close to the city, so I think the go-to answer would be no. Nevertheless, I think you could see something, if you research in order to have a plan with clear parameters. You can take the S-Bahn to Marienplatz in 30 min, see some of the famous buildings there and have an early lunch at the Viktualienmarkt, for example. I would plan to be on the train again at 12:30. That is the city center, mobbed with tourists. You could also choose another train or bus stop closer to the airport and have lunch at a restaurant nearby, if crowds are a turn-off. In either case, research with Googlemaps Streetview is advisable, since you don’t really have time to get lost. Have fun!

   3. No advice, but would love to hear a report on your trip when you get back!

   4. I’ve been stuck for way too long in traffic going to central Münich by taxi so I would be careful. They sometimes have installations at the airport court that might give you an opportunity to experience some local flavour without having to risk delays – Christmas markets, halloween or octoberfest markets – a little early for the latter, but they might have something else going on.

4. Please help me plan a weekend in Boston, driving in on Canadian Thanksgiving (October 12). Its our first visit and I am overwehalmed. I cant’t figure our the hotel/driving situation. Budget for hotel is roughly 200 a night so that puts us a good 15-17 km from downtown and everyone says not to drvie in town. Which area is within that budget and has good public transit to the nice parts and perhaps to Harvard? We will probably leave the hotel early in the morning and come back in tue evening to sleep.

   Speaking of which, what are the nice things to see? We are two adults and a 13 year old, will probably do one museum and like walking around interesting neighbourhoods, architecture, history (know almost nothing of American history, but open to learning more), nature and gardens, food and coffee. The teen likes to shop :) We will be there Saturday afternoon, Sunday, and Monday a.m. Is it worth spending some time to see the Harvard campus or something else outside of Boston itself?

   So many questions! Thanks to anyone who can help.

   1. I should add that’s 200 CAD so probably closer to 150 US!

   2. Look at yesterday’s morning thread and also walk around Beacon Hill and Back Bay for architecture (and shopping at the latter).

   3. Check out the recent Monday 8/26 thread for tons of advice about touring Boston. (The item featured is a striped dress.) There is lots of good advice there.

   4. You’ll probably need to revise your budget upward. That’s a holiday weekend – Columbus Day – and will not be inexpensive.

      There are hotels near the Commuter Rail, but at $15 per person per day for transit, or parking (as the Commuter Rail will run on a limited schedule over the weekend), you may as well just spend the extra money to be in downtown. And even those hotels are $200+ a night.

      The subway is cheaper – you’ll spend about $5 a day per person for a ride in and out of the city – but hotel options near it are more limited.

   5. If that’s your budget and you want access to Harvard / Downtown, consider looking at the southern end of the Red Line (Quincy, Braintree). That’s a really small budget for Boston and even more so when you factor in that you’ll be here over Columbus Day weekend. $150 USD is probably still too thin for even that far down the red line but you’ll be closer. Consider an airbnb maybe?

   6. For hotels, look for ones that have access to the MBTA (there are trains and subway lines that extend out into the suburbs).

   7. I’d go Airbnb with your budget

      1. Agree. I stayed in a studio in the north end for $100 a night through Air BNB.

   8. You can find a hotel in Revere for that price but it won’t be a nice area. The plus side is convenience to the Blue Line and airport.

   9. Thank you – that is really helpful. I had no idea it was a holiday weekend over in the US too!

      1. It isn’t a big holiday in Boston, honestly. The Head of the Charles regatta is the following weekend, and Boston will be waaaay more crowded for that. I think it’s a great time to visit. The weather in Boston is usually beautiful in October.

   10. I’d try the Holiday Inn Express in North Quincy. It is brand new and I think it’s around $175 – $200 or so per night (or at least it was the last time I looked). It’s not in the prettiest area but it is right across the street from the North Quincy T stop on the Red Line.

       1. I stayed at the Boston Marriott Quincy recently for business and it was very affordable and convenient. My business was actually in that office park so I didn’t need to venture into Boston. However, it looked like it was around a mile from the T stop on the redline and the hotel may have even had a shuttle. It was $160 and Monday – Tuesday of memorial day weekend. I can’t remember if that was before or after tax. Parking was also free for that night though $10/day otherwise I believe.

   11. I used to live near the University Hotel in Brighton that I think was around $147 American dollars per night, but it may have gone up and it also might be jacked up for the holiday weekend, especially if that weekend is also a visiting weekend for BU or BC, but look into it anyway because it’s right on the green line and very easy to get downtown that way. Or any other hotel that’s on the outskirts but near a T station, especially a T station with a parking lot (Alewife on the red line and Riverside on the green line come to mind). Maybe look to see if the commuter rail is still doing their $10 unlimited weekend fares this fall, if so that might open up options.

       If you were staying longer, I’d recommend staying in Reading, which puts you near a commuter rail but also places you not far from Salem, which is a fun day trip in the month of October.

       Harvard Square is kind of cool, bit touristy though and a lot of good places have closed recently, I also really like Davis on the red line, and Coolidge Corner over on the green line (C).

   12. Midwesterner who has been to Boston once, about 10 years ago. We stayed in Salem because I have a real love of that history and took the train into the city. We really liked that experience, but I don’t know what prices look like now.

       1. Salem hotel prices spike around October, because of the tourists who want to experience Halloween season there, so I wouldn’t recommend it to someone on a budget, especially if they’re not even looking to explore that area (OP is only gonna be here for 2ish days and seems more interested in the city than the surrounding area). When my friends came up to “do Salem” in October they got a hotel in Reading because it was cheaper.

          1. They got a hotel in Wakefield or Woburn. As far as I know, Reading does not have any hotels.

             1. Reading resident, here. No hotels. None in Wakefield I’d recommend (Clarion Inn or whatever it’s called now is a hot mess). Consider MarketStreet Lynnfield or Woburn. With OP’s goals, I don’t think any of those fit though.

             2. I’ve heard “eh” things about the Sheraton in Wakefield. My recommendation would be the Fairfield Inn in Woburn, if you want to stay in that area. Easy enough for the OP to drive to Anderson, or into Boston.

             3. Oh gosh, I’m sorry, I must be remembering wrong. Maybe it was close to Reading and that’s just where I got the train, it was a while ago. I didn’t mean to spread false information, but I should know better than to speak on a topic I know nothing about.

             4. There are several current or former Reading-ites on this board. The lack of hotels was actually an issue in the ’90s and early ’00s, when the town had almost no commercial tax base (and therefore, property taxes that were through the roof relative to the town’s affluence or lack thereof).

   13. The Inn at Brookline on Beacon Street in Brookline
       (formerly a Holiday Inn) is $214/night for that weekend. It is right on the Green Line and extremely convenient. Parking attached and not a hard drive to get there. Not a glamorous hotel, but perfectly fine.

       1. OP here – thank you all! Extremely appreciate the specific suggestions for hotels + transport option to go with them, this was exactly where I was stumbling. A few good options, will check out with SO tonight.

   14. We did almost exactly that trip last fall, just with slightly younger kids. It will be a great weekend.
       Couldn’t be happier with the La Quinta in Somerville, at Assembly Row–I stay there often for business and recommend it widely. It’s not fancy, but it’s very clean and quiet and includes a nice hot breakfast and parking (what would those cost you elsewhere?). Ask about AAA/CAA or corporate (Partners Health Care?) rates. Assembly Row has a LOT of shops and restaurants–it’s high-end outlets (Off 5th, Ann Taylor Loft, etc.). There’s also a Trader Joe’s and there will be a fridge/micro in your La Quinta room, if you want a casual meal. There is also a Red Line T stop there–super convenient to the “central” attractions.
       For activities, we had a blast at the Tea Party Museum. The Aquarium was very nice. A Freedom Trail walking tour (through the official source) was excellent, and we wrapped that up at Faneuil Hall–tons of food stands and kitschy shopping, plus a Uniqlo. The Boston Public Market was a nice surprise find. We did the hop-on, hop-off bus which included wax museum and some sort of statehouse museum admissions that each turned out to be fun hour-visit places. Unless you’re REALLY into seeing Harvard for itself, I would probably stay in Boston proper, since you won’t be there long.
       Good luck and have fun!

   15. I have the perfect hotel choice for you: Holiday Inn in Somerville – their website calls them “near Bunker Hill.” It’s a longish walk to the Orange Line where you can go three stops to the tourist areas and is on a bus line. It’s also a cheap Uber/Lyft ride on surface streets to Boston and Cambridge. Somerville doesn’t charge the convention tax that Boston does, so its extra affordable. The hotel has a large indoor pool and mini basketball court — and free parking.

5. Random laundry question. I let a gross batch of laundry sit a while before washing and now it went moldy. I’m fine with tossing most of it but there’s a sentimental item inside. Anything I can do to save it? I washed it twice without any luck, but didn’t put it in the dryer so hoping to figure something out. TIA!

   1. Your two options are to soak it in a mixture of water and tea tree oil for a while and see if that does it (tea tree oil kills mold) or leave it out in the sun (also kills mold) and then see. Neither are foolproof.

   2. Line dry outdoors?

   3. Pretreat any actual mold spots with straight white vinegar and a toothbrush (flick, don’t rub). Then soak it in a bucket with diluted white vinegar (1:4 ratio) and the hottest water the fabric can tolerate. Rinse by hand, let line dry, and examine. If smell or stains are still there, try the same thing with baking soda, but test a corner for color-fastness first.

   4. Also try vinegar and sunshine. It worked when I did the same with my good sports bra in college – I was more than a little surprised that it actually worked.

   5. Are you in the south? Is it sunny? Can you park your car in a sunny place and leave your laundry in there? Should be like autoclaving your clothes.

   6. I’d also add ammonia to the wash and halve the laundry detergent and use washing soda instead. Washing soda + ammonia + vinegar + detergent will kill just about any gross funk. I use it on my husband’s cross fit arm wraps.

   7. I always do a vinegar soak after I’ve done that and my clothes come out perfectly normal. I let the washer fill all the way, add about half a cup of white vinegar, and throw the clothes in, let them soak for about an hour, then throw soap in and let the washer continue running.
      If there is actual mold on the clothing, I don’t know that I’d want to wear it again, I’ve only done the above with clothes with a slightly moldly/dank smell after a couple days in the washer.

   8. Depending on what the fabric is, diluted white vinegar might work. If it’s that stubborn, I’d probably do a soak before washing again rather than just adding it to your washing machine.

   9. I’ve had luck with OUT ProWash Workwear Odor Eliminator Detergent when gentler methods (vinegar and sunshine) fail.

   10. Agree with the white vinegar suggestion. I’ll run the normal wash cycle using white vinegar in place of laundry detergent. I then run the laundry a second time using regular laundry detergent. Works every time!

   11. My only comment is to actually call the hotel when you book. You get a much cheaper price. We are going to Chicago and shopped online like crazy and found the cheapest price for our hotel online at around $180-250. When I actually called the hotel directly they gave it to me for $130/night. I had no idea I should be calling directly!

6. My husband and I would like to go to Europe over Thanksgiving week this year and we’d love to hit up Christmas markets in Austria or Germany. Has anyone been to Salzburg or Vienna at that time of year and if so, would you recommend it (or Budapest)? My only hesitation is that things might be closed or the shorter days will be a challenge. Any tips on specific things to do or places to stay would be welcome (we prefer smaller, older hotels to save money/experience the charm and are more comfortable in pubs or cozy restaurants as opposed to trendy ones).

   1. My family went to Vienna just before New Years and I thought it was really beautiful and charming in the winter. It might be quite a nice intimate holiday – I’d pick a hotel with a nice bar or lounge or a bigger seating area in the room in case you want to have a quieter evening / it’s cold. But it shouldn’t be awfully cold at that time of year.

   2. I went to Vienna (and Prague) for Thanksgiving last year and it was cold and damp but fine! And the Christmas markets in Vienna were open and wonderful. I like cities for winter vacations because the short days don’t matter as much, and the Christmas lights definitely help with that too.

   3. I’m going to Vienna the first weekend of December this year – it will be my third trip in 13 months, with the last two being November and March. It’s a really gorgeous city. To me the days aren’t noticeably short, because I’m coming from Scotland where they’re even shorter!

      Personally I won’t go to Budapest at the moment because of what their government is doing, but that’s a consequence of having studied that quite deeply at university. If I wasn’t so aware of it I’d probably go quite happily – but I do have friends who used to study at CEU in Budapest and have all moved to Vienna so it’s something I can’t easily ignore.

      A much smaller city is Konstanz, Germany (you’d fly to Zurich). It does Christmas markets gorgeously.

      1. It’s true! After 8 years in Scotland, I forget that not everyone goes to work in the dark and comes home in the dark.

         1. That is what I most remember about my years in Aberdeen – get up and go to class in the dark and come out into the dark again. But the summers….that makes up for it.

      2. Vienna is definitely a little gray and cold at that time of year, but the Christmas market makes up for it! We went to Salzburg in the first week in December when I was in school and I remember it being bitter cold and that I was stupidly wearing sneakers on very cold cobblestones. Still gorgeous, though. If you go to Salzburg, definitely go to the store that has ornaments made from blown eggs. I bought a carton of them and managed to get them home safely. They are some of my most treasured ornaments. I still have wooden angels and an enameled metal Santa from the Salzburg Christmas market in 1984.

   4. I was in Salzburg for Christmas last year. You should be fine Thanksgiving week – remember, it’s not a holiday there so stuff won’t be closed, although you should check when the markets open for the season. The Salzburg Christmas market was lovely and I really enjoyed the city. We stayed at the Auersperg, which is across the river from the historic city – it was about a 10-minute walk and you gained a lot in affordability and space. It was also close to the Kapuzinerberg which was great for walks and views.

      It does get dark super early but people are used to it; the city was lovely at night. The walk up to Salzburg castle was lit and we really enjoyed walking up and looking out over the city.

   5. I was in Vienna in early December 2017 – the Christmas markets were all great, but each one had a different spin / set of vendors / signature mugs.

      For hotels, if you are a Marriott Silver (or higher), I recommend the Renaissance Imperial Riding School hotel (https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/viese-imperial-riding-school-renaissance-vienna-hotel/). Close to tram and subway, walkable to almost anywhere. And there is a lounge available to Silver+ members with free breakfast, afternoon tea, evening snacks, and desserts. Wine, soda, coffee, juices – great food and lots of it and definitely worth the room rates.

   6. I don’t know anything about that time of year or Christmas markets, but I have been in a lot of cities and Budapest was absolutely the coolest. Make sure to eat some langos if you go there. We stayed at the Aria and it was divine.

      1. Oh, and we did two private tours with Melinda K from Tours By Locals dot com and she was great.

   7. we did the christmas markets in vienna in 2012 and it was great. there are bunch around the city and my favorite was the one at the palace and near the horse arena because they were both more artist-based and less tchotckes/industrial vendors.

      paris has a few but the ones in Vienna were great.

7. What do parents think about the article “Desegregation Plan: Eliminate All Gifted Programs in New York” in the NYT (from yesterday?)

   I’d like to study this a bit more since it’s such a complex issue, but my initial thought is that middle-class parents will decamp to the suburbs (if they’re not already doing so to pursue lower housing prices) and low-income Asians will pursue scholarships/financial aid to private schools rather than stay in a public school system with no gifted track. I wonder if it would make more sense to target resources at lower-performing schools to help all students and then also add gifted programs at those schools that traditionally haven’t had access to them. However, it seems absurd to have the gifted track start in kindergarten – I had no idea that was happening and with a standardized test to boot. It seems like most can agree that that should go.

   1. Well yes, this is what it would take to desegregate the schools. No need for you personally to study it, it has been studied extensively. White people dont want desegregation or we’d have it.

      1. So you’re saying you think it would work with no adverse consequences? Obviously it’s a positive-sounding gesture but my concern is that it won’t work in the long term. Those concerns are also addressed in the article.

         1. I guess it depends on whether you think using public money to support segregation is good or not

            1. You’re not posting in good faith.

            2. I absolutely am. I think using tax money to pay for segregation because otherwise white parents will leave/complain is a) unconstitutional and b) morally repugnant.

            3. I mean, at the end of the day, it IS using public money to support segregation. I’m not sure why someone would think Anonymous is not posting in good faith when what she is saying is true.

   2. I doubt middle class parents will decamp to the suburbs. There’s a weird generation gap happening,at least from my perspective. Folks with young kids who can afford to stay in the city and the boroughs have little inclination to move out here. That’s true for a variety of cultural reasons, coupled with work demands plus an aging infrastructure that make commuting more painful than ever. I really don’t think the reshuffling of an already very different to navigate public school system would change that.

      1. See far below — it looks like they have already abandoned the city schools.

         1. ? We’re talking about the families currently in the system. In fact, a poster below echoes my point regarding her commute.

   3. I do not know enough about this issue, but I do think that there should be gifted programs so that kids with the most potential get to test that with challenging programs, rather then just go to normal schools where they will do well, but not be challenged. At the same time, the “less gifted” should not just be stuck to languish in $hitty schools; those schools should get rid of the lazy and bad teachers and replace them with others willing to educate, rather than sit on their a$$es to collect a NYC school teacher’s salary (which Dad says is a lot of money) PLUS a pension, which gives them alot of money after doing little on the job. Dad does NOT agree with DiBlazio’s people who want to discriminate against the Asians who are clearly entitled by virtue of their studying to excel in schools just to achieve parity. He says that when I went to public school on LI, there was no separate schools, and there were a few students who were even smarter then me, and some others less so. but we all learned, and the class valadectorian went to a top school (Yale), and I went to GW (more middle of the road). If I were more gifted, mabye I could have gone to Harvard or Yale, but looking back, I really just wanted to please Dad and get a job afterward if I did not get married like my freinds.

      I think at the end of the day, what is important is NOT where you do go, but what you do when you go where you do go. I did get a good education in public school on LI, and then at GW, where I was VERY diligent, tho not @ the Mensa level. I then continued to apply myself after law school, working VERY hard at work, avoiding men who wanted to impregnate me, and then getting my jobs, where I continue to be motivated to suceed. I think if other young men and women in school followed my path, they could also suceed, and we would NOT have to debate these articles in the press. FOOEY!

   4. Also-only SEVEN black kids got into Stuyvesant?! Did I read that right? That’s just a crazy indication of a broken system.

      1. Agreed. As an identified-gifted kid in the 80s and 90s, and a parent of a gifted elementary school now (testing in K where we live), to me this means that “gifted” equates with “zip code” or “income level” or “voting precinct” or whatever you want to call it… yes, maybe even “race”. What does “gifted” even mean in this situation and why isn’t it allowing all such students to be identified and supported. Terribly sad.

      2. Stuy alumna here, many years ago. There were maybe 3-4 black students in my graduating class, all immigrants or first generation. About 80% of the Stuy population was immigrant and first generation – I knew very few people who spoke English at home.

         I am now a parent of a kid in public school in an outer borough in NYC and most people I know do not send their kids to G&T because it is so hard to get into as there are insufficient slots for the kids who test well. I’m therefore indifferent on getting rid of it – I think it’s a good headline but won’t make a huge difference for the vast majority of schools. I’m 1000% for desegregating public schools and selected my neighborhood and zoned schools in part because it has a relatively large amount of economic diversity, and a large immigrant population from several different continents.

   5. I was identified as gifted in kindergarten in the late 1980s after taking a standardized test (essentially an IQ test I think). I don’t think that’s anything new (wasn’t sure if you were implying it was new, but just pointing that out).

      1. +1 – for me in the early 80s in the DC suburbs

         1. +2 in the late 80s in the DMV.

      2. Same. Rural public school in PA (just mentioning in case anyone thinks it’s a city/suburb thing only).

      3. +3, in first grade in the suburbs of the OC.

      4. +1 in the early 90s in rural Alabama

      5. +1 in the early 90s in rural Tennessee

   6. This whole thing is incredibly ironic to me. In LA, where I grew up, the primary purpose of the gifted program is desegregation. The gifted magnets have racial quotas (>=70% nonwhite) and exist only to entice people to have their kids bused.

      1. Is that legal?

         My city has census tract quotas for high – middle – low earners (which largely follow race, but less so in a SEUS city that is increasingly Spanish-speaking and asian in addition to just historically black and white). Housing patterns are also changing rapidly, due to growth accelerating gentrification and changing the race-income-family status mix in many city neighborhoods. Suburbs are much more mixed (although still segregated by income in many areas), except around golf courses, where there are fewer children due to the age of many homeowners living there.

      2. I wish more cities would do this. The only other city I know with anything like that is Chicago, which has quotas based on neighborhoods (maybe census tracts?).

         1. I believe census track is used in Chicago, though I’m not sure if it is used in the same way as in LA.

   7. I doubt getting rid of gifted programs will result in desegregation. I think parents will try to get their kids in to the schools that are considered good/acceptable, which sadly largely tracks with race. Some will succeed, and stay in NYC. Others will not, and will move out to the suburbs before sending their kids to a school they do not find acceptable.

      FYIW, I’m basing my predictions on the the DC public schools, which basically don’t have a gifted track. DC has a few very limited gifted options for high school, but that’s it. Also, in DC, about 50% of the students go to charter schools, which can’t have any admission criteria.

      In DC, we have effectively ended up with two classes of schools in the view of middle-class parents (of all races): those that are good/acceptable and those where they would never send their kids. Unless you have $$$$ and can afford the $1+ million dollar homes with good neighborhood schools, parents spend a few years trying to luck out and lottery in to a good school (basically get in to a good charter or get in to a good school that is not their neighborhood school). If they don’t succeed, everyone I know has moved out to the suburbs by the middle of elementary school. I don’t know any middle-class parents who stay in DC and send their kids to failing schools, and I doubt that would happen in NYC.

      1. Right – the solution is to improve the schools in the city, not make them worse.

         1. That’s nice, but actual the research all shows that it is incorrect. Dating back to the 1950s, you cannot make segregated schools equal. You must integrate.

            1. Have you actually read the report? It is based on one study of a predominantly white Long Island school in the 80s that poured endless resources into detracking. Not saying that they’re not on to something but before you explode the system you need to actually have a plan in place.

         2. Well if you took the money currently spent on gifted programs and used it to make “bad” schools better you could make things more equal across the board. Currently a small group of families/kids that look a certain way are benefitting from everyone’s tax dollars.

            1. As long as you have neighborhood schools, that just doesn’t work. If you have a school were almost everyone lives in poverty, deals with violence in their neighborhood, and has an unsettled home life, no amount of money is going to fix that.

               If we truly wanted to improve schools, we would get rid of school systems based on cities/subrubs and neighborhood schools. If you took all the kids in an urban area and divided them between all the schools in the urban area randomly, we would get rid of the truly great schools that are a result of being in a very rich suburb and the truly bad schools. Every school would be more diverse, and every kid would be provided an equal opportunity. But I’ve never heard anyone really advocate for that type of busing in the current era.

            2. In NYC anyway, a lot of public schools in affluent areas use private funds (parent donations) to do everything from hire more teachers to pay for school improvements. Schools that serve less affluent populations actually get more city funding (tax dollars) per student. Elementary gifted programs are typically individual classes within neighborhood schools and are not necessarily located in affluent areas; I don’t think they are a real drain on resources.

            3. I agree with you.

               But I hate commuting — I don’t think I’d put my kids through a commute in my city for schools, esp. for 13 years. I tolerate commuting, but I have a job and get paid. I have to drive a lot in the summer for camps and it makes me so happy when school starts back up.

               A couple of miles here could take an hour each way.

   8. If the purpose of the gifted program is to meet the special learning needs of gifted students, it absolutely needs to start in kindergarten. NYC’s gifted program is totally messed up and needs to be restructured so it actually reaches all of the gifted kids and isn’t just a way for rich parents to get their bright-but-not-actually-gifted kids into better schools, but that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be a gifted program at all.

      1. Gifted students can’t be reliably identified that early. There should be differentiation for all students in K, but precocious kids aren’t necessarily gifted, so it shouldn’t feed into a long-term tracking system. Gifted identification should take place in 2nd or 3rd grade.

         1. Can you explain more about why not? My understanding is that gifted when used correctly is just a synonym for very high IQ which should be essentially set from birth right? I think some people use it as a synonym for precocious, but those people are misguided.

            1. If you seriously don’t know that IQ tests are flawed and racist, then you need to do some learning.

            2. The problem is that it’s basically impossible to measure giftedness that early (as opposed to precociousness). Almost all tests before 7 or 8 will select more for rate of development (as opposed to long-term IQ), willingness to cooperate with testing procedures, or academic preparedness. The last, in particular, is likely to promote inequality, because it disadvantages ESL students, poor students, students whose parents have low academic achievement, etc.

               FWIW, I’ve seen this play out first hand. My kid had to do a K screening because she was born right near the cut-off. We were advised to redshirt her, based on her scores on a standardized test. She would definitely not have met any cut-offs for giftedess. We decided to send her anyway. In 2nd we did the CTY screening test and she easily qualified.

            3. I didn’t come across as much more than above average until third grade. Hit the 99.98th percentile on the LSAT and was able to skip graduate-level mathematics courses.

            4. Agree with Sarabeth. My kid will be eligible for NYC G&T test this year. I obviously think my kid is the most brilliant human who ever walked this earth, but how she performs on the G&T test will be 50% of where on the cooperative-defiant scale she is that day and 50% the preparation from her paid preschool-daycare. AKA a combo of luck and socieoeconomic status. I’m not sure if I’m even going to test her, or send her to G&T if she does get in (less convenient than her local school), but I’m not putting a whole lot of stock in the result of these tests at this age.

            5. “Gifted” doesn’t necessarily mean “high IQ” although it has been used that way. IQ tests are very poor instruments for measuring anything but one or two narrow types of intelligence and as someone else said, they are biased against females, people of color and people of lower socioeconomic status.
               I was tested and labeled as “gifted” in the mid-1980s as was my husband. “Gifted” is a label. Like all labels there are positive aspects and negative aspects. My experience was mostly negative. The label set me apart from my peers and made me the “other” in my peer group, while offering me very little in terms of enrichment or benefit. We have never had our son tested because of this, despite teachers suggesting we do so. When I asked what he would receive as a result of being labeled as “gifted” the answers weren’t reassuring. I was not at all convinced the rewards were going to be worth him having to deal with the label. Also, we are affluent white graduate-educated parents and so we can provide near-endless enrichment activities for our son on our own time, and on our own dime. We don’t need the school system to spend tax dollars to do that for us.
               Anecdata: I was in a “gifted and talented” group in high school with 7 other kids. Of the 8 of us, 25 years later, four are dead (suicide, suicide, drug overdose, stress-induced heart attack after he was indicted on child molestation charges). My best friend, who never tested into the “gifted and talented” program, is a VP of a Fortune 500 corporation. If anyone thinks that getting their kid slapped with the “gifted” label is going to help them succeed in life, I think some critical examination of that belief is in order.

            6. That anecdata about all the suicides is surprising to me. It sounds like maybe your school’s gifted & talented program wasn’t very good or put undue pressure on kids. I was identified as gifted in elementary school and participated in a pull-out program until 7th grade when I was able to go into honors classes and advanced math. I wasn’t a social butterfly, but I don’t think the gifted program hurt me socially, if anything it was nice to have regular interaction with the other nerds, and there were some community-wide events where all the gifted kids across schools got to meet. I remember really enjoying some of the projects we did – like science fair-type things that were more open-ended and long-term than the work kids that age typically do. It wasn’t like we were sitting down and doing calculus drills, it was very age-appropriate while allowing for more creativity and in-depth learning than you ordinarily get. I loved learning at that age and the gifted program fostered that and definitely didn’t suppress it. Being labeled gifted also made me eligible for summer programs and camps at the local university and those were wonderful for me, both academically and socially.
               I don’t know that the “gifted” kids are more successful career-wise (but I think it’s widely known that academic success doesn’t translate to career success) and I certainly can’t think of anyone in the program who committed suicide or had a dr*g problem.

            7. In my area (suburb in MCOL area), the testing for “gifted” students starts at 3 years old, for pre-K. The test is 15 minutes long, performed by a school psychologist that none (or almost none) of the kids have ever met before. I’ve heard that it tests pattern recognition, pencil-holding technique, and some letter/number recognition. The school system is secretive about what’s on it because they don’t want parents to prepare the kids–but my observation is that that has led to a cottage industry of “insider” tutors for 3-year-olds, which may actually decrease the diversity. Even if a kid scores high enough to meet the cut-off, there is no guarantee that the kid will be accepted because there are not enough spots.

               I toured one of the gifted elementary schools last year. It was not all white, but there were few African-American students, despite there being a proportionate-for-our-area number of African-American parents on the tour.

               I am not surprised, but my kid did not test as “gifted.” He was 3 in an unfamiliar environment. He’s the polite, difficult kid, so he screamed “NO THANK YOU, NO THANK YOU” on the way into the school and clung to me when it was time for him to go to the classroom with the psychologist. I have serious doubts that he cooperated with the test taker. Also, he cannot hold a pencil properly (working on it with an OT) and didn’t know all his numbers yet. The next real chance in our area to get into a “gifted” school is 6th grade–after pre-K, the “gifted” elementary schools only have 1-2 openings per year.

         2. And to add – I mean that first screenings should take place in 2nd or 3rd. There should be ongoing screening and multiple pathways to identification. A single standardized-test screening is not best practice.

            1. I believe the test is offered annually for anyone interested, but a lot fewer spots for older students are available within gifted programs – basically someone has to leave. When you start in K, there are spots for a whole class, most of whom then stay in the program through 5th grade.

         3. Some gifted kids can be identified early. My exceptionally gifted child was identified at age 4. You have to use an actual IQ test, not a standardized test. That’s the problem with public school gifted programs–they use screening tests for diagnosis.

            1. Even those IQ tests aren’t reliable enough to build a program around at that age. They are better than random, and do work for some kids (like your daughter). But they are still really not suitable as the primary mechanism for identifying giftedness in a school system. Test compliance is a big problem at that age.

            2. IQ tests are the best we have, though. There should be a gifted program for kids in K who obviously need it. Then keep adding classes as more kids get identified at older ages. There also need to be separate programs for highly/exceptionally gifted kids and gifted kids. An exceptionally gifted child is as different from a gifted child as a gifted child is from the median child, and has different needs.

            3. IQ tests *are * standardized tests.

         4. Agreed. Often kids who identify “gifted” in K even out by 3rd. At that age, it’s tracking more where they are developmentally. By 2nd/3rd, it’s actually identifying giftedness. Just anecdata, but my son tests very, very, very high on those tests (currently in middle school) and didn’t test as gifted at all in K. What happens is you end up with kids in the gifted services for the duration of their school career who are bright and were somewhat advanced in K, but are not actually gifted.

            1. I think it’s definitely true that some gifted kids (probably especially boys and under-represented minorities) don’t get picked up in K and would get picked up on a later test. But do you really have evidence of the opposite, that kids that test gifted in K are actually not gifted? I don’t see what harm it does to identify some kids early as long as you’re saving some spots for those that are identified later. Full disclosure, I was identified as gifted in K and benefited tremendously from my gifted program, which pulled me out of my normal class a few times a week. The kids that were identified in K all continued to excel in the gifted program and were all very accelerated by high school.

            2. Yes, it’s actually reasonably common in school districts my kids have been in to identify as gifted on an early test and then not on subsequent tests. (Not a huge percentage, but definitely a thing.) The policy in the districts my kids have been in is that once a child is identified gifted, they get services throughout the service period (usually through 8th grade). That said, I agree that there is no harm, at least as the system is implemented in our districts, because if a child is identified later they automatically begin receiving services. That said, it does create a core group early, and later kids who come in (who may actually score higher on the tests) feel “less” than their peers. I definitely don’t think that warrants kicking kids out, but it makes me prefer our new district, which does not test and begin providing services until 2nd grade.

               Our first district provided services by having the gifted kids go to gifted class during the “intervention” period when there was no regular classroom instruction (ESL and kids who needed more help also had classes during this time, and they used it for more differentiated education for the kids in the middle of the bell curve). Our new district subs gifted ELA and math classes every day for the gifted kids. I do find all of these have been very beneficial for my gifted child.

            3. I wasn’t identified as gifted in early elementary, and really, truly enjoyed breaking all the academic curves and getting much, much better grades in high school than the kids who were identified as gifted as elementary students. Some of them were just plain nasty to the “dumb kids” throughout elementary and middle school, so it was particularly sweet to my very judicious and kind 17yo self (/sarcasm).

               Petty? Yes. Also felt terrific.

            4. I support petty, and my personal story is similar. I wasn’t identified until 6th grade (to receive services in 7th). For what it’s worth, for me, it was really game-changing. It was like they told me I was supposed to be smart, so I started performing to that level. The actual gifted services for the two years I got it were nothing, but that label shook me up and made me push myself to succeed.

               I know it definitely does not work that way for everyone and for some kids can be really anxiety-provoking.

         5. A kindergartner who is just precocious still deserves to be challenged at school.

            1. I guess I don’t see any good reason why we would ever rely on “tracking” and not meeting students where they are developmentally. Even in cases of the same diagnosed LD, developmental timelines can vary so widely.

            2. I mean, yeah, but that doesn’t mean that they are “gifted” and should be serviced as such. Giftedness is more than intelligence. It’s really correlated with some difficult personality traits. In addition to my “gifted” son, I have a daughter who is at the high end of the neurotypical bell curve (routinely misses the “gifted” cutoff by 1-2 points). In a lot of ways, she has it easier than my “gifted” son.

               That said, she absolutely should get challenging coursework at school and not be limited to what the kids at the low end of the “normal” bell curve can do. But differentiated coursework is not the same as gifted services. Or should not be.

            3. Sure! But there is a huuuuge range of normal development for kindergarteners. Any K class needs to have loads of differentiation, if only because some kids come in from super-academic preKs, and some kids have never been in a structured environment before. You can meet kids where they are – precocious, gifted, average, late-blooming, whatever – without feeding kids into a tracking program that will last through the rest of elementary school or even beyond.

      2. Amen! NYC public school parent here. The gifted programs are supposed to educate kids who are not neurotypical. My neurotypical kids don’t really belong in the program — and they are not because in most of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, you need to test in 99th percentile and mine do not because I haven’t spend thousands of dollars on tutoring to get them prepped. But we are in one of those high-achievement majority white/asian elementary schools. Because even though I support having my kids go to an integrated school, I don’t want mine to be the ones to receive the subpar education during the rocky years before a school is improved via integration. Why should I take a risk on my kids being harmed for the possibility that the greater good will be served in 5+ years? Cast stones at me for that, but perhaps not if you’re sitting in a lily white suburb (or if you don’t have kids whose educations you are responsible for).
         One fact though – my high achievement school has a gifted program and it’s because of that gifted program that the gen ed program has improved over the past 10 years. DOE will likely get rid of the gifted program in the school over the next 5 years and I doubt anyone will protest.

         1. This. Can’t blame ANY parent of ANY race or income or inclination who wants to do what’s ‘best’ for their child.

   9. When 15% of NY public school students are white and 15% are Asian, I think “desegregation” is a distraction from other failings in the public school system.

      1. That’s true overall but within individual schools, the stats are wildly different and definitely segregated. The system itself includes more students than the population of 8 states.

      2. Wow — I think that people have already voted with their feet. This is pretty telling re how people regard the quality of these schools. Totally damning.

         My SEUS combined city-county school system is supposed to be good (there are days I am a hater, but we haven’t left it yet). By these stats, it is stellar and amazing.

         1. I think you’re off base here. Segregation is still a problem if the most prestigious public high school only admits SEVEN black kids. In fact, it’s especially problematic if the white kids are a numerical minority, yet are securing the majority of spots at the elite schools.

            1. Just to correct you on that – Stuyvesant is currently around 70% Asian. It’s absolutely true that black and Hispanic students are getting very few spots in these schools, but it’s inaccurate to say that it’s because white kids are.

               The situation is much more complex, and includes huge numbers of after school test prep centers that many Asian families choose to send their kids to in order to specifically prepare them for the exam. So it’s not entirely a reflection of the quality of the elementary and middle schools – of course kids who did not explicitly prepare for the exam are going to do worse than the kids who did. Even kids who are very smart and talented have very little chance of getting in without serious test prep. This is obviously a problem, but it’s a different problem than quality of elementary and middle schools.

            2. Thanks. Point taken, I stand corrected.

               I still think it’s a problem that black and Hispanic students are proportionally under represented at the elite schools. However, I get that Asian Americans are also a racial minority, and stand to lose opportunity at this proposal given the statistics.

               What I don’t get, is the argument that because nyc schools only have 15% white and 15% Asian kids that these disparities do not matter.

   10. I’m interested and not sure what I think. I live in Brooklyn, my husband teaches at one of the specialized high schools, our son goes to public school, and I benefited from gifted classes/schools (in other parts of the country). It’s hard for me to separate my personal experience – gifted school was really good for me – to NYC’s situation today. Real estate costs and segregation are deeply entwined in NYC; we paid a real premium to stay in a desirable district. Our son tested high enough to go to a district gifted program (and no, we didn’t pay for test prep or really prep him at all) but we opted to try our zoned school, which is generally considered “good.” But I’m worried he’ll get bored at some point and start having behavior problems, and it is harder to get a spot in a gifted program after kindergarten. On the other hand,our school is less diverse than it could be. There are a fair number of South Asian and Latinx immigrants, but few Black kids. A few blocks east of us, there are a lot more Black and Caribbean families, and the schools reflect that. We live on the edge of District 15, which is trying a new plan to increase diversity in middle schools that seems to be working, so we will likely be part of that experiment. My understanding is that they basically eliminated geographic restrictions within the district for middle schools – there are no zones for D15 middle schools. One downside of this is your child could be commuting across a large chunk of Brooklyn to get to middle school on public transit, and this would be impossible for elementary school – middle schoolers can commute alone (gulp) but the younger kids can’t, so they’d have to dramatically expand busing (currently very rare). I definitely agree that something needs to be done. DeBlasio a has a pretty limited amount of time left in office to make sweeping changes, and limited power to do anything about the specialized high schools.

   11. I haven’t read through all the responses, but I don’t understand why every school doesn’t have an AP or IB track within it, and have specialty schools by special interest rather than academics. Wouldn’t this solve the problem of gifted schools creating very homogenous student populations?

       1. In my city, in some schools, there aren’t enough prepared students to justify spending $ for a math teacher for AB/BC Calc (4 kids?) when they can easily have 200 kids needing remedial math. And if you roll the clock back, in middle school, many schools don’t teach pre-algebra b/c there aren’t enough kids ready for it. The few that are just stagnate or are told to go to a magnet (lottery, weird start times, long bus rides) in the center city. It works, but not for every kid and you need parental buy-in, which not every kid has at home.

       2. Because that only works in high school, so you have to figure out a plan for the 9 years before that — unless you think there’s an AP social studies where your 4th grader can study Christopher Columbus.

       3. IB and AP are not the same thing as gifted education. Gifted students need to be taught in a different style beginning in kindergarten to meet their special learning needs. IB and AP are just accelerated classes that are appropriate for neurotypical learners.

          1. That may be true in theory, but that’s not how it works. The gifted kids seem to be the only ones who master the material in large undifferentiated public schools, so they filter into those classes (esp, AP). In our city, the gifted magnets do the IB program (which is not how the rest of the world does it). So it is a proxy for gifted. The teachers tend to be more stable and more senior. And they get the kids who are ready for the material.

             The rest . . . seem to be at a semi-remedial level. I tutor them in math and it is shocking to me how much behind the elementary school kids are at even “good” schools. I can’t imagine how it is at a “bad” school.

             1. I think two things are getting mixed together here. Bright or high-achieving students, who are what most gifted programs are designed to serve. And gifted students (who are not neurotypical and are the type you hear about going to college in their early teens), who are rare and no program is designed to serve them. In most school systems, I don’t there there are enough gifted students to warrant a whole other class/school.

             2. But if you’re talking about kids that are so gifted they need to go to college at age 12, that’s probably like .001% or less of the population. There won’t be enough kids to have a program in any one school district. Gifted programs are intended to serve the brightest 2-5% of kids – in most school districts, that includes a lot of kids who are very smart and are not challenged by normal classroom work, but don’t need to go to college before they go through puberty.
                I went to MIT, I think only 1 or 2% of my class was younger than 17 when we started. And you’re talking about a population where everyone is very bright, top 5% of their high school class, significantly accelerated in math, etc.

             3. +1 to Anon at 11:33, this is exactly how the AP/IB program at my magnet high school worked. Almost all of the kids in it came in through feeder elementary/jr high schools, and most of those schools had GATE programs that the kids had participated in.

             4. I would guess that most colleges are measurably less academically rigorous than the kind of high school that can get you into MIT, let alone MIT itself.

                It’s okay to have a conversation about the top schools, but I would guess that plenty of kids could be taking college courses at age 12 if we’re talking about an average college.

   12. Call me crazy but my interest is in my family and yes I want them in better schools which let’s be honest means white + Asian. I have no interest in having them around kids from the hood and picking up their attitudes, behaviors, and aversion to academics. Were that to happen — it’d be private school or suburbs starting that year. Sorry there are societal problems but I don’t see them as my problem.

       1. Kat, surely this level of racism is over the line?

          1. Everyone else gets stuck in m*d for ages but that makes it through no problem. I think she’s totally checked out of the comments section, unfortunately.

             1. Someone last week made the statement that the comment system is “basically unmoderated” and my immediate thought was, no, everything goes into mod all the time! But then I reconsidered and realized – yes, while things get stuck behind the “moderation” filter, actually nothing is really moderated. Apparently there are no posts that are so offensive they won’t be cleared through moderation. I think the “moderation” is actually just for spam. Otherwise, how can you explain the post above?
                I’ve been reading here a long time and over the years Kat has been implored to fix the comment system many times, and many long-time readers/frequent posters left because she refused to. She could implement Disqus or another plugin; she could add registration (people could still use burner addresses to comment anonymously); there’s lots she can do. Whatever she’s doing is working for her financially, obviously, so she’ll continue to do it. As long as she gets clicks, it doesn’t appear to matter what people post. I wonder if she actually even reads the comment threads anymore.

             2. Kat has said there are plenty of offensive posts that don’t make it through m0d. Just because some very offensive comments get through doesn’t mean there aren’t worse comments that are denied.

       2. Yeah, this is really gross and unacceptable on this site. Please don’t let it stand.

       3. Shame on you.

       4. OK, Ivanka, you’re crazy. And racist.

          1. “Ivanka”…lolololol. I can actually totally see Ivanka being a reader here.

       5. Thank you for the reminder that there are people all around us who hold such disgusting, racist views, but don’t share them except in places where they feel safe to do so and that they will act on those views given the leeway to do so. White folks, take note… this is more common than we want to admit. See also, the 2016 election.

          1. Agree with this. It made me really sad to read this on this site, but it’s good to be reminded that so many people hold these views even when they are not openly airing them. So much of what we have to work against is this.

       6. Please remove this. It’s gross, racist, and only serves to degrade the discussion.

          1. I think it is gross and racist but probably the true beliefs of the person who responded. When that’s what you are up against trying to force change, those opinions have to be considered. How do we get the racists on board is a very real issue, particularly when those racists are powerful people with money and privilege.

       7. I think this is the stock market bridge-dweller. Who actually might be Ivanka, come to think of it.

          1. Ivanka also likes a good collared shirt…

       8. LOL “the hood”

   13. I think part of the issue is that a lot of the “worst” schools are really, really bad when it comes to test scores. It’s hard to blame middle-class and higher parents for not wanting their kids to be in a school where 20% (or a lot less) of the student body is “proficient” (not the highest bar) in math or reading. It’s overly simplistic to say that parents who steer their kids away from those schools are just racist/not interested in integration – I think we’d be seeing a lot different results if the schools were only apart on scores by 10-15 percentage points.

       1. There are some schools so bad that I would homeschool my kids before sending them there (and I am not homeschool material — neither religious nor hippie, which are the two flavors of homeschoolers in my area). Or sign over guardianship so they can live somewhere else and go to school there.

       2. I completely agree. Not NYC, but the test difference between my urban neighborhood school (gentrifying area, few or no middle-class kids in the neighborhood school) and a school in a better neighborhood with many upper-middle class in the neighborhood schools are drastic. My neighborhood school, 10% are proficient or above. The better neighborhood, 85% are proficient or above. I don’t know any parents who would choose a school for their kids were only 10% of students are at grade level, and I don’t blame any parent for not wanting that for their kids.

          1. I am a teacher and I just want to add my thoughts on this. I have generally found that schools with average performance in low-income areas actually have better teachers than those at upper-middle-class neighborhoods (this isn’t true across the board though!). The reason for this is that students performance is often tied to social class and students from upper-middle-class can perform very well regardless of how good or bad their teachers are. On the other hand, for teachers in a low- income school district to bring students up to average scores often requires really excellent teaching. Now, a low-income area with really low scores would be problematic. I hope that makes sense. But high tests scores among upper-middle-class individuals is not an indication to me that anything impressive is going on in that school. Maybe it is impressive, but not because of the test scores.

             Also, racism aside, the above comment also doesn’t factor in the numerous studies that show that individuals are more creative and better equipped to excel in the workforce if they are working with diverse groups of people. Exposure to diverse ideas actually makes someone a better problem-solver and thinker. I live in a very non-diverse school district and I am intentionally sending my children to a more diverse school district on the other side of the county (I live in a rural area in a state that allows students to attend any school of their choice).

             1. I don’t disagree with you about test scores being a better reflection of SES, but there are still downsides to sending a kid at or above grade level to a school where only 10% of students are. And I hate the fact that diverse is equal to has minorities in our language. If I send my white or Asian or Hispanic kid to a school that is otherwise 100% black (which my local elementary school is), that is considered diverse. But if I send my black kid to a school that is otherwise 100% white, that is not. I’m not sure either kid would be well served socially in that environment.

             2. I’ve noticed this anecdotally. My kids attend/ed an elementary school that has more racial and socioeconomic diversity than the schools in our district with higher test scores and more wealthy/white students. I was unimpressed with the administrators and teachers when I toured the other schools, and my friends at those schools have had many more conflicts/issues with their kids’ teachers than I have had at the “lesser” elementary. My kids’ teachers have been really, really, really good with my easy kid and my difficult kid (because even my difficult kid is easy in the sense that he has a stable home life).

       3. I agree. I would probably send my kids to a school were 70% of the students were proficient or above. But at my neighborhood school, only about 10% of students are proficient or above. I can’t image making that choice for my kids, so I’m probably moving from my close-in, loved neighborhood before they reach elementary.

       4. True. I am in the district for the highest-scoring elementary school in our county. 60% of the students are proficient in English, 40% are proficient in math, and 30% are proficient in science. About one-third of all kids in our area go to private school, and Catholic schools are extremely popular, even among non-Catholics, because they are more affordable than other private schools. I can’t move to a better school district without moving to another state (those scores are well above the state average). I’m torn between changing states, the public elementary school in our area, paying for Catholic school even though I’m not religious at all, and paying 2.5 times the Catholic school tuition for one of the non-religious private school.

          1. I wrote a comment above awaiting moderation, but in short: I am a teacher. I would say given that in your area the public schools probably consist of the lowest socio-economic status students, the teachers in the public schools are probably actually really excellent in order to be getting test scores that high. I’m not saying they are stellar, but they are really good for that kind of demographic. If the Catholic schools are out-performing the public schools it is probably mostly due to the students they have and not the teaching. Based on what you said, I’d feel okay about sending my kids to the public schools. There’s more to factor in there but just wanted to share my perspective.

   14. I think it is terrible. It is basically conceding that some children will never be able to achieve at the same level as their peers. Instead, they should add more gifted programs / in-class tracking — that is what the city had before when a large percentage of blacks and hispanics attended the highest tier magnet schools in the city. BTW, in case you didn’t know, asians have the highest poverty rate in NYC.

       1. I agree with this – the bigotry of low expectations is real.

   15. Other areas have de facto segregation within the school itself. I was reviewing scholarship applications and one student wrote how there are two types of education at our local high school. This school covers the inner city and the rich end of town. The AP/honors kids are in one area of the school for all of their classes. The remedial kids are in a different area of the school for all of their classes. The in between kids are in a third. All of the rich white kids are in the AP/honors classes. The majority of the remedial kids live in the inner city and are a mix of races. The kids in the AP/honors half of the school get a safe and awesome education. The other half of the school has drugs, gangs, violence, a high dropout rate, low college attendance, etc. Not sure how to go about solving that problem.

   16. The problems here are:

       1. A broken system that identifies prepped kids, not gifted kids.
       2. An insufficient number of spots in gifted programs to accommodate all the kids who are actually gifted.
       3. Poor-quality neighborhood schools that everyone wants to get out of.

       Gifted education needs to be reframed and the public needs to be educated as to what “gifted’ really means. Gifted education should be thought of in the same way that we think of special education. It is a different style of teaching designed to serve the needs of children who are not neurotypical. We would never dream of limiting access to special education in the same way we currently limit access to gifted education, or of diverting special education services away from the kids the program was designed to serve as we now do with gifted services. All children who are gifted (not “bright” or “high-achieving”) should have access to appropriate services to meet their educational needs, and those services should not be diverted for the purpose of advantaging some neurotypical children over others. West Virginia, of all places, classifies gifted services as a form of special education and mandates IEPs for exceptionally gifted children. This should be the policy everywhere.

       1. I agree, but I do think dropping the name “gifted” would help here. The euphemism has taken on a life of its own.

          I’ll also be amazed if schools in general start meeting the needs of this student population. Many schools don’t have any instructors qualified to keep up with these students, let alone teach them, whatever the IEP says.

       2. I agree with this is theory, but, IME, that is not how gifted is used by the school systems. And maybe I’m wrong, but I bet the vast majority of students in NYC’s gifted program are not gifted per your definition, but are just bright or high-achieving. Public schools basically seem to have three programs: gifted programs which are designed for the bright or high-achieving student, normal programs which in many urban areas are designed for the remedial student behind grade level, and special education. We probably need a lot more programs, but I don’t know how that is possible with cash and resource limited public schools that are basically just trying to serve the needs of as many students as possible.

   17. OP- trust me, gifted education needs to start in kindergarten or first grade at the latest. As a parent with a kid of 150+ IQ, he was bored in kindergarten and reading at the 5-6 grade level in first grade. He was not neurotypical. He needed education to suit his needs as much as the autistic kid in his kindergarten needed (and got) education to suit his/her needs. In high school, though, IQ matters less for gifted education than hard-working and high-achieving.

       1. Thank you for understanding this. I want to add that for many high IQ people, “boredom” can be experienced as a kind of existential despair. The drive to learn and know can be very strong. I’m not sure that people always understand that this is about meeting the needs of a young child vs. neglecting their developmental needs. The attitude I often see is “wouldn’t it be nice to have the problem of reading above grade level,” but it really can be a problem.

   18. I can only hypothesize what my immigrant Asian single mom would have done. She probably would move me to the suburbs even if it means a 3-4 hour commute each day.

       Growing up, we rented a studio apartment in the city just so I can go to a good public school. Later, she worked late nights and extra jobs, and we rarely ate meat or bought clothes so that we could save money to send me to test prep or extra tutoring sessions that helped me get into gifted programs and excel at them. To give you an example of how frugal we were on non-education type of things, I would write in pencil on a note pad, and then write over it again in ink, so I could save money on note books. I agree that 7 blacks kids is too little, but please don’t think that just because 70% of the school is Asian, it means we’re privileged. At the same time, I saw black and Hispanic kids from poor families wearing designer stuff, carrying expensive phones, and skipping school. We’re probably equally poor, but the fact that their families and cultures chose to prioritize certain luxuries over education is somehow never discussed.

       1. I couldn’t agree more.

   19. The reality is that at the end of the day those children whose parents have put in more effort into their rearing will have an easier start on life, whether the reverse occurs because of single parenthood, poverty, other limited resources, or simple ignorance (not used in a derogatory sense here). There is no way for any government to eliminate unequal access to opportunities without getting very thoroughly in every family’s business, and America does not want that. I applaud the Swiss government for fighting for women’s equal rights and forcing parents send their daughters to swimming lessons like normal children despite the presence of boys at the pool. We would not tolerate this here. And without intervention on behalf of the children dictating, for example, simple things like access to a safe quiet place to sleep and light to do homework, I don’t even know what you could possibly expect public schools to do.

8. Does anyone have good resources for grant writing? I’m considering a volunteer position at my kid’s non-profit preschool where this would be a large part of the role. I’m a strong writer but have no experience in grant writing.

   1. Yes! Check out the Foundation Center’s Grantspace website. It has lots of free training and tutorials. The Foundation Center also offers in-person classes at their libraries, which are located in several cities. I’d done a number of their free and paid trainings and found the quality is generally very good. They also have books.

   2. Grant writing is *very* different than other kinds of writing and can be difficult to succeed at if you’re a strong writer in inapplicable ways. Check with your library and local colleges to see if they’re hosting any classes, seminars, or guest speakers discussing grants writing and applications. You could also check in with local or regional organizations that serve nonprofits. Even if they specialize in a cause that’s irrelevant to you, the basics of grant writing would be the same. Maybe even suggest that there would be interest in something like this if no one has anything on their calendar. I’m sure there are resources online as well, but I’m not familiar with anything specific.

9. aAnyone experience an ovarian dermoid? Last week, I had ultrasound at G Y N (two ultrasounds, actually) and results found 4.2cm on left ovary. It was initially discovered by radiologist during a CT scan a few days prior when I suspected appendicitis or other gastro issue. G Y N said the pain I was experiencing was likely torsion, when the dermoid twists and untwists itself.

   Asking if anyone has experience with this – did you voluntarily remove yours? How big? How was recovery? My G Y N is leaving it alone for now (because dealing with another health issue right now that takes priority) and will monitor again in 3 months unless I feel the same pain – that might warrant emergency surgery.

   It’s been a really rough couple of weeks.

   1. I had an ovarian dermoid that I got removed a few years ago. It was discovered during a routine annual g y n checkup and monitored every year as my doctor said it is hard to remove if it is too small, but that it would have to removed at some point because it won’t go away by itself. I had GI issues from other health issues but the dermoid must have been contributing. In the last checkup before it was removed, it had grown a lot to about 7.5×7.0x4.5cm which really freaked me out! I waited about four months from that date to get it removed so I could go to a hospital in another city that I was familiar with. I got it removed through a laparoscopic surgery which only used two small incisions and my belly button, this was a few years ago and the scars are quite small. Recovery was relatively easy, I took painkillers for a few days and took those days off, and I was told not to lift anything heavy for about a month I think. Happy to discuss further if it’s helpful to you, if you want to post a burner email. Also happy to send you the info on the surgeon who did the surgery, he was recommended by a close family friend and was excellent.

      1. Thank you to you and all of the other respondents! I appreciate your insights.
         Any surgeon recommendations in the NYC area (NW NJ suburbs too) welcome and appreciated.

         1. Same anon as above – I highly recommend Dr. William Burke. He was at NY Presbyterian in NYC when I had the procedure a few years ago but he has since left. A quick search shows he may be at Stony Brook Medicine in NY still, but may be focused on gyn oncology. I would definitely check out if he can do the surgery for you as he was great and put me at ease, and was recommended to me by my family friend who is a doctor in this area who I very much trust. Good luck, sorry you are having to manage this along with other health issues!

   2. I had one removed when I was 15 wks pregnant (first pregnancy). It was identified a few weeks before that based on some major pain I experienced due to partial torsion. I don’t know how big it was, but my OB recommended removal either early 2nd trimester or after the pregnancy and I decided to do it early to avoid going through recovery with a newborn. Plus, emergency surgery during pregnancy could be way more complicated. Removal was recommended because if you get full torsion you can lose the ovary. And the partial torsion pain really really BAD! The surgery was outpatient, laproscopic and under general anesthesia. I took percocet the next day, and did a lot of walking around the neighborhood to speed recovery over the next few days. The discomfort is mostly due to the air that’s pumped into your abdomen for the laproscopic surgery. I think surgery was on a Thurs or Fri and I was back at work on Mon. I have two very small scars around the spots where my ovaries are and a scar at my belly button, mostly hidden by the belly button. My OB took a picture of the dermoid for me because I was really curious to see it — it’s one of those benign tumors that can have hair or teeth! Mine had hair. Basically, it’s not a difficult recovery at all. Emergency surgery will not be laproscopic and therefore will have longer recovery. Good luck! Hope you can get it resolved!

      1. That’s funny that your OB took a picture because you were curious – mine was smaller and minor and my OB/GYNE seriously told me, “Don’t look it up on the internet. It can get really weird and freaky and… just don’t”
         Apparently people/cultures may or may not believe that these are entities with powers, souls, etc.

         Soo…. my advice is don’t google it. You’ll be fine.

         1. I was a biology major. It was fascinating to me!

      2. I could have written this! I had a dermoid removed several years ago (along with endometriosis adhesion removal) and I too was a biology major in college. I really wanted mine to have teeth, but it only had hair. LOL!

   3. I just had two cysts removed from outside my Fallopian tubes. Not the same thing but similar surgery. Laproscopic, through the belly button and two more incisions right at the top of my underwear. Recovery hasn’t been easy but it hasn’t been terrible. Two weeks out of work, one of those remote. The gas pain from the surgery was definitely rough. I couldn’t drive for at least a week.

      The best thing I did was move everything I could need during recovery to someplace I wouldn’t have to bend or stretch to get it. I laid the clothes I would want out on a spare bed. The first few days even opening a drawer was painful. I left my toiletries on the counter. I left kitchen stuff I would want on a table.

      Also, it was my first time being intubated and I definitely wanted something cold like ice cream or a Popsicle when I woke up and some mild cough drops.

      We have a fenced in yard but if you are single with a dog, you may need a dog walker depending on how good yours is on leash. One of mine will unexpectedly pull and I couldn’t deal with that. I made sure to walk everyday though to help with my recovery. My doc didn’t want me pushing past the pain for the first two weeks. Basically, stop if it started to hurt worse. Now I can push through to regain my strength.

      Also, hugging a pillow helps if you sneeze, cough, laugh and take stool softeners the first couple days so you don’t have to push and hurt your ab muscles that way.

      I was dealing with a lot of unexplained pain and this was exploratory to see if they could find what was causing it. Fingers crossed it fixes it!

10. Anybody have experience with a friend, close family member, or SO undergoing a heart transplant? Recently learned that this is a long term possibility for my partner and obviously I am terrified. Big fear (other than death, rejection of the heart) is that he’d have to be super sick just to get on a list, and then wait and continue to deteriorate until one becomes available. Is that how it works? Is it even worth it to think about or do most people die waiting for one? Anything reassuring will be really helpful. Anything not reassuring I would appreciate you keeping to yourself for now. Thanks!

    1. I’d encourage you to look into patient support resources for whatever your partner’s diagnosis is. Wait times, outcomes, and prognosis vary widely.

       1. I don’t have personal experience, but I read a very uplifting memoir by a woman who has survived two heart transplants. The author’s name is Amy Silverstein and the book is called My Glory Was I Had Such Friends.

    2. People definitely get them. Is it a long term possibility for him/her due to long term heart failure or something else? Because if it is something like heart failure they will obviously try every drug they can first and some people end up doing ok with the drugs — i.e. the condition doesn’t worsen — so they don’t need the surgery. When you say long term possibility how long term does that mean — or does no one know? I’d discuss these specifics with the cardiologist.

       When you’re up for it google the name — Alin Gragossian. She is a medical resident in the Philadelphia area (which is why I know of this because it’s making local news) who went into heart failure last Dec; had a heart transplant this Jan; and is back at work now — 6 mos later. She has a blog, twitter etc. and writes a lot about the experience, promoting transplant awareness etc; and you can get a sense from her what life is like — obviously there’s a lot she can’t do due to infection risk (everything from sushi to swimming) and yet in many ways her life is back to “normal.”

       1. Alin’s twitter is fantastic, she is inspirational.
          I have a chronic disease in which the only cure (there are treatments) is heart lung transplant. It’s a big step, and there is a lot going into the decision. I am currently doing well enough on a treatment plan to no longer need to be on the transplant lists, but I went though the testing, and that in itself, is difficult.

    3. My co-worker’s husband had one in his late 20s. I can’t speak to the waiting process but I know that he’s worked, traveled overseas and been healthy for 30 years now. They didn’t have kids because they were worried he wouldn’t survive long enough to see them grow up but they said in retrospect that was the only issue they had. Good luck to you and your SO.

11. Just caught up on yesterday’s thread about kids’ weight, and wow, that brought up a lot of bad memories. My mom is 5’2″ with a slight build (and also has a barely controlled eating disorder, on top of that). I am not built that way; for one, I am much much taller and have the bone structure to match. By the time I was 12, adults were constantly commenting on how much bigger I was than my mom. Trust me, they weren’t just talking about height, and I have never forgotten those comments. I was a perfectly healthy, not-overweight kid. I just wasn’t thin. It really screwed up my body image. Today, I think my body image is fine, but I’m not sure I’ll ever stop feeling self-conscious about the size of my thighs — which are athletic and really f*cking strong, thank you very much. As an adult, I’m six inches taller than my mom and at least 50 pounds heavier. Honestly, it sucks. It defies the “natural” order of things. I still feel like a hulking giant when I’m with her, which is often. My dad’s mom is a much better indication of how I’ll age than my own mother.

    Adults should know better and need to keep their mouths shut about weight, especially during kids’ most vulnerable years.

    1. I know. I remember nearly every “innocent” comment about my weight too. It scars for life and led to really disordered habits.

    2. I could not agree more.

    3. Thank you for sharing this. I’m not the OP yesterday but another parent who is getting told by my son’s pediatrician that he is obese, and I’m struggling to figure out how to be a good parent to him. I want him to be healthy and happy, and figuring out how to achieve that isn’t easy when there are so many conflicting opinions. I have also had weight issues on and off, and am a bigger person than my mother, so its a minefield for me.

    4. Yep. My best friend in high school was gorgeous and slim, but she was taller and had really large br*asts and her mom, who was short, very slender and flat-chested, body-shamed her constantly and convinced her she was morbidly obese. I was a beanpole in high school and would have killed for my BFF’s body and I know lots of our friends felt the same way and told her all the time. But it was only her mom’s attitude that she internalized and she began binging and purging, which she still does to this day. I don’t care how heavy my daughter is, I will never ever comment on her weight.

       1. That is so very sad. Hugs to your friend. :(

    5. Aw man, I missed a good thread! Yep, comments about my weight when I was young, and weight in general, really messed me up and honestly, I wasn’t overweight back then, not even close! I didn’t really become overweight until adulthood, so all those warnings not to get fat didn’t exactly shame me into a state of permanent thinness and vigilance about my body.

       Also, I’m another person who hates running. I’m active, but I hate running, and I hate it when people assume running is the default exercise everyone should be doing. No thanks. I also hated all the sports my parents made me play that involved running, so I’d also caution against forcing a kid to do a sport they’re not into; instead present them with some options and let them decide what will be the most fun activity, and make sure they know they can try something else once the season is over if they didn’t enjoy it. Start with family activities like taking walks, going on hikes, maybe ice skating if that’s an option in your area come wintertime.

       1. I love running. I earned a lot of varsity letters in high school, places on champion relay teams, and once set a meet record.

          Thing that was actually said to me as a teenager: “You need to start jogging again; you’re putting on weight.” (I was 5’8 and 115 pounds at the time.) JOGGING? WEIGHT? Yeah, I guess I spent six days a week running until my legs turned into lead because I wanted a hot lil’ bod for prom, amirite?

    6. I was also pretty upset by that thread. I love my parents dearly, but I’m still dealing with a lot of complicated messages I interiorized from my childhood about weight and food. I wish I had been told to be active because it’s fun and makes you stronger.

    7. I am a naturally smallish person but both of my SILs are morbidly obese. It has make them not able to do a lot in life and the shame keeps them at home for things they could go out and do. They don’t visit us any more because their size makes them to embarrased to fly; so we see them when we visit them.

       Of course, I have daughters, and it’s a bit of a coin toss what genes they have (assuming any of this is heritable — my children are growing up in my house, eating food I buy and prepare, and are helping at various failed gardening endeavors). So we shall see. In my head, I do not want them to be like my SILs, not b/c of vanity, but because their size has clipped their wings. In the meantime, I try to keep them outdoors and moving and happy. And I bite my tongue — society will give them enough baggage even if they turn out to be sized like me.

       1. You should never let your daughters hear you speak about your SILs’ weight. It’s a tough situation that will be made tougher by their knowledge that you’re speaking about them behind their backs. I know you didn’t mention saying any of this out loud, but thought I’d put it out there anyway.

          1. I’m not sure that I’d ever speak of it. One kid blurted out once (when she was maybe 3, to one of her aunts), “why are you so fat” and it just broke my heart. It was just innocent. But I know it was awful for her to hear.

             We actually (and silently) bought some sturdier furniture and de-cluttered a dining area so that they could sit comfortably. But they no longer visit us, so it’s almost like they have become ghosts. It’s sad — I was close to my aunts, but I saw them regularly.

             At any rate, this is more about being morbidly obese than being merely a bit overweight or not thin enough. I am sure that my SILs would be happy if there were merely overweight and could shop in any clothing store in the mall (currently, they can’t).

          2. Yeah, when I started to gain weight in my 20’s I was very self-conscious about it because I knew my family would sometimes gossip about people’s weight gain behind their backs, and I was so afraid they’d start talking about MY body behind MY back that way. It made me dread family holidays.

       2. Your SIL’s size hasn’t clipped their wings, society’s reaction to it has. You might examine your part in that. They aren’t embarrassed to fly because of their size, they’re embarrassed to fly because of how they know people will *react* to their size. There’s a difference.

          1. I don’t know, based on her description, I read it as being house-bound. And I’m sorry, I can be size positive and believe in health at any size, up to the point where you can’t get around or fit in a car seat or on a plane. That’s not society’s issue.

             1. Yup. Anon at 11:41 is going too far

             2. On the other hand, I weigh about 150lb and am pretty uncomfortable squeezing into coach on some airlines.

             3. I wasn’t anonymous, thank you, I used my handle.
                Anyway, I didn’t read it as house-bound, because she repeatedly said they don’t go out/go places due to “shame”, which didn’t sound like it was because they physically can’t leave the house. If that’s the case, then yes that’s a different situation as far as reasons. But no, it’s not going to far because the “shame” is because of how obese people in this country are expected to loathe themselves and somehow just acknowledge the wrongness of their existence. Which, ironically, for people who are morbidly obese (where the weight is almost always related to much deeper issues than just liking snacks, you know) can exacerbate the things that lead to the weight gain in the first place. It’s not helpful. You don’t stop being a human being because your rear end doesn’t fit in an airplane seat. If we all treated obese people like PEOPLE, it would help, not hurt their chances of getting healthy. And to be clear, I am not saying OP is doing that, I’m saying the general societal treatment of obese people and comments like how body positivity is ok up until a point this thin person deemed acceptable are what is doing that. Body positivity is not the notion that everyone should be obese, it’s the notion that regardless of the size of a body, the body houses a human being worthy of life and respect and kindness. Full effing stop.

          2. Honestly, I don’t think I had a part in that. If anything, I am on the receiving end of what society thinks we should be doing with our bodies, in any size or shape. We women just self-destruct from within with our problems, and the first thing we attack is our bodies sometimes. We cut, we purge, we starve ourselves, we numb ourselves, or we feed our pain. It’s all awful — we wear our suffering one way or another sometimes.

             When I was a kid I was molested repeatedly and the more I see of what happens to girls that age, and what a long tail that sort of thing has, the more sad I become. I am lucky, and just lucky, not more deserving or anything. But because I see what the pain does to survivors, I try to be gentle when I interact with other people.

    8. I posted yesterday, but I have had a really complicated history with self-image and body image due to my family’s response to my weight struggles. My mother was naturally tiny (but also couldn’t digest much and died very young of colon cancer) and I felt like some kind of ungainly beast next to her. She put me on my first diet at 11 and I felt like a good girl because I was thin. My brother bullied me about my weight and I had a come to Jesus talk with him about that talk a few years ago after he was caught having a good laugh with his sons (whom I adore) over how “huge” I was as a kid (even when I wasn’t – it was his perception). I have yo-yo dieted my whole life. I’m currently the thinnest I’ve ever been as an adult, but still have a difficult thinking of myself as a thin/small person. My parents were not into exercise (it was mainly the era) and never encouraged me to be active. I started working out as an adult and I’m almost obsessive about it, although it’s never helped me maintain my weight. I’m hoping that I can get my head straight, finally, but this is definitely a cautionary tale about kids and weight.

    9. I am really sad about this with my son. He’s a large, tall teen. He’s had the talking-to by his pediatrician. He knows he’s overweight. He’s 6’1” and wears an XL, size 36-38 pants. (Which are vanity sized just like women’s clothing! I don’t know if you guys knew this about men’s clothing but the actual waist measurement on size 38 pants is larger than 38, sometimes by a lot.)

       He wears a lot of baggy shirts and tries to hide it. But genetics are not on his side – he looks just like the men on both sides of my family. It’s not what he eats so much as it is how much he eats. He’s tried a lot of things. He did extreme low carb and lost weight last summer, but gained it all back and then some – I’m convinced these diets do more harm than good in the long run.

       I feel terrible for him but also don’t want to make him feel worse about himself so I leave it between him and his pediatrician.

       1. My only suggestion is sports – not for weight loss, because that’s not a guarantee, but for the health benefits of fitness, the mental benefits of endorphins, and being able to enjoy your body for the talented things it can do.

          1. He absolutely despises the idea of all sports. I’ve never been able to interest him in anything. He’s a gamer and a musician and that’s about it. He gets good grades, has few friends.

             1. That’s cool, then at some level he needs to find something to do that is movement – walking a dog, helping in the yard, etc. As a human, you can’t not move.

             2. As a musician, maybe dance is an option. Also all my cool nerd friends do rock climbing.

             3. This was my son, and he ultimately got into swordfighting, which I think the gamer in him liked. Look up HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts)

       2. If it’s genetic, there’s some physiological mechanism. Why doesn’t his pediatrician figure out what’s wrong?

          I say this because my pediatrician just pushed healthy eating and exercise. She was not interested in hearing about how difficult exercise was for me or how it made me feel afterwards. Years later, it turns out I have genetic issues that can cause exercise intolerance as well as issues with blood sugar control–and my lab work indicated this all along.

          1. Certain people are genetically blessed good metabolisms and certain people are cursed with bad ones. It doesn’t mean there’s an identifiable, treatable cause that a pediatrician can “fix.” (I say this as a skinny person who eats whatever I want and rarely exercises…it’s just luck.)

             1. I wouldn’t say that getting better healthcare “fixed” me, and I definitely cannot eat whatever I want. But I do know what to eat and why, and I know how to get enough nutrition in fewer calories so I’m not living with cravings. What I needed was advice on weight, diet, and especially exercise that took my genetic “luck” into account, not the same generic advice that doctors give everyone.

          2. Would you mind sharing what the issues are? I have a few things I have had brushed off by doctors and would be interested to know.

    10. Also, do not speculate as to whether or not a woman is pregnant, and do not stare that the midsection of your married family members when they wear bathing suits, speculating as to whether or not they are pregnant or ate too much pizza the night before. Most definitely do not tell a woman who is about 9 weeks pregnant that she is “showing,” and do not sit around the dinner table with your children, gossiping about her abdomen.

        Hypothetically, of course. Hypothetically, this is a way to ensure that your sister-in-law (who did a lot of hard work to appreciate her body for what it is, after years of body-shaming from family and boyfriends) hates your guts.

    11. I’m curious about how this applies to people in their early 20’s? I dated a guy in college that gained an enormous amount of weight in a year after quitting a NCAA D1 team (and having played that sport his entire life). He had very good reasons for quitting, but he just stopped all physical activity and gained like 100lbs, was morbidly obese. Age 22-24 for me was spent going from very gently encouraging him to be healthy to basically saying lose weight/change your lifestyle or I’m leaving. Obviously that didn’t work. I thought I was helping him, I was certainly trying to help him, but I wonder now if I contributed to the problem.

        1. I think the considerations are very different with respect to your child vs. someone you are dating. It’s okay to not want to continue dating someone who has a lifestyle that you don’t like, is not taking care of their health, has issues they’re not dealing with, or who you are no longer attracted to, etc.

        2. OP here — You are describing a completely different situation — still fraught, still fraught, but a dating relationship (and the responsibilities entailed) are completely different than the one between adults and children. Kids are vulnerable and take adults’ words to heart; that’s why we need to be so careful in what we communicate about health and weight. My mom wasn’t the one making mean comments, but her peers were. I really wish she’d shut that down hard and fast.

        3. I think it applies in all relationships. You were basically saying, lose weight or I won’t love you anymore. If a women wrote in here saying that her boyfriend was saying that she had to lose weight that she gained after they started their relationship or he would leave her, I think the overwhelming majority of us would say that she should leave him. I don’t think it is ever appropriate for one person to tell another that they have to lose weight. I do think you can encourage someone to eat healthier and be more active without crossing that line, but it is very difficult. And, with an adult you are in a relationship with, you can express concerns about the long term health impact, but it has to be done carefully.

    12. It certainly goes both ways. My kids are on the thin side despite eating like vacuum cleaners. (We are up to three gallons of milk a week.) Their pediatrician is not concerned as they are reaching their developmental milestones and are incredibly active….even when sitting still.
        However, my relatives are CONSTANTLY trying to feed them junk and “fatten them up.” My oldest takes it personally and worries that he is sick or ugly. He will dress in layers and even wear hoodies in the summer to appear more stout.

        1. Yeesh, that’s just as bad. As much as I struggle with weight and self image, having someone tell me that I need to “eat a cheeseburger” is not helpful.

        2. When they are no longer teenagers, they will naturally gain some weight and fill out a bit. I know men who were beanpoles as teenagers and, er, chubby as adults (I’m talking – having jowls well before age 30), and it’s because they never learned to exercise or eat healthy food. But the ones who kept being healthy wound up having good physiques, once things slowed down a bit.

           1. This is my husband exactly which is why I emphasize fruits and vegetables so strongly at home. They eat what we eat just in larger portions and EASILY exceed their daily fruit and vegetable recommendations. I limit the junk that comes in the house because 1) my husband works from home and will eat ALL the snacks and 2) they get plenty of junk everywhere else.

              I’ve shown them photos of their father and his brothers at their age: all bean poles who grew into their height in high school. We emphasize that they are growing up not out at the moment….and it will not be like this for forever.

    13. I’m probably the exception here, but I really wish my parents had told me how fat I was in middle school and high school, and helped me lose weight by signing me up for a gym membership and giving me books about healthy eating.

        My parents grew up in a historical famine in China that killed a lot of people. So growing up they were always telling me to eat more and viewed being fat as a good thing. They never told me to lose weight or get fit. They always told me I was the most beautiful girl in the room and that kind of stuff. It was only until I got to college that i realized how much I ate was not normal compared to my roommates, and bad for my digestion. I started getting into healthy meal planning and exercising, and immediately started slimming down. After that, I finally started attracting boys’ attention and getting dates. But when I look back on photos of my fat years, where no boys ever asked me out, and plenty of other girls were able to date, I really wish someone had given me those advice on how to lose weight. I feel like I wasted some years not having the same romantic experience that other girls were able to have because I was overweight, and my parents didn’t try to help me lose that weight.

12. I scuffed my car yesterday on a pole in the parking garage, and the parking attendant I’m friendly with noticed and said he’d take it off for me. I could do it myself, but he was friendly and somewhat persistent about it. I presume he’s not doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Do you think $20 is good? It’s just a paint scuff about 6 inches long and 1 inch wide.

    1. Don’t let some random guy touch your car and possibly mess it up further just because he was persistent.

       1. Yeah don’t do this. Don’t turn a what may be gotten out with elbow grease and turtle wax into a multi hundred dollar paint job fix.

    2. I wouldn’t let some guy I don’t know well fix my car for free, you never know what h might be expecting in return. I’d take it to a body specialist and get an estimate, and there’s a Meguiars product I’ve used for minor scuffs and scrapes that works fairly well if you’d rather just buy that and rub it on yourself, although I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called.

    3. I had this exact situation. I think you should offer the $20. He may not accept it.

       For the skeptics, it is possible to have a relationship with a parking lot attendant. I miss my parking guy – I saw him every day for 15+ years! (I changed jobs and he changed garages)

       1. Seconding that people in general are good! The janitor in my building is so warm and friendly, yesterday he gave me a pep talk about my job search.

    4. I go to a small mechanic near my office for my oil changes and he took off a similar scuff for free without even asking first. I don’t think this is as sketchy as the others are making it out to be. I think a $20 tip would be perfect. I’m assuming this is a place you park regularly and see this person regularly.

       1. Yeah, the place that installed our towing hitch just randomly took off a few scuffs for us. It was super nice – they didn’t charge us and we hadn’t even considered doing anything about them, since they were so superficial, but it definitely made the car look better!

    5. I once had a small scrape on my car and a random man approached me in a retail parking lot about it. He said he could fix it for me while I was in the store for 30 bucks or something. I normally put my guard way up when I’m approached like that, but for some reason I didn’t. He wouldn’t have the keys to my car and he didn’t know where I lived, so I let him do it. When I paid him, he thanked me and said I just helped him put food on the table for his family. I don’t know if he was telling the truth or not, but I felt good and my car was fixed for far less than if I had taken it elsewhere.

13. Can anyone recommend some booties that are NOT suede? I am looking for some neutral (light tan, or a mushroom color, maybe even a light cognac), low heel (2 and a half inches would be the max, I think), casual booties that are NOT suede. I have found a lot that I like, but I cannot take care of suede– actually bought a pair last season, sprayed them with some sort of treatment protector thing, wore them twice, it rained, and I couldn’t save them… and frankly I don’t want to put this much work into taking care of a pair of shoes. I want the look but want to be able to just wipe them down… any suggestions?

    1. The Sam Edelman Petty used to come in a pretty shade of cognac, non-suede. I don’t see that color on Nordstrom currently, but I can find a few floating around on amazon and poshmark if you’re willing to dig a bit.

       1. +1, I bought it in cognac a few years ago and they have held up really well. My go to bootie for fall/winter.

    2. Kork Ease Velmas, so comfortable! The color I have is “rum.”

    3. I’m sort of side-stepping your question, but have you looked at Blondo? I have several of their waterproof suede booties and I do absolutely nothing in terms of maintenance other than get them resoled every so often because I wear them daily.

       1. I have, and they look beautiful– I have been afraid to trust the waterproof claims because they look like regular suede that I keep ruining. Are you saying they can get wet, and then they still look normal, and you don’t have to do anything? This is helpful!

          1. They are totally waterproof…..love Blondo and have several pairs

          2. I have Blondo suede booties and they get wet and still look brand new. Best investment ever.

             1. +1

    4. +1 to blondo booties, and other waterproof suede, such as la,canadienne (I purchase lacanadienne on sale as it is pricey otherwise). I actually find suede more comfy on my feet as it stretches more, and waterproofed suede (true waterproofed suede that is waterproofed in manufacturing process) has never leaked and been warmer than smooth leather. I also purchase suede in black and have a spray that restores the colour.
       The lucky brand Basel booties might work— I sized up half a size when I tried them on, and just have not yet purchased (I have lots of foot issues, so I have to make extra sure before I buy anything)

    5. I have a pair that is similar to the Lucky Brand Basels. I sprayed them with silicone spray (purchased at my cobbler’s) twice in two days (allow to dry between sprays) and they held up through a two fall/winter seasons of moderately heavy casual/weekend wear before the heel and sole broke down, which I call a decent yield for $45 booties from Nords Rack.

    6. +1 to Blondo and also just work on accepting that shoes that you wear often will not look new and pristine forever.

       1. I’m fine with accepting that, but I don’t accept that a $150 pair of booties can only be worn twice (which I stated in my original post was the problem). No one in this thread conveyed any expectations that shoes would look new and pristine forever. Just want to be able to wear them more than twice without having a garish waterline across the foot.

    7. Check out the Sperry Maya boots – both the chelsea version and the taller zip ankle boot are beautiful. I bought some of their flat boots last year and they are my most worn, comfortable booties.

14. Does anyone use a billable hours/ time tracker app that they like?

    1. Toggl! Made my life 100x easier and I am terrible at putting in my time.

       1. Putting in time is the actual bane of my career. If you eliminated that task, I’d have very few other complaints about my job.

    2. Manic Time. It’s free for personal use. If you are going to implement it across your business, there is a paid commercial license.

15. Would you “lean out” and basically cruise along in your role if you were in my shoes? I’m a nonequity partner in midlaw at MCOL. When I got married 15 years ago, I made more than DH. Then his company started giving him annual increases and promotions. I went from associate, senior associate to nonequity partner over 15 years, but don’t have enough portable business to justify making equity. So my pay has basically maxed out at my firm. Also, have 3 kids in elem, plus a dog, and no family nearby to help. Meanwhile, DH’s role now means he is at work for at least 12 hours a day. I’m doing all of the chores, carpooling, keeping on the kids’ stuff, which appears to be getting harder not easier since they are on sports teams, clubs etc. DH now makes more than double what I make, so we don’t even need my income, and yet I feel frustrated that I can’t get to the next level and also do everything I want to do with my kids because of client demands, or even put in a lot of time doing my work, which I genuinely enjoy. I could outsource more, but think that it won’t help because my hours generally are fine (I can work from home any time) and my pay is limited by the lack of portable book of business. I should be lucky that at my firm, nonequity is not up or out, but doing so-so as compared to my peers and being a second class partner at the firm is eating at me, even though we don’t need the extra $$. Anyone been where I am and can give me some perspective?

    1. I am in a similar place except that my husband doesn’t make a ton of money and doesn’t have any desire to climb the ladder, and I hate my job. No advice, just commiseration. It stinks to feel like you’re mediocre at your job and a mediocre parent. In your shoes, with sufficient family income, I’d consider becoming an SAHM so I could at least feel that I was doing one thing well.

       1. +I would probably become a mostly-SAHM in your shoes and try to do some part-time legal work from home while my kids are in school.

    2. What other options are you considering? It looks like an easy decision to lean out in your current role– just coast, take the money since you’re capped out, and take care of your kid related duties. It’s not clear what the options are:
       – coast v. really try to kill it at work (which seems a little pointless since your salary is maxed, they’re not going to make you equity… what would be the benefit of working harder here?)
       – coast at this job v. find another job with more upward possibility (this seems hard with the home workload you’ve described, 3 kids, very little help from DH, no local family, your current job gives you time and flexibility that makes outsourcing unnecessary– another job would make that difficult)
       – coast at this job v. become a SAHM (you don’t say you’re considering this, but you do say your family doesn’t need your income and maybe you’re subconsciously hinting at this option? If so, the ultimate question is, setting aside money and all other considerations besides just your personal happiness and fulfillment– do you WANT to work?)

    3. Your situation seems a perfect example of “comparison is the thief of joy”.

       Stop comparing yourself to your peers. You don’t say that you actually want to be an equity partner, only that the status as a “second class partner” is bothering you. What do you actually want? Do you want to make more money? Then you have to lean into your career and outsource more. Do you just want to feel better about your objectively amazing position? Then that is a task in personal growth and introspection to help you move past the feelings of not being enough – why are you letting your peer’s actions make you feel so bad?

       On a practical note, you need to start outsourcing, your family brings in too much money and you and your husband work too much and too hard for you to do all of those chores. Also – your children need to be helping you with chores (you mention carpooling and sports, so they are old enough to have household responsibilities), not only because they contribute to the messes but to teach them how to take care of themselves and show some respect to the great home you and your husband provide for them. .

       1. +1 to outsourcing. It sounds like you have more than enough money, and want to spend more time with your kids. At a minimum, increase your outsourcing so that you can spend that time with your kids. It doesn’t matter whether you can technically do that work, it’s not the best use of your limited free time.

       2. A million +1s to your second paragraph.

       3. “I could outsource more, but think that it won’t help because my hours generally are fine ”

          My husband and I outsource stuff and we both work 40 hours a week and only have 1 kid who only has a couple of little kid activities and no homework. You feel crazy because you’re doing a crazy amount of work. It sounds like you actually might need a nanny or someone to drive your kids around and get them started on homework.

          Also, from the perspective of a non-lawyer, the vast majority of non-lawyers don’t know anything about lawyer career progression other than “people do lawyer stuff for a long time then eventually make partner and that sounds fancy”. So if you think literally anyone is judging you other than your coworkers, you’re probably wrong. I don’t even know the difference between the different types of partners.

          1. Yep. DH and I both work 35-40 hours per week and have one toddler who has no formal activities outside of daycare and no homework. We don’t want to outsource childcare beyond daycare, but we outsource every household chore we can because we can afford it and it makes our lives a lot nicer, so why not? I don’t think you have to work a certain amount to justify outsourcing.

       4. I’m not OP but I needed this.

       5. Agreed.

          Get an after-school nanny-type who will shuttle the kids around, do some light housecleaning, and maybe start dinner. The kids can get involved in housework. Hire a cleaning service to come in once a week.

          Life can change fast. Your husband’s company could go under. A recession could hit. He could, heaven forbid, have a debilitating heart attack or run off with a 25-year-old. Your income is not necessary now, but your continued earning potential is something that cannot necessarily be recovered once lost.

    4. I’d keep in mind that we are likely moving into recession and that circumstances can change quickly. Swim in your own lane–don’t worry about peers. A lot of the highest paid are often where cuts get focused.

       At the same time, t focus on enjoying what you can about your job and what you can about your family life. Outsource family stuff that’s not enjoyable as much as you can, recognizing that your career has value and not doing family chores that you don’t like to is part of that reward.

    5. Honestly, I’d probably stay exactly where I was and coast. See where you are in 5-10 years when the kids are leaving the nest. Depending on your firm, you could potentially officially cut back (at mine, I would not – I would just drop my billables 20-30 hours a month and coast).

    6. Not yet in this situation but will be once we have kids. My husband makes 6-8 times (potentially more each year) my salary and loves it. His hours and travel schedule mean when we have kids, I will be primary parent. I’m borderline miserable at my job and there is *no* upward growth for me here. I am hesitant to fully quit because I may hate staying home with kids but at the same time I’m a lawyer and there is no half-speed that I have seen in law. I’m also a high-achiever at heart and don’t think I would be happy in the known less intense legal roles like paralegal, etc. because I would have that “but I can do more than this” feeling and would likely feel even less respected than I do now as a female lawyer (I have not seen paralegals get the respect they are due!). I also don’t think those roles have flexible hours. My solution is to look for something that is either part-time now or fully able to be scaled back when the time comes, which means I am looking to leave law. I’m sorry, I wish I knew a better solution. But I am glad to know there is someone else in this situation! Part of what has been hard for me is that I don’t really have anyone to talk to about this: the friends I know who are SAHMs never really had much career aspirations and the more ambitious friends are fulltime working moms and struggling to make it all work either because they have to have a two-parent income they achieved a ton of success and want to be and the other partner is the primary parent.

       1. In my state, you can take pro bono only cases through the bar, be covered by their malpractice insurance, use their computers for lexis/westlaw access, etc. If I was in your shoes, I’d be a SAHM that took only a couple pro bono cases at a time to keep up my skills and feel like I have a job and get a part time child care situation to allow me to do this. My state is so desperate for pro bono lawyers that they will bend over backwards to them. I think you could even specify something like “can only do hearings on Wednesdays” and they would still make it work.

    7. I totally get the “second class partner” thing eating away at you. When I was in your shoes (my son was just going into high school and yeah, parenting gets harder as they get older) I jumped to government and I have had a whole ‘nother, rewarding career. It was a pay cut at first but now I’m making more than I was at the firm and working 9 to 5 or less and looking at retiring with a nice pension to boot.

       So that’s an option.

    8. I’m with the stay in your lane camp. The one thing I wouldn’t do is quit and become a SAHM (unless you really want to and are OK with not being an earner). It sounds like you would like to go for equity partner but it would be really hard on your family– not a small thing. I’m an equity partner and it’s getting harder to become one and remain one. The same billable hours apply plus more nonbillable responsibilities. Firms are moving more equity Ps to non-equity and that’s not going to change. If it’s really worth it, go for it but honestly, in your spot I would probably be OK with staying at non-equity.

    9. Honestly? Probably not a popular opinion for this site, but I would probably leave my job and focus on my mom duties. The elementary years are hard, and time consuming, and balancing work – even work you love with a partner that either travels a ton or isn’t on as flexible of a schedule as you is just hard. Of course if you want to outsource childcare and focus on a new job with more upward mobility, do that! For me personally, I would probably start a small practice of my own or develop some dream business or passion project. But, unlike you, i am not madly in love with my work, so there’s that.

    10. We are headed into a recession, so lean in, not back. Tackle outsourcing the chores so you can spend more time on the kids and on developing a solid client base to see you through. The folks in your bracket in my area have a team they can rely on to get everything done, including gardeners, housekeepers, pet walkers, and often help with meal preparation (ranging from a kitchen auntie to a caterer for events).

        1. I agree I would focus on the kids (they are grown and off to college before you know it) and your career if that brings you fulfillment. Anything that doesn’t bring you joy or fulfillment you should outsource asap.

16. My dad has always ebbed and flowed with this drinking and my family is full of semi-functional to functional alcoholics, but my mom just texted me to let me know that for the past few weeks she’s suspected my dad has been drinking in secret and last night she caught him putting vodka into his wine and sneaking more vodka when he got up to “go to the bathroom.” I’m torn up about it and very stressed – and I feel like I’m carrying a lot of the load on dealing with it because my mom and I have been the most vocal about not enabling our extended family’s alcoholism, so she felt more comfortable reaching out to me rather than my brother. I told him anyway, of course, and he’s concerned too. I just feel shitty and can’t focus at work and don’t really know what to do and would love some anonymous support, since I can’t tell anyone in real life.

    1. I am so, so sorry. That is really stressful and scary.
       Has your mom asked your dad any questions about this, in an open-ended, non-confrontational way? When is the next time you would see your parents? If you were there and had the same suspicions, would you feel comfortable asking those kinds of questions?

       1. I don’t think my mom has had a calm discussion about it – just a fairly heated one last night after she caught him when she poured the bottle of vodka down the drain. DH and I are going up to my parents place friday night (they live about an hour away) and on Saturday we’re going on a week long trip with my brother, SIL, and SIL’s family. I can try talking to them about it on Friday but given my family’s tendency to bury things, I’m not optimistic about getting into it before the trip. I’ve always been more concerned about my family’s (dad’s and extended family’s) drinking than my brother, but hopefully he’ll be more willing to take it seriously now and we can figure out a plan of action. My dad’s not a bad drunk in the ways that are more obviously problematic (doesn’t drive drunk, isn’t a mean drunk, etc.), so when he would cycle between not drinking much and drinking a lot, it was never a huge deal because there were no real tangible negative consequences? It’s hard because I’m so so so close to my parents.

          1. Preface this by saying that my (late) dad was an alcoholic in long term recovery (almost 10 years when he died) and my brother is an addict who’s been in recovery for about 5 years. What follows is based on what has been/was productive for me and my family (and by “my family,” I mostly me and my heavily co-dependent mom who has had her own path in appreciating the challenges that created for all of us). I don’t mean to suggest this is the only way or that it’s even the best way.
             All that said, I don’t know that you and your brother need a “plan of action,” necessarily (see Senior Attorney’s point below, re: triangulation), but I think it would be good for you to try to have a calm conversation with him where you ask lots of open ended questions about how your brother feels about your dad’s drinking and why (or to what extent) he views it as not a concern. It would be a good opportunity for you to express how and why you see it differently.
             One idea to maybe pitch to your brother is that your dad does not have to have a “drinking problem,” in the sense of having withdrawal symptoms, being mean or belligerent, driving drunk, etc., for his drinking to be a problem. If he is adding vodka to wine, though, that seems like the drinking is a problem. It suggests he’s at a point where it’s not about enjoying the taste or the ritual of a drink, but about drinking to be drunk. Most people would agree that is not healthy–mentally, physically, or emotionally–and possibly not safe (risk of falls, other household accidents).

          2. The above is a long way of saying that even if you and your brother don’t have an action plan, it would likely be useful for the two of you to–at a minimum–be on the same team.

             Again, this stuff is so hard. I’m so, so sorry you’re facing it.

    2. Ugh, hugs. I’m sorry.

    3. I’m sorry. It’s so hard.

    4. I think you should tell your mom that this is a conversation she needs to be having with your dad, not with you or your brother. There isn’t anything you can do about it. There’s this thing called “triangulation” where she calls you to release the tension in her relationship with your dad, which gets you all stirred up and makes her feel better, but doesn’t do anything to address the actual issue. Don’t let her triangulate you!

       Also? Big hugs. I’m so sorry! This is hard!

       1. Have you tried Al Anon? Its for family and friends of alcoholics. I have found it helpful. Weird at first, but helpful.

    5. Coming back to say this is classic Number Three territory to me. (1. dealbreakers, 2. bad behaviors that you accept as the price of admission to the relationship, 3. things that would be dealbreakers but that you can get the other person to change if you nag/explain/give ultimatums/etc. And there is no No. 3.)

       I feel like you and your mom are trying to figure out how to get your dad to stop drinking, and that is not in any way something that is within your control. I think your mom needs to go to Al-Anon or therapy and figure out what SHE is going to do, given that she is married to a practicing alcoholic. And if she isn’t going to do that, then you need to go to Al-Anon or therapy and figure out what YOU are going to do, given that your dad is a practicing alcoholic and your mom is choosing not to leave.

       But I fear it is vanishingly unlikely that there is any “plan of action” that is going to magically get you what you want, which is for your dad to magically stop drinking. And I am so, so sorry about that.

       1. I think that’s the hard part for me to come to grips with – it’s funny how the concept of addiction makes so much sense when I think about it for other people, but when dealing with it internally, my mindset becomes very task oriented like it will solve the problem. I think it’s a coping mechanism for me?

    6. I am a sober alcoholic, and I had a couple of very dear friends (husband and wife) who are alcoholics. When the husband drank himself to death, the wife was not far behind, so our very tight knit group of friends read the book “Love First” by Jeff and Debra Jay and staged an intervention for her based on the method outlined in the book. It was difficult but went very well, she agreed to go to rehab, and has been sober for over 3 years now.

       If you are planning to have an intervention at some point, I would strongly recommend everyone you are going to involve to read this book. It’s short and it gets to the heart of what steps to take to have as positive an outcome as possible, and what to do if the alcoholic refuses to get help.

       1. This is wonderful, helpful advice and a lovely story. Maybe sometimes there is a Number Three.

17. I’m on a well meaning but disorganized do-good committee at work. Yesterday we had a consultant in to do a goal setting session and the consultant was so touchy-feely that we spent the majority of the day taking about key words and what they mean, and then a crammed, not enough time goal setting session. It was awful. I was getting impatient (a whole day away from my desk with stuff piling up, while everyone is talking about what a word means and what their experience with it has been) but it’s such a good cause that my impatience comes across as uncharitable.

    I don’t know how those of you in non profits do it. My fellow committee members are well-meaning but seem to need to spend a lot of time explaining why they are passionate about what we intend to do, but so far not spending a lot of time actually doing it.

    1. I SO feel you. I was begged and pleaded into being my church’s delegate to quarterly meetings with the other churches in the diocese. I honest to goodness walked out of the last one because it was 8 pm on a Wednesday and they had not yet turned to anything on the agenda because they were still fawning over the visiting bishop. Like, um, hi. I get that yall are all retired and have nothing better to do, but I’ve got work and laundry and dinner, and the bishop puts his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us. THIS is the exactly type of nonsense for why no one wants to serve on boards and committees.

       1. +1. The people who have too much time on their hands are … something else in a committee setting. Lovely, well-meaning … and absolutely drive me away from participating.

          1. I’m OP. My coworkers do have things to do- they have jobs just like me – but they seem to have such a need to be heard talking about their do-good intentions that it takes a whole day to get through how they fully feel about words like inclusion.

    2. Although it doesn’t solve the issue, the concept of relationship-oriented people vs. task-oriented people is useful for understanding where touchy-feely people are coming from. If you Google it there is a comment thread from poster hildi on aam, although I am sure there was a whole other post devoted to it, which I can’t find right now.

    3. This is not what people who work at nonprofits do all day.

18. Thanks for all the advice yesterday on starting a blog. I am starting to agree that the name — Sober Vegan Mom — is a bit too polarizing, so I am back again to ask for your votes/advice on a new name.

    – Tofu & Tonic (could actually sound like an alcohol blog though?)
    – Sprouts & Seltzer (sprouts could refer to plants or kids, hardy har har)
    – Tots & Tofu
    – Recovering Mommy (might be too intense)
    – Meltdowns & Mocktails
    – Mommy with a Twist (starting to run out of ideas here …)

    Any thoughts?

    1. meltdowns & mocktails — but then you’re stuck in baby era.

    2. I like Mommy with a Twist.
       Recovering Mommy sounds like you’re recovering from being a parent (like how ex-lawyers often describe themselves as recovering lawyers).
       I think the alliterative __ & ___ is overdone. Of those, I like Tots & Tofu the best. I wouldn’t want to read something with Meltdowns in the title because I find it really cringe-y when influencers overshare about their kids tantrums.

    3. I like Mommy with a Twist the best.

    4. Can you make your branding more about health? there are some negative terms in the names you brainstormed – “recovering”, “meltdowns”…..nothing that could imply alcohol. Spin more positive…..

    5. Less Wine, More Veggies?

       1. I like this one the most

       2. This could work in the sense that most readers will probably neither be fully sober nor fully vegan, just interested in reducing their drinking and eating more plants. The market for those “curious” about a certain lifestyle will always be larger than the market of those fully doing it.

          1. +1 I enjoy wine and red meat but would read this blog

          2. +2

          3. +3. I enjoy wine and red meat, but I’ve become interested in drinking only socially/on special occasions and adding more vegetarian meals (current goal is 2 vegetarian dinners a week, would like to increase in the future). Of all the suggestions so far, I think “Less Wine, More Veggies” is the only blog I’d read without additional context. If you want the largest possible following, I guess meet people where they are in terms of naming/branding? But maybe a niche following of people who identify strongly with you feels more important.

       3. I like this one and agree with Monday that there are way more people interested in cutting back on drinking and eating more plants than there are sober vegans.

       4. That several of you liked this made my day. Doesn’t take much to make me happy, apparently.

       5. I like this one!

       6. I agree this would draw a way wider audience. That said, if you’re trying to be influencer, it can be better to find a small niche – it’s a lot easier to become big in the world of strictly sober vegans than it is to become a big bl0gger among people who would like to eat more plants and drink less wine. I’m the travel bl0gger from yesterday. One of the people I know who has been most successful at getting press trips writes exclusively about roadtripping with her large dogs around the Midwest. It’s a small niche – not that many people care about whether or not they can take their large dog on vacation with them or want to travel to the rural Midwest – but she’s cornered it. It’s a lot easier to be the big fish in a small pond so to speak, versus competing with the hundreds of thousands of more general food or travel or parenting bl0gs that are already out there.

          You also want to actively convey the subject matter. If she’s going to be posting vegan recipes and writing about fun family and friend activities that don’t involve alcohol, this might be a good name. If she’s going to be writing essays about her sobriety and how ostracized she’s been since becoming sober, it isn’t as good. It’s hard to come up with a good name without knowing what the content will be.

       7. My fave yet.

    6. I like meltdowns and mocktails or just plain MommyMocktail

       1. Mom’s Mocktail would sound like the blog itself is a drink you’re serving to family or friends. Kind of cute?

    7. I really like some of these! But they all sound a little bit different and it kind of depends on what type of content you’re going for. Tofu & Tonic does feel pro-alcohol, so I’d probably skip that one. Sprouts & Seltzer makes me think there will be lots of healthy recipes and doesn’t automatically bring to mind kit related stuff for me. Tots & Tofu makes me think it’s specifically healthy recipes for vegetarian kids. Meltdowns & Mocktails brings to mind more lifestyle musings from a mom who happens to not drink. I like all those three names a lot, they just each sound like different things to me.

       Recovering Mommy sounds very 12 step focused and kind of off-putting. Mommy with a Twist sets me up to expect a crazy twist… like a blog about parenting during the day and performing burlesque at night. (Which I would totally read, but is probably not what you’re going for.)

    8. I’d try to pick a name that’s (a) positive or neutral in tone, and (b) not specific to a particular stage of motherhood OR alcohol. Like, right now, you’re really interested in talking about sobriety, but once you’ve been doing it for a year, are you really going to keep finding new things to say about not drinking?

       Of those you suggested I like Mommy with a Twist the best… maybe “Mom with a Twist” to keep it from being stuck in toddlerhood. I think “noun & noun” blog names are kind of dated.

    9. Sober Moms Club? Sober Mom Diaries? I agree with the previous poster that the “___ & ___” blog name construction is overdone (and usually too cutesy), although “Teetotalers and Toddlers” also just popped into my head. I don’t actually think you should call your blog that though :)

    10. I feel so lucky to be able to pick the brains of such an awesome community. Thank you so much. I’m leaning towards Mommy With a Twist, but I’ll keep brainstorming. I agree that the two nouns is overdone. I also like the suggestions to stay/spin positive. I appreciate the feedback so much!

    11. I like Sprouts & Seltzer best – it leans a little more food blog than mommy blog which is a good thing given that your kids will grow up and potentially not be cool with your blogging about them.

    12. FWIW, since you are asking, I am a mom, but I’m not a big fan of the word “Mommy” unless it’s coming out of my toddler’s mouths (or my husbands, and only then if it’s because he’s addressing our toddlers directly about me). It just seems so… precious?… and not really the connotation of how I perceive my identity.

        1. Same. I’d also find it more appealing if it wasn’t woman specific (something like Plant-based Parenting, although I realize that doesn’t capture the alcohol aspect). But I might be in the minority on that.

        2. + 100%. I really don’t care for mommy at all.

        3. Agreed. Expectant mom and “mommy” makes me cringe.

           Also, a veerrryyy specific type of woman uses the term “Mommy” to refer to herself in her writing, and it’s the type wherein her entire life, justification for existence, and meaning comes from her children, and you just Cannot Understand What It’s Like if you have not procreated.

    13. Sprouts & Seltzer!

19. TW: prostate cancer

    My FIL was just diagnosed with stage iv prostate cancer. He will be starting chemo in a couple of weeks. Any advice on how best to support him, my MIL, and my husband would be most appreciated. We live a few hours away with two little kids, so planning to visit with them before he starts treatment. Then go back as possible, if they’re not sick (bc I understand FIL will be immuno-compromised). Also planning on husband visiting to help with care taking as much as we can. Any other thoughts on helping? Meals, nice things for someone spending a lot of time resting….? I am really at a loss of where to start. Any book recs or websites on supporting family members?

    Thanks so much.

    1. Hugs. No advice really, but just wanted to say that prostate cancer is very treatable. Basically all the men in my family (Grandfather, Father, 4/5 Great-Uncles) have been successfully treated at various stages. Depending on your FIL’s sense of humor – be prepared for jokes involving ED and little blue pills (or maybe that’s just my family).

       1. There is no cure for Stage IV prostate cancer. Spend as much time with him as you can. Understand that treatment is designed to give more time.

       2. I’m not sure it’s very treatable when it’s stage IV – that means it’s metastasized and there’s cancer elsewhere in the body.

          1. Thanks both. We are working on getting more info. His doctors seem very optimistic for now.

    2. So sorry you’re going through this. Do all you can to help alleviate stress at home. Try to handle the majority of the house work and child care so he can visit his family and not have additional stress. If he visits, maybe send him with some food.

    3. My FIL was dx with metastatic prostate cancer about 5 years ago and while the effects of the treatment (chemo + hormone suppressants + side effects of each) have definitely slowed him down a bit, he’s really mostly fine. We’re a few hours away and so while we arranged to attend pivotal doctors appointments with them, but weren’t part of his day to day care. We did many more phone calls (with both FIL and alone with MIL so she could vent, share fears, etc) and tried to help with practical things long-distance. As a few examples, I read reviews and told them the best blender to buy when he was into smoothies; set up a recurring email to remind him to take his daily afternoon medicine; helped them organize all of his medicines into a spreadsheet so it could be tracked more easily; we helped them set up a smart TV when he was first diagnosed so that he could watch TV easily in bed when he was too tired to read, etc. And then we brought a bunch of food up with us when we could go.

       And yes, his treatment has been about buying more time, but at least for us (knock wood!), we’ve been buying years, and not weeks, if that makes sense. He’s just switched to a new maintenance drug, which is expected – I guess they each last about 5 years before needing to switch. Hopefully this one will last another 5ish years and by then there will be yet more treatment options.

       Wishing your family all the best.

       1. Thank you so very much for this.

       2. 2nding the suggestion of support for MIL or other caregivers. My FIL has been living with prostate cancer since before DH and I got together, but he just started treatment again. He won’t talk about it, so I’m not sure that there’s any way we can help him. But just this weekend my MIL was telling us that she “feels so alone” in coping, and I realized maybe I could help her help him.

    4. My dad was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer when I was just starting out as a lawyer, and the treatment got him a lot of good time—he walked me down the aisle and got to know my kiddos before he got too ill to travel.

       I highly recommend getting a second opinion at Johns Hopkins—they have a remote second opinion option, where they get the files and a team consisting of faculty physicians from all the specialties that treat prostate cancer get together to make a recommendation on course of treatment. That second opinion is probably what gave my dad the good years he had after diagnosis. A well-credentialed local doctor had recommended a course of treatment that would have made him miserable and wouldn’t have worked given his condition.

       My advice for other families would be just to enjoy the time you have. And, at some point, it’s helpful to get legal affairs in order (will, trust, medical POA, etc). Better to do it years before it’s needed than be rushing to finish it before things get really bad.

       1. Thank you— I had no idea about the second opinion program. Will definitely look into that.

          I really appreciate the responses from everyone. This has been a really rough day and having some ideas of how I can help, at least eventually, is really helping.

20. Very loosely related to the kids’ weight discussion, does all of the pressure around setting young children up for academic success stress out anyone with their own academic performance issues?

    I read an article in the local paper this morning, something about how you should be making your own play-doh for your 18 month old because it will increase hand strength and make the child a better writer when they get to school, and holy crap, I just got a pit in my stomach thinking about academic pressure. I can handle (and love!) incidental learning for my kids – learning measurements while baking, talking about caterpillars on nature walks, etc – but the idea of intentionally crafting a curriculum for my child, how every activity should be geared toward academic enrichment, just about sends me spiraling.

    1. Then don’t do it. Buy play dough cause it’s fun. Read books because they’re interesting.

    2. There’s definitely a subset of parents that think this way, but it’s a subculture and you can opt out. I’ve found that (at least in the suburban Midwest where I live) most preschools are play-based and don’t purport to have any kind of academic curriculum. My daughter is almost 3 and I’ve never done any “academic” lessons at home – she goes to daycare and is learning age-appropriate skills there. I don’t have that much time with her, and I want to play, not sit down and make her do “lessons” (not that I would have time to design lessons even if I wanted to!) I mean, sure I take her to science and children’s museums and we read books on all sorts of subjects but that’s about it. On the other hand, my best friend taught her son to recognize all his letters before he was 2. I love her, but we parent very differently and that’s ok. Good for her, not for me.

    3. Yeah, same. I’ve made play-doh maybe … twice? … in my almost 10 years as a parent. We do a lot of activities together that have a learning component (baking, reading, time in nature, etc.), but my gosh, I really draw the line at intense academic drill-downs. When do I just get to be a parent and enjoy my kids? I agree that all this well-meaning advice feels like pressure.

    4. You can and should reject that pressure. All the evidence shows that homework for preschoolers and obsessive focus on academics at early ages isn’t just not helpful for kids – it’s actually harmful. Kids need free time, play time, and time away from their parents to grow and mature. I’d so much rather see a six-year-old riding his bike to the store three blocks away and counting out $2 to buy candy (which you almost never see now) than a six-year-old crying over a worksheet that his teacher and parents mistakenly think will “help him succeed.” You want your kid to do well? Let him/her out of your sight for a while and let imagination, creativity, problem-solving, and social interactions with other kids do the work.

       1. As a school psychologist, I could not love this post more.

    5. To be rather blunt (expectant mom): my husband and I are not quite super-powered academics – our terminal degrees are from Top 20s, not Ivies. But our child can either take advantage of the opportunities we will offer – love, support, teaching, opportunities for instruction, a genuine love of learning – or not. The child’s own attitude will swamp out whatever tiny advantages we can offer (at rather large cost to ourselves, at least in terms of time), and a genuine love of learning will be far more beneficial as the years go by.

    6. I am an incredibly lazy parent to middle schoolers (I’m a law firm partner and the primary breadwinner). I did none of this at all (I have never once made play doh), and they are fine. They are doing great actually–really good grades and relatively well adjusted. I’m actually starting to convince myself that maybe they benefited from my laziness? Because they can handle things on their own.

       Of course, you always worry, but you will drive yourself mad getting too in your head about this stuff. It’s never enough. And then even if you do all of this, you will be criticized for being a helicopter parent. Do the best you can every day and move on. They will be fine.

       1. +1 – also in a demanding job. My kids are younger, so not quite as sure of myself…but,

          I read a couple books to my kids every night. I make them sit down for 10 minutes for homework. That’s about it. They’re doing great.

          Focus on play, focus on character, focus on self sufficiency. That’s the stuff that matters. My second grader can wake up, get ready for school and get on the bus pretty much by himself. These skills will serve him well. If I hovered, he would have never learned to do any of that.

       2. My mom absolutely did not micromanage my school activities and when I was heartbroken about a bad grade on a test I was better organized the next time round and studied sufficiently.

    7. I was very focused on letting my kids be kids. They have their entire lives to be grownups but only a few short years to goof around on the monkey bars.

       I have one in college and one in high school now. Decent grades. They’re fine. Not necessarily Ivy League material, but they’ll be successful enough as they’re well rounded, well-spoken young people.

    8. Make or buy playdoh for your kid because playdoh is awesome. I did hear that with increased “screentime” from phones/ipads, toddlers are playing less with tactile toys that build hand strength (like playdoh) and that it does lead to problems when they eventually try to write. Which to me is a concern about kids doing a wide array of activities and not about academics per se. I completely agree that there is way too much academically oriented stuff targeted at pre-K and younger kids.

       1. In my experience, some of these articles are trying to defend traditional play activities in children, but are going about it wrong. Kids learn through play, but because most parents aren’t child development specialists, they don’t always put the connection together that playing with clay/stringing beads/pincher grip activities lead to better hand strength and fine motor skills which in turn are building blocks for skills like writing, cutting with scissors, using cutlery, etc.
          But only make you own play-dough or silly putty because you want too. Otherwise, go buy that stuff and let your kid have at it.

          1. Yes, it’s one of the most fascinating things to me about having kids – learning about child development and how what looks like “just playing” is actually learning really valuable life/motor/social skills (not academic but just…life). But kids don’t come with an instruction manual and I’ve mostly learned about these sorts of things from day care teachers, etc.

    9. I echo RR – Take a deep breath and just say no to that kind of pressure! Do the incidental learning you mentioned and read lots of books to your kids and they will be fine. I NEVER made homemade play dough for my kids and am definitely a kinda lazy parent and my kids are doing fine. Grades range from good to really good, and all three are well adjusted. A lot of how they will do in school depends on their natural abilities and personalities.

    10. Maybe this is more relevant to the gifted discussion above, but my friend quit a daycare when her child was 14 months because she thought her child was too “gifted” for the infant room. They wouldn’t move to the toddler room because her child was not walking steadily yet, and lacked other skills that most 18 month olds have. So she quit in a huff. I’ve also heard her call her toddler stupid on multiple occasions, when the kid couldn’t do something that many other children her age also can’t do. I care about this friend, but it’s almost impossible for me to spend time with her now because I hate seeing how she interacts with her child. Fwiw, my friend had a similar upbringing and has a very fraught relationship with her parents, and struggled a lot with mental illness in high school/college due to the academic pressure. And yet, the cycle repeats…

    11. You might call me a tiger mom because I taught my kid to read, write, and do arithmetic at home before she started kindergarten. It wasn’t because I’m pushing achievement–in fact, it was the opposite. It’s just easier and more fun for a kid to learn to add by playing with math manipulatives with a parent than it is to learn from flashcards and worksheets in a classroom.

        1. It’s great if it worked well for your child, but actually, learning from their parents can be a lot less fun for kids. I haaaated when my dad made me sit down and do math at home. I loved doing math in school and ended up taking AP Calc in 10th grade and going on to take lots of advanced math in high school and college. I think some kids just do better learning in the classroom environment with an instructor who is not their parent. And if you have one of those kids, trying to force it at home is a recipe for disaster.

           1. Oh, no, teaching my kid anything g at home was a disaster after first grade. I am talking about teaching the very basics at home, things like reading and arithmetic that are taught poorly in elementary schools.

    12. I mean, pretty much any experience is a learning experience for an 18th month old.

    13. I would reject that nonsense. Is your child in daycare? Most daycares and preschools will be play-based with age-appropriate activities that children naturally learn from. I wouldn’t worry about academic performance at all until there’s a known issue, and even then, maybe not.

        For whatever reason, but not from a lack of play doh, my kid lacks hand strength and is behind on pre-writing skills. He’s working with an OT on it twice a week. We’ve bought a few toys she’s suggested. Other than that, we mostly continue to outsource the issue to school and the OT. We praise him for using utensils at the table, or for holding a pencil or crayon correctly, and that’s it. Every attempt my husband or I make to get him to change his grasp ends in failure, plus yelling and the kid rejecting the activity he was enjoying. Nobody feels good about it. I’ve decided that the relationship is more important than whether my kid ever holds a pencil correctly (but he will, eventually) or ever has good handwriting (he probably won’t).

    14. I come from a family of teachers. The best thing you can do to prepare your child for academic success is read to them every day. As they get older, let them read to you and let them see you reading. Continue a nightly reading tradition well into their childhood (at home, we always read a story together as a family and then had our own reading time in bed up through high school.) This will prepare them as well as anything else. Of course, do fun, educational activities and visit museums, etc. because it is fun to do. It doesn’t need to be part of a larger plan.

    15. I highly recommend home-made play-doh. It tastes much better.

21. Does anyone have experience with supervising either a former boss or a higher-ranking colleague? Because there’s a good chance that I’m going to be in that situation soon, and it’s causing me to spiral into imposter syndrome territory. I haven’t worked with either person in several years, and both knew me when I was very young and green (about 15 years ago). Both of these people have held positions comparable to the one I have now. But, careers are long and can take strange turns, and they’re both taking steps back professionally (in one case, it’s not voluntarily). I respect their skills and talents a lot — really, they could both supervise ME! One of them actually has!

    How do I move past this, both in solving the imposter syndrome and with leading people who have more experience? This is a new dynamic that I’ve never dealt with before.

    1. Yes. I was so busy I was happy to have someone on board who knew what he was doing. I got him up to speed on our systems and so forth and then dumped projects on him that I knew he knew how to do. It was absolutely great for me. I barely supervised him because i knew he didn’t need it.

       1. I should also add that I knew it was hard in his ego so I just never brought it up. I always introduced him as my colleague – well, I actually always do this, I don’t really like it when someone introduces a member of their staff and makes sure everyone knows they’re a subordinate – and did my best not to make an uncomfortable situation more uncomfortable.

       2. Believe me, I see this as a very positive upside to me personally. :) Our team could benefit greatly from an experienced hand who doesn’t need a whole lot of hands-on management.

    2. My former boss now works on some of my projects. I have the utmost respect for him on a personal and professional level. Although I now have more education and skills and a broader range of experience than he has, I recognize that in his specific area of expertise he knows more than I ever will. I never try to tell him how to do his job unless he asks for input, I just delegate the task and trust that it will be done well. I sometimes use him as a sounding board when I’m having issues with a project, and when he has something to say I always listen. It’s actually refreshing and comforting to have someone on the team to whom I don’t always have to project perfect confidence and authority.

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