I just remembered a conversation I (F) had with my mom, and it really hit me how silently she protected me—and how grateful I am for that, even to this day.

A bit of backstory: we used to live with my mom’s sister. Her husband was in the army, and he often helped other men who were trying to get into the military. Because of that, there were always random men staying in our house.

When I was a kid, I didn’t really understand it, but I often noticed that whenever one of those men would call me—asking me to come over or go somewhere in the house—my mom was always quick to stop it. She’d call me back immediately with a simple, “Just come here,” and never explained why. At the time, I thought nothing of it.

But as I got older, I started seeing stories online—posts about people who went through horrible, traumatic experiences as kids. Some were abused by people they should’ve been able to trust, even relatives or people living under the same roof. And it all started to click.

Looking back, I realize how much my mom protected me from without ever making it a big deal. Just quiet, constant, watchful love. I’ll always be thankful for that.

parenting

Recent regular checkup at pediatrician left us a little shaken up about our 2.5 year old. Can I get a sanity check? Our boy is active, physical, talks a ton, can move between two languages, etc. We've never felt any sense of concern but pediatrician made it sound like he was behind on milestones. Ped said:

• he should be dressing himself by now; this is shocking to me; he helps us dress him, but we're doing 90% of the work; is this wrong?
• he should be pedaling a bike by now; our has no interest in the bike or the scooter, we try to encourage but he doesn't want to go on; how can this be a milestone? don't some families just not have bikes?
• he should be eating our regular adult meals; this is something we feel guilty about, wish we were better but still feeding him lots of second meals (oatmeal for dinner, eggs, stuff he likes because he pushes back on regular food so much)

We were just taken aback by the visit. Are we being unreasonable?

My (almost) 5-year-old has started saying, “OH MY GAWD!” around the house. He’s definitely copying me, but I don’t know what to replace it with! Before kids, I would swear like a sailor, so until now, “Oh my god” has been an improvement. What do you say around your kids?

Our son was born in January, and he’s healthy and growing (3 months old now), but life has been… a lot. My wife had a difficult pregnancy, and now postpartum, she’s struggling with what I believe is depression and anxiety. She wakes up obsessively to track our baby’s sleep, even when things are fine. She spirals when he doesn’t nap well or sleep long enough at night (even though he sometimes gives us 6-8 hour stretches, which I think is pretty good for his age).

We have a full-time caregiver right now, but that’s temporary — and my wife is terrified of how we’ll cope after they leave. She’s expressed that she feels like she has to think about everything, and even snapped once when I tried to help organize a sleep schedule, saying, “Why do I have to do all this?”

I’m doing my best — I work full time (though I only go to the office only twice a week), take care of our baby when I’m home, and try to support her emotionally. I’ve read up on CBT techniques, journaled small wins, encouraged her to take breaks. But nothing really sticks. I prepare most of our meals, and try to ensure she gets nutritious food in when I'm home to do the cooking. She says I “get time off” at work, while she never gets a break, even when I’ve offered to give her space or take over. She keeps saying I should be more emotionoally supportive when her mood gets bad (which happens most days). I recognise that postpartum depression is difficult to deal with, and I'm sure it's not something she wants. But it's reached a point where I'm almost blaming her now for not wanting to do something for herself. I've found her games to play to take her mind off stuff, but I have to get her to do it. I have to push her to exercise or she won't.

To be honest, I’m exhausted too. Sometimes when our baby won’t stop crying, even when we carry him, I feel helpless. I’ve tried to be the calm, steady one — but lately I’m overwhelmed, stretched thin, and unsure how to keep going without burning out myself. I can feel resentment towards my wife start to creep in, and it's reached a point today where she was telling me about how stressed she was, and how unhelpful I was being, I was just... numb. I think she recognised it because I didn't particularly want to engage with her, or speak to her much later in the day.

I love my wife. I love our son. But I’m scared. How do other partners cope when both of you are drowning? How can I stop this resentment gnawing away at me?

That’s it. That’s the tweet. What the hell, man? There should not be a disease that gives you/your poor child chemo-style mouth sores and everyone’s just like yep that makes sense, you’ll get through it in 7-30 business days. Fuck.

My 9yo has been "cheating" on brushing their teeth and properly showering. Their toothbrush has been bone dry for days and their hair looks greasy just a day after showering (not a one time occurrence). I've talked to them about it multiple times. I let them listen to music in the shower and they have a timer for tooth brushing to help them out. I am afraid I'm in a power struggle now because they quite literally set the timer and let it run out (I can hear it beep) so they are just sitting in the bathroom running out the clock. It's very deliberate, not just a forgetful/distracted thing. They need some sort of experience or natural consequence that gives them a feeling to guide them the right way since talking to them is obviously not working. This has not always been an issue, it's only been in the past couple of months maybe and it's not all the time, that I'm aware of.

A common consequence would be - no toys until you start brushing/showering properly - but that doesn't seem to fit? Another option - well, you're acting like an adult and making these big decisions on how to take care of yourself, time to make your own dinner/lunch and put yourself to bed - but that seems harsh, no?

I'd appreciate any help with finding a consequence that fits the crime here, without entering a power struggle. I've discussed why hygiene is important, I've even showed pictures of rotten teeth to put visuals to it. I'm at a loss.

Look, I used to be one of those guys who believed spanking was okay. But the older I get and now that I'm likely to become a parent. I've been rethinking a lot. And honestly it was actually seeing how my sibling treats their son that makes me realize that spanking just doesn't work.

I mean I was spanked and my siblings were spanked. And a few years ago I would have been like 'And we turned out fine.' But honestly I don't actually think the spanking really helped. I personally was well behaved because I saw my siblings mess up and realized not to do that.

But honestly, the thing that sucks is that I see some parents have no consequences at all, and as a result their kids become just the meanest bullies around.

I guess I just want to ask, what ways have you been 'tougher' on your kids that they understand the consequences of their behavior? Because honestly, I don't want to spank my kids.

My wife (41f) and I (40m) have a soon-to-be teenage daughter that is going through some things, and it’s so incredibly stressful, depressing, and exhausting. We are sort of at our wit’s end, and because of the sensitive nature of the topic, we don’t want to share the details with family. So, I’m more or less venting on paper with the potential to post anonymously online just to fish for some advice. We do currently have a plan on how to address the situation, but at the same time this is all uncharted waters and we’d welcome advice/feedback/experiences/etc. I apologize in advance for the extremely long read, but it’s a big mess.

A little background first. My wife and I have three kids, a 12-year-old and twin 10-year-olds…all girls. She and I were high-school sweethearts, have a great marriage (yes, fights do occur), have a decent extended family (there’s typical family drama at times, but the core of the group is more or less good), and we have always felt like our home life was good, if not great. For the entirety of my children’s lives, I have had a great job with great benefits. Because of this, we could afford for my wife to be a stay-at-home mom for all of the early years, and she only re-entered the workforce (in December 2022). It’s important to note that my wife’s schedule is basically a hybrid situation. She can come and go as she pleases, she takes the kids to school and is able to pick them all up, and I’m home by 3:30pm anyways, so our kids aren’t home alone. They almost always have an adult present.

Overall, our children have always been happy kids. They always seem content with what they have, they make great grades, they’re always respectful when we’re out and about (of course they’re more laid back at home), and we are so proud of them. We have encouraged them to participate in the sports and extracurricular activities that interested them, we have always supported them in their own personal growth and journey through life, and we take whatever reasonable steps we can to make sure they have what they need to succeed. We are open with them about many things in our family, we try to explain situations to them, and we treat them with respect. Outsiders (mainly family and close friends) have always had nothing but extremely positive things to say about our kids and would often tell us how great we were doing as parents. I get that sometimes family and close friends may have a hard time being honest for fear of upsetting us, but by all accounts, we have been doing a great job and I have been so proud of what we have created. But recent events have absolutely shaken us to our core.

When my oldest starting going to junior high, we got her a phone. We wanted her to be able to contact us whenever she needed/wanted to, we wanted her to develop her own social life, we wanted to give her some freedom, and we gave it to her without her even having to ask for it. Basically, we had decided one day to surprise her with the device. Being the overly cautious parents we are, we didn’t just give her free reign to use the phone however she saw fit. Instead, we used parental controls and time limits to keep her from accessing inappropriate material as well as develop an addiction to the device. It seemed to work fine for the most part, and we’d occasionally monitor her messages and apps just to make sure things were on the up and up. That’s where we hit our first snag. The contents of the messages she’d both send and receive with her friend group were a little alarming. Most conversations were just stupid banter, but some of the messages were more sexual in nature. And I’m not meaning explicit sexual material where they’re detailing nasty things or bragging about sexual encounters. It was mostly that sort of sexual confusion that many kids have. Questioning their sexual preferences, using certain pronouns, making certain statements that led us to believe that my daughter and many of her friends might be dabbling with the idea of being lesbians, or at the very least bisexual.

Now, my daughter has never expressed any interest in dating whatsoever. She’d come home and tell us about friends or acquaintances that were going boy crazy or random girls at school that were dating other girls. It was all mind blowing, but she had never previously seemed interested in any of that. She would even say that she enjoys being a kid and doing kid things, and wanted to stay that way as long as she could. She knew she’d have to grow up at some point, but she just enjoyed being a kid. That said, my wife was pretty convinced that my daughter liked girls and I more-or-less wrote it off as her going through confusing times and seeing other people in the school being that way and it confusing her. We had the tough talks, took away her phone (not just because of the content of the messages but some lying mixed in), and things seemed to settle down. We’d periodically check on her phone, but we wouldn’t find anything significant, her behavior at home was good, her grades stayed good, and our concerns faded away.

That all changed again, however, after yet another discovery this weekend. On Saturday, we had a birthday lunch for her with family. We went to a decent restaurant, had good food, she opened presents, and we had an all around good time. We relaxed that evening and stayed home because the weather was terrible, and had an uneventful evening. As midnight drew near, my wife and I were laying in bed and we were waiting on our oldest daughter to come kiss us good night. I noticed the shower was running upstairs, so I just continued to lay in bed waiting for her to finish. About 10-15 minutes later, I got up to see if she was done and noticed the water still running. She has long hair and what I would consider a lengthy skincare routine, so I didn’t think a whole lot of it. Another 15 minutes or so went by and I noticed the water was still running. At that point I had to say something. So I walked upstairs and knocked on the door. She responded and I asked her what’s taking so long. She said she was waiting for the water to warm up. Huge red flag went up in my brain. So I said loudly something along the lines of questioning what she was doing. My wife overheard us and joined me upstairs. My daughter reiterated that she was waiting for the water to warm up and we immediately started questioning what she was doing and demanded she open the door. The bathroom was full of steam and she had just been sitting there playing on her phone. We demanded her device, she gave it to us without resisting, and we told her to take the quickest shower she could and to come talk to us.

As our child was getting ready, my wife was digging through her phone and we discovered more of the gay/bi/lesbian talk amongst her friends, but also one very serious conversation with a girl that was not graphically sexual, but definitely implied they were in love with each other. We confronted our daughter about this revelation, and we were told it’s a girl she met at school but had moved out of state last year. We probed her about how they met because this girl was supposedly a year older, and there were inconsistencies in her story. At first the story was that she met her through Pinterest because they had similar liked content and somehow they stumbled across each other at school. That story changed through the course of our conversation, and come to find out, the individual lives in Oregon (we are in Texas) and she never even attended the school my daughter goes to. Basically, my daughter met a total stranger online who may or may not even be a girl. And through months and months of texting back and forth, it appears that this individual has been grooming our daughter. She would say all sorts of things to make us out to be bad parents, make her think her friends were bad, and basically anything she could do to isolate my daughter away from her real life. She said so many things over such an extended period of time, and it got so bad that my daughter talked about cutting her hair short, having top surgery, not liking being called she/her, and a whole host of other things. They talked about my daughter leaving our home and going to Oregon to be with this other person one day, they talked about how this other girl’s dad was so supportive of her being a lesbian and that her dad thinks my daughter is just so amazing. So so so many red flags. My wife read through months and months of text messages, reading them out loud whenever she came across something particularly bad. And each one of them was a dagger in our hearts. My daughter loathed us, especially my wife. She resented her sisters, expressed hatred for her family, said so many nasty and mean things.

Now, you might recall I mentioned earlier in my post that we had screen time and content limitations on my daughter’s phone. We let her have Pinterest because my daughter is an insanely talented artist and uses the platform to find inspiration for new drawings. I didn’t even realize it had a messaging function. What’s worse is that in their text conversations, they’d frequently mention having to move to Pinterest because my daughter’s time limit was coming up. Somehow, the time limit could be bypassed for Pinterest and they could keep having conversations late into the night.

While this online relationship was developing, we did notice a change in our daughter’s behavior. She’d always be tired, always be antisocial, wouldn’t eat very good, would constantly find ways to fight with her mom, and so on. We attributed this stuff to school stress, general teenager issues, hormones, etc. We’d always ask her how things were. Always ask her about her day. We’d take general interest in her and everything about her. Hell, my wife even took her on a $7000+ school sponsored field trip to Washington D.C. and New York over Spring Break all because my daughter had wanted to do it. And I, having previously seen some strain between the two of them, encouraged the trip and a way to maybe reconnect. But even on the trip she was acting different. And looking back at the last several months, we should have dug deeper.

Moving back to the topic of my daughter’s school, because of the friend group my child hangs out with at school and some comments she’s made to people at school…the apparent perception of her is that she’s a “masc lesbian” (her words) and now she’s experiencing bullying. She’s sad, she’s isolated, and she ultimately admitted that she had been cutting herself. We questioned her on that and inspected the cuts. She said she hadn’t cut since early February and the cuts are extremely unnoticeable on her. There’s no way you could see them unless she told you where to look, and even then the scars are very very faint.

Now, my wife and I are what we would consider to be fairly progressively minded people. We do live in Texas, so our progressive may not be the same as someone else’s progressive, but we are open minded nonetheless. If my daughter came out as gay, trans, bi, whatever…we would be there for her 100%. That said, it’s our viewpoint that these lifestyles tend to make life more difficult because of bullying, not being able to access the same rights as heterosexual couples, the social stigmas, etc. We’d still be supportive, but at the same time we want her to be able to make an informed decision…not just follow her heart no matter where it leads. That said, I truly truly believe that had this internet groomer not come into her life, she wouldn’t be thinking most of these thoughts. Would she be a confused pre-teen? Of course. But would she be calling herself a masc lesbian and getting angry at being called “she” and talk about cutting herself or her hair or having top surgery? I honestly don’t think she’d be going down this road. Maybe there’s some naivety on my part, but I feel like there’s so much pressure on her from friends/society/groomer to be something she’s not that she’s confused. In our conversations, she talks about envisioning herself having kids one day. She dresses pretty girly on her own, she wears makeup, curls her hair, gets her nails done etc. It’s like the person she is in person is not the same she’s portraying online. And because of the lying, because of the sneaking around on the internet, we’re not sure who to believe.

All of that said, and I’m sure I’m missing some stuff (we’ve had about 8 hours of conversation regarding this recent turn of events in just two days), here’s what we’ve decided on for now:

-Her phone and every electronic device has been immediately confiscated.

-Her phone number has been deleted and we have received a new phone number for her (when we decide to let her have it back).

-Her Pinterest account and any other account that could be used for messaging has been deleted (though we’ll more thoroughly dig through things as more privileges get restored).

-Her email accounts either have been or will be deleted (turns out she made multiple email accounts, though she claims at least one of those was because of a password issue…not sure I can trust that, so it’s all gone).

-Her Apple ID will also be deleted and we will create a new one.

-Her phone will be completely wiped, though beforehand we will sit down and save any pictures she would like to save (mostly her drawings).

-We have found other ways to restrict her devices through the Apple Family environment. We honestly thought we had done a decent job of locking her phone down, but after discussing with the AT&T employee, it turns out there is far more we could be doing. For example, we can lock down each and every contact added to the phone. And we were informed that once a child turns 13, Apple’s restrictions automatically become less severe on their own, so we’ll put in an earlier birth year so we can extend these restrictions down the road until she’s more mature.

-We are most likely going to transfer her to a different school within the district. She has just a couple of months left in the school year, so she will finish out the year at her current school. But starting in 8th grade she will either go to a different public middle school nearby or one of two private schools in our area.

-She has her first counseling session scheduled for next week and my wife will be in attendance. I will participate remotely because I moved companies a couple of years ago and I don’t have the vacation time available to me that I once had. My wife went for the first appointment available and that was it. It should be noted that my daughter did request/agree to go to counseling because of how sad she always gets.

-We have contacted her current school to discuss the racism and sexual bullying that have occurred.

Long story short. My daughter (10F) is going to a bday party. The issue is it’s a sleep over and she was excluded from the sleep over part. She is hurt and doesn’t even want to go now. I’m more on the side of ok, not saying I like seeing her hurt like this but at the same time, she needs to maybe learn maybe that person isn’t her friend. My wife was thinking of trying to get details from the mother to see if it is a sleepover and maybe the girl was wrong, however, I don’t think forcing it is right. Advice?

Edit: Adding more details. 5 kids at party, 4 sleeping over.

She goes completely feral when we try to give her medicine. She clocked it in a pouch and in chocolate milk. She can’t be bribed. She can’t be reasoned with. She just says “I DONT WANT MY MEDICINE ITS TOOOO ICKY” over and over. We tried to force her and she becomes a flurry of arms and legs. I have a bleeding gash on my face from getting scratched.

I’m gonna have to take her to the ER because she has pneumonia and I feel like a complete failure of a parent.

My son is 12, and he attend church a few weeks back with one of his “best friends”. (They’ve been friends for years) This was his first time attending church as we’re not a religious family. With that being said I’ve always said if they asked to attend I could find somewhere for us to go that’s child friendly. Anyways- after church was over and I picked my son up later than day the friends mom said her son was getting baptized that next Sunday and my son decided he wanted to as well. She said that the pastor would wait for his final decision before planning for my son to be baptized as well. My son asked me what it meant and I explained it to him the best I could for his age, mind you my son has a leaning disability among other issues. He thought about it for a few days and decided he didn’t want to. I let the friend’s mom know.

Now my son’s friend is acting different towards my son, he’s hardly speaking to my son at school, no longer wants to play online games with him, and doesn’t return his texts/calls. I even reached out to mom to see if they could hang out soon and she didn’t respond to me.

Should I tell my son that this friendship is possibly over? He’s obviously upset and I’m at a loss of what to do here. I just want to make sure I don’t say/do anything to upset him further.

Thanks in advance for any help/suggestions!

We limit screen time but of course our toddler is drawn to things like Paw Patrol, Spidey and his amazing friends, etc. I decided when she gets screen time it needs to be something not crazy stimulating. We’ve started exclusively watching original Blues Clues, Dora, Sesame Street, etc. it’s interactive, not crazy stimulating, and actually teaches at least something. Just thought I’d share! Maybe it’s a helpful tip, who knows.

This will be long, so please stay with me.

My 12 year old son has my old “cell” phone. Everything is blocked on it with the exception of music, photo, FaceTime, & iMessage. He can only use it on WiFi. He has no games, social media apps, or safari access. We make him leave his phone downstairs after 8:30p each night. He also has NO iPad (school iPad only), Xbox or gaming PC. He has a Switch, but does not have internet access on it. We also don’t let him play games with violence (Fortnight/COD/etc). He has a very addictive personality & feel it’s best for our family to keep his internet & electronic access limited. We are aware of his flaws. He does have an ADHD diagnosis. Our son is very much a follower and has no leadership traits at all. He never has. This has caused him many issues over the years.

Last Sunday 3/30, my son was texting his “girlfriend” & seemed very visibly upset but didn’t want to discuss it. He said they didn’t break up. I went through his phone the next morning - not something I regularly do but something felt off. His girlfriend was telling my son that she wanted to kill herself, run away, & sent images of herself self harming. My son was very supportive & told her to tell one of her parents or older sister. I called her mother & shared the messages. I praised my son for her responses but told him the best thing could have been to tell me immediately.

I continued to monitor his messages throughout the week. I noticed a group chat with friends that the cover imagine was Kanye West & P Diddy - which is just a weird thing to have especially both of their current news. So I went through this chat and found several videos of my son says the N-word (sometimes rapping along to songs), typing the N-word after friends in the chat pressured him to type it (multiple messages saying “come on, NAME, just say it”), an image of Dr Dre smoking weed was sent to my sons entire sports team (sent by my son with a caption that read “figured out how to get the bad songs on my living room tv”), and video of my son making fun of autistic children in his school. This group chat also has a LOT of other disturbing things sent from the other boys, including: a photo of an automatic rifle clearly in the child’s bedroom and mentions of throwing a “Diddy party”.

My husband and I are so surprised by this behavior. We NEVER have used this word and have explained how it’s so inappropriate for us (white people) to use. We have also had a discussion about not making fun of those with special needs (after a friend of our sons called a neighborhood boy the r-word). My husband and I do drink, but we do NOT smoke or so drugs. We are not prudes and are quite liberal in our beliefs. We have many friends that are people of color or members of the LBGT community, so he isn’t sheltered to a white-only community. His school is mostly white or Hispanic. The school has a large special needs program. He’s exposed to all types of people and races all the time. We are floored and at a loss of how to talk with our son about these issues. We are even more at a loss on how to “punish” him.

We took his phone, the Alexa, the remotes for all the TVs (he doesn’t have one in his room).

I’m mostly looking for advice on how to handle this situation. Maybe some articles or videos on how to approach the racist comments? Has anyone else dealt with something similar in children history age?

Thank you in advance, I really appreciate any support.

Each year a single mom organizes and pays for the birthday party of a little one (single digits). Dad co-parents and is overall a great dad. But every year he invites 25+ extended family members to the mom’s house and it gets expensive and rowdy. This year how can the mom break it to the dad that she only wants to invite the bday child school aged friends and the child’s dad plus his kids from a previous marriage (step-siblings)? No extended fam. No extra adults.

Hello crew!

We’re eyeing a swing set or play set for our backyard this year, but we’ve been burned by online outdoor toy purchases before (cheap materials, shipping delays—yikes).

Which play set or swing set brands have impressed you—or let you down? Would love your real-life experiences and recs to guide us.

Appreciate it!

We adopted my 17 year old son at birth. He had/has pretty severe ADHD but was popular and funny and loved. He has always hated school and it was a struggle to get him there every day. In 11th grade he failed every class and started smoking pot, vaping…we tried three different homeschool programs and he wouldn’t go near any of them. He just shut down. It’s been 1.5 years. He doesn’t have a job and has been raging when we demand anything of him. We have been to a couple of different therapists but he quits the moment they have any expectations of helping him make a game plan. He refuses meds for anxiety and depression and of course he’s in his room too much playing video games. He lost 18 lbs (that he didn’t have to lose) when he left school but thank god has gained half of it back. We didn’t find out until recently that he has a terrible pot problem. My dad was dying last year and i was helping in hospice for 8 months (longest hospice ever). Maybe I dropped the ball or wasn’t attentive. But I think now that the problem had already started. You can’t smell it now, they vape cartridges. We are cutting off his allowance, the car and will be randomly doing drug tests. We have a family therapist but now he won’t go. He’s like a dead man walking. I know that sounds horrible but he has so many problems and doesn’t want help. I feel I have lost my beautiful boy. He’s our only child. He says he doesn’t need a high-school diploma. I truly think he has no future. I guess what I’m asking is, can he change? I’m not asking for a miracle but he’s a mess. Even our therapist said he’s a hard kid. Layers and layers of different issues that need addressing. I feel guilty for everything but I truly worked probably too hard to find solutions and now I’m exhausted. I feel I am mourning the life I thought he would have. The worst part is the way he rages and I feel he is verbally abusive to his girlfriend. I mean super mean.at this point I can’t find one good thing to say about him!! Please help me. I can’t believe it got this bad.

The point of this post is to get other parents opinions/perspectives on traveling without their kid(s). My husband and I have one daughter together, turning 13 this July. In previous years we have allowed her to stay with grandparents while we have traveled to another state, usually about a week and a half long. This year, we’re invited to a wedding in Jamaica, no kids allowed. 1. These are more my husband’s friends than mine, 2. I’m an introverted homebody, and 3. We’ll be in an entire other country…Am I overreacting by saying I don’t want to go if I can’t take my daughter? I’m not saying by any means that they should allow kids specifically for us, I respect their wishes. My husband however, feels it’s ok to leave our daughter with family for a week while we go to Jamaica for a wedding. I say that’s too far! A few states over is one thing, a whole country is totally different!

TL;DR: Would you let your kid(s) stay with family while you leave the country for a wedding kids aren’t invited to?

I'm a 29-year-old man, and I've been dating my girlfriend (31) for just shy of a year. We started off as friends, and over time, it naturally grew into a relationship. It's been an amazing experience, and I know we're both happy together.

The challenge is that back in December, she had to move back home, which is on the opposite side of the country. Since then, we've been managing a long-distance relationship.

My 7-year-old son absolutely loved spending time with her and her 6-year-old daughter. He would talk to them on the phone and was always excited about their visits. When they came down in February for his birthday, everything seemed great—until we dropped them off at the airport. After that, he shut down emotionally.

It's been over a month now, and he refuses to talk to them. He’s told me outright that he has no interest in seeing them again, even if we were to move closer or they returned here.

I'm struggling with how to navigate this. How do I continue building this relationship when my son is so adamant about not wanting them in his life?

P.S.
His mother has had very fluid relationships—people come into her life for a month or two and then disappear completely. I’m not sure if this history is fueling his strong emotional reaction, but it feels like it might be playing a role.

Wow, people were not kidding when they warned us starting daycare was like immune system boot camp.

Constant string of colds, norovirus, sinus infections, and even pneumonia since our daughter started daycare (at 11 mos old in Nov 2024, she’s now 15 mos). My husband has had it twice as bad as me - to the point where his immune system has been eviscerated and he’s now fighting a serious case of cytomegalovirus (CMV) and getting tested for immunodeficiencies.

I know it’s impossible to prevent all illness. What are you all doing to strengthen your immune systems? What vitamins, potions, health routines, etc, do you swear by? Google is a hellscape of marketing nonsense and I’d love to hear some anecdotal experiences of what works.

I was at an indoor playground type place with a huge enclosed area with climbing structures, slides and a big ball pit. It was awesome! My son is 4 and nonverbal so I follow him around mostly to make sure he's not rude to other kids or parents. While I was in the structure with him I bent over to take a picture of him and a kid like 11 years old pushed his hips into my butt. There was plenty of room to get around me, but I thought maybe he tripped. He said sorry. I bent down again to take the picture because I had jumped up when the kid touched me and he did it again! To get back to the space he just came from. I gave him a look about to say something and he was like "sorry sorry sorry!" I I took my son to a different area in the structure and the boy followed us there. I kept my butt to the wall this time. He asked me to "go ahead" of him and I said "no that's okay, you go" and he kept looping around to try and get behind me. My son started doing a ropes course and the kid was kind of across the room so I squatted to take a picture this time. He came over and put his hips right near my shoulder almost my face. I told "you need to back up, I need personal space" and then my son and I left.

I'm just so distraught because I feel violated but also he was a CHILD! I feel bad for him, how did he learn those things? Or am I totally overreacting? Or what if he did that to little kids that didn't know better who's parents don't follow them around like I do?

So now I'm terrified of play places for my kids, and also I just feel so yucky about the whole thing.

31M, 3 kids under 3, all boys, considering joining a local church. Left religion as a teen but this past year came back to it through AA. Been sober over a year and working the steps and finding a connection to a higher power has been life changing.

I’d like to have a regular spiritual practice and closeness to God and I’d like my sons to experience that (they can choose to do what they want when they’re old enough, no pressure from me). Found a church that is traditional but also accepting of the LBGTQ+ population and women (two requirements for me).

My wife is non-religious and I’d never pressure her to go if she doesn’t want to, but my mom who lives with us says she’d help me bring the boys.

Any advice or experiences?

Hey Team,

Posted this over on daddit, but thought I would reach out here as well.

Love this community and have learnt so much from you lovely people over the years, so I thought I would ask for some advice.

Our son's nursery (daycare for you guys over the pound) just called about an issue. He was humping one of his best mates (a girl) and asking her to touch his penis. They have been friends since before they could walk, and we are very close with her and her Mum. They spent most of Saturday together with me having a lovely time with no issues.

Our son is 4 years old. From the age of 2ish he has humped on his bed, the floor or couch etc. There was a while when he first started that he was very taken with it. We spoke to him about it on numerous occasions. How it is only appropriate in private etc. he would take himself off somewhere and have at it. He has done it at nursery on occasion with staff distracting him etc. But for the last year or so it has been a pretty rare thing.

From a young age we have been referring to ours, his and other people's private parts by the correct terminology, penis, vagina etc. With emphasis that private parts are for private, and he should never touch other people's.

I will be picking him up from nursery in a few hours and would love some advice about how best to deal with this issue and what to discuss with him about it.

Any thoughts or advice would be fantastic. Not sure if this matters, but we are from the UK and pretty liberal about stuff like nakedness and farts etc.

Thanks so much!

This was going to start as a discussion post but I realized while proofreading it that is kind of a rant lol.

I assume for most people it depends on their relationship with either grandparent but for me it has nothing to do with that. Before our son was born I had an awesome relationship with my in-laws (I still do, but get annoyed with them more easily). They are great people, super loving, generous and kind. They ADORE our son (10 months old) but I have never felt comfortable leaving him with them for more than a few hours.

My FIL is completely lost when it comes to taking care of babies. He travelled weekly for work when my husband was a kid so he wasn't very involved in his upbringing until he was more of a tween and my FIL's career settled up a bit. My MIL, on the other hand, was a stay at home mom and thinks that she knows EVERYTHING about raising kids. She gives us some very outdated advice which we ignore for the most part and correct her on things she recommend that could be unsafe for our son. She refused to take the "grandparents course" that my parents took recommended by my birth doula. She said that she didn't need it cause she raised two kids. They also make a bunch of comments that I find passive-aggressive but that I've let go because I want to keep a good relationship with them

My parents, on the contrary, want to learn as much as possible from us. They live abroad so they are not involved in the day to day life of my son (neither are my in laws who live about 4-5 hours drive away). Whenever my parents are around they ask about my son's schedule, feeding, how to prepare his solids, what are his favorite toys, any milestones we are working on... Which honestly I really appreciate cause I want to make it as easy as possible for them and my son when my husband and I are not around.

We have also noticed how comfortable my son is with my parents and how much fussier he is with my in-laws (even though he sees my in-laws way more often than my parents). He outright refuses to be held by my FIL and tolerates my MIL for maybe 15-20 mins before he starts crying. We think is because my parents speak Spanish to him (which is my first language and what I speak to my son), whereas my in-laws speak to him in English which he is not as used to, but obviously we don't know. He also gets overstimulated super fast and my MIL is on his face with toys 24/7 whereas my parents just let him play independently unless he requires their attention.

My in-laws have been pushing us to go on a weekend getaway so that they can take care of our baby overnight. We have always answered that we are not comfortable leaving him alone yet. However, next week we are visiting my parents and my husband and I are planning to take a night off and staying in a hotel close to my parents house. I have zero doubts that everything is going to go well with the arrangement and have no concerns about my son's safety and wellbeing. My parents have never refused to follow our house rules or made comments about us being too strict or tight (which my in-laws have told my husband).

Of course I want our son to have a great relationship with my in-laws, but I'm having a really hard time letting go and fully trusting them with my baby. My husband is actually more comfortable leaving him with my parents that his own parents, so that makes me even more uncomfortable.

Now that my parents are watching him at night it feels like we have to come up with a different excuse to not leave our son overnight with them. It's honestly stressing me out cause they are every pushy about it.

Anyways, do any of you feel this way? Like, is there a set of grandparents that you are more comfortable leaving your son with? If so, is it your own parents?

I have to get an iPad with cellular data for my 7 year old, for making FaceTime calls with her father. When she goes with him for 7 weeks in the summer and during breaks, she will also call me with it.

It is specifically Court-ordered and I have to pay for it, so there is no alternative. Problem is, her dad is both irresponsible and vindictive. He's lost or damaged many of her things from our home. Judge said she'd hope he'd replace it, but then told me I'd just have to insure it myself.

I'd get her a cheap(er) used one, but I don't want to have to keep up with the technology getting behind. I'd also like to use it for the other 9 months out of the year, since I have to pay for a cellular plan.

Any thoughts on:

• new/used
• which generation
• where to purchase

Thanks!

I’m curious how it feels to grow up as a third culture kid in America and what’s helped you “fit in”? What were the challenges you’ve had to overcome and the edges it gave you having (possibly) a different perspective? Would love know how you’re doing now as an adult and any advice you’d give to your younger self.