Weekend Open Thread

179 Comments

1. Yay! Open thread’s! I love Open Thread’s!

   I am concerned about the stock market prices for my portfolio. Ed says it’s down nearly 40% this year, which effects my retirement 401K as well as my investements which Dad manages with Ed. How can I be losing so much so soon? Ed says it is because of Putin and Ukreane, but what does he have to do with my stocks? I don’t have any investements in Ukraine at all, and neither do I have anything that I know of in Russia. I have some stocks in Exxon, but they are in the USA. I was hopeing to retire at age 60, but now that seems like a pipedream, Dad says. I have been working my tuchus off for so many years only to loose 40% in less then a year?

   Isn’t anyone else in the hive concerned about this? I never see anyone with financial abililty able to council the hive on this and what we should be doing. Even my Dad is perplexed by it all, and he says that he is very happy that he got this far, but it does not boad well for the rest of us who have to deal with Climate Change. Great! Why can’t anyone tell us what we need to do so that our portfolio’s are going back up? FOOEY on all of this! DOUBEL FOOEY!

2. For those of you with aging parents, when/how/are you even involved with their medical care?

   I’m one of 3, my parents are divorced. I’ve never been close with my mom. I do know that she hasn’t saved much for retirement and recently she has been saying things like “well when I get older this will be the sort of thing you’ll have to deal with!” (Taking my grandmother to medical appointments, in and out of the hospital, moving house several times etc).

   She doesn’t seem to have a plan for retirement, or aging, but I can tell you that living in my basement isn’t an option. Nor is it an option for either of my siblings.

   So, what do you as a child feel “obligated” to do? What’s something you do begrudgingly? Where is the line of “we never talked about this, you made no plans, we are not close, this is not my problem.”?

   For an added bonus, DH is an only child and his mom is recently widowed. While she has lots of money, she literally has nobody else. She has told DH (with me in the room) she plans to move to our area soon and finance her own live-in case but at some point he will have to step in. I suppose this is only practical/reasonable. But what do people do that don’t have a child as an option do?

   1. Responses are bound to vary widely. You do as much as you want and your relationship requires/demands/desires. We are cutting MIL off and will not help her in any way once she carelessly blows through the rest of her money. There are social programs and other family she can call on who enabled her behavior.

      My parents? We’ll do whatever we can to help them out. They’ve been incredible to us, have been responsible, planned and where they have missed in preparation for retirement, they’re quick to act to remedy.

      1. +1. This is not a one-size fits all issue. I would walk over hot coals for my mother and step-father. Aside from the fact that they have been incredibly responsible in their planning, they have been wonderful and supportive parents. If they need me to move it, I will (I’m single, live in their city and my child is nearly grown). If they need transportation, I will drive them. If they need practical help to remain in their house until they die or have to move into assisted living, I will provide it. The only thing I would not do is care for them if they develop dementia or some other disease where they do not know who I am or cannot cooperate in their own care- and that is at their request rather than mine. I cannot imagine a scenario where they would need my financial help since their net worth far exceeds mine but I would if they needed it. Just the idea that I would suggest they need to move out of the house they have lived in for 40 years to spare me inconvenience is unthinkable (and that does not even account for the fact that I will inherit that house!).

         My father? I love him, would help him move, help him find services, and will fly to him for an emergency. I would not upend my life for him. Fortunately he has other children (from a second marriage)who live near him and he was a much better father to them than to me. (He was not evil; just very young and irresponsible.)

         Since you have two siblings, the burden will be shared so I second the suggestion for a meeting to discuss. (My mother loves to tell stories about her grandmother – who “had a hard life” – and who rotated between her four children because nobody could stand her for longer but she was a generation where that was really the only option for the never worked-outside-the-home window of an Alabama sharecropper.)

   2. I think you communicate your priorities to your mother. For many people, that looks like:
      1. The financial and emotional health of your family (you, H, kids of any), which includes retirement.
      2. Kid’s college.
      3. Parents.

      Do not give her specifics about whatever pot of money, time, or energy is available. She just needs to know that you aren’t going to quit your job to drive her around.

      If she says something like “if I run out of money, you will have to support me,” say something like, “Mom, if and when you run out of money, we will help you fill out whatever paperwork is necessary to get assistance for you. If we have money to spare, we can help with a bill or two. But you do not get first bite, let alone second or third, at our paychecks.”

   3. Only child here.

      My dad was not a good father to me. I’m not doing anything for him.

      My mother was a great mom and we are very close. She has saved nothing for retirement, but she will collect Social Security and get Medicare. If she can’t live alone safely, she will move in with me. If she needs nursing home level care, she will get whatever Medicare offers. She is okay with this plan and so am I. We agree that my savings should primarily benefit the next generation – my kids.

      1. Just something to look at—Medicare doesn’t offer nursing home care. Facilities that accept Medicaid are generally what folks without funding for private care use. It is also generally really hard to find a place that accepts Medicaid for a new client. If it comes to that, the best case scenario is to find a place that will eventually accept Medicaid but to start services and move into the facility while there is a way to private pay. We just went through this with my mom two years ago and that’s what we found.

      2. Medicare does not pay for very much nursing home care (SNF). You may be thinking of Medicaid? This is for the truly indigent with little or no assets and the nursing home may or may not be very nice.

      3. Medicare doesn’t cover nursing homes.

      4. @9:01 Medicare will cover nursing home care for a certain number of days after a hospitalization – I believe it’s 100 days. My mom was there many times.

         1. Yes but that’s very different than long term nursing care, which many (most?) people eventually need.

            1. The game is you go to the hospital again to restart the clock.

               What we ended up doing was putting my mom’s home and meager assets into an irrevocable trust so that she finally qualified for Medicaid. But then the nursing home no longer wanted her because the reimbursement was so meager – they did everything in their power to kick her out. That 100 days of Medicare, plus her supplement, though, they did everything they could to keep her there for the full 100.

            2. Each hospital stay is so dangerous though! And the facilities don’t always hold the bed. I know you’re right that this is often how it works, but it’s dystopian.

            3. The hospital trick doesn’t work if you need nursing care for memory issues or dementia, which wouldn’t require you to be seen by a hospital.

   4. This is very much a question of family dynamics. What I would do with my mother is irrelevant. I think your first step needs to be to get together with your siblings and discuss how you want to handle this as the three of you, and then you all approach your mother and let her know what you’re willing to do for her and what you’re not. Maybe later in life, if able, you all can pitch in toward a caregiver or some such. But life alone is mighty hard.

   5. I’m an only child with affluent, frugal parents in their early 70s. They moved to my town a couple years ago, which has been wonderful for all of us. Currently they’re active and spend a lot of time with their grandkid. As they get older I definitely anticipate helping them with things like doctor’s appointments and running errands. They live in a townhouse community so we don’t have to worry about things like snow removal. I would help with medical care in a short term situation like post-surgery. When they need consistent medical care, they will move to an assisted living facility. I’m fortunate that my family is all in agreement about this and they would never expect to move in with us or to have me quit my job and devote myself to their care. They will almost certainly never need financial assistance from us.

      Dh has a failure to launch sibling and parents who have earned more money in their lifetimes than my parents, but spent all of it. They’re currently still working in their late 70s and as long as they’re working they don’t need financial assistance from us. At some point, probably when they can no longer live independently, we will probably have to support them financially but it will be the most budget facility we can find that seems safe.

   6. My mom downsized from a house to a condo, made funeral arrangements, and made sure I knew where her will and health care documents were located. As for my MIL, she refused to leave her five bedroom house and would not get rid of a single thing. We finally chose to pay for a will and health care directives for her because she refused to do it herself even though she had the money. It was mainly the health care documents that we were concerned about. Every step of the way has been difficult and the only way she got moved from independent living to assisted care and then to nursing care was falling and ending up in the hospital each step of the way.

      Talk to your parents about what YOU need to help the while their brain is still intact.

   7. My mom wouldn’t leave her house, well past the time she should have. She ended up in care in the long run, against her will but the hospital would only release her there, but before then, she offered her young adult grandson a place to live, and he and a series of his friends rotated through living at her house. It was a good arrangement all around. They didn’t really pay rent (some did but it was a minimal amount) and they all split groceries. She did their laundry. They helped her with things she couldn’t do herself like repairs, and later, errands.

      They didn’t provide any nursing care of course – that would have been too embarrassing for my mom anyway – but they were there in case she needed to be taken in to urgent care, or once, they had to call an ambulance.

      It was a bit stressful for all of us, and one of my siblings was angry that these boys were taking advantage of her kindness, but none of us could have dropped everything to go live with her, and it all worked out. She really enjoyed the company and having young people to care for again.

      1. Adding – to answer your question about medical care, none of us were super involved in the day to day, but when mom was hospitalized one of us would be there. Often it was my sister who lived one town over, but if things were bad, one of the other siblings would drive or fly there to take over. And for her last few years, things were bad and she was in and out of the hospital/nursing care home.

      2. That sounds cool. I lived next to a bunch of young hill staffers and they looked out for a widow next door the other way and shoveled her walk when it snowed.

         1. Yes it was. They were all rather lazy young men but they stepped up when they were needed, which was exactly what our family needed.

            They’re all nearing 30 now and mostly have their ish together at this point.

   8. I would do a lot for my parents. The ly have told me that they have papa, choose, etc with me designated but I haven’t seen these documents. I should probably get copies or know where to find them. That would be too easy though.

   9. Only child. Came to US as a pre-teen with mom (single parent) who moved back to home country when I was in college to take care of her aging mom. After grandma died, she refused to come back here, saying she always felt like a foreigner and never learned enough English to be comfortable, and now it would be a PITA at best to get her back here. She’s in a country that’s not doing great right now and I can’t travel there and she can’t leave. She is retired and young/healthy for her age but I have no idea what her plan is for when she gets older. I can’t afford to support her here and there’s no one to take care of her there.

      1. if she in a country that provides services and support for seniors as they age? many countries are better than ours.

         1. Yes but it’s not a first world country so those services vary in quality and availability.

   10. I’m one of 3, and our mom died when we were teenagers. Our dad remarried very quickly after that, ignoring our request that he wait and continue to parent us until we could support ourselves. We’ve struggled in our relationships with him and his wife since then, and he is now pretty severely ill with Parkinson’s and needs a lot of care. His wife doesn’t want to care for him but still wants his money, so they live together but she stays very busy elsewhere so she doesn’t have to tend to his needs. He has a caregiver that comes a few hours a day a few days a week to help with bathing/dressing, but it would be great to have someone help him more frequently. We try to keep tabs and make sure he has what he needs, but the whole thing is emotionally painful, and I go back and forth between wishing I could do more and thinking that he expressly chose his new wife over his children, so she should be the one who bears the brunt of the responsibility. The oldest sibling handles a lot of the tough conversations and has his wishes written down, but it’s challenging because even if his wife wants something that goes against his best interest, he will take her side. All just to say, I feel like I don’t know what I am doing and that I am messing up at this, and my siblings do, too. We’re in our early 40’s and have plenty of other stuff in our lives that requires our time and attention too.

       1. Wow — your dad is my former brother in law. I’m sorry — it sounds awfully rough.

       2. I’m sorry. This sounds incredibly difficult on so many fronts.

       3. I had a friend whose dad got Parkinson’s, and his dad’s wife (not my friend’s mom, but the woman he left my friend’s mom for) straight-up just left. There wasn’t enough money for her to stick around for, apparently, so she decided she was not really in it “in sickness and in health” and split. He ended up taking care of his dad until his dad’s death. It’s amazing to me that that kind of story is not uncommon or rare.

   11. Not to take over the thread but these are issues I’m thinking about too but – what do you do when your parents just WILL NOT DISCUSS IT?? At all. They are in complete denial and in the – oh it’ll work out – category?? Dad is late 70s so this should have been planned years ago but they are not planners. They still save and invest as if they’re 40 but are not rich. I.E. they’ve been far too invested in the stock market in recent years when I’ve been telling them they need to pull back because all economic cycles eventually turn and it was – oh no we’re making money. And now they are STRESSED and keep asking me when this market downswing will end. Yes I work in finance but you don’t listen to me and BTW I don’t have a crystal ball.

       So basically mom just acts like NBD we’re young, alternating with you kids will figure it out — i.e. me because the other kid doesn’t speak to them unless she’s fighting with them. And dad is at that old man age where every little thing overwhelms him. Brought up the idea of – if you want to stay in this house, maybe a downstairs master needs to be built, maybe some lighting fixtures need to be moved because you can’t get on ladders for lightbulbs. Dad ended up with his head in this hands just too upset to discuss and upset that he’d have to spend 30k to 50k on a downstairs master and maybe a few hundred on lighting fixture movement. To be clear – despite being overinvested they CAN afford these things but NOPE SAVINGS comes first.

       WHAT DO I DO??

       1. Aging is hard. My mom used to say that inside she felt 27 and then she would look in the mirror and think, who is that old lady staring back at me? I think many older people struggle to make these kinds of decisions and take actions that seem necessary to their children because their mind hasn’t caught up to their age. It’s scary to think about getting older and not being able to get up the stairs, so they don’t.

          In my parents’ case, even though they were very level headed and budget conscious, some things didn’t happen until they were forced into it, like accepting caregivers in the home. It took a mini crisis – both of them hospitalized for different reasons – to make them see that bringing in an aide a few times a week would be a big help. And then they loved her and were sorry they waited. Ultimately though, it is their decision. You can suggest things and support ideas, but they are adults and will make a decision in their own time.

   12. My parents are an extremely healthy 76/77 and I’m not involved in their care at all. That being said, when/if it’s necessary, I’ll do what I have to in order to support them – whether financial support or moving them into my house – and I won’t do it begrudgingly or out of obligation. My parents are not perfect, but they’re pretty great and we have an extremely strong relationship.

   13. I’d probably do almost anything for my parents. But I’m super close with them and they are very very good to me and my kids and my husband.
       They’re in their 60s and knock wood very healthy and have plenty of money plus long term care insurance, so a lot would have to go wrong for them to look to me for money.

       I feel like this question gets asked a lot here but irl almost all of my friends’ parents are much wealthier than anyone of my generation. Even just regular middle class homes that people bought for very little in the 1970s and 1980s are worth at least a million dollars plus these people had pensions, affordable health care and minimal college loans over very long and continuing careers. My parents have a lot of
       Inherited real property plus real estate they bought in downturns but even regular cops, teachers, and nurses I know in their 60s and 70s have multiple cars and homes and boats. (My uncle works in insurance and has more luxury cars than I have pairs of shoes, my aunt who was a nurse and a single mom owns her home, a vacation home and paid for hundreds of thousands towards her kids’ homes.)

       I don’t envy anyone who has to support their parents, and believe me I understand how people, individually, end up broke but given how successful most boomers are, how is this a widespread problem? Maybe it’s a geographical thing? Am I the only one living in a place where everyone’s parents ended up wealthy?

       1. I mean, that’s the most humble-braggy thing ever. I promise that is not the case for most. We are dealing with this now with my MIL, who is 70. She does not have “millions” to lean on. She barely has thousands. It’s going to be a long 20-30 years for my husband and me.

       2. It’s absolutely geographic. My parents bought a home for 150k. Great right? Right now IF you could even sell it, it’d sell for 300k. That gives them no options of moving closer to their kids who live in HCOLs. I agree with you if you’re sitting on real estate in major markets, it’s great. But if you’re in middle America in places where no one moves in, real estate has not been an investment. Also my parents definitely do not have pensions. They worked for one private company after the next, often with layoffs in between so pensions were not a thing or they never vested. Again maybe this comes from being in a economically depressed area but there weren’t these amazing amounts of money to be made nor huge retirement benefits despite being in good industries like engineering.

       3. I agree that generally my parents’ generation is wealthier than mine, but there are many individuals who are not responsible with money. I commented above but DH’s parents basically live paycheck to paycheck. They’re fine as long as they work (their household income is probably >$300k, albeit in a HCOL area) but they have no savings to speak of so when one or both of them can’t work they’ll be destitute. Of course it’s possible they’ll drop dead suddenly and we won’t need to financially support them, but a more likely scenario is that they’ll become disabled and unable to work long before they die, in which case we will likely have to spend a significant amount of money to put them in a care facility. They rent an apartment, so there’s no high value house to sell to cover caregiving costs. They owned property in LCOL areas in the past but sold it to pay off debts.

       4. Maybe go to the local Walmart and say hello to the greeters who are in their 80s? Or to where the homeless hang out and see the elderly folks in wheelchairs? Plenty of elderly people are living in poverty.

       5. This is the most bizarre and tone deaf comment I’ve ever read on this site. That is saying something!

          You are aware that A TON of people (even elderly people!) live in areas where houses are not worth millions, right? And not everyone has inherited land or wealth? You and your circle are apparently very lucky.

       6. My single mother retired teacher is definitely not more well-off than I am as a lawyer. She owns a perfectly fine home in a safe area and has a pension. She has enough money to survive, but has to budget carefully. Her home is worth around 400k but she won’t sell it. That is by far her largest asset.

       7. This is not my experience at all, growing up in a LCOL area. My parents passed in their 70s with a house (with mortgage) and a couple hundred thousand in an IRA. They were living off of that and social security. They worked hard all their lives, lived very frugally, but also had a ton of very expensive medical issues (remember the days before Obamacare?) and took care of various family members. I made more my first year of fulltime work (in a very lucrative industry with a grad degree) than they did at retirement age.

       8. Haha my mom never made more than $30k a year in her life, she had a home but it was constantly re-mortgaged and she died with a first and second mortgage still owing. The house sold for under $300k. She had no pension and she had a 401k with less than $40k in it. You live in an upper middle class to wealthy bubble, friend. It’s time you realize that.

       9. Go look at the 70 and 80 year olds who are manning the registers at Walgreens, slinging hash at the Waffle House, greeting people at Costco.

   14. My parents are in their late 70s, and they give me the big picture/tell me about any serious diagnoses. We live on opposite coasts, and they are making plans to move to my sibling’s neighborhood within the next few years. My dad is cagier than my mom, but that’s always been the case.

       The in-laws (in their early 80s) will regale us for hours with their stories of Your Brilliant Elders Went To The Doctor ™, but they won’t tell us what’s really going on and shop around to get what they want, I think. They switch health systems every few years, ditto hospital networks, and I think the reason may be that my MIL absolutely refuses to talk to neurologists, psychologists, or psychiatrists. My BIL is the one with the powers of attorney, and I think they picked him because he’d never insist on anything, while my spouse might say, “Mom, you need to see a doctor.”

       1. Lol “Your Brilliant Elders Went To The Doctor ™“ this is definitely a genre

   15. I am one of 3 siblings also. My parents are divorced. My mom got cancer when I was in my early 30’s. She had to move into an apartment into another state for treatment. None of the hospitals in our state offered that kind of treatment. She also could not be alone and could not drive. We took turns providing care for her, but I felt like as the oldest I was expected to do more. I did all of the coordination and helped her more financially than my siblings. When she was able to come back home, she was not able to live alone and so she moved in with me. Eventually, she recovered and lives alone again. I am not sure what will happen as she ages. I imagine she will probably live with me again. We have a somewhat strained relationship. But she’s my mother.

       My husband is an only child and his mother is widowed. She has said she does not want to live with us lol and hopes to stay in her own home. I hope that works out, but if she needs to live with us, we will let her.

   16. Since I’m disabled, this burden has shifted to my sibling who is extremely wealthy. Plus the parents are very organised with wills and what they want, as most of their parents lived into their 90s so they prepared for a long life.

       1. Right there with you. I’m sure I’ll eventually help with some of my parents’ care, but since I can’t drive, I certainly won’t be the one driving them to medical appointments. I need people to drive me to mine!

          1. Thanks for chiming in, it’s nice not to be an outlier here.

             It’s definitely a mindset adjustment, being the one who needs assistance when I expected to be the one driving them to appointments!

             Will we be the ones providing a bit more emotional support and guidance with accessing services, like the ones we use?

   17. I’m struggling with parental medical treatment and decisions now, too. Different scenario, they are still married but refuse to seek any treatment outside the small rural clinic they’ve always gone to. I get so frustrated when they complain about things I know are treatable but they refuse specialty visits or other help. No advice. Learning from these posts. Thank you for posting.

   18. I was close with my parents and while they did not need financial help, they did have a number of medical issues before passing. After traveling back and forth 2-4 times a month for a year, I relocated back to my hometown to be closer to help out. I cherish the time we had together before they passed and am very glad I did it, even though it took a real toll on my personal life and career. My mom took care of her parents in a similar way when I was quite young, so it seemed normal to me and it was something I wanted to do. No regrets for me, but in talking to friends about this, I do think I am an outlier. (I am the first in my friend group to lose parents though so we’ll see when the time comes for them.)

       Everyone’s family is different, so my only advice is to decide what works for you and have a conversation with your parents if these issues come up. If Mom says she is planning to move in with you, sit down and explain that is not going to happen.

   19. I actually worry about this myself. I’m 35, have been single for 10 years, and might not have children through no lack of wanting them. I’m not worried about being able to provide for myself financially, I’m a high-income earner and save and invest wisely. But I do worry sometimes about not having anyone to provide emotional support for me in my old age. I’m close with my (much younger) sister who will certainly have children so maybe one of my nieces or nephews will take pity on me but my sister and her husband live halfway across the country so I worry about how close I will be with them.

       I’m sorry your mom has left this burden on you.

3. You know, this started as a repost of a morning post about a problem employee. I know the answer is ‘manage him out and start the process to terminate’.

   Short version, staffer has never been great but always thought he was INCREDIBLE. I’ve had a lot of just… issues with him. He’s taken a LOT of hands on management.

   Lately, he’s gone off the rails a bit. I thought it was a combination of good life thing/bad life thing/COVID/stuff like that… but a colleague legitimately asked me if it was a drug problem. That’s how strange the behavior has been.

   MAN. Being a manager is suuuuper fun. I once had to handle a situation where the staffer had serious mental decline to the point where they basically were told they had to retire… I’ve managed through some truly insane issues and still – things surprise me.

   1. I’ve managed my way through and around SO many employees with substance issues over the years. It’s soul sucking & you have my sympathies. I hope to never be in a managerial position ever again.

   2. I mean, this is what they pay you for. Horrible things happen to people. I guarantee you that it’s a lot worse to be the employee who ends up with such serious mental health problems that they can no longer work and they somehow have to figure out how to navigate the rest of their life. And in this case, the odds are extremely high that you’re dealing with something similar- mental health issues, physical health issues… it’s certainly possible that they have a drug or alcohol problem, but the odds are at least as good that they’re dealing with side effects from a prescription drug or some other health issue. When you lose your job, you lose your income and your health insurance, which puts employees and employers in a really bad place- it’s not like you can expect them to voluntarily quit or face the stigma of having a disabling health condition. We’d all be better off if there was a better social safety net to deal with these situations more humanely.

      1. Absolutely. I sound very direct and harsh here, but please know that I put a huge effort into supporting my employees. Whatever it is, so many things suck in terms of support for people who are struggling.

         On the other hand, man is it difficult to be dealing with!

4. Ooh I love a fragrance post. The featured MM Replica scent is definitely a winner. It’s a travel size buy for me because I only want to wear it sparingly.

   For fall, I’m looking forward to wearing By The Fireplace, Omnia (original) by Bvlgari, Mimosa and Cardamom by Jo Malone, Nomade by Chloe, and (wild card) A Whiff of Waffle Cone by Imaginary Authors.

   Scents I wear year round are mostly by Goutal – Un Matin d’Orage EDP, Nuit et Confidences (evening), Temps de Reves, and Grand Amour (sparingly.)

   Kat, if you like Vetiver you might like Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Nerolia Vetiver. It’s a relatively new release. So fresh smelling!

5. How often is it that one spouse files for bankruptcy and the other doesn’t? This is a remarriage where he has school loans and alimony and child support. She went bankrupt with her ex husband in the 2008 recession. She is my sister and not sophisticated. I just don’t want her being involved in anything fraud-ish with this husband. They do own a house together but it has probably no equity. Of course she is pregnant and can’t walk away from this but it seems shady (or he does so this does). I just don’t want anyone in jail.

   1. What are you talking about? Who is filing here – your sister or her BIL? Shouldn’t the attorney handling the case be the one to answer these questions? You can’t get rid of school loans or alimony on bankruptcy….

      1. Yeah this post is super confusing. Who is “she” “he” and what does 2008 have to do with anything in 2022.

      2. Interested to hear from any non- traditional MBA students. My firm is offering me a fully sponsored MBA at a highly rated state school. I’m 39, a department head in a specialised area and have two small children. I’m possibly interested in a move into consulting as a way to cross industries down the line. But, I am wondering if MBA’s are still sought after, whether it’s a good investment of time for someone my age vs a younger candidate headed for Wall Street etc. but it seems silly to pass up free tuition etc. Any experiences (both good and bad) are greatly appreciated.

   2. He can’t discharge his loans alimony or child support in bankruptcy and she absolutely can leave.

   3. Huh? I don’t think you can get rid of any of those things by filing for bankruptcy, if that’s what you’re talking about.

   4. Very hard to understand the details based on how the post is worded but BK to jail is a big leap, so I’d strongly recommend either staying out or, if and only if she asked for help, refer her to her own attorney, at least for an initial consult.

   5. It’s not that uncommon, but you’re right to be concerned that there is something “off’ about what is going on. It can be a big nothing, but sometimes people get bad advice. She would benefit from talking to her own attorneys.

6. Has anyone been to Curacao? It looks like one of the more affordable spots in the Caribbean for the Christmas-NYE week which is unfortunately when we have to travel. I remember not really liking it when I visited as a teen on a cruise, but I probably shouldn’t write it off on that basis. We’re big snorkelers (we don’t dive though) and generally visit the Caribbean primarily for the beaches and scenery.

7. Random question for the hive: were you identified as gifted when you were young? How do you think that has shaped your life?

   For me it felt validating – my parents were very proud of my getting into the gifted program – but also othering, if that makes sense. We were taken out of classes, except for 4th/5th where we were our entirely own split classroom.

   I’m a lawyer now and don’t feel overly smart at my law firm, more dumb/imposter.

   1. Yeah. I missed the period we had for gym and swims on Fridays, which meant I missed the open swim time and I was always kind of bummed about that, but other than that I think it was probably a good thing for me. I never really thought about it again after elementary school.

   2. Yes. I was always told that I was exceptionally smart. But now, in therapy, I am realizing I was always “too” smart, particularly for a girl, and it has caused endless issues in my life. I don’t wish I was less smart, but I really wish it didn’t come with so much baggage.

      Obviously it is weird to talk to people in my life about this. It feels very arrogant.

   3. I was in gifted classes as a kid, I think being smart as a female was very fraught. I was ‘too smart’ a ‘know it all’ ‘bossy’ ‘opinionated’. I was relentlessly bullied as a kid, then recently when dealing with some mental health issues had to take an IQ test where the psychologist confirmed I was indeed a genius, but only after spewing a bunch of s*xist stuff to me about how I’m not actually that smart.

   4. Yes? And it basically hasn’t had much of an impact on my life at all. I sort of knew, even then, that I was a big fish in a very small pond (rural school) and that I wasn’t going to be able to skate by on my grades and intelligence alone.

      I worry more about my 7th grade kid, who is in advanced classes has already internalized the message that he’s the smart kid and can’t fail at anything, despite DH and I not being pushy about it AT ALL. The demographics of his school are much different than the ones I grew up in, and it shows. He needs the challenge of the differentiated classes but I am concerned about other messages he’s picking up as a result.

   5. Yes, I was identified in kindergarten. It was a pull-out program in elementary school, then starting in middle school there were honors classes and the opportunity to be accelerated in math. I went to camps for gifted kids in high school. I enjoyed the pull out program in elementary school and especially the high school camps. I don’t know that the gifted label itself caused problems, but being gifted did. I had a hard time at my elite college when suddenly I was not way smarter than everyone else, because I didn’t know how to study and work hard and I gave up immediately on things that didn’t come easy to me. Personality is definitely a factor in that, but so is the fact that I was so unchallenged in K-12. But again, I don’t think that’s the fault of the gifted label. My kid appears to be very average academically, which is a huge relief to me.

   6. I was. I was distinctively not normal in terms of my level of intellectual development as a kid (like, I could tell that I understood significantly more complex concepts than my peers) and it made me feel weird and lonely. The gifted program in my public school was super easy for me and so my parents moved me to a private school that didn’t tie what you could study to grade level and that was awesome.

      My giftedness is all on the language and language-related side of the spectrum (so not just extremely early reading and advanced reading, but very high achievement in any language-based subject, very fast processing of written information, learned foreign languages very easily, good at pattern recognition, etc) – I was very advanced in math until I hit about 7th grade or so, and then my peers caught up.

      I honestly would have liked to have gone to one of those early college programs or something like that; I remained pretty academically bored up until my second year of college or so, when I was past my core classes.

      Honestly, I think that I am actually less likely to place value on high intelligence than a lot of people because I am very aware of the limits of how far intelligence gets you (and the answer is “not nearly as far as people think it does”).

      1. Amen to your last paragraph.

      2. I tell my (sort of insufferable) bright teenager about this fairly often. I’ve known extremely successful people who are not super-bright but smart enough to work hard and play well with others. Also over the years, I’ve worked with people who are absolutely brilliant but don’t go as far as they’d like because they can’t work with others.

         1. I was in the “gifted” program in school but TBH its my people skills that have taken me much, much farther.

      3. Your last paragraph so hits the mail on the head. I was identified as gifted and have done very well in my academic career, and to some degree in my professional one – but I’ve now realized I don’t have the people skills to advance the way I would like. It’s kind of embarrassing it took me as long as it did to realize that, actually.

      4. “Honestly, I think that I am actually less likely to place value on high intelligence than a lot of people because I am very aware of the limits of how far intelligence gets you (and the answer is “not nearly as far as people think it does”).”

         Several of the people I was in “gifted and talented” programs with in elementary, middle or high school are dead now from suicide, drug overdoses, or drunk-driving accidents. “Gifted” is a label, and some kids thought that label was going to pave the path for them to a successful life without them having to work very hard. When that didn’t happen, they fell into some self-destructive behaviors that ultimately destroyed them. It’s very sad. It’s also one of the reasons I never cared about getting my kid tested for the gifted program in elementary school (we found out when he was in high school, when he went through some other testing, that he technically qualifies, but now is not interested in participating and likely wouldn’t get much out of it anyway).

   7. I was in the gifted program in elementary school. For me, it was a real saving grace. I found my “people” and had friends and didn’t get bored learning the early stuff. My biggest issue was moving from a state in the north that really emphasized gifted education to one in the south that did not in middle school. I was advanced – I had already taken algebra and a few years of French. The middle school in the south did not have that. I learned I could coast. I probably should have skipped grade(s), but it would have been socially difficult. Although things were already socially difficult because I was a “know it all.” Things evened out by college.

      Now I’m also a lawyer. I think I’m smart, but not unusually so. Until I talk to truly regular folks (like when picking a jury). It’s easy to forget just what an actual average American is like.

   8. Not exactly, but my parents recognized that I was bored out of my mind in school and wasn’t being accommodated. So they pulled me out of school and made sure that I had access to challenging instruction. That was a great experience for me, and being in classes with students who probably actually were gifted made it so much easier to make friends.

      As part of ADHD testing, I later got a neuropsychological assessment that included an IQ test, and they said my verbal IQ was high, whereas my nonverbal IQ was actually below average. I realize IQ testing is problematic, and I don’t feel I’m any “smarter” than people around me. As a child I mostly just felt older or younger than same-age peers in school in different ways, which I think was probably right (I think a mix of developmental accelerations and delays is a perfect recipe for being happier outside of school).

   9. Being identified as highly gifted got me into magnet schools where I was taught the right material in the right way and got me into awesome summer programs where I learned fun things and hung out with other kids like me. Then we moved to a place with very limited gifted services and the identification became meaningless. The label has no value unless it gets you appropriate services.

   10. My elementary school tested me without my parents’ knowledge, which pissed them off, so they wouldn’t let them pull me out for gifted classes. I didn’t know this at the time, so I was puzzled to see kids who didn’t do as well at class work as I did getting pulled out for gifted Ed.

       I was always a reader and a writer and didn’t think I was great at math until one of my high school counselors suggested I tutor math, which is what made me realize I was good at that too.

       I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a career so I took a bunch of aptitude tests in high school when it came time to think about college, and they kept recommending I become a doctor so I guess that told me something.

       School was always easy and I didn’t work very hard until after I graduated and decided to become an actuary. It wasn’t until I was taking the later actuarial exams that I really felt I had to work hard to pass (because I was finally competing against people who were a lot like me, and they only pass 30-40% each sitting.)

       I feel like I stumbled my way into a career that is a really good fit for me.

   11. Yup, identified in an IQ test and tracked into the gifted program in either K or 1st. The most concrete benefit was being slotted into advanced courses in middle school which meant I took high school classes earlier, did well, and then took AP classes in high school and applied those credits to graduate college in 3 years vs. 4 which saved me a pretty significant amount of money.
       Another bonus was being surrounded by other really really smart kids in HS and college. While I was top 5% of my class the top 1% of kids were insanely bright – like westinghouse competition winners/had patents in high school kind of kids. It definitely challenged me to do better and I was (and am!) SO grateful to the AP teachers who knocked us all down many, many rungs in 11th/12th grade by teaching us the vast difference between college-level papers/work and the B level work many of us had been skating on until then. In retrospect the level of studying/focus those classes required were probably what kept my ADHD brain engaged and being explicitly taught study skills/research skills/note taking (which weren’t taught by many other teachers) meant I was so much better prepared for college. Frankly, college was almost easier than my senior year of high school, which wouldn’t have been true in the ‘normal’ 12th grade classes and I know many of those kids struggled with the transition.

   12. Ha! My husband I went to the same public school growing up. (We didn’t actually speak until law school.) Neither of us were identified as gifted, even though about one of every three kids were in the program.The gifted program in elementary was the only track to the “honors” courses in high school, which were weighted. So we mostly got As and some Bs but graduated close to the middle of our classes. We both scored in the top10% for kids in the school on our SATs.

       We both went to solid, not great, colleges. (Him a big state school, me a liberal arts school you’ve never heard of). We got scholarships to a solid regional law school and probably out earn 90k (make about 600k combined) of the kids we graduated with.

       I am continually perplexed that we were both overlooked for the gifted program but did learn later that 100% of kids whose parents asked were placed in it in elementary school. I’m of two minds about it- on one hand we did make it on our own, so who cares? On the other, had our parents just advocated for us a little bit we might have been in much better colleges and a better law school ect. So life is really not a meritocracy and I’m kind of obsessed with making sure my kids aren’t looked over like that. I’m also grateful that, while I still live in the area, I don’t send my kid to the school I went to. It’s still really insular and the parents are totally obnoxious.

       1. Late GenX kid. I wasn’t identified as “gifted,” but got As in all my classes and was super anxious and bored in school. Luckily, most of my K-8 teachers didn’t mind that I read a paperback during class, and I was even pulled out for some programs with my “betters” like Odyssey of the Mind. My parents (who were WASPS, FWIW) weren’t the kind that would lobby the public school for a different placement.

          When I was in 8th grade, I moved to a different school system, and begged myself into an honors history course because I’d already taken the same history topic in 7th grade. I wound up doing really, really well in the class, and this gave me the confidence to go into honors English in my first year of high school. Again, I did well.

          In 10th grade, I switched back to my original school system and was able to take honors and AP classes. I was in classes with the same people who had been adjudicated gifted in elementary school, and to the consternation of people like my seatmate in 10th grade honors English, the “dumb” girl (me) was suddenly the one getting As and getting the highest grade on the curved science class tests. Having a huge chip on my shoulder was some (OK, a lot) of my motivation. Those grades (and SAT prep which was not common at the time) propelled me to an elite college, as well as decent helping of the classic “I’m leaving this small town for the big city.”

          At middle age, most of the people I went high school with are doing fine, the ones who left and the ones who didn’t leave. I’m not sad that there is basically no such thing as “gifted” in my kids’ district, but I do think the accelerated classes in math and English (as well as APs) are good in middle/high school.

   13. I don’t think it has had a major impact, other than maybe giving me some self-confidence. To be honest I think a lot of the gifted programs are to stroke egos. I don’t think any of the other kids really thought much about it, if at all. I came into college with enough credits to graduate early but realized that cutting a year out of some of the best years of my life would be kind of foolish.

   14. I was identified when I was about 8. It made me an insufferable snob for a long time. I was lazy and had terrible study habits, but brushed it all off (with my parents support) as evidence that the work I was being given was ‘not challenging enough.’ The ‘she’s too smart to have to prove her worth with grades’ bubble burst pretty quickly in law school. And, my smart-but-lazy-work-ethic didn’t serve me well during my initial couple years in litigation either – I had a pretty humiliating separation from a job that I really liked, but that my life had in no way prepared me to be successful at.

       So, my take-away is that my kids … too young to be tested, but who may also be gifted … still need to learn discipline, develop a work ethic, and recognize / appreciate that there are LOTS of different ways to be smart. I see myself as a cautionary tale.

       1. As an ungifted, untalented child, THANK YOU so, so much for posting this reply. Some of the people that bullied me were the gifted kids because some of them had teachers who would fawn all over them and parents (!) that would tell them they were the only kids who wouldn’t be flipping burgers as adults. Unfortunately, I think a lot of smart people in my generation got the message that they were better people than not-smart people.

       2. Were you not accommodated with work that was challenging enough? I thought the whole point of providing challenging coursework was to provide an opportunity to work on discipline, work ethic, and study skills — even if that means bringing in college level instructors when the K12 teachers can’t keep up.

          1. Not OP but I had an identical experience. No, in most areas gifted programs in elementary are basically like an extracurricular activity. It’s an hour or two a week and usually not related to the standard academic curriculum. We did things like brain teasers and creative, self-directed independent projects. It was very fun, good for me socially and probably good for my brain development but didn’t address the issue of finding regular work extremely unchallenging. To really challenge highly gifted kids academically, they’d need a separate full time or nearly full time class and that is not a thing at most schools.

             1. That’s really unfortunate. That wouldn’t have been nearly enough for me, partly because spending so much time in the regular classes wasn’t good for my mental health, and partly because I had ADHD so extremely familiar, boring, rote work was still challenging for me but not in productive ways (I could focus a lot better when academically challenged, but busy work I knew inside out was very, very hard to focus on).

                I also had some health issues, so part of the mental health difficulty was that regular classes wasted so much of my “good” time before I became fatigued each day that I couldn’t realistically compensate with extracurriculars or study outside of class the way some kids did. I think our under-resourced schools might be even worse at accommodating medical conditions than learning differences!

                I remember for a while Stanford had online classes for students in this predicament. It seems like that the least schools could do is provide appropriate instruction online if they can’t or won’t do it in person.

             2. I thought Abbott Elementary handled this really well in one of the episodes. Having it as an extracurricular makes the other kids think, “Am I too dumb to help incubate chicks?” “Am I too stupid to enjoy an art museum?”

             3. Online instruction doesn’t work for a lot of elementary age kids, especially K-3. I agree it makes sense in middle and high school although many districts offer in-person differentiation by then, at least in math, which is where it’s most necessary.

             4. I think I liked the idea of the Stanford program because text-based online instruction was a great fit for me eventually. Typing quickly enough was a bigger obstacle for me at younger ages than reading quickly enough. When I was younger, I did more correspondence, and when I was older, I strongly preferred live chat. (That was back before the internet could handle video though; Zoom school sounds like torture to me, and in general I pity today’s kids struggling with poorly designed or inappropriately recommended online classes!) I just don’t see a way around distance education if there aren’t any other similar children in a school district; the isolation can be so hard.

                For academically motivated K-3 students who don’t have genuine peers at school anyway, I wonder how often those “no classrooms” mixed-aged schools can be a good fit, or minimalist “reading, writing, and arithmetic” home school approach plus plenty of projects and extracurriculars?

                I deeply don’t believe that school can be all things to all people (structured enough for some, but unstructured enough for others; stimulating enough for some, but quiet enough for others), so I like to see creative alternatives, so long as academics aren’t neglected and the kids themselves are participating voluntarily.

   15. The benefit of gifted for me was meeting other weird kids from other schools.

   16. Super late to the party responding. I was identified as gifted after moving to the US. Prior to that, I went to a small school with a class of the same 20 or so kids each year so year to year the teachers could tailor things to our needs individually. Coming to the US where there were more kids in my grade alone than my prior school combined, being identified as “gifted” allowed for the same thing that my teachers had been doing all along without a name for it to keep me from being bored and disruptive. I will say that this was years ago, and before the days were gifted was commonly used – there it was limited to more of an IEP situation for kids that you would think of as more in the genius category. I’ve talked about it with my parents and the “gifted” label did help them out with finding parenting resources for how to deal with both my and my sibling’s needs, particularly with how relating to our peers sucked (adults much easier) and finding activities for us. I will also say that my parents never told me exactly what all the testing meant as it was always known that I was “very smart” and didn’t think like other kids, and I only found out how high I scored cleaning out their files as an adult. All I knew was that it meant I got different assignments than other kids in my class, and my dad would tell me that I’d find other people like me at uni.

   17. I was put into a “gifted” program (later renamed “challenge”) beginning in first grade. I had to be bussed once every two weeks to a different school. I don’t think I got much out of it; it wasn’t additional instruction on regular subjects but more like free time to do other projects like make videos? I don’t know. It isolated me from my classmates in “regular” classes and the gifted kids were already at the same school and cliqueish. So I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere and it made me feel more alone, to be honest.

8. The last few weeks have had me thinking more about extended family. So was curious – how well do you or did you know your grandparents? How were those relationships and do you have any regrets?

   For me – dads side. Didn’t know them at all, as grandfather passed when I was a toddler and grandmother when I was in middle school. While GM was there, I legitimately don’t recall a single conversation with her. I was the 15th and last grandchild so by the time I came along, everyone was done. And that side of the family is just not very welcoming – they welcome their child with open arms but don’t even speak to that child’s spouse or kids so no real way to have relationships. No regrets.

   Moms side – definite regrets. They were great when we were young – lots of hugs, favorite desserts, making sure the swing in the backyard was ready to go if I was coming over. We saw them a few times per year when we lived in their country but after we immigrated to the US, I only saw them three more times – last time at age 14. They lived for another ten to fifteen years after that but once my parents stopped forcing me to go visit their developing country in high school, I just didn’t as it was a hassle to travel, boring, lots of busybody relatives I didn’t want to spend time with. I regret that now as I am thinking of starting my own business and my grandfather was a very successful businessman and I’d love to hear his views. But part of me also knows that it wouldn’t have happened. Lots of busybody aunts on that side who basically policed their parents’ communications so if you dared speak about anything serious, the WHOLE family was up in arms about how nosy you were etc. I know this because when I was in middle school, a then high school aged cousin sat down with great grandpa to discuss the family businesses and the reaction was very HOW DARE HE, who does he think he is to question OUR grandfather. Meanwhile he was a curious teen trying to figure out life.

   How is it in your family?

   1. My parent moved far from their hometown where my cousins stayed. They would send me for a month each summer as a kid and it was glorious. They lived until my mid-20s. I’m so glad I had the luxury of time. I had kids late and my parents are old and tired. And far away. It isn’t the same, but anything beats nothing. My kids text my parents often now tgat they all have iPhones.

   2. My parents were both youngest children of parents who had them in their very late 30s, and then my parents had me in their late 30s as well. Three out of four of my grandparents died before I was in second grade. My surviving grandparent I saw about once a year until she died the year after I graduated law school. She lived in Texas and we lived in Florida, and my family were not people who got on planes very often so seeing her meant a multi-day drive.

   3. Mom’s parents were nice and I had a good relationship with them but we weren’t emotionally super close. We spent two weeks at their house every summer, but it was mostly my mom and me doing stuff together during the day (they live in a vacation destination) and then we’d just see them for dinner. I liked them, but I never felt very emotionally attached to them. My grandfather died when I was in high school and my grandmother died when I was in my early 30s and I didn’t really feel very sad.

      Dad’s dad died before I was born, dad’s mom was a pretty awful person who I didn’t see much of as a child. We visited only occasionally and visits were horrible, she would just be really mean to me and my dad and compare me negatively to my dad’s sister’s children. I finally cut her off for good after she behaved abhorrently at my wedding. We didn’t speak for the last ~10 years of her life and she took it out on my dad by writing him out of the will which I still feel bad about since he hated her as much or more than I did but tried to be a dutiful son.

      My parents moved to my city when my daughter was 3 and are basically third and fourth parents to my daughter at this point. It’s truly amazing to see that bond develop, and it makes me jealous that I didn’t have it as a child, but happy for her that she does. We don’t have much extended family and my daughter has no first cousins, so it’s really special that she has that bond with her grandparents.

   4. My moms parents died before I was born. My dad’s dad died when I was a baby but my grandmother is still around (98 and doing great). My grandmother is awesome and still loves all the fashion and shopping and going out for lunch that my mom never did. ( I bought her an Ulla Johnson blouse and she rocked it under a white suit for her birthday.)

      My parents are really involved grandparents and we all live in the same town, although my parents spend 6 weeks in the us vi every winter. Honestly it’s a huge reason why we live in our hometown.
      It’s not cheap or glamorous but if you care about being close with family you don’t move away if you can help it.

      Also,I’m lucky that my mom had me young because even though I’m an older mom (had a baby at 33 and 38) she’s still a somewhat young grandma (63). My dad is five years older but pretty healthy and basically best friends with my older kid. It’s just a really special relationship but I don’t think you should have regrets op, as a parent I think it’s my job to foster closeness with my family.

      1. Last sentence is so true. OP you were 14. Every 14 year old would be like nah I don’t want to spent my summer in developing country with boring grandma and grandpa, I want to be here with my friends and central AC. It you parents’ job to make you go so that you get to know your family because you’ll appreciate it later. It’s not the 14 year old’s job to understand why this matters. It’s also the parent’s job to foster that relationship where you can talk with grandpa about business or whatever whether the rest of the family approves or not. I wouldn’t spend a single second regretting this.

   5. I grew up in my dad’s hometown and his parents and siblings all still lived there, so we saw that side of the family a lot growing up. Despite that, I was never super close with my cousins; I moved away for college and don’t talk to them much (not that we don’t get along, just not close), though my oldest cousin and my dad are actually quite close now. My grandfather died when I was a senior in high school and my grandmother in college, which is a shame because I think they would have been a lot of fun to talk to as an adult. My mom’s side of the family is a different story. They lived about 3 hours away from us growing up, and there is some sort of family drama on that side that my mom wanted to shield us from that I still don’t really know about (I think drug use was involved?). I didn’t know I had an uncle on that side of the family until I was maybe 10? (when I was able to put together that the cousins my grandparents were raising weren’t either of my aunts so who’s kids were they…) I wouldn’t recognize my two older cousins if I passed them on the street; we stopped seeing them at some point when I was a teenager (again, I think there was drama). I do have an aunt on that side of the family I actually think I would be close to if I lived closer as we have some interests in common; I see her maybe every 4-5 years around Christmas.

   6. Mom’s: Lived a couple days’ road trip from us my entire childhood. Us moving there was never really considered, but my dad (yes, not my mom) made it a top priority to drive there every summer (we missed two in my 18 year childhood, one due to my mom being pregnant with my baby sister). I cherish those family road trip memories for our unit of 5 more than I can say. At our destination, things would shift. My dad never felt fully comfortable around my mom’s siblings and kids. There was a stark difference in income and lifestyle between us and my cousins that sometimes complicated things (still does!). But my relationships with those grandparents were good as a result of this, and they often made time to come to us, too. I have two sisters, and I think my grandfather saw us as a unit most of the time (three of the same present, that kind of thing) when he indulged my cousins in their individual interests. My grandmother was a lovely woman and I think of her example and wisdom every day, and I wish I’d listened to her more as a teenager rather than being so excited to hang out with cousins whose lives I cannot and would rather not share in now.

      Dad’s: lived a block from us. (Limited real estate in small towns!) In an effort to respect boundaries, they kept their distance. We were at their house often, both on our own and as part of larger family gatherings with my dad’s five siblings and their families; I recall them coming to ours only a handful of times. My mom and my gran have never had a good relationship, but I suspect my grandparents overcorrected in an effort not to overreach. We could have had very special, individual relationships with them both, and I did to a certain extent with my grandfather when I became their lawn care girl for most of my adolescence, but I would have loved to learn from my gran in the kitchen, for example. That never happened, because she wouldn’t have done that for any of the other grandkids. She’s my only living grandparent (and she’s 94, so the Queen passing recently spooked me), but I don’t have much desire to have a relationship with her anymore. I send her printed photos through the mail every couple months and this makes her happy.

   7. Late reply but – dads parents died after my parents married and before my sibling amd i were born. My dad never really talked about them, my mom has a bit. My moms side – GF and GM divorced after all kids left home. GF remarried to another womam who had an adult son, they lived up north. GM lived in our town about 3 minute drive away. So we grew up going to GM house all the time and were very close to her. She remarried and they moved to be halfway between us and cousins in the midwest. Stayed close with her emotionally but not physically. cousins were the flip of that. they have their other grandparents theyre close with.

      After some family drama with GM, ive been distant with her. Late in life realizations that people we love can suck are great and can be the catalyst for therapy.

9. I’m drooling over these coats:

   https://www.eileenfisher.com/?loc=US

   Meanwhile we are headed into another mini heat wave here in the Bay Area.

   1. Did you see my post earlier where I recommended getting an Eileen Fisher alpaca blend coat instead of a faux fur, and then wearing it into the ground? I LOVE my EF coats. Size down, for sure.

      1. No, I didn’t see your post. Great minds and al that…

         I have three EF coats! I don’t need any more. But I agree they last forever and ever. Something about that ivory one is calling my name but I’m not sure I would like how it will look with a latte spilled down the front.

         EF summer never tempts me, but all of that fall/winter wool and alpaca and cashmere push every single one of my buttons.

10. My ex married his affair partner after it also broke up her marriage. My ex and I have 4 kids. His new wife has 5 kids. New wife is now pregnant. She is demanding that my kids call her mom so that the new baby won’t be confused. But on the confusion front, she wants to use the name of my older daughter (“she’ll be in college soon anyway, so what does it matter? oh, but we won’t help pay for that”) but with a different middle name (Karen Renee instead of Karen Lynn). Ex is really big on having visitation now b/c he is trying to have the girls babysit so he and the new wife can go out by themselves. I can’t help that, but have talked to my kids that they are not under any obligation to provide unpaid babysitting outside of visitation. Ugh. Pray for me. No question, but that this will be rough but we will get through it.

    1. What? Your ex will have two daughters with the same name? How weird.

       1. Well, they will have different middle names. Where I live, double first names are a thing. Sounds like whatever the first kid’s name is, that must have been one the new wife fixated at some point. Wonder why she didn’t use it on all those other kids by now though if it is truly that important to her to use it. I take it that all 5 aren’t boys.

          1. Ok so I think this is a thing. My husband’s dad reused his middle name on one of his half brothers. It’s not a family name or anything;I think it was a weird power play by the stepmom. She had a weird complex about kind of erasing his older children, if that makes sense?

    2. Is your ex Adam Levine!? But seriously this is so awful and I’m so sorry you’re going through it. Hugs.

    3. This is all… A LOT. I am so sorry you and your kids are having to navigate this. If it helps, when they are grown they will see how messed up it is (even more than they probably do now). The babysitting thing sounds completely insane, and counter to the whole purpose of visitation. Does your custody arrangement say anything about requiring the presence of an adult or not leaving them home alone?

       1. This – I would come down HARD on the unpaid babysitter thing via the courts/your visitation agreement. Also once the kids are of babysitting age aren’t they generally able to decide how much time they want to spend with the non-custodial parent? I remember my friends who had divorced parents basically opting out of weekend trips to dad’s house in HS as they had sports/jobs/schoolwork to do on the weekends.

          1. Tbh, I find it really irritating when dads (and it’s been dads in my experience) can’t take their teenage kid to stuff on their weekends. It’s come up a few times with my kid’s friends and it just seems kind of petty.

    4. What in tarnation did I just read

       1. My thoughts exactly

       2. I thought the same thing. Can’t even be real.

          1. IDK — this could be my exBIL but he and wife #3 are now on their own second kid together (#11?). We are neither Mormon nor Catholic; they are just highly disfunctional and there aren’t enough therapists in this world to fix all this. I tell my nieces and nephews, while not getting into it, that you get to be an adult for a lot longer than you are a kid and that they will all be OK. My sister is a toxic well of anger, which is understandable but the weight of this will drown her if she doesn’t pull out at some point.

    5. Are they even obliged to provide unpaid babysitting during visitation?

       1. Stepdaughters being forced to be babysitters has been an unfortunate theme here lately. Yuck.

          1. “Family helps out family.” Let me send you the bill for my decades of therapy then.

             1. Ok the flip side you don’t have to light yourself on fire to keep others warm.

    6. I will certainly be thinking of you. That is an immense amount to deal with and I wish you all the best.

    7. Ugh that sounds awful. I’m not a pray-er but sending all my best good vibes to you and your kids.

    8. What?? Of all the names in the world she wants to use your daughter’s name? AH! Those poor kids! And to call her mom? I am dumbfounded. I am so sorry. Maybe start some family therapy with the kids?

    9. Your ex and his wife sound like horrible people.

    10. The new wife could just be trolling you all. Crossing my fingers that this poor baby is called something completely different once born.

    11. Ooof. Thinking of you. Stay strong and take care of yourself please.

        Fwiw, my husband’s stepdad was (is?) a creeper who had an affair and a kid with his student when he was a professor. He then married my husband’s mom ( also his student at the time) but everyone in the family agrees that his first wife was/ is an awesome woman. It couldn’t have been easy but she basically kissed his creepy butt goodbye stayed close to her kids, never said a bad word about him and was kind to my husband and his sister and encouraged her kids to treat them and their half brother like siblings. The step kids are all close enough that my husband is invited to her big family reunion every year on her ranch in Montana or in Ireland where a stepbrother lives. (But not so close that he ever actually goes…but still) point is, she’s a cool lady and so are you. I wish you whatever the equivalent of your ranch in Montana is.

    12. I’m sorry your ex is such a morally bankrupt piece of trash

    13. I can’t get passed the fact that she wants your kids to call her mom. Hard no. Why would her baby be confused when there are 5 kids, who I presume live there at least part-time, calling her mom? Say no to this.

        1. *past

    14. I can’t get past the fact that she wants your kids to call her mom. Hard no. Why would her baby be confused when there are 5 kids, who I presume live there at least part-time, calling her mom? Say no to this.

        1. It is time for your ex to grow a backbone and tell his new wife to stop effing with his kids. Your kids are probably old enough to be teens who can eye roll or do whatever. They know if they are there for free child care instead of to be cared for. If your kids don’t go along, exactly what will happen to them? Surely the new wife’s kids don’t call your ex dad (and if they do, it isn’t by force). Why was this woman even marriage material and how with so many kids is she having time to even have affairs with a married guy? I only have 2 kids and have no time. Amazeballs, I’m sorry, I’m a bad bad way. It is like country music but real.

        2. Agree with this – I have half siblings that were adopted internationally by my dad and step mom and they understood in broken english that their mom was not my mom, but my dad was their dad, sooooo the concept is not hard to grasp.

        3. My good friend has a daughter from a prior relationship and a daughter with her current husband. They older one does not call her stepfather dad and it’s not confusing for the younger one.

    15. I am sorry. I also have a feckless ex. His new wife asked my teenage daughter if she might be pregnant because she asked for seconds at dinner (she’s been in the 3-5%tile for weight her entire life, so entirely egregious). Daughter declined to go on a trip to step brother’s college family weekend after the comment and her father wants her to reimburse him for the share of the trip she isn’t attending as “punishment” for not going.

        I say this only to offer you some solidarity in the formerly married to a miserable dad space.

        Again, I am sorry.

11. Are there any flex-based rent payment options that don’t have to be linked to your property? My property management company (Bozzuto) isn’t a partner of the “Flex” payment company. I tried looking up one other company but it’s Canada only (I’m in the US). I’m in a jam with my October rent this month and I need to split up the payment into two.

    1. Many landlords will let you be late once per year, particularly if you’re willing to make a partial payment. Is there a reason you wouldn’t ask for that?

       1. I guess I wasn’t aware that a large property management company would allow such a thing, at least not with major late fees

          1. I’ve never heard of flex payment companies for paying rent, but would guess your local contact might be able to do an exception for one-off tenant who’s otherwise been reliable.

12. Curious if you all have any advice for my 23-year-old daughter who is asking how she should go about finding what she wants to do in her career. She went to a good school and got good grades and landed with a high-profile consulting firm. She likes it but knows that the world of business (and government work and non-profit work) is wide and there are SO MANY different careers out there so she’s legitimately not sure how to figure out what would be a good fit for her skills and interests. She’s taken interest tests so she knows the general field she’d be best in (general, white-collar, not terribly numbers-heavy, not sales) but doesn’t know if she should consider government work, law school, business school, or one of the other zillions of other white-collar careers out there. I’ve told her that to some extent it’s what piques your interest and to some extent what you’re good at, but there’s a lot of luck involved, as in who you happen to meet through a project or through friends, and it will just happen. But she’s a planner and I’m kind of at a loss as to what to suggest for next steps. Any ideas? TIA!

    1. If she’s interested in general non-profit work, a good piece of advice I heard (after I really got my career started) was to think not in terms of what you want to do, but what problem in the world you want to help solve and then go from there.

    2. Look into product and project management!

13. Hopefully this is not too late for responses, but is anyone going to the ACC Conference next month? I was wondering about what to wear and any tips about what to do? (Conference specific; I have been to Vegas multiple times.)

    Thanks!

    1. I’ll be there! But it will be my first, so I was planning on business casual with a couple of nice jeans packed to lean more casual if everyone else is too.

    2. Are any firms you work with going to be there as sponsors? They’re often happy to make introductions to other in-house attorney clients, and host great group events or dinners after hours.

14. Minor low stakes vent!
    This week, after a couple of years of slowly purging clothes due to weight loss, I finally (though with difficulty) let go three bags worth of maybes out of the holding zone, including a couple of favourites I was hoping to alter, but ended up being too large and stretched out. Now, I’m left with needing new basics, but I keep coming up empty handed online and in person shopping. A few years ago, the stores were full of things I wanted and would buy! Now, stores feel like a wasteland, and online is tricky, because of new sizing. I have started wearing new combos of clothing, but outfits are getting rather eclectic! I hope more fall and winter items are stocked soon! I don’t know why this is taking so much mental energy. Thanks for listening!

    1. If you had favourites, can you scour eBay, postmark, depop and second hand retailers for the same pieces in your current size?

       Hope the weight loss was what you wanted and that you enjoy putting together new outfits!

       1. Thank you! That’s a good suggestion— I have been checking to see if I can replace some of the same items on poshmark. I also feel guilty, because I can sew, but I didn’t fix some of the items because there was some damage.

    2. I think sometimes it’s better to not be specific in your quests. I always find if I go shopping for navy pants, there are none to be found, but if I go in to a store and think “what in here looks good on me and goes with something I already own” I have much better luck.

       Or let us know what you need and maybe some of us will have suggestions you haven’t tried.

       1. Great idea! I’m buying a birthday gift for my niece today, and I will look at other things while I’m shopping. I like this perspective of remaining open to what I may find. I’ve had to give away a few newer items I’ve purchased since weight loss due to fit, so I am more wary of making mistakes. I’m looking for fall or spring weight items as I have winter and some summer pieces.

    3. My weight fluctuates. I find that if I have pants in black, gray, and navy and a couple blazers (I don’t work in a blazer every day culture), a dress or two, a weeks worth of solid color tops that work with the pants colors, and a few hoodies or cardigans I can wear over the tops, I’m all set.

       I get a lot of stuff on eBay from brands I know my size in. I’ve been buying the Talbots bi-stretch straight leg pants lately from eBay because for some reason Talbots decided to stop making them. I can always find them new with tags for a very decent price.

       For tops, there are the Calvin Klein shells everyone on here buys, plus I bought a few paterned tops from Lark & Ro on Amazon.

       My dresses in my old size still work so I haven’t had to replace them.

       1. This is a good suggestion. This is where I am at too— buy a few new fitting items to add and mix. I think I miss the old days of going to one or two places and coming out with a shopping bag of everything and being done. While it’s not that hard, in reality it takes more mental energy than it should!

    4. LOVE AYR for basics.

15. Posting again as I accidentally posted in another thread….

    Interested to hear from any non- traditional MBA students. My firm is offering me a fully sponsored MBA at a highly rated state school. I’m 39, a department head in a specialised area and have two small children. I’m possibly interested in a move into consulting as a way to cross industries down the line. But, I am wondering if MBA’s are still sought after, whether it’s a good investment of time for someone my age vs a younger candidate headed for Wall Street etc. but it seems silly to pass up free tuition etc. Any experiences (both good and bad) are greatly appreciated.

    1. I agree that it seems silly to pass on free tuition. I think the biggest factor here is how flexible will your company be in terms of your work load and do you have a partner who is willing and able to step it up for those years. This seems like it’s more of a discussion with your partner/co-parent. If you are a single parent, then it’s probably not an option. Also, will your company bump up your salary? It would feel like a waste to put in all that time and effort for the same salary you would have otherwise.

    2. I am the same age as you, just finished this and highly recommend it. It broadened my horizons and changed my way of thinking more than I could have anticipated. I also met people from incredibly diverse backgrounds and have a fantastic network that I would otherwise never have had access to. Our age range was 29-70! Over half of my cohort was promoted or changed jobs within 6 months of graduating, myself included. Do it and don’t look back!

    3. What’s your background and what’s your reason for doing it? I don’t think MBAs are valued much in my field, but a Harvard MBA would be worth doing vs a state school online MBA.

    4. Does your company require anything in return? I.e., you must stay for a certain number of years after earning your MBA or you will have to pay it back? And do they expect you to work and earn the MBA at the same time, or basically take a sabbatical from work and focus entirely on the MBA?

       My company offers both. If you take the sabbatical option they require you to stick around for a pre-agreed length of time (I think 2 years) after returning, or you have to pay back the cost of the degree. If you earn it while working you are free and clear, but they don’t give any concessions to your work load during that time, beyond allowing scheduling flexibility for class times. Both options have worked out well for some of my colleagues, but there have been a few instances where they came back with their MBA and had to stick out an awful 2 years under a petty manager in a role they had outgrown with no leverage to negotiate for change.

    5. My husband had an incomplete BA when I met him, and thanks to the wonder of employer paid tuition and one class at a time, now has a BA and an MBA. He didn’t go to Wall Street. He stayed in his same industry. But it increased his salary, and I think a thing that gets lost in these discussions – it also increased his knowledge and level of comfort with management, financial statements, business plans etc. So it wasn’t just the MBA credential that increased his salary, it was his new skills that helped move him up in the company.

16. are there any investment bankers here? what would your advice be to a kid who wants to be one (14 years old)? thanks!

    1. Broaden your horizons. Or get cracking on grades, extracurriculars, get into a good feeder school and spend your life on a singular track.

    2. I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic. I thought ibanking was like big law where it’s good for a few years but not a long career. But biglaw isn’t that hard to get into, is ibanking harder?

17. Does anyone have ideas for vegetables that I could include in a gift basket? It is for someone who is diabetic and I was told that he likes to treat himself with vegetables instead of treats. I was thinking of including some avocados and carrots. I don’t really eat veggies so would love any other ideas!

    1. Do they mean plain vegetables or vegetable products? I like guacamole, hummus, salsas, pickled vegetables, pestos, and herbs, all of which are both vegetable based and can be eaten with additional vegetables. But if you’re going with plain vegetables, I’d just go to a farmer’s market and get whatever looks good.

    2. Artichokes! Rominesco, little snackable cherry tomatoes, asparagus, fresh basil

    3. It’s not quite season yet, but Brussels still on the stalk are dramatic. Some autumn squash is showing up at our farmer’s market so I’m looking forward to roasting some new-to-us types. Second the artichoke suggestion, really good tomatoes (technically a fruit though… so not sure if it meets requirements), the pretty multicolored carrots, beets?

    4. Oh thank you so much for all of these ideas!! These are all great and I would not have thought of them!

18. Am I crazy for wanting to purchase this cute houndstooth blazer from JCrew? It’s not cheap and currently not on sale, but it’s exactly what I have been wanting.

    Also, how would you all wear this for business casual? What color pants and top or any particular styles? Thanks so much!

    https://www.jcrew.com/p/womens/categories/clothing/blazers/sommerset-blazer-in-houndstooth-wool/BJ996?display=standard&fit=Classic&color_name=navy-brown-gray-houndst&colorProductCode=BJ996

    1. not crazy, great jacket!

       navy and brown and cream all work but so will army green. column of black to make it pop. dark red or rose colors.

19. I applied for a Project Management role. I have good feelings about it but even if I weren’t to get it, it has made me realize that I really think I could do well in that capacity and like it’s a good direction for me to go in for the future, even if not with my current company. I’m still studying for a bachelor’s but have also been working in my field off and on throughout, and taken time off of school. My major is in a social science, not business. Any advice for breaking into the field after school, assuming I’m not selected for the role I applied for?

    1. There are college-level classes for PMP certification and there are also online classes (Cornell) and from independent companies. There are four-day boot camp classes. There may also be self-study classes that would prepare you to take the PMP exam on your own. Between now and when you graduate, you might be able to fit in some PMP classes.

    2. If you are in Europe, a PRINCE2 certification might be good to have on your CV. However, it is more of a certificate of knowing a specific project management framework, giving you a bunch of tools in your toolbox, not a way to learn how to do the actual day to day work of managing a project.

    3. tbh, project management seems like a tricky field and undercompensated for the annoyance level. You’re burdened with a ton of office politics and interpersonal management, never given the credit if a project goes smoothly, but criticized if it doesn’t. What about it appeals to you?

       1. I’ve been in and out of PM and I think it’s good for a really organized person with good interpersonal skills. It’s a great starter field too.

20. any rettes or loved ones if a rettewho are similar to Starting Over in need of size 16/14 clothes, please post a burner email. I have clothes for you to get started (most with tags or worn once)

21. starting over,

    I have gone into storage this weekend and have some items for you. please post a burner email.

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