Dear Care and Feeding,
I was raised in a multigenerational household. My mother was a single parent for most of my childhood, and at various times in my life, we lived with my maternal grandparents and my maternal great-grandmother. My great-grandmother was quite advanced in her age; she actually lived to be over 100 and died when I was 12. Since my mom and grandparents both worked, my great-grandmother was often my primary babysitter. My great-grandma was born in 1908. She had one of those hard, rural, country music–ass lives and, as a result, was a very tough and firm woman. To just be blunt about it, she used physical discipline: spoons, hairbrushes, switches, belts, rulers, etc.
.
My kids go to school in an enormous school district more than 150,000 students are in it. The teachers have an extremely powerful union. Students have been remote all year so far, and based on what I’m hearing, while there’s a chance they will go back to school this year on a hybrid schedule, it’s more than likely they may not go back at all this school year. Here’s what I don’t understand: In my state, teachers are slated to have priority for the vaccine behind front-line health workers and the elderly. But parents who know more about the school board/union/community issues than I do are telling me that even if teachers are vaccinated, parents can’t, and shouldn’t, expect students to return to school full time even by September 2021. I don’t understand this. How does a union have the right to vaccinate the teachers, but not return them to work? If the unions’ gripe is that teachers aren’t protected, but then they get the vaccine, doesn’t that make their argu
Dear Care and Feeding,
My husband and I both have full-time jobs and an 18-month-old son. I am pregnant with our second child, due in February. Since our son was born, my husband seems to have regressed. He has not once helped me at night with our son, and has gotten up with him in the morning to let me sleep in no more than six times since his birth. Four of those times my husband threw a tantrum, slamming doors, throwing things, stomping around. He got my son out of his crib and then went back to sleep on the couch, even as our son cried. When I ask my husband to watch our son so I can get some work done, cook, or clean, he continues playing computer games the whole time, wearing his headset. He is completely oblivious to everything going on around him and ignores our son.
Dear Care and Feeding,
How do I approach a 7.5-year-old boy who makes sexist jabs at me? Some context: I am his 23-year-old cis-female cousin, and I’ve been watching him full time since August. I adore him, but I am loath to tolerate another “Yeah but you can’t use a drill because you’re a girl” comment. My current approach has been cool puzzlement, “Hmm … why would you think that?” followed up with, “I can see why you would think that but there aren’t such things as ‘boy and girl things,’ and it hurts my feelings when you tell me I can’t do something because I’m a girl.” And then maybe some follow-up discussion about how making that kind of boy/girl distinction can hurt our friends. It is not getting through.