Wednesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Getting Divorced. People Say 'I’m sorry.' Why?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that she is getting divorced and, when she tells people, they say, "I am so sorry" but she doesn't want people to feel sorry for her. To the contrary, she feels like it is her best decision in years. She wonders why people say this. Many of those responsding explain why they would say they were sorry in such circumstances while others suggest ways to respond or redirect the conversation. If you have been around DCUM long enough you have likely come to recognize certain posters who have specific obsessions and will find ways of turning almost any discussion towards their particular fixation. Threads about divorce, regardless the initial focus of the thread, generally attract one or more posters who are consumed by the impact of divorce on children. Despite the original poster not saying anything about children, already by the second page posters began discussing how divorce affects kids. The thread also attracted a particularly nasty troll who was intent on insulting the original poster and others. As a result, I had to continually return to this thread to remove that poster's posts. I wouldn't think the topic of the thread would be that controversial, but the thread became an outlet for posters' own neuroses.

Yesterday's second most active thread was posted in the "Private/Independent Schools" forum. Titled, "is grade deflation really hurting college admissions this year?", the original poster worries that grade deflation at her child's school is hurting the college admissions opportunities for the school's students. While we have had countless threads about grade inflation with the practice being blamed for any number of society's ills, I was not previously aware that grade deflation is also a concern. But, several of those responding agreed with the original poster that grade deflation is making students' grade point averages less competitive in the admissions process. Posters worried that as universities make standardized admissions tests optional, they become more reliant on GPA. In such cases, a GPA that may be lower due to grade deflation becomes a significant liability. I don't really know how you detect either grade inflation or grade deflation, but I suspect that grade inflation is what happens when your child gets a good grade, but so do all of her classmates and grade deflation happens when your child doesn't receive a good grade, but some of his classmates do. Because some things in the DCUM Private/Independent Schools never change, this thread got hijacked by a debate about which schools constitute the 'Big 3". Based on my observations, the "Big 3" are the school that your child attends plus two others against which you don't hold any personal grudges.

A thread titled, "PSA: Please bring…" was third in activity but first in creating confusion yesterday. First, of all, the title was not a paragon of clarity and second, the thread, which generally dealt with a travel topic, was posted in the "Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers" forum. The original poster completed her subject line by telling parents to bring headphones or earbuds for their children to use when they watch videos on their devices while on planes. The original poster suffered initial pushback due to her subject line which got the thread off in a direction that the original poster likely regretted. Some of of those replying found humor in the idea of the original poster being tormented by children's shows. The original poster's clarification that she suffers from an audio disorder also failed to win much sympathy with posters telling her to bring noise cancelling headphones. Eventually, the original poster's point of view did get support from other posters who also disliked hearing children's videos. Soon, the thread turned into an argument about parenting with those who can't entertain their children on long flights without disturbing other passengers considered to be failures. Nevertheless, there does appear to be a contingent of posters for whom allowing children to blast irritating videos on airplanes is the hill on which they have chosen to die. Frankly, reading this thread I get the feeling that several of the thread's participants — on both sides of the debate — would be far more bothersome to be seated near on a flight than any children's videos.

The last thread I'll review today was posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum and titled, "Poll: how old are your kids and how many times have they been to the ER in their life?" The original poster did not provide any additional text in the body of her post other than listing the ages of her children and the number of their visits to the emergency room. Most of those responding followed the original poster's example of simply listing children's ages and visit count, though some included short explanations explaining the cause of their visits. The replies did not validate my impression that first time parents will rush to the emergency room if their child so much as stubs a toe, but parents of multiple children have become jaded to the point that even the amputation of a limb will be addressed with a bandaid and avoidance of the ER at all costs. To the contrary, many of those replying have been to the ER with their younger children more often than the older ones. The thread was briefly hijacked by a discussion of the purpose of emergency rooms and how they are actually used. Apparently ERs are filled with homeless people and drug addicts hoping to get opiates, but nobody with an actual medical emergency.