“OWNS, OWNNNNNSSSSS!”

(Please note, gender affirming care has a lower regret rate than back surgery!)

I can't give another person stability if that person's actions DE-stabilize me.

Cannot. Do. It.

I'm a LOT more careful now about who I try to help, and how.

Sometimes that takes the form of escalating requests for money, sometimes of tolerating increasingly awful (and honestly over-entitled) behavior in your own space, sometimes of "well if you'll help ME why won't you help my partner, and my sibling, and my long-lost kindergarten bestie, and and and?"

The specific issue I've had with most of the people I've tried to help in this way in the past is...I do what I reasonably can to help, and then they ask for a little more, a little more, COME ON can't you give me a little more, why are you so CRUEL you DON'T LOVE ME do you want me to DIIIIEEEEE????

One of the worst developments of the last ~20 years has been that in certain professions, 5% are superstars and 95% eat cat food for dinner.

Society depends on a broad and comfortable middle path.

My kids had dance classes at a studio that was literally TWO BLOCKS from their school. They were in 6th and 3rd grade. We asked if they could walk there after school and were told no.

They had to go to “aftercare homework haven” (poorly supervised, full of bullies, little if any homework got done).

Yep! That EXACT situation is why I stopped having my kid take the bus.

It stopped being worth the wear and tear on my sanity.

The one who is almost an adult is definitely getting there, too. COVID shutdowns and certain aspects of their aftermath complicated that a bit for her in particular but she’s finding her path and I likewise trust she’ll be a perfectly cromulent adult soon.

I’m the least helicopter-y mom I know in person and sometimes it’s frustrating to get alll the “OMG you let your kid do that, I could NEVER!”

The one who is an adult now has his fucking shit together in ways I rarely see from his peers (except for his SO who is similarly inclined, thankfully).

And - as is so often the case now - it’s not that I didn’t want to let them walk, it’s that I didn’t want to deal with CPS getting called on me for letting them walk, especially since I worked a semi-related job at the time and that could have ALSO put my job at risk on top of a CPS investigation.

The other point we drove the kids, we lived in a town that did not provide school bus service. Older kids rode city buses or walked. I would have rather walked them since we were within reasonable distance at the time, but I would have been late to work by the time I got back home to get my car.