An open thread for personal stuff, continuing from here.
As usual for these threads: no trolls, no MRAs, no I’m-not-really-an-MRA-buts, don’t be mean.
Categories
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
We Hunted The Mammoth
@blahlistic: She’s got dysthemia (ph). And this idea that the kids deserve a perfect mother, who never raises her voice and is always energetic and conforms her schedule to the kids’. And when she doesn’t meet that impossible framework ….
http://i.imgur.com/AdCvTAP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rj0rDOJ.jpg
Urg, I posted a couple pics and I think the post got tagged as spam.
There they are. BABBIES. Now, sleeeeeeep babbies. Sleeeeeeeeeep.
I don’t know if everybody’s seen it yet, but SCOTUS denied cert. in the same-sex marriage cases, which means the circuit court rulings stand and marriage equality is now the law in all of the circuits whose cases had made it that far.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, something I had to beat my head against for a long time.
Because she’s trying to be perfect she’s stressing herself out and actually being a slightly worse mom than if she just relaxed about the whole thing. She’s mainly just hurting herself though.
Those are happy kids. Y’all are doing it right, I think.
This attitude brought to you by tons of therapy and four different psychiatric medications.
BAAAYYYBEEZ!!!!! They are adorbs! What cuties!
A couple of generations ago, it was routine to rub bourbon on the gums for teething. I guess it does have sort of an anesthetic effect, though there were probably babies who got an extra “oopsie” dose every now and then.
I have tremendous, whopping mom guilt. It comes with the territory. Every time I look at my sons, a voice whispers to me, “They deserve so much better. They deserve a daddy who will play catch with them and a mommy who isn’t operating on fumes and a perfect Norman Rockwell childhood.” I beat myself up constantly because, as a single parent, it’s all I can do to keep up them clean and clothed and fed and free of puncture wounds. I had pictured parenthood as lots of cozy homemade Play-Doh sessions around a sunny kitchen table, but in reality, most of the day is consumed with subduing the unholy trinity of dishes, laundry, and trash.
The guilt feelings come from loving them so ridiculously and deeply that you want them to have everything, coupled with the knowledge that childhood is fleeting, precious, and vulnerable. Countless magazine articles and movies and consumer products prey on that guilt, implying that you’re a bad parent if you ever do anything un-selfless. When I think back on my own childhood, my own parents rarely sat down and played with me, but it was so reassuring knowing they were there, knowing they were doing their best to keep us comfortable and safe and loved. Good enough parenting is good enough. You guys are doing a terrific job, if the photos are anything to go by!
Wow, Buttercup! Everything you just said!
I had a lovely lunch today with LBT and Kirbywarp, who are just as excellent in real life. I wish I’d picked a better restaurant, but otherwise it was a good time.
(PS David et al, I will be in Chicago in May)
*wishes there could be a WHTM meet-up* I would bring cookies.
Buttercup, you sound like you’re a great parent! I was just raised by my mother, and trust me, your kids know you work hard to take care of them. Love beats perfection every time.
Falconer, those kids are happy babies. I hope you and your wife get sleep soon so you can enjoy life a little more. And I think twelve years isn’t so long from now, and then you get to yank their sheets off at seven in the morning and they whine and then they drag themselves to the bus. And you laugh. (I have been told this is so by my mother.) I also second the overnight babysitter idea. I have been the overnight babysitter. The parents always come back looking like new people!
*claps for Falconer and Buttercup*
That’s a lot of parent love in this thread. It warms my heart.
Hey everyone, I just posted a new open thread for October:
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/10/06/open-thread-for-personal-stuff-october-2014-dog-walk-dog-edition/
I need to catch up on this one myself!
Oh, and Emily. cool you’ll be in Chicago, we’ll definitely have to get lunch or coffee or something!
The other thread is busier, so I’ll pop over there to give hugs as needed. I’ve run through some of the examples, and I think I’ll survive friday.
Thanks for the positive brainwaves, all! It’s really, really nice of you.
@Falconer, hope you and Beloved got some sleep since you posted. Babbies, sleeeeeeeep, you want sleeeeeeeeeeep. Sending lullabies by pillownet. Saruman doesn’t have a great singing voice, but he tries.
@Fibi! What type of curves are you trying to master? Do you have access to tables? Tables make the curve world so much better, because then you don’t have to memorize equations for curves and do integrals and all the ew.
For most curves, the general premise is that you can estimate the proportion of the population (or the proportion of sample means pulled from a population) by finding the area under the curve below certain values (usually from a table, because statisticians are totes not into doing calculus on the fly).
Generally, it’s easier to look up things of the form P(x < blah-number), because that’s how we designed the silly tables (for normal distributions at the least).
So, if we want to do goofy things like P(x > = blah-number), we have to think about the area of the whole curve (which should be 1, generally) and get rid of everything that isn’t P(x > = blah-number).
Which, handily enough turns into a 1 – P(x < blah-number) and we can look it up in our table and WIN!
I draw lots of sketches when I’m thinking about the curves. One handy trick is every time you think about calculating something, shade in that thing with hatches. Then if you subtract a probability from that on the curve, hatch the other way. The shaded area with single hatches is the probability area you calculated from tables, and the stuff that’s blank or x’d out is the stuff that isn’t included in your calculation.
It’s easier to explain in person… or via video of whiteboard, where things can be pretty pictures…