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My nieces and nephew have this cute tea set — it’s one of my kids’ favorite toys to play with when they visit their cousins.
This wooden tea set from Melissa & Doug has everything you need to run your own tea room. It includes a teapot with lid cups, spoons, sugar bowl, pitcher, six teas, cookies, and a dry erase card for ordering. As with all of Melissa & Doug’s toys, this tea set encourages hours of creative and imaginative play.
The tea set is $32.49 at Amazon.
Sales of note for 4.18.24
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Ann Taylor – 50% off full-price dresses, jackets & shoes; $30 off pants & skirts; extra 50% off sale styles
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything; extra 20% off purchase
- Eloquii – 50% off select styles; 60% off swim; up to 40% off everything else
- J.Crew – Mid-Season Sale: Extra 60% off sale styles; up to 50% off spring-to-summer styles
- Lands’ End – 30% off full-price styles
- Loft – Spring Mid-Season Sale: Up to 50% off 100s of styles
- Nordstrom: Free 2-day shipping for a limited time (eligible items)
- Talbots – Spring Sale: 40% off + extra 15% off all markdowns; 30% off new T by Talbots
- Zappos – 29,000+ women’s sale items! (check out these reader-favorite workwear brands on sale, and some of our favorite kids’ shoe brands on sale)
Kid/Family Sales
- Carter’s – Up to 70% off baby items; 50% off toddler & kid deals & 40% off everything else
- Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off spring faves; 25% off new arrivals; up to 30% off spring
- J.Crew Crewcuts – Up to 60% off sale styles; up to 50% off kids’ spring-to-summer styles
- Old Navy – 30% off your purchase; up to 75% off clearance
- Target – Car Seat Trade-In Event (ends 4/27); BOGO 25% off select skincare products; up to 40% off indoor furniture; up to 20% off laptops & printers
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And — here are some of our latest threadjacks of interest – working mom questions asked by the commenters!
- If you’re a working parent of an infant with low sleep needs, how do you function at work when you’re in the throes of baby’s sleep regression?
- Should I cut my childcare down to 12 hours a month if I work from home?
- Will my baby have speech delays if we raise her bilingual?
- Has anyone given birth in a teaching hospital?
- My child eats everything, and my friends’ kids do not – how should I handle? In general, what is the best way to handle when your child has some skill/ability and your friend’s child doesn’t have that skill/ability?
- ADHD moms, give me your tips to help with things like behavior in the classroom, attention to detail, etc?
- I think I suffer from mom rage…
- My husband and kids are gone this weekend – how should I enjoy my free time?
- I’m struggling to be compassionate with a SAHM friend who complains she doesn’t have enough hours of childcare.
- If you exclusively formula fed, what tips do you have for in the hospital and coming home?
- Could I take my 4-yo and 8-yo on a 7-8 day trip to Paris, Lyon, and Madrid?
Anon says
I’ve been using an OG bag as a diaper bag, but it’s not cutting it for two babies and a toddler. I’m considering getting a tote bag and repurposing it as a diaper bag for the next few years — will that work? The Cuyana zippered tote or the Madewell transport tote are what I’ve looked at so far. Obvious drawbacks? My first was born during the height of the pandemic, so we didn’t really go anywhere, so I’m still not sure about diaper bag strategy. TIA!
Anonamouse says
You could try the large llbean boat tote with a zipper
GCA says
Gosh, if you have your hands full of kid I would go with a diaper backpack! Which, honestly, can be a regular backpack. We used one from REI for years (two kids, only one in diapers at a time) and the ergonomics were great – when you have water bottles for the whole family, diapers, wipes, changes of clothes, snacks etc it adds up to quite a heavy load.
Boston Legal Eagle says
+1 Backpack. We have a skiphop one that I still use for hiking. Better for your shoulders too!
Ifiknew says
I highly recommend a backpack. I used freshly picked
HSAL says
Yep, backpack all the way. When I had twins and an under 3 I used a backpack diaper backpack from Jujube that I loved, but it also had more organization than I needed. After the twins were 2 or so I switched to a random travel backpack.
HSAL says
(Travel as in one of the ones that fold up, not the type that can serve as a carry on)
Atlien says
LOVE my Paperclip diaper backpack. Faux leather detail so not heavy, mesh where it touches you so not hot. As neutral as it gets for dad to wear too. And biggest feature is INCLUDED/attached changing pad. Can literally just do a change anywhere, on the floor, etc.
Anon says
+1,000,000 to a diaper backpack. (Or, just the cute north face backpack I use).
Obvious drawbacks to any tote are they make it really difficult to run after kids while wearing the tote; and the tote kills your back/shoulder.
Anonymous says
Yes, definitely use a backpack. I only have one kid/octopus, and a backpack is SO much easier.
Anonymous says
Anything leather will be heavy. If you must have leather, I’d go with one that is lined in leather, like the Cuyana structured totes, so the interior can be wiped clean. The interior on the regular Cuyana tote and the Madewell tote is just the fuzzy back of the exterior leather, which will be impossible to clean when a sippy cup or snack or tube of diaper cream spills.
Anon says
The structured insert for the Cuyana bags takes up A LOT of room. I don’t think you’d be able to fit enough in there afterwards.
Anonymous says
Just the structured tote without the insert.
Anonymous says
Not helpful, but I always did think the OG looked like a diaper bag. Or a pump bag.
Anon says
I would do a backpack, but it doesn’t need to be a diaper bag backpack. A hiking style would be pretty functional.
Anonymous says
Get a skip hop backpack, reward yourself with a new diaper free tote when potty training is done.
Anonymous says
I love the skip hop backpack. I have two of them. It’s overkill, but when a friend heard we had twins she sent me hers. I’m embarrassed to admit how often I pull my wallet, keys and phone out of my purse and just carry the backpack around as my main bag.
Anon says
Re: strategy – if you are driving, you can leave backup items in the car. We cloth diaper, which is fairly bulky, and I keep bags of spare diapers and clothes in my car. Maybe I’ll tuck one into the diaper bag if we are going to be far from the car/it’d be inconvenient to walk back, but if we’re in and out of the car or it’s an easy walk to the parking area, I don’t bother loading myself down. Same with if you use a stroller – tuck a separate bag of extras down in the basket instead of packing it all in one. I also tend to bring one (or none!) water bottle for sharing, and individual ones stay in car unless it’s a hot day or we’re outside specifically to be active.
TheElms says
I have a nylon backpack from Athleta (the Kinetic) that I use as the family “diaper” bag. It wouldn’t be the best if you were still carrying warm bottles of formula b/c there is no insulated pouch, but if you’re past that stage, I think it is awesome. I can put a water bottle in one side pocket for toddler and a second water bottle for me/husband in the other side pocket. There is a zip pouch on the outside where I keep my phone, wallet, keys, sunglasses etc. for easy access. There’s also a laptop zip section that I sometimes use for a tablet for toddler and keep a garbage bag in there for clothes that get gross. It is big enough to fit our travel potty and wipes, a couple changes of clothes, large collection of snacks for the whole family, a couple small toys, a couple burp cloths, some backup diapers (that probably should come out), and still have a bit of space left.
We keep other extra supplies in the car but unless its a long road trip we rarely need them (more back up diapers, toys, more backup clothes, a muslin blanket, etc).
Anonymous says
Any last minute tips for moving with a preschooler? We’re getting the movers to pack us on Wednesday and moving Thursday, and our kid will be at daycare during the day. We also have a cat (I’m expecting to spend moving day hanging out with the cat in the bathroom so she isn’t too freaked out while my husband directs the movers).
Anonymous says
I was not expecting my toddler to miss our old, crappy rental house as much as he did. We talked about it a lot, and drove by occasionally (we bought a house one neighborhood over). Lean into the feelings. It will be fine. Set kiddos room up first.
Anonymous says
Kindly, as a cat lover, you cannot nope out of moving day to sit in the bathroom. Put food, water, bed, and litter box in there. Close door and mark a huge sign DO NOT OPEN. Kitty will survive just fine.
For kid, lots of reminders to say good bye house on Thursday morning, expect tears Thursday afternoon, bribe with pizza, ice cream, and a new toy to welcome the new house.
Anon says
Eh I agree the cat doesn’t need babysitting, but if they’re hiring professional movers it really takes only one adult to supervise them, and it makes sense for other adults to get out of the way.
CCLA says
If you have the ability to go in ahead of time, I think it helped our kiddo a lot to see the empty new place and get to know which room would be hers. We moved when she was 2.5 and 4, and she did awesome both times, which I think is some luck and personality but also seemed to help that she was familiar with the new place. Def set up kid room first so they have somewhere with their stuff and their bed. Expect them to ask about the old place (at 2.5, we got matter of fact questions about when we were going back, so took some explaining of what it meant to move). Good luck!
Anonymous says
Our cats were way more upset by our last move than the 4 year old was. Granted he had spent a lot of time in the new place – we bought and renovated an apartment a block from our old apartment, and we were doing a lot of the work ourselves in the 2 months before the move. But he was totally fine with it. I can’t think of anything beyond obvious stuff like unpacking his room first and making sure you know where really important things like loveys are, and maybe talking through what the day will be like several times in advance so he knows what to expect.
Mary Moo Cow says
YMMV, but I was surprised by how much my preschooler missed our old house. I couldn’t understand it, because I was so happy with our new house, I gave it short shrift and we had some meltdowns and acting out. We built our house, so we toured it every week for about 9 months, talked it up, let her pick her new room decorations, but didn’t read any books, so it took me by surprise.
Set up the preschooler’s room as soon as the movers are done in kid’s room.
If you can, I highly recommend having a solid few days of childcare in the first week or two to do all the unpacking and organizing. We moved on a Thursday, when kids were in school, and sent them to the grandparents for a Friday-Saturday sleepover and I spent all of Friday night and Saturday unpacking the entire kitchen. So helpful!
Cb says
My son moved when he was 3.5, he left one house and came home to another. He was totally fine, we got his bed made and set up, but not much else due to an issue with the finance (my husband spend 2 hours outside our new house with the moving truck). He walked in, asked “what is this rubbish on the floor? it is all dirty here!” and was fine.
Re the cat, put a tile tag on her in case she gets away. It makes it easier to find the cat. Ours handled the day to day, but jumped out of my arms when I was trying to get him in the basket ahead of the cleaning crew. The cat and I have a contentious relationship and to this day, my husband believed this was some sort of plot.
Anonymous says
I got this advice from someone else on here, but it really helped! Get the kid 1 box that is their special box. Let them put their most important stuff in the box (lovey, favorite toy, blanket, etc) the morning of the move. First, it helps because you know that they will have their lovely/ blankie etc on the first night. Second, they may have anxiety (or questions) about how their stuff is going to make it to the new house. This lets them participate and know how their stuff is going to be moved.
You can set up as much of their room as you can before they get home from daycare, but let the kid unpack his special box when he gets home.
Also, if at all possible have more than 1 person at the house you are moving into while the truck is being unloaded. Moving things on to the truck does not take a lot of direction. When they are unloading the truck, even if you have boxes marked there will be questions about where things go. If you have multiple stories it is so frustrating to have things placed on the wrong floor! We had one person directing boxes and it just wasn’t enough!
Anonymous says
Have any of you considered doing unschooling or hybrid homeschooling your kids? I was homeschooled until 7th grade, so I have a bit of experience with that…though I’m sure it’s changed a lot in the last 30 years. Tbh we’re considering moving to the country with our three young boys and the schools are terrible so I’d need an alternative. I’m not interested in private schools for religious reasons.
Anonymous says
No experience. I do know from friends that our district is easy to work with – they have a kiddo who does part days with certain classes and then does other classes at home. So hopefully you can work with the district to find the most appropriate balance for your family.
Anon says
Do your kids react well to taking direction from you? My daughter is only 4 but I know that home-schooling would never work for us, because her personality is (like mine) the kind that would really clash with us if we were supervising her and giving her directions all day. Her attitude is soooo much better with other authority figures like school teachers.
Anonymous says
This. If I were called to teach I would become a classroom teacher and let someone else teach my own child.
Anon says
I fantasize about the exact situation you are describing. I also have three boys and the idea of minimal seat work and lots of time outside sounds great. It doesn’t take much time to teach at home – aim for 30 min a day for a K student and go up to maybe 2 hours for elementary? – and lots of things can be achieved organically (if you’re building a tree house, there’s your physics and math for the day; read some books while eating popsicles and you’re good). I say these things as someone who has done a lot of considering/research but hasn’t jumped in yet because we do like our public schools (and our house/yard is too small to have a pack of boys around full time!) I’m also sure it’s a lot less idyllic than I imagine, but everyone I know (and virtually “know”) who has chosen this path seems happy with it
Anonymous says
Are you proposing to work full-time while homeschooling?
Are your temperament, your children’s temperaments, and your relationship with your children suited to homeschooling? I taught my child one course over one summer and it was the most terrible experience for both of us. My husband and I have also been unable to teach her non-academic skills (swimming, tennis, music) that we have been paid to teach other people’s children. Our kid just wants us to be her parents and needs other people to be her teachers. This is not true for all kids, but ours is not the only one who is this way.
What’s your plan for middle school and high school? It’s not that difficult for a homeschooled kid to join public school at the beginning of middle school, but after that the kid is not likely to be prepared to keep up with their peers unless the parents adhered strictly to a very rigorous homeschool curriculum, which is not an easy thing to do. The homeschoolers we know have had to put their kids in on-line courses or send them to community college if they didn’t want them to go to public high school.
Do you and/or your spouse have the ability to teach math and science? Many parents with college degrees are not able to teach even elementary school math without significant review and preparation. Knowing how to do arithmetic and fractions is not the same as knowing how to teach them. Even if you can handle elementary math, teaching or even supporting on-line learning for high school math and science courses you took 30 years ago requires a lot of review time. I have a graduate degree in a quantitative field, but I remember nothing about trigonometry because I haven’t used it since high school.
What’s your plan for socialization? In one homeschooling family we know, the daughter attends sports practice 5 days/week and has friends there. The son plays soccer 1x/week and does Boy Scouts and is miserable because he hasn’t made friends in either activity.
OP says
OP here – I don’t think it’s possible for one person to work full time and homeschool his or her kids simultaneously. I’m not going to respond to each of these questions but the fact that I’ve already thought about them all and have a loose plan in place tells me a lot about my decision. Thanks for your thoughts.
Anonymous says
Ok then why’d you ask?
OP says
I was secretly hoping you’d respond with a bunch of attacks disguised as questions so I could have an epiphany that the way you’re parenting is The One True and Perfect Way and I should model my life after yours.
Anonymous says
Congratulations, OP, you have the attitude to fit right in with the sanctimonious, self-righteous homeschooling community. You will do great at homeschooling.
Anon says
Anonymous at 10:05’s comment was completely constructive and did not contain any attacks. You seem to just want validation that this is a great plan, so if that’s the case I don’t understand asking for advice.
Anon says
I don’t think those were attacks? They seem like totally legitimate things to think about before homeschooling.
Clara says
OP, are you nuts? That’s not a reasonable way to respond to that list of questions. You posted asking about homeschooling, those are the kinds of things you have to think about. You sound like you think your way is the One True and Perfect way or something
Anonymous says
I agree with 11:33, but I also snort-laughed at OP’s 11:24 response
Anonymous says
I never fantasize about homeschooling my kids.
Anonymous says
Ha, same. It is my nightmare and my kids’ too. Especially after the past two years.
Anonymous says
After the last two years I fantasize about boarding school but never homeschool.
Anonymous says
Same. At one point in the fall of 2020 I actually started researching boarding schools.
Anon says
Ha. Yes. Do they have boarding daycares? ;) Weekends at home would be good because I promise I do actually like my kids, but I could do without having to do the morning rush and the crazed dinner and bedtime routine every weeknight.
Anonymous says
I’ve definitely thought about how there needs to be sleepaway summer camp for toddlers. It’s already February, though, so I’m sure I missed the window to sign up.
Anonymous says
I can’t believe how much people on this board dislike being with their children for more than 3hrs on a busy day. You’d be better off just being a fun aunt or uncle.
Spirograph says
This is inappropriate. First of all, a lot of venting here is hyperbole. Secondly, people rarely say they “dislike being with their children,” they are commenting on the exhaustion of working a full day and coming home to a second shift with a toddler. That doesn’t we don’t ultimately love our kids and fulfillment in being a parent.
Anonymous says
I signed up to be a working parent who went to an office and sent her child to school all day. I did not sign up to be imprisoned 24/7 in a house trying to work while forcing an angry kid to pay attention to a Chromebook. During remote school we all would have been happier and healthier if we’d sent the child off to boarding school.
Anon says
Exactly, Anon 1:01. I love my kids. I love spending weekends and taking vacations with them when I am actually able to focus on being with them and having fun. I do not love trying to work full time while caring for two children under 5, and I did not sign up to do that when I conceived them. I didn’t anticipate a global pandemic that would cause daycares and schools to be closed on and off for two years and counting. Go take your smug mom-ing elsewhere, 12:49.
Anon says
I literally wouldn’t do it if you gave me a million dollars.
Anonymous says
Absolutely not. I want my children to learn things from a qualified teacher. Unschooling is a joke. I want them to socialize with other kids. I want the to have life experiences outside my control.
Anonymous says
“life experiences outside my control”–THIS. So many parents these days want to control every little thing that their children are exposed to. Our public schools are not great in many ways, but I love sending my kid off every day to a place that belongs to her and where she is just herself, not an extension of her parents. This is also why we send her to summer camp. For kids past preschool age, growth and development happen best when parents are not around.
Anon says
100% agree. My kid is only 4 but it’s already very apparent how much she blossoms when we’re not around. Parents are her safe space (as we should be) so when we’re there she naturally seeks us out, but when we’re not there she thrives and expands her horizons. Even if I had the desire and ability to homeschool, I can’t imagine depriving her of having the experience of going to school every day and building her own little world without us.
Anonymous says
A lot, if not most, homeschooling parents send their kids to co ops or tutorials or homeschool supplements and organized sports/music lessons so their kids do get some time away. But one of the major pluses of homeschooling is all the time spent together as a family. But clearly most people on this board don’t want to be with their kids 100% of the time. So yeh homeschooling isn’t for them. But it works for a lot of families and is increasing rapidly (not just because of COVID )
Anon says
Well, yeah, most people on this board don’t want to be with our kids 100% of the time because this is a board for working moms and as we all learned the last two years it’s pretty miserable to try to work full time while simultaneously caring for young kids. If you want to be a SAHM and homeschool your kids so you can be together 24/7, you do you. But I don’t know that a group working moms who are happy putting our kids in daycare or with nannies is going to be the right source for advice and support.
Anon says
Agreed with this. my kids are different people when I’m not with them – in a good way! Also they love school and I suspect they would not love homeschooling even if it was full of treehouses and popsicles.
Anonymous says
I think you’re uninformed about homeschooling and unschooling. Homeschool kids have way more options for actual socializing (mixed age free play) than kids in public school who are directed by adults most of the day with limited recess times and then shuttled around to organized sports. There are homeschool meet up groups, co-ops, tutorial hybrid programs where they do “school” twice a week. Homeschool days at museums, aquariums, zoos. In our state there is an unschooling co-op where kids can learn a wide variety of subjects and handcraft skills based on their interests. Older students run lessons. “Qualified” teachers spend most of their time in school learning classroom management, grading, laws. There’s minimal subject expertise. And sometimes a teacher is filling a spot for something they have a minor in.
Anonymous says
No I know a lot about this I just think homeschooling is ignorant
Anon Lawyer says
That’s not really true of a lot of schools or teachers, but whatever.
Anonymous says
As someone who has many friends and relations who are teachers, I can tell you that 1) they are all well versed in their subject matter, 2) good classroom management is essential to learning, and 3) the problem is that state and local standards reward the wrong things so bad teachers can get away with teaching nothing while good teachers are hamstrung in their ability to go beyond the minimal, one-size-fits-all standards and engage students in a meaningful way.
Anon says
I know people who have homeschooled due to bad local schools and it seemed to have gone pretty well. My sister in law also started doing it right before Covid – there are tons of resources these days online and she sends them to certain classes that she doesn’t want to teach, like math. She treats it like a full-time job. I think unschooling is totally different though and produces a lot of kids who are shut out of STEM careers due to poor math and science education.
anon says
Unschooling seems like a terrible idea all around.
Homeschooling: The people I know who have done this successfully have felt a) called to teaching; b) are SAHMs whose job literally becomes educating the kids. I do not know how a working parent could pull it off. If you want to do it well, it’s a lot of work.
My SIL attempted homeschooling and found out very quickly that she was in over her head. Turns out you can’t rely on online programs to do all the work. The kids now attend a small religious school.
Anon says
+1 homeschooling your children is a nearly full-time job. It’s crazy to think you can homeschool your children well and work a 40 hour a week job.
EDAnon says
I grew up in Florida and the only homeschoolers I knew were very (Christian) religious. Where I live now, people who was something outside the public school experience tend to pick small, private schools.
Homeschooling is expanding (outside the Christian fundamentalist set): https://hechingerreport.org/the-new-homeschoolers-more-diverse-just-as-committed/
Spirograph says
Let’s see if I can comment, yet…
No first hand experience, but my neighbors do this. They have 3 boys K-6th grade and do a co-schooling model. The kids go to school in person 2 days a week, and have some independent work to do on the non-school days. It seems pretty great. I see them playing outside all the time, and they have much more flexibility to do “educational” excursions (to me, basically every excursion is educational). They all do Little League baseball as well, which makes up for some of the social interaction kids might miss with homeschooling.
The mom does not work outside the home, though. I absolutely would not want to do it on top of a full time job.
Anon says
Homeschooling in elementary makes some sense to me, as long as the kids have good opportunities for socialization with peers. Homeschooling middle and high school is crazy. Unless you have significant training in math and science, as well as teaching expertise, you’re not going to be able to give your kids the STEM education they need and it’s going to close a lot of doors for them.
Anonymous says
There’s SO many supplemental programs for this though. Kids go to co-ops or tutorials where hired experts teach these subjects and they have access to lab supplies. There’s also online classes that can work well for math.
Anon says
Virtual school has gone really badly for a lot of kids though, as evidenced by all the comments here over the last couple of years. I think it’s one of those things that sounds fine in theory but can be really hard to implement in practice. I have a degree in physics from a top school and I don’t feel like I could teach or even tutor high school math and science because it’s been so long since I’ve touched it.
Anonymous says
Virtual public school is NOT the same as taking a one-off virtual course from people who have been doing it for 10 years.
Anonymous says
We actually have paid thousands of dollars for some of those one-off on-line courses from a very experienced, high-quality provider. It is still not the same thing as in-person instruction and does not work for some kids.
Anon says
I fully understand that expensive online courses aimed at a particular group of kids are significantly better than what overworked, underpaid public school teachers trying to meet the diverse needs of 30+ kids can do. It still doesn’t work for a lot of kids. I have a lot of friends with gifted kids who’ve had no choice but to supplement public school with online courses, and for many of them it hasn’t really worked. If your school isn’t meeting your needs, supplementing with online may be better than nothing, but I think voluntarily taking your kids out of the school environment and assuming online classes will work for them is very naive (even if they aren’t gifted or otherwise special needs).
Anon says
If you’re outsourcing basically all of the teaching though, why not just send them to a school?
Anon says
If it’s a bad school district, it could easily be the case that just not attending school is a huge quality of life factor.
Anon says
I guess I just don’t understand why you’d voluntarily move to a terrible school district if you have school-age kids. But I confess I have never understood the appeal of rural living at all. The idea of not being on city water and emergency services and having to drive an hour for all your errands sounds completely miserable to me.
Anonymous says
Everyone we know who has moved out to the country is a little … different.
Anonymous says
2:21, everyone I know who chooses homeschooling is also a little….different, so it seems like OP is finding her people.
Anonymous says
Covid and immune-compromising health conditions and people that don’t give a s*** about other people once they rolled out vaccines have forced my family into homeschooling. It is not great because it is not what any of us would choose in an ideal world. We spend a lot of money (nearly as much as what we used to spend on private school) on virtual tutors and online programs that have a lot of built in support. The tutors and virtual tutors cover 80% of the key subjects, so it works out to about 50% outsourced teaching, 50% me teaching for early elementary. Doing it this way allowed me to keep working part time, though it hasn’t been easy and life doesn’t feel all that different than it did in the chaos of March 2020. As everyone looks to drop masks and get continuously reinfected with a virus that invades nearly every organ system, we are looking again at how to dig in for the long haul and protect our family’s health until the rest of the world catches up to needing a “new normal” that is actually sustainable for most of the population, instead of just trying for a mass delusion that if we all just get vaccinated and go back to living like we did in 2019, then magically things will just go back to 2019 normal. My guess is it will take the masses until 2023 to figure out that 2019 is never coming back and what we did to get through 2020-2022 didn’t work very well and isn’t sustainable long term. I don’t know how long it will take for that to get through to policymakers.
Anonymous says
I agree with every word you have written re. covid and the “new normal” even though we don’t have anyone immunocompromised in our family. Hugs and kudos to you for doing whatever it takes to protect your family, even though it’s hard.
Anon says
I’m sorry you’re in this situation, it sounds so hard. And I agree with you that just giving up and getting infected over and over again with this deadly virus is and was a terrible plan. I fear for what my child’s life will look like in middle age after 20+ Covid infections and all the ensuing T-cell damage. But I don’t think anything is going to change. Life has been fully normal for a large subset of the country since summer 2020 and for a much larger subset since vaccines became available. Bottom line, unless lots of healthy, vaccinated people start dying, which seems unlikely to happen at this point, I don’t think you can expect any further efforts to control the virus. Even Fauci, who has been a lot more cautious than most, is basically declaring the pandemic over.
Anonymous says
People only think life is normal, though. It won’t be so normal in 10 or 15 or 20 years when they get Parkinson’s or diabetes or whatever other chronic disabling condition results from repeated COVID infections.
Anonymous says
Can we please not? this is speculation and fear mongering.
Also this conversation has happened almost every day here this week, and it’s exhausting. Keep it in a dedicated thread so those of us who are tired of it can collapse and scroll by.
Anon says
I don’t disagree with that, but it’s not going to happen in 2023 like OP suggested. By the time people fully realize all the long term effects, the virus itself may long gone.
Anonymous says
This is made up nonsense you should be ashamed
Realist says
Clearly people don’t want to think about this or we wouldn’t be where we are now. The long term effects remain to be revealed, but early data is not great. So many early indicators that Covid will cause long-term immune system problems and potentially manifest in neural diseases. Yes, including things like dementia and Parkinson’s. It took years to see and to understand the full impacts of HIV and Polio. I don’t like the look of the early signs of what long-term impacts will be from Covid. They look more similar to those viruses (polio, HIV) than the bad influenzas. I get not wanting to think about it and wanting to believe that CNN or WashPo is going to fill you in on whatever you need to know about Covid. But it is going to take while for the full days to come in and science to gain consensus and then get our into the mainstream. But we already know there are issues with T-cell depletion, HERV-W activation (associated with MS), microglial activation, etc. You always have the choice to “Don’t Look Up,” but that won’t stop any asteroids hurtling toward you.
Anon says
I agree, Realist. The T-cell depletion stuff is especially terrifying to me. HIV takes 10 years on average to turn into AIDS without any treatment. If there’s an AIDS equivalent for Covid, we won’t know about it for years. I guess we just have to hope science moves very fast and they can develop new treatments for all the complications quickly.
Anon says
Yeah, I get all my science news from anonymous randos on website comment sections, personally. That’s much more responsible.
Of course we don’t know what the impacts long term are, though the data on long Covid not occurring in vaccinated people at any significant rates actually is very good. And that makes sense – post-viral syndromes actually are seen with other viruses but not at the same rates in part because our immune systems are primed to know how to handle them. The same way vaccines prime them too. Similarly when you get Covid repeatedly, it’s not necessarily doing more damage each time – it might well be that your body starts knowing how to handle it much better and there’s some indication that that’s not true.
But we also know that Covid isn’t going away at this point and while I am still masking and being careful, I am not going to do so for the next forty years until I find out if Covid survivors are getting Parkinson’s. At the end of the day, viruses have sadly always been part of the human condition. It would be way better if they weren’t but we have to find a way to live with them that doesn’t mean “I’m literally never sending my children to school.” It also doesn’t mean I’m going to throw all my masks away tomorrow. We need to be able to have real conversations about comparative risks that aren’t based in fear mongering. And what’s on this thread is fear mongering.
Anonymous says
“But we have to find a way to live with them that doesn’t mean “I’m literally never sending my children to school.”
There are families that have to weigh if children going to school is worth the risk of fatal complications or extreme worsening of a lifetime disability for a household member. I know society has made the choice that those deaths and disabilities don’t matter. But you, as an individual, can be better than that. Don’t act like those families don’t exist at all or that the school decision is some sort of easy decision to make to “move on” and live with the virus for all families. For some families, living with the virus means potentially living without mom or dad living.
Anon says
She’s not getting her science from anonymous internet commenters. There’s lots of peer-reviewed articles out there in Nature, etc. about the various post-Covid conditions that occur. There are actually quite a few studies that suggest vaccination has little to no impact on risk for these complications.
I’m not home-schooling my kids either, because I have a job and because I believe kids need to be in school. And since we’re probably going to eventually get Covid at school, we’re not refraining from all other activities either. But I think it’s pretty clear that we as a society are vastly underestimating how debilitating the long-term effects of this virus are going to be. It’s biologically completely different than influenza, and much more like HIV or ebola in terms of how it ravages the whole body.
Anon says
Anon at 4:04, my response to your ridiculous comment accidentally threaded below.
Anon at 4:08, that does not match the research I’ve seen on Covid complications port-vaccination.
Anonymous says
Maybe you are right that this is sustainable for enough people that nothing will change. But hard to imagine hospitals continuing to get repeatedly slammed, so many teacher absences for each winter wave, etc. I don’t think it is as sustainable as it appears to be, but you are also correct that we might be hobbling along like this much past 2022, which is so depressing to think about.
Anon says
Anon at 4:04, this is exactly why thI se conversations are so frustrating. Yes, some families have to make that choice. Some families had to make that choice before. Flu season actually is incredibly dangerous to immunocompromised people and always had been. Are we in a more dangerous place now? Absolutely which is why I said repeatedly in my post that I’m still wearing masks and taking other precautions.
But the other comments in this thread are talking not about known dangers to immunocompromised people right now. They’re talking about speculative dangers that we don’t know about now and which might show up in ten or 20 years. That’s an entirely different thing and I don’t deserve to be accused of not caring about people for whom Covid is very dangerous right now when I correctly call that fearmongering.
Anonymous says
+1 – I agree with everything you said. This is a mass disabling event, and there will be dire consequences.
That said, a) I don’t think we as individuals can do anything except what you’ve done, which is opt out of society. My kids need in person school so we’re at the mercy of the cowards in charge, and at this point the coordination required for schools to shut down with the blessing of the teachers’ union and the blessing of parents whose employers require them in the office… it just isn’t happening. So I’ve kind of started thinking of it like living through the Blitz or something, there is risk everywhere but it’s the world we live in.
b) The actual numbers might make you feel better — I keep a chart with very local numbers (county/zip code — cases, wastewater, hospital beds, PCR tests, etc) — and we are so, so much lower right now than we were even 2 weeks ago. (Also, masking with excellent masks works!!!)
anon says
I feel like I got a taste of this during the pandemic (while working FT) while schools were closed and even once they reopened virtually, which didn’t work at all for my kids.
My takeaways:
(1) Buy a good math curriculum to make sure you aren’t leaving holes. I’m really good at math (STEM PhD) but I’ve forgotten all the little skills kids need to learn and practice. We bought a set of Singapore math books and they really are great.
(2) It really helps if your kid is an independent reader. My 7 yo adores reading and would easily read 200+ pages a day. This made it easy for us to explore tons of material. I found collections of books clustered around historical time periods and then we did extension activities. We covered all sorts of great historical and scientific content. It would have been a ton more work for me if I had to read to her or find broken down content in smaller snippets.
(3) I found it hardest to get in enough writing/spelling practice. My kid didn’t want to do it and would push back. I also found it hard to find a good non-religious curriculum. I ended up making this content up ad hoc, which was fun but I’m not sure she was learning as much as she should have.
(4) Exercise, physical activity and socialization is critical to kid mental health. It was really hard to get in enough really strenuous physical activity in during the winter. Consider a daily sport where the run/swim the kids hard. Being at home in the backyard is just not the same as recess with a bunch of kids running around chasing each other. And adequate socialization for my outgoing kids requires hours of time with other kids per day. Not just one structured club or activity.
My conclusions are that I would never unschool, but would love to take a year or two and take my kids on a trip around the world and teach them content as we go. It would be amazing. We’d study up on each place we visited, exploring art, music, history, culture and language.
Cornellian says
Yeah this is as far as I would go. My (only) is in pre-K but we’re thinking of having a second, and I’ve thought about maybe spending the older’s second grade year travelling and home schooling. I’d like to do a chunk in Germany so he could work on the language, and who knows where else.
Anonymous says
If you send them to a terrible rural high school where they can be first in their class and supplement with outside courses, science fairs, etc., you could actually be putting them in a really good position for college admissions and scholarships. They won’t be competing against millions of other smart suburban kids to stand out.
Anon says
But college is going to be an awful experience if they didn’t have good preparation and have to now take classes with all the kids from good high schools who are well-prepared. The valedictorians at the bad rural schools in my state aren’t prepared for our State U, let alone the Ivy League. There’s a lot more to life than college admissions.
Anon says
Is that really true? I found college to be way easier than high school. I went to perfectly respectable universities and have multiple degrees. I feel like colleges had so many resources even when I went to school – I remember being shocked in freshman english that we basically learned to write research papers and weren’t expect to know all of these things already. If your kid is of average intelligence I think it’d be fine.
Anon says
My experience is going from a well-regarded-but-not-really-that-good Midwestern public school to an elite private college, but it was horrible. I ended up graduating with a decent GPA in the end but college utterly destroyed my self-esteem and love of learning. Because high school had never challenged me, I had never learned to properly study and having to figure that out for the first time in a school where I was no more than average IQ was a nightmare. Many of my college friends from other non-prestigious high schools had similar experiences. In my experience you need to be significantly smarter than your classmates to easily overcome a lack of preparation/study skills, and that isn’t the case for everyone – by definition 50% of kids are below average.
If you found college to be easier than high school (that’s the case for my husband, who went to an excellent private high school), you probably had a pretty rigorous high school experience, which is not going to be easy to come by at a “terrible rural high school.”
Anonymous says
I am skeptical about whether “high-quality” high schools really teach students to learn, though. In my observation they mostly load teens down with a ton of busywork that teaches them time management but not study skills or writing. They still have to figure those parts out on their own while preparing for AP exams outside of school or once they get to college. I took a ton of AP courses at a highly ranked public high school, but everything I know about how to learn and how to write came from CTY courses I took in the summers during middle school.
avocado says
I think college intro courses, especially freshman English, do tend to be easier than high school AP and IB courses. Most English majors at my school did not even take freshman English because they had fulfilled the requirement with AP credits. Lower-division major prerequisites and upper-division courses are more challenging.
In college you have fewer courses and the workload is more manageable. A typical college student taking 16 credit hours will spend 16-20 hours per week in class depending on the number of lab/studio/etc. courses . The rule of thumb for college is two hours outside of class for every credit hour, which is 32 study hours for a total of 48-52 hours per week. My high school sophomore attends school 35 hours per week and has an average of 25 hours of homework per week, often more, for a total of at least 60 hours a week. She is taking three AP courses this year and will take 7 IB courses next year, which is standard in her program. I thought the homework load was insane so I asked around, and other parents report that their kids are spending a similar amount of time. I also remember having more homework in high school than I did in college.
Anon says
I think good schools, which is not synonymous with highly-ranked schools, do actually teach kids how to learn, but also a lot of it is having peers that challenge you. My husband is very smart, smarter than I am, but he was forced to work pretty hard in high school because he had quite a few peers at his intellectual level. I was intellectually so far above all but one or two other people in my high school that I could get straight As with little effort. I got 5s on a bunch of AP exams, so it’s not like I didn’t learn college-level material, but I didn’t learn how to study and apply myself to schoolwork the same way my husband and many of my college classmates did.
I also work at a State U now and will say that we notice a huge difference between kids who come from private schools or “good” suburban schools, and kids who come from weak rural schools. It may be easier to get into college being a big fish in a small pond (although I’m somewhat skeptical of that – most private and increasingly even some public colleges give significant weight to a high school’s reputation) but I don’t think it makes for smooth sailing once you get there.
Anonymous says
Colleges are looking for geographic diversity and will often put limits on how many kids they will take from a certain high school. I have heard so many stories of kids who ranked 6th or 7th in their suburban high school class and only got in to Desperation Backup State U, not Flagship State U or Extremely Good State U or State Tech. The valedictorian from Podunk High is a much more interesting prize for a college, even if that kid is less prepared to succeed or hasn’t worked as hard.
Anon says
Yes, I understand the concept of geographic diversity quotas but wanting “3 kids from Wyoming” or whatever doesn’t mean they have to take kids from terrible rural schools. Even in a state like Wyoming there are certain high schools (almost universally located in cities, suburbs and college towns) that the fancy private colleges know and trust and it’s almost impossible to get in if you’re not from one of those schools. There are like 12 high schools in my small rural state that have ever sent kids to Ivy League schools and they’re all in or near one of the state’s bigger cities or a college town.
Cornellian says
I agree with this. I went to a crappy public high school but killed the SATs and I came to college with basically no skills. It was a BRUTAL first semester. I got through it, but there was no guarantee.
Pogo says
I know many people locally who do it, mostly through cooperatives or online curricula they purchase. However, they are all full time SAHMs. It can work for the right person and the right kid.
I truly do not see how you could do it and work full time, but I haven’t tried it. I tried working and “unschooling” my 3 year old during the pandemic and that was enough to tell me I don’t want to try.
Anonymous says
I would not do it because homeschooling is not really compatible with the vision I have for my kids’ future after high school. I know a number of homeschooled kids, and none of them is on a path I’d want for my own kids. They are all either overly cautious and ignorant of the real world or overconfident from spending all their time around adults. Most are academically unprepared for college, and the older ones don’t seem to have a clear idea of what their interests are or where they are headed in life. Among my own peers, I did see some motivated homeschooled kids start college early, with disastrous results because they weren’t enrolled in one of the few dedicated early college programs for young teens and were instead thrown onto college campuses full of young adults several years older than they were.
Anon says
I agree. I think all non-special needs kids need to spend a significant portion of their childhood in public school to function well in society as an adult. I do think there is room for chunks of formal schooling to be replaced by homeschooling without a negative outcome. For example, homeschooling for a few grades to avoid bullying or for a health issue or to relocate temporarily for a parent’s job.
Time in school is important to understand how to function in a bureaucracy such as a corporation or government. Kids who are only homeschooled lack this significant life skill.
Anon says
(Private school works too.)
Anon says
This is silly. I know multiple home schooled kids who went on to work in corporations and in government and if anything were particularly good at it. (It is also not the case that public school grads can spot adults who were homeschooled at a glance, I promise.)
I think what you’re seeing is that kids who absolutely cannot tolerate public school also aren’t going to do well in certain career paths. Homeschooling didn’t make them that way though; it’s just one of multiple reasons why someone might end up homeschooling.
anon says
Interesting, I’ve known a number of successful adults who were homeschooled through high school. Most did fine in college; some were outstanding in college. One of my mentees before I left biglaw was a young associate who had started college at 16 after being homeschooled (regular college, not early college) and had gone on to a really good law school.
My observation is that it makes a very big difference why the child is being homeschooled and how the parents approach it. Kids whose are homeschooled because their parents are afraid of the world (and I knew a whole family like this at my former Catholic parish)…yeah, you definitely are not really putting a kid on a path to success by doing that. Last I heard that family had literally moved to the Alaskan bush and college was definitely not in the cards for their older kids.
But I also have a close friend whose husband homeschooled their daughter all the way through HS because they moved so much for her job (and often to places with terrible schools), and she’s just graduated from a solid state university that she attended on a combination of merit and athletic scholarships and is starting fully funded grad school.
Anonymous says
It takes a lot of effort and resources to do homeschooling right, though, and in real life I see very few people putting in that level of effort. If OP is considering unschooling she will not have the same results as your friend’s husband.
Anonymous says
My sister was homeschooled and then started college early because she had social issues in public school. She survived college but was unable to handle the dorm and ended up living at home. She then washed out of her fully funded grad program because she wasn’t mature and worldly enough to handle the departmental politics, the actual work, living on her own, and socializing with grad students. This led to a string of very poor life choices that have had serious consequences for her husband and kids as well as my parents. I was not homeschooled and had to struggle through the misery of public school, went to college at the normal age, had a career, went to grad school, and had a second career and a family. I think if I’d been homeschooled I would easily have suffered the same fate as my sister.
Anon says
Several of my friends homeschool quite successfully. One family has kids who got merit scholarships for engineering for college, as an example.
The first thing is, they are all very smart women who have a tremendous amount of drive. They absolutely love learning, love sharing that with their kids, love devising ways to make learning interesting and tailored to each kid.
They are all extremely intentional about homeschooling. They use curricula from mainstream sources (while those might be religious sources, they are designed to get kids college-ready and have been used successfully by many, many families). They travel a lot.
They also have goals with homeschooling: get their kids to learn more than they could in public schools.
Anonymous says
This! It’s possible to give your child a better education while homeschooling than they’d get at the Title 1 school down the street where 70% of kids come in speaking zero English. And they have the flexibility to travel and go on MANY more field trips than public school and experience art galleries and music performances.
Anonymous says
I went to a Title 1 elementary school that taught much more advanced academics than my daughter’s fancy suburban public school where fewer than 5% of kids are on free or reduced-price lunch.
Anonymous says
No need to be classist (and a little racist, tbh). You’d be surprised how many schools qualify for Title 1 money. Students who come in speaking 0 English get caught up quite quickly and often excel.
EDAnon says
I know someone whose kids went to public school in a few communities, on of which is very wealthy/good schools/kids go to Ivy League. She thought the best school was the title 1 because they were really intentional about learning and had resources for supplemental services.
CPA Lady says
I grew up in the exact situation you’re proposing. My family lived in a rural area with one small, terrible k-12 public school and my mom homeschooled us for academic reasons.
The number one question I have is “do ALL THREE of your kids want this?” I assume that if you are considering this path, your personality meshed well with having been homeschooled. While I have an imaginary life that involves the notion of homeschooling my kid (in this dreamscape we also live in Europe and have tons of time to swan off to amazing cultural locations at the drop of a hat), it’s not something that I think would work in reality, because my extroverted kid would loathe it. I disliked being homeschooled because I am also an extrovert and had the experience of going to preschool and school, which I loved. So being taken out of that environment felt like a profound loss to me. My introverted sister had never been to school or preschool, and she was happy as a clam being homeschooled. The education I received was fantastic. But I was a royal pain in my mom’s rear end because I was so miserable. This created dynamics where my sister was the “good child” and I was the “bad child”. Not ideal.
The second question I have is “have you ever lived somewhere rural?” (I’m assuming you’re moving somewhere truly rural, not somewhere 10 minutes outside the suburbs.) Homeschooling in a town or the suburbs with plenty of local programs and the support of a nearby homeschooling group is very very different from the higher stakes of uprooting your entire life and moving to homeschool your kids in a rural area where you already know the public school option is unacceptable. Would you consider starting homeschooling while still in your current location just to see how it goes? I would have a really hard time admitting something wasn’t working if it meant having to pack up my whole life and move again. It’s easy to dream about the benefits of living in the country, but there are some drawbacks to consider, especially with the homeschooling piece.
From someone who has lived in two rural areas for a total of 20 years as both a child an and adult:
– how is the internet availability where you’re considering moving? It sounds ridiculous to people who live in cities, but a lot of rural areas have awful, sub-par internet options.
– it can be lonely and isolating. Unless you already have ties to the area and/or belong to the predominate political and religious groups of the area, it’s hard to make friends both with other adults and with kids. Everyone lives far away, so there’s no casually playing with other kids in the neighborhood or local playground. This is harder when
your kids don’t have regular interactions with peers.
– its a hassle to have to drive 45-60+ minutes one way to get to a real store, a doctor’s office, an airport, a non-piggly wiggly level grocery store, a museum, a homeschool group meet up, ballet lessons, or literally anything else every time you need anything for years and years on end.
Thing’s I’d contemplate about homeschooling in general:
– do you have any training in teaching/pedagogy/child development so you know what academic expectations are age appropriate? I really struggled with this while trying to help my daughter with online kindergarten last year.
– try to build the academic foundation in a way that is cohesive with the school your kids will transition to eventually. If middle school math in their future school is taught via the common core standards method, it would be ideal to teach them elementary math based on that same framework. My sister homeschooled her kids last year and when they went back to public school, her daughter especially struggled to get back up to speed in math because she didn’t use the same framework.
– Be aware of the social makeup of homeschoolers in your area. A lot of homeschool parents are on both the far ends of the political/social/religious spectrum or are doing it because their kids “don’t fit in” in some sort of profound way (neurodiversity, mental health issues, etc). These parents are by and large not homeschooling for academic reasons, but for social ones. In my homeschool group, every single person was white. Every single primary homeschool parent was a stay at home mom. If this is the makeup of homeschool groups in your area, please make sure your children have regular contact with more middle of the road kids and parents too.
– If you are everything to your kids, you never get a break from each other. So at home conflicts come to school and school conflicts come home. There is never that separation you get when your mom annoys you and you can go to school or your teacher is a pain but you can go home. There is never time to cool off.
– Be willing to listen to your children and be truly honest with yourself if it’s not working.
CPA Lady says
And since I haven’t already written you a novel ;) I’ll also say that my sister and I both graduated from top tier private colleges with honors and are successful, well-rounded adults. But I don’t even want to contemplate how many hours and hours my mom spent on our education. She’s incredibly smart, incredibly driven, has her masters degree in a hard science, and probably would have had an amazing scientific career if she had been raised in a different time. She took all that ability and intelligence and channeled it into our education. She and we are the exception rather than the rule when I look at our homeschooled peers and their parents. I hope, if you are one of these “overachieving chicks” or whatever the tag line is, you and your children will have the same experience.
Anonymous says
My SIL lives somewhere rural and omg the driving 45 min to get to a real store is a struggle even when we visit them for holidays (like if you run out of contact lens solution at 9pm at night… youre screwed). They also all have the same doctor because there is only 1 in town and the closest hospital is in another state. It’s a lifestyle, that’s for sure.
Anon says
Our family has a house in New England that’s so rural that we don’t really have cell phone reception there and until a couple of years ago, Amazon would not delivery packages to the house – you had to go pick them up at a post office 30 minutes away. I can’t imagine living there but it’s great to be able to truthfully tell work I’ll be off the grid when I go there on vacation.
Realist says
Growing up, I had two experiences with homeschooled kids. One was a very good friend in middle school but it definitely affected her socially and she had a really rough time from age 15+ and made many poor social decisions (drugs, boys, all those poor decisions you can make at that age). Another was someone I had a lot of college classes with. Her homeschool education was clearly excellent, she was very smart and seemed to know everything. But from what I could see, she really struggled socially. I have heard through the post-college grapevine that she ended up taking several years off after college before getting some sort of grad STEM degree and doing pretty well for herself. I don’t know what happened to my middle school friend, but I wouldn’t expect her life has gone great just knowing the kind of challenges she had already made for herself at age 19.
anon says
I need a new pool bag. Any ideas for good ones? I had my eye on Scout bags because they’re so cute but then I started reading bad reviews about the material. If it’s a glorified reusable grocery bag, that’s a disappointment. I’d prefer to stay away from canvas materials. I have an LL Bean boat and tote, and although it’s a great, sturdy bag that could easily hold a toddler, I don’t find it very comfortable to carry. I save it for the lake when I need something more durable.
Anonymous says
We have this and it gets the job done. It is big enough for a bunch of towels, and I like all the pockets on the outside for water bottles, goggles, etc.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GTST5Z9/ref=twister_B097L5LY71?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Anon says
Bogg Bag for the win. Good material that can get wet, structure supposes it not tipping over.
Anon says
*supports
Anonymous says
I have a giant scout bag and I love it. Family of 5.
FP says
I like the Yeti tote (Camino carryall) for our pool – canvas totes always got wet on the bottom and soaked up water as it would pool near us. The Yeti tote is indestructible and also stays open and upright. The con is the ridiculous price. Bogg bags are also very popular at our neighborhood pool.
EJF says
I have a rectangular laundry tote from Target that works great as a pool bag for my family of 4. Searching “Soft Sided Scrunchable Laundry Basket” will pull it up. $10.
So Anon says
My son’s 11th birthday was earlier this week. My mom and his dad both showed up to his family party, thankfully. However, after not speaking to me for the prior 10 days (because I don’t want to make my grandmother’s funeral into a prolonged family vacation), my mom walked into my house and handed me a paper bag. She said, “it’s your childhood Easter decorations, and I don’t want them anymore. Keep them or get rid of them. I don’t care.” I said thank you and put them to the side. The only other comment to me was to ask why I wasn’t having any of my son’s cake, and I said that it had yogurt, eggs and milk and I am vegan. She expressed confusion. I have been vegan for 18 months. (I can make an amazing gluten free cake. I cannot yet make an amazing gluten free, vegan cake.) She left after 35 minutes. I said thank you for coming and love you, and she said good-bye to everyone, except me.
She texted last night asking whether my kids wanted to come over to her house for a sleepover this weekend. I said that the kids have had an intense few weeks, and I am looking forward to this weekend with them. I also said that a sleepover the week of Feb break would be great. She responded with “I hope everyone is ok.” She also generally picks up my kids on Fridays from school, but hasn’t the last few weeks. My kids are now asking why their grandmother isn’t picking them up, and I’m not sure how to respond.
I am struggling so much with the realization that this is who my mother is (self-centered, lacking self-insight, entitled, lacking empathy). She remains very close with my ex, and does not see his past behavior as problematic. For the last 10 years, I was so focused on my now ex that my mom’s behavior didn’t really hit my radar. Now, after having space from my ex and so much therapy, I feel like I can see her behavior for what it is. I do not want to remove her from our lives entirely but I can see the need for very strong boundaries with her. I’m not sure how/what to say to my kids in an age appropriate way. They are 8 and 11. Any ideas?
Anon says
Can’t you just be honest with them that grandma is mad at you, not them, and anything she fails to do for them (like the school pick-ups) is a result of her being mad at you and not about them?
Anonymous says
I say this with all kindness: It’s time to set and enforce firm boundaries with your mom. If she hasn’t been picking the kids up from school on her scheduled days, then grandma pickups are off the schedule permanently. No more sleepovers. Time with your mom needs to be limited, supervised by you, and on your terms. You told us that she booked flights and hotel rooms for you and your kids without consulting you. What’s to say that she won’t invite your ex over while she has the kids, or take them on a trip without asking you?
Walnut says
Give yourself a pat on the back for holding your boundaries on the sleepover, being a gracious host during the party and rolling with her nonsense. Bonus ice cream for all of you as you enjoy some downtime this weekend.
Anonymous says
I have zero advice but this seems so hard. I’ve been following your journey for a while and the way she treats you is horrendous. I cut off some toxic family a decade ago because I was immature and didn’t know how else to deal with them. Now I’m having to try to figure out boundaries because they want to have a relationship with my kids (and I want that too). It’s not easy.
Anonymous says
I think you’re making this problem too big. “Friday doesn’t work for grandma but she’s looking forward to a sleepover in a few weeks!”
Anonymous says
Yes, I think the solution here is to let it roll off instead of tying yourself up in knots. If your mom wants to be a drama queen it’s her own problem. It doesn’t have to be yours.
EDAnon says
I had a lot of toxic family members on my dad’s side. I don’t know how my dad dealt with them without us around but there was a decent amount of disappointment in my life with them as a kid. My parents never put anyone down and, honestly, I didn’t clue into what their flakiness meant (drinking problems, mental health issues) until much later. I recommend keeping it low key when the kids ask “She’s not available right now” or “it didn’t work out for her this time.”
My older sister was more astute than I am and may have a different answer though. I wasn’t the kind of kid that inquired into those kids of explanations.
Anon says
I fantasize about the exact situation you are describing. I also have three boys and the idea of minimal seat work and lots of time outside sounds great. It doesn’t take much time to teach at home – aim for 30 min a day for a K student and go up to maybe 2 hours for elementary? – and lots of things can be achieved organically (if you’re building a tree house, there’s your physics and math for the day; read some books while eating popsicles and you’re good). I say these things as someone who has done a lot of considering/research but hasn’t jumped in yet because we do like our public schools (and our house/yard is too small to have a pack of boys around full time!) I’m also sure it’s a lot less idyllic than I imagine, but everyone I know (and virtually “know”) who has chosen this path seems happy with it
Anon says
Oops meant for above
Anon says
When do kids start eating a wider variety of foods? My toddler is super picky and we cook a nice homemade dinner every night that contains a variety of healthy and tasty options, plus things that should appeal to a kid, but rarely are we eating much. I realize I’m in it for the long haul but surely they must start eating a wider variety of food at some point, right? Are we going to throw away dinner every night until the kid is like 8?
Anonymous says
A lot of kids eat a wide variety of foods until around age 2, when they dramatically restrict what they will eat. Supposedly it’s a behavior that evolved to protect cave babies from poisoning themselves by eating every plant they ran across. I would say normal pickiness is generally worst from age 2 through around age 5. If you are dealing with sensory issues, it may never end without treatment.
Boston Legal Eagle says
This has been true in our case. Our 3 year old used to eat a lot more foods than he does now. Very limited palate right now. Our 5.5 year old has slowly been eating more – definitely not everything we have, but getting there. We still do kids’ dinners and adult dinners (which is a lot of freshly), but maybe when they’re both 5/6+, we’ll try meals as a family again.
Anonymous says
I am too lazy to cook separate kid and adult meals, so we do a lot of meals that are either deconstructed or have different twists for kids and adults. For example, kids eat taco meat and tortillas separately instead of assembling tacos. For the kid who picks the spinach out of the pasta sauce, I make a side of frozen peas. Adults get a salad topped with grilled chicken, kids get just the chicken and baby carrots. Kid servings are scooped out of a dish before spicy seasonings are added. Different vegetables for adults and kids are roasted on the same pan. Etc.
Anonymous says
+1. Also, my kid will eat just about anything in a tortilla, so sometimes her meal is whatever the adults are eating turned into a quesadilla of sorts. She’ll eat chicken, but she only likes broccoli in things, so sometimes she gets a chicken and broccoli quesadilla.
SC says
This is what we do. We don’t usually make an entirely separate meal, but we serve a lot of meals deconstructed, make a plate for him before adding certain seasonings to our food, and supplement with foods he likes that are easy to serve (carrots, hummus, whole wheat bread, peas, edamame, leftovers).
We do serve him chicken nuggets or frozen pizza or chicken sausage on occasion, usually when our schedules mean that we can’t all eat together, and when we have salmon.
Anon says
This is our family’s approach. Kiddo will eat plain sweet potatoes, plain meat, and grape tomatoes. Guess how we do taco night?
Anonymous says
This has also been my experience with all three of my kids. Following Kids Eat in Color has really changed my perspective on food and dinner time. My oldest ate everything at age 1, basically nothing at age 2 (not pizza, not chicken nuggets, not Mac n cheese!) and now at 5 will eat pretty much what we eat. The twins just turned a year and ate eating us out of house and home. They eat broccoli! They like scrambled eggs! Kids are weird. Don’t lose heart! It’s a process.
Anon says
Agreed with this. My non-sensory kid ate everything until 2, was horribly picky until about 5, started trying new foods with encouragement until 7, and now at 9, eats absolutely everything and actually gets excited about trying new food. When she is playing sports, she eats with gusto and excitement.
My kid with sensory issues has always stuck to a pretty core group of comfortable foods. Rather than the expansion of new foods that we saw with our older kid without sensory issues, there just seems to be less angst when something new is put in front of him as he has gotten older. So I don’t know that he’s really outgrown being as picky, but he definitely doesn’t freak out when there is new food being offered to other people. But with him, I took my doctor’s advice that if he only eats certain things, to just go with it, and just try to feed him the healthiest version of whatever he likes. Over the years, we’ve taken his plain pasta with hot dogs and broccoli to whole wheat pasta with chicken sausage and broccoli, and feel pretty happy with the progress.
Anon says
You don’t need to throw away dinners. Offer a bite of what you’re having and if it’s not eaten, don’t serve more.
My 4 year old is extremely picky. She likely has some sensory issues. We require her to eat a fruit, vegetable and a bread/dairy at every meal, but within those constraints we let her choose (within reason – for example if we’re busy one night we might say we don’t have time to prepare mac and cheese but she can have grilled cheese or bread with cream cheese). I know they say parents are supposed to choose what kids eat, but we’ve found that giving our kid a limited bit of control has helped a lot and expanded her palate quite a bit (although the vegetable is still corn most nights). Just within the last couple of weeks she has asked to try several new things, including eggs and blackberries and tomatoes. She spit most of them out, but I consider tasting it progress.
We don’t ever force her to eat any food, although we do tell her that she can’t have a second helping of the bread and dairy until she has eaten a reasonable amount of the veg and fruit.
anon says
When they get hungry enough. Don’t indulge the pickiness.
Anon says
This is really bad advice. If it’s a sensory/anxiety issue, no amount of hunger will overcome the issue. They could starve themselves to death if you don’t offer foods they consider safe, and even if it doesn’t get that extreme, it will be traumatic. I tend to think empathetic parenting has gone overboard (like the idea you can’t ever give a timeout for bad behavior is ridiculous to me), but this is a situation where showing a little empathy to a kid goes a long way. Most kids eventually grow out of picky eating, and you can do lifelong damage that doesn’t result in much improvement by trying to force them to be less picky at a young age.
Anonymous says
+1. If you are dealing with sensory issues the “kids will eat if they are hungry/parents decide what to serve, kids decide whether to eat” approach is a bad idea. Some kids literally will starve themselves, which actually depresses their appetite and makes them even less willing to eat. It’s a vicious cycle.
anon says
There’s no mention of “sensory issues.” Just garden variety picky eating. Pickiness isn’t a diagnosis; it’s a behavior that can and should be corrected.
Anon says
Many kids who are picky have some degree of sensory issues with food. It doesn’t have to cause any problems in other areas of life to be a sensory thing.
Anon says
It’s impossible for most people who aren’t trained professionals to distinguish “normal” pickiness from food-related sensory issues. I also don’t think this is a very kind approach even to “normal” pickiness, given that most kids will grow out of it in a few years. I don’t know, I just feel like so much of parenting is picking your battles, and battling a 3 year old to eat something they’re going to spontaneously decide to start eating a couple years later just does not feel worth it to me at all.
Anon says
As a super-taster, I’m really ticked off my this. No amount of forcing me to eat foods will make them palatable to me. It’s not like I’m trying to be this way – not being able to eat any amount of spice until my 20s wasn’t exactly a lot of fun. (That cropped up again when I was pregnant – pico de gallo set my mouth on fire.) It’s a function of having too many taste buds.
Anonymous says
How is your kid eating earlier in the day? My 18-mo-old definitely front-loads her calories for the day, and that’s not unusual for toddlers. She’s a bottomless pit at breakfast, eats a pretty good amount at lunch, and then like 5 bites at dinner unless it’s pizza (same here, kid). I just offer very small portions of everything at dinner, and she can clearly see that there’s more available if she asks for it.
Anon says
+1 at age 2 my kid ate most of her calories at breakfast and school and dinner was usually just a few bites, even for foods she loved. I think this is pretty common.
Anon says
Same here with my almost 2-year old. He will eat seconds of breakfast and progressively less throughout the day.
I’ll also stop offering things he regularly refuses to take a little bit of a break from them and then re-introduce a few weeks or months later. He went through a phase recently of rejecting scrambled eggs (an old favorite) for a few months. Then we went out to breakfast as a family recently and he ate half of mine. Now he eats eggs again. I don’t get it, but it was a good reminder to take breaks and to try offering again over time.
DLC says
Is your concern that your child is not eating enough or that they are not eating a variety of things? Or that dinner feels wasteful? (This latter is definitely one of my parenting pet peeves.)
My brother had a very limited food palate when we were growing up and now he is a super adventurous vegetarian. I do feel like sometimes people just have to come to things on their own. That’s probably a longer haul picture than you wanted…
I feel like often all we parents can do is offer a wide variety and model good eating habits (including we don’t ever say something is gross or yucky at the table, and we have a mantra- Food is Fuel- for when they complain about things not tasting good)
My kids are 10, 5, and 2 and they usually eat what we serve for dinner though the two year old often picks out the vegetables. I think we are just lucky, to be honest.
GCA says
I am also triggered by the sense that tossing part of dinner feels wasteful! And it’s probably 90% a holdover from my own (Asian) upbringing seasoned with a small amount of climate guilt, lol.
DLC says
OMG same here with the Asian upbringing. Whenever my mother comes to stay with us, she always eats the leftovers out of the fridge even if I offer to make her something fresh! Which brings me whole different level of guilt.
Anonymous says
I started in college.
Anon says
Same, ate nothing as a kid and then started eating everything in college. I think it’s pretty common! And I think the fact that my parents didn’t really react to it was helpful. They didn’t make two meals once I was in elementary school (if I didn’t like their meal, I could make myself a PB&J or something like that) but they didn’t freak out or restrict my access to the simple foods I liked. Anecdotally, the kids of parents who were more intense about it or forced to eat a family meal seem to have a harder time moving on from the pickiness. (I think this metaphor could be extended to lots of other areas of parenting too, not just food.) My father is the only adult I know who doesn’t eat a single green vegetable, and I think it’s because he was forced to eat green vegetables as a child.
Anon says
This so much. My dad forced us as kids to clear the plate or be punished. My sibling was duct taped to a chair one night.
The pickiness has gotten marginally better as an adult but the trauma around food and meals makes them unable to eat alot of different dishes. And it for sure put a wedge between them and our dad who did the cooking.
Family dinner is not a time of bonding or fond memories when parents turn it into a battleground over asparagus.
Foods enjoyable or palatable as an adult now made me gag as a child. I love spinach now, couldnt eat the heavily sauteed in garlic spinach my dad made. But also I cant look at cooked zucchini or most cooked tomatos now without gagging. Let alone eating them. As an adult i hate cooking and all forms of meal prep and clean up. And leftovers. Id rather throw out food than habe to eat anything thats been made longer than the prior day. Wasteful, yes. Irrational, yes. Direct result from childhood, yes.
Anonymous says
My parents told me I was a picky eater, but the real problem was that their food was bland and overcooked. A typical dinner would be a t-bone steak cooked on a grill pan with no seasoning until it was leathery, baked potatoes with a little butter, and frozen corn heated in the microwave. No wonder I refused to eat it. Onions, garlic, and peppers never entered our house, and there were no spices in the pantry except one jar of Italian seasoning that lasted my entire childhood. When I went off to college and had access to all sorts of edible foods, I realized that I actually love food.
Anon says
+1. The things that are regular staples in my house now never even made an appearance when I was growing up. I didn’t know what hummus was until college. Definitely didn’t have food with garlic, or probably even olive oil. No avocados. No salmon. No kiwi or mango or any kind of “exotic” fruit. Definitely no roasted vegetables of any kind. Etc etc.
SC says
Ha. My husband’s family is Lebanese, so he grew up with hummus, olive oil, stuffed squash and peppers and grape leaves, and all kinds of Mediterranean food. A couple of weeks ago, I said I don’t remember ever having hummus in my house growing up and that I may have tried it for the first time when I was a senior in high school. DH was very confused.
My mom was a decent cook, and she did make salmon and roasted vegetables. I don’t remember avocados, mango, or exotic fruit either. We also never had anything other than “American” food. Fortunately for me, I had a multi-cultural group of friends who had parents or grandparents who were good cooks!
Anon4This says
When DH tells me what my MIL would “cook” for dinner it is this type of stuff. Including, meatloaf (which I’ve never had) in the MICROWAVE.
I’m South Asian, so I know our diet in our home is unrecognizable to my MIL compared to what she made. The fact that a lot of White people talk about garlic as a “spice” (vs. just part of all/any cooking) still surprises me…as a kid, I only knew of people avoiding garlic and root vegetables for religious reasons.
Pogo says
SAME. This was what my mom ‘cooked’ and I remember hating having to take bites of the steak which was so chewy.
Anonymous says
The worst was when my mom would boil a bag of dried lima beans in water and serve them with ketchup.
Anon says
My parents also made bland and overcooked food, but I don’t . My kids give no Fs about spices, roasted vegetables, stir fried veg, etc – it’s all yucky. They will not eat vegetables in nearly any form, not even smothered in cheese in a quesadilla – those are also yucky even if it’s just plain cheese. Can’t even get one kid to eat a french fry. One of the few vegetable that will get eaten is frozen corn. So I kind of get it. What is even the point of trying. I do, but ack.
Anon says
I had a similar experience. I think one problem is that my midwestern parents thought that bland and sweet foods would be easier on a picky eater. In fact, most my favorite foods are strong “acquired taste” type foods and are savory. Maybe it’s partly that the onslaught of flavors overwhelms the pickiness somewhat? But I can’t really blame them for not guessing that their picky child would love anchovies or kimchi or pickled turnips or capers!
Anonymous says
I joke that my picky eater isn’t really picky, she’s just an epicure. She will only eat cheese that’s been aged at least 12 months. Loves sushi, Indian food, Szechuan food, and avocado toast. Devours white pizza with homemade crust and olive oil and lots of garlic but will not touch normal pizza with sauce and pepperoni. Will eat teriyaki salmon but will not touch fish sticks. Will eat penne alla vodka but not spaghetti with marinara. At restaurants she declares that everything on the kids’ menu is icky and orders off the adult menu. At least she’s found some things she will eat, but it gets expensive.
Pogo says
sorry but… yeah. same. My parents stopped arguing with me when I was about 11 and forcing me take bites before leaving the table and everyone was happier and now I eat a very wide variety of foods.
ElisaR says
same
GCA says
I just read Jenny Rosenstrach’s (Dinner A Love Story) column in Cup of Jo that reflects on two decades of writing about & cooking family dinners, including for a picky eater: https://cupofjo.com/2022/01/stress-free-family-dinners/
From her reflections, it sounds like it’s a long game. I think there’s a ‘normal’ range of picky, barring sensory and other physical / health issues, and most toddlers are going to be some degree of picky. My poor BFF had a child who was extremely picky as a toddler/ preschooler, and he is great friends with my child who ate things like octopus and kale salad, so we avoided talking about family meals (but would often eat dinner together so the kids could tacitly peer-pressure each other into eating things like tomatoes and cheese). She also went to great lengths – cutout sandwiches, making art with food, letting him help with cooking — it was very stressful for her and the family for a while. Now, in elementary school, he’s a lot better about trying different foods.
My second kid (3.5) is currently normal-level picky – dislikes leafy greens, eats broccoli but only roasted, somehow won’t eat potatoes. I don’t have the time, money or desire to make separate meals, so I go with deconstructable meals, exposure, and hope. Also, as long as there is something she is likely to eat and as long as she has a reasonably balanced diet over the course of a few days, I pretty much just make whatever the rest of the family wants to eat.
GCA says
PS and on exposure – at this age, our current house rule is that she doesn’t have to eat it but it does have to live on her plate for the duration of dinner.
Anonymous says
I am SO relieved to hear there’s another kid out there who won’t eat potatoes. Mine only eats them as latkes. No mashed/baked/roasted potatoes, no french fries (but she will eat sweet potato fries).
Anonymous says
Mine won’t even eat them as latkes. What kind of child hates potatoes?!? Mine does love all forms of sweet potatoes and sweet potato fries.
Anon says
(Raises hand) I’m in my 40s and still can’t eat potatoes. They are so bitter – I don’t understand people who like them.
Pogo says
I am also not a potato fan. I’ll eat sweet potatoes, but regular potatoes I’m very meh on. Baked potato is probably my favorite but I’m not into chips or fries. People think I’m weird but my view on it is that those are very calorie dense foods for the nutrients they provide, so I’d rather not ‘waste’ my calories on something I don’t like!
GCA says
Oh – you might be a supertaster! We think my MIL is probably a supertaster. She’s very sensitive to bitterness and anything with more than a hint of heat or spice. Do you have trouble with cruciferous veggies or hot peppers as well?
Marilla says
I put tiny (TINY!) bits on their plate and assure them that they don’t have to eat it. This often ends up with them trying food, but if it doesn’t, I don’t sweat it. I serve things deconstructed, as described above. No interest in eating a salad with dressing, but having the dressing on the side and dipping each individual spinach leaf in it was a success. I’m also big on letting the kids ‘make’ part of dinner and helping me as I make dinner. We also talk about what food does in our bodies (similar scripts to kids eat in color on insta) and my two are delighted that protein helps their muscles work.
Pogo says
+1 to the tiny portions. I will put like, a single asparagus on my kid’s plate. If he eats it, great, he can always have more. I put larger portions of his ‘safe’ foods (typically fruit) and he usually fills up on those.
I do try to keep serving because they can surprise you. Mine is a typical 4 year old, but he loves seaweed. You never know!
Anon says
As someone who had some disordered eating in my teens, I’d encourage everyone to resist turning eating into a tug of war with your kids. Try to have a low pressure attitude about food. Give them lots of options and if they don’t want to eat so what. Unless they’re actually underweight (which is decidedly rare in the US), relax. Just my two cents. Mixing up food with lots of “big feelings” can have ramifications down the road.
Anonymous says
I think a lot of the big feelings parents, especially mothers, have around what their kids eat are related to pride in being able to show off that they are parenting in the “right” way. My SILs are militant BLW adherents who proudly show off how their 6-month-olds gum green beans, then panic when they turn 2 and start refusing to eat anything but chicken nuggets because “I did everything right! Now my kid is supposed to beg for escargot and octopus!”
Anon says
Or, like, somebody just wants meal times to not be super stressful? Nothing in OP’s question indicates that she’s going to give her kids an eating disorder. She gets to also want things to be easier for her.
Anon says
But it’s so much less stressful to just offer some foods you know your kid likes and not turn mealtime into a battle?
SC says
My kid is actually underweight, and this is still the right advice according to his doctors and OTs. We’ve recently found out that he’s underweight due to a medical issue that’s causing low appetite. Fortunately, the medical issue is treatable. If we’d been pressuring him into eating, or worse, when his body was telling him not to eat, we would have done more harm than good.
Anon says
Do you mind sharing what the medical
issue is? Our son is very underweight as well. We’ve run a ton of tests and everything has come back fine. I think it’s just the way he is built, but I’d be curious to hear if there is something the doctor isn’t considering. Thanks!
anon says
Is it worth moving to cut your commute in half (longest commute would be 30-40 min, vs 1 hr) at the expense of having to find a new daycare, new friends/community? We’d probably have to be on a daycare waitlist for many months, but DH would be less tired and more available to do daycare pickup/dropoff (which he currently cannot do due to commuting). I know kids adjust to daycare fairly well, but I like our current one so much and the area we’d be potentially moving to doesn’t seem to have great options.
Anon says
Yes. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but daycare years are fleeting but commutes are not. I’m assuming either way you’d go to a local preschool/elementary+, so shorter commute for the win. You’ll probably find incremental/new community in those school life stages anyway.
Anonymous says
Will there be an impact on your commute or just his? If his gets shorter, does yours get longer, or are you WFH? Or do they both get shorter? As someone who commuted an hour each way for more than a decade, I wouldn’t move just to shave 20-30 minutes off of one person’s commute unless it would also get you a better lifestyle in terms of the schools, the kind of home and yard you can have, and the community. If the entire purpose of moving is to get your husband more involved in kid logistics, you might be disappointed. If he isn’t facing a hour-long commute, it will be easy for him to go in early or stay late and eat up that extra time. I’d consider hiring some more household help instead of moving.
Pogo says
I hate commuting so yes. I also would go insane if I was on dropoff/pickup every single day because of DH’s commute, it would breed so much resentment.
My husband does have a 45-60min commute but he rarely commutes at peak hours because of his flexibility (either wfh all day or takes his calls with Europe and then commutes in later). I’m assuming from your framing that flexibility is not an option, but are there other jobs that could offer it? So instead of moving your house you move jobs to be closer?
My company is extremely pro work from office, and even they have had to increase flexibility to keep people these days.
OP says
Thanks for all the very good thoughts everyone and especially reminding me that daycare is only so many years but commuting is forever! Hiring more help also seems to be a key point in all this.
For clarification…I am mostly WFH (and commute will remain the same duration even if we move) so not much changes for me on that front.
Anon says
Pfizer pulled their FDA authorization request for kids under 5. They’re going to wait to submit until they have data on the third dose, supposed to be coming in April. I understand the reasoning for the 2-4 age group, but feel so bad for parents of kids under 2.
Anonymous says
Well, this spares a lot of parents the agony of having to decide whether to start the series before the third dose data are in.
Boston Legal Eagle says
Well that answers my question from yesterday then. I guess it’s good that we’ll get the full efficacy/safety results from the three doses but it feels like another goal post moving.
Anon says
Yeah it’s so frustrating. At our school anyone who’s not fully vaccinated has to quarantine for 14 days after every exposure so it’s another 2+ months of major childcare disruptions.
Anon says
Ugh I am sorry. Our school system just moved to 5-day quarantines and a test-to-stay option and it has been a welcome relief (my kids were in school at the same time for a total of 45 min in December due to quarantines)
Anon says
It’s crazy. It’s based on county health department guidelines, which I guess are designed to strongly encourage vaccination for school age kids by penalizing the unvaccinated. Which I get, but there should be an exception for those who aren’t unvaccinated by choice. Fortunately things seem to be dying down here (we’ve had 3 straight weeks without a Covid case! Although one of those weeks school was closed most of the week because of snow) and hopefully there will be under 5 vaccines before the next big surge.
Anonymous says
Yeah, we have a 10-day quarantine. I mean, at least that’s better than 14? And here I was hoping that my kid could get her first dose at her 18-mo-checkup. I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football.
NLD in NYC says
Just finished my huge bottle of Dreft. DS is now two. Do I still need to buy special detergent or can we graduate to Tide? DS doesn’t have any skin issues. Same question re baby shampoos, etc. as I’m finally running out.
Anon Lawye says
I never used special baby detergent and my kid never had bad skin reactions. I guess if she doesn’t get into Harvard I can blame it on that.
Anon says
You can graduate! Any detergent is fine; you can use a free & clear one if you have sensitive skin. I use Tide on my cloth diapers and clothes for all my kids, babies on up (Dreft smells great but the benefits are mostly marketing)
Anonymous says
I never understood why a detergent with so much fragrance was marketed for infants. I’ve always used the free and clear versions of Tide, Seventh Generation, or Method. Seventh Generation Ultra Power Plus is best for stains.
Anon says
We used Tide free and clear when my daughter was a baby and still use it. I’m sure regular Tide is fine if no one in your family has skin issues.
We still use J&J shampoo and conditioner on our 4 year old because it’s hard to prevent it from getting in her eyes and it stings a lot less than normal shampoo. Also it seems to be working fine so no reason to change.
Mary Moo Cow says
I think as long as your kids don’t have skin issues, it’s fine. If you do a test wash with your regular detergent and DS doesn’t have skin issues, then you know. But I say this a person who couldn’t stand the smell of Dreft and washed all baby clothes with All Free & Clear and now Puracy Free. My kids do have somewhat sensitive skin and I can’t stand most detergent fragrances, so I’ve always used something that is scent-free or labelled free and clear. For shampoo, we switched to Dove gentle or sensitive skin body wash and Suave kids Free/natural shampoo and conditioner around age 2.
Anonymous says
My kid got terrible eczema from Dreft, so we’ve always used the same free & clear detergent for her clothes that we use on ours.
Anonymous says
Pls help the planet by switching to a cold water detergent! We use one from Grove and it’s great
Anonymous says
We kept using tear-free shampoo until they were old enough that they stopped getting suds in their eyes when they washed their hair.
EDAnon says
We use the tear free shampoo but wash laundry with Tide and have had no issues. I use regular Tide because the smell reminds me of childhood.
NLD in NYC says
Thanks all for the feedback!
NLD in NYC says
Thanks all!
Anonymous says
Don’t know if anyone will see this on Friday afternoon, but glad to see this gaining steam:
https://www.urgencyofnormal.com/our-statement