Oh geez this. My parents never let me try out new things if they would be messy or might fail. I wanted a veggie garden, nope. Baking, too messy. Tons of craft things were vetoed for a very long time too. Thankfully as an adult I’ve rekindled these desires, and i have a garden I cultivate and a sourdough starter going (as examples). But I do mourn the learning I could have done as a kid.

I’m determined to let my kid do messy things. Right now the messiest thing she can do is spit up, but when she’s older she can have so much play doh and dirt time and baking time.

(Play doh only if she’s not eating it)

I appreciate the sentiment (it hasn’t gotten better per se yet, but we’ve gotten more used to the… nature of the screams) and also I wanted to apologise for being rather combative in explaining the context— which, yeah, was definitely missing in the original post. Gonna edit that now to make this post less rant, more informative.

Ear plugs =/= can’t hear. Loops specifically are designed to allow you to hear but not have hearing damage.

My baby is colicky AF and will scream while we’re in the process of making her a bottle. Or while we’re burping her. Or when we have to pull the bottle away to wipe spit up. Or while we’re in the process of soothing her but not soothed yet.

I’m pretty patient (with children, not judgy parents though) but I’m not perfect. I can parent better and be more present while not massively overwhelmed by a noise designed by evolution to be horrible and intolerable.

The swaddle. My child has learned being awake is fun. Including at night. By the power invested in me by this swaddle blanket, she will learn the beauty of SLEEP.

I grew up such a people pleaser that this would have worked SO well on me. Stop leads to “why?” But my parent being upset, or god forbid dosappointed… those are some words of great power.

This looks like the kind of feeder a small bird would build for itself, and I mean that in the best way. I love it

In case anyone is curious on my 2020 election logic: I was basically so tired of neoliberals thinking that Biden would automatically close the border camps and end gun violence when the recent Democrat stance has always been closer to… thoughts and prayers and inaction. Is that less evil than neon Hitler? Of course. With more distance from both America and neoliberal Biden fans, I can see that now. But for a lot of people, like past!me, being fervently pushed to do A Thing with overly lofty promises OR being guilted into doing The Thing yields opposite results.

I’m neutral on there being a community for it really. But then I’m someone with a US citizenship who hasn’t voted in around 5 years because I’m not living in the US anymore, and that upgrades voting for a lesser of two evils from “minorly depressing annoyance” to “majorly depressing and confusing hassle”

I’ve also been kicked from communities of US citizens living elsewhere for saying I’m not inspired to vote despite the difficulty because I didn’t think it would cause a meaningful difference who won (this would be… circa 2020 elections I believe).

I’ve since grown beyond this sentiment for various reasons. But I probably would have grown faster if I was able to voice my concerns about voting in the current system without feeling like I was a heretic.

Tbh, after typing and thinking a bit, I WANT this community here for the same reason I think groups like doomers should be welcomed here. We can’t have the productive discussions that lead to understanding and change if we exclude people who would otherwise be willing to talk and work with us. And yeah, maybe a set space legitimises not voting. But I don’t think that’s a really huge concern honestly.