Thursday's Most Active Threads

The Sex Pistols famously broke up following a concert at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom that ended with Johnny Rotten laying on the stage and asking the audience "do you ever feel like you've been cheated?" For some reason, I thought of that moment when I realized that yesterday's most active thread was another Harry and Meghan topic. This one, posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum, was titled, "New Netflix documentary: 'Live to Lead' from Harry and Meghan". Summarizing a thread about the Sussexes is fairly easy. All you need are the words "Meghan", "crazies", and "locked". The rest is filler. Even so, that makes it no less trying on my patience. As the title suggests, this thread is focused on a new Netflix documentary series hosted by Harry and Meghan. The series consists of interviews of world leaders conducted some years ago. Apparently, whoever owned the rights to the interviews repurposed them for Netflix. The fact that Harry and Meghan had nothing to do with the interviews is a major point of discussion in this thread. Many posters praised the interviews but, of course, arguments about H & M dominate the thread. As has been well established by prior threads, Meghan is a magnet for haters who, despite my best efforts, could not be kept out of the thread. I locked it when things reached the point that the couple's fans were being compared to "MAGA Trimpers" (sic). When we launched this parenting forum many years ago, managing countless threads about the Duke & Duchess of Sussex was not part of our business plan. So, yes, I feel cheated.

The second most active thread yesterday dealt with another recurring topic, though thankfully one of much less frequency. The thread was titled, "No shoes in the house people" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster explains that she is going to a party and is planing to dress in an outfit that is completed by a pair of boots that require significant effort to take off. The original poster worries that the home where the party will be held may have a "no shoes" policy and asks whether she should rethink her footwear. Of course nobody on DCUM knows the hosts' policy regarding shoes so all anyone can do is post about their own experiences or practices. Several posters say that they never wear shoes in their homes but don't mind if guests do and exceptions are made for parties. Others either have have been provided with shoe covers at parties or provided them themselves when hosting. These threads always attract posters who claim that they would be so offended if asked to remove their shoes that they would leave. I'm tempted to host a party and only invite those posters and then have a hidden camera filming their reaction to being told they have to remove their shoes. It would be fun to see how many of them suddenly remember that they may have left a faucet running and need to go home to check. Some posters said that they don't mind complying with such policies, but it has left them awkwardly walking around barefoot. We used to be told to always wear clean underwear because you don't know when you might end up in the hospital (though, frankly, if I unexpectedly found myself in the hospital, my underwear would be the least of my worries). I guess today's equivalent of this advice would be to never leave home without a clean pair of socks.

The third most active thread yesterday was titled, "Why is it so hard to accept that the students at better colleges are simply better students?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster recounts her own experience at college and argues, as the thread's title says, that students at better colleges are better students. Many posters responded saying that nobody would suggest otherwise because better schools are able to be selective and only select the best students. To the contrary, many posters did suggest otherwise. Among the points made by these posters is that some students are accepted to better schools because they cheated, were legacies, were recruited athletes, or had other factors beyond their achievements as students that led to their college acceptance. Others argued that while the original poster's point might be true in aggregate, it ignored the fact that there are poor students at better schools and great students are lower-ranked colleges. To this point, many posters told of working with graduates of highly-touted universities who were distinctly unimpressive and of working with graduates of schools with lesser reputations who were quite competent. In response, posters pointed out that while there are exceptions in both cases, often a college degree is all a job recruiter has to go on and will naturally assume a candidate who graduated from a higher-rated school will be superior. That, was in turn countered by posters saying that they often found that those who had been high achievers at lower-ranked schools were often harder workers and better employees.

The final thread of the day was posted in the "Travel Discussion" forum and titled, "Experienced parents, what was the hardest age for traveling? When did it permanently improve?". The original poster says that she has a preschool-aged child who has gotten better about travelling but is apparently still prone to meltdowns. The poster asks at which age this behavior will be left behind. Of course this varies by child which means that posters' experiences are all different and that is reflected in the thread. While some posters suggest meltdowns can occur anytime until adulthood, others believe they can narrow it down to a specific age range. Any suggestion that one poster makes is contested by others with different experiences. The original poster was particularly upset when parents of older children related that teen years could often be much more difficult than toddler years. This was apparently the opposite of what the original poster was hoping to hear and she angrily claimed that teen parents on DCUM are one the worst parts of the forum. I invite the original poster to read any thread about Meghan Markle for examples of far worse parts. At some point, the thread transitioned to discussing how to manage travel to avoid or reduce problematic behavior by children. That might be a much better use of the thread.