Thursday's Most Active Threads

Once again one thread was head and shoulders above all others in numbers of views and replies. Just like yesterday, this thread was in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Titled, "How many women here divorced primarily due to imbalanced, unsustainable home workload?", the thread touches on a theme that has repeatedly come up lately. As the title suggests, the original poster is stressed due to the amount of work that she has to do within her home while her husband does "literally nothing". Among the first responses were several from posters in similar situations who have divorced, are going to divorce, or know women who divorced for similar reasons. Other responses were predictable and expected in a thread on this topic. They include suggestions to outsource the work, encouragement to maintain or establish financial independence, tales of quitting jobs to stay at home, and scolding reprimands describing the success of other women to cope with such situations. As near as I can tell without fully reading the thread, the MRA incel battalion did not show up in force so this thread did not get as crazy as it could have. However, there were proponents of the theory that women are to blame because they are never satisfied with men's house work which is never enough or never good enough. This was countered with the claim that men use incompetence to convince their wives that if they want things done right, the wives must do it themselves. I doubt that this type of household conflict will be resolved in this thread and we will most definitely have many similar ones in the future with which to continue the discussion.

Second in number of views and third in number of replies yesterday was a thread in the "Adult Children" forum titled, "18 year old is pregnant". Many posters either reported or posted their belief that this thread is a troll attempt. The original poster describes her college freshman daughter being 8 weeks pregnant. Several of the details included, such as the daughter not having been provided birth control because she had claimed to be a lesbian, suggest that some creative writing may be involved. In addition to the sexual orientation issue, the thread touches on the current hot button topics of abortion, access to women's healthcare, and welfare support for mothers. There are arguments both in favor of and in opposition to the daughter keeping the baby which the original poster says is her daughter's preference. Life is complicated and strange things happen so this thread may be entirely legitimate. As they say, "truth is often stranger than fiction" and certainly teen pregnancies do happen. Regardless, this thread presents a bountiful buffet of appetizing delicacies for those with a taste for debate.

A thread titled, "If anyone gives my kids toys for Christmas, I might scream." and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum was second in number of replies and third in number of views. The original poster says that she has repeatedly told her kids' grandparents not to buy toys for Christmas and, every year, the grandparents still give the children lots of toys. The original poster wants to know whether anyone has successfully convinced grandparents to change their ways. As usual, I have not read this thread other than glancing at a few posts. It doesn't look like many have been able to stop toys from being given or at least I don't see many replies addressing that specific question. Rather, posters simply express sympathy or describe being in similar situations. Others think the original poster is being unreasonable or petty. Many replies focus on solutions such as donating the toys to Thrift Stores or schools. My own first thought when seeing this thread was, "Christmas already?" We've only just managed to get past Halloween and its candy controversies and we are already dealing with Christmas toys?

The final thread that I'll look at today was titled "Explaining ASD child’s rude comments to strangers" and posted in the "Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities" forum. For years, this forum was the jewel of DCUM where posters could count on kind, supportive, and helpful responses. Alone on the "Mommy Fight Site" as DCUM was once called, it was free from snark and rudeness. Not anymore, unfortunately. Many posters seem to stumble in from the "Recent Topics" list not realizing the thread deals with special needs. Others simply don't care because they think everyone deserves to be enlightened by their brilliance. Moreover, some of the dedicated posters in the forum have themselves become more combative over time. As a result, the original poster, who descried her autistic child's habit of approaching adults and correcting them, did not receive as much sympathy as she might have hoped. The original poster was seeking advice about how she could communicate to the often-offended adults that her child has autism short of simply explaining that the child has autism. This to avoid creating negative associations about autism for her daughter. Most of the replies concentrated on changing the child's behavior rather than addressing the specific question posed. As frustrated parents of children with autism tried to explain that ASD children cannot be treated with the same methods that work for neurotypical children, the responses became less helpful and increasingly rude. Things reached the point where the original poster stated that, due to the DCUM response, she no longer cared if her daughter offended strangers. So, thanks DCUM, problem solved, I guess.