Friday's Most Active Threads

The two most active threads yesterday were the Speaker of the House thread and the thread about Prince Harry's book. But, since I've already discussed those threads, I'll move on to a thread titled, "Anyone else here struggle with your feelings about ppl who don’t work?" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. This thread, which managed to rack up 13 pages in a single day, discusses the original poster's feelings towards what I believe are stay at home moms, though she doesn't identify them that way. The original poster says that she works very hard at a well-paying job and disliked the period in which she stayed home to care for her children. She is upset by social media posts from friends who don't have jobs and whose kids are in school. She wants to know what is triggering her. Regardless of the original poster's intentions, the thread is really little more than a dressed up stay-at-home-moms vs work-out-of-the-home moms debate of which DCUM has had countless. I wouldn't say that the arguments are any different from any previous discussions, though the discourse does seem to be a bit more highbrow than usual. However, that impression might just reflect selective reading on my part. The thread also has its low points such as when one poster unwisely describes those who don't have jobs as "parasites".

The next thread was another 13 pager posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum titled, "feeling guilty that husband left church because of me". The original poster is bothered by the fact that her Catholic husband has not attended mass since they got married (the original poster is not Catholic). While they attend services for another denomination, the original poster — as the title of the thread says — feels guilty that she is the cause of his separation from his church. She asks for advice about getting over this. Threads dealing with Catholicism have been a long-time headache for me. There is a coterie of posters on DCUM who simply detest the Catholic Church and are quite vocal in their opinions. On the other hand are Catholic posters who, frequently with justification, feel they and their religion are the target of inappropriate posts that wouldn't be tolerated were they directed at other groups. The problem for me is that these posters have generally been slow to report anti-Catholic posts. As such, I don't know about the posts, can't do anything about posts to which I am oblivious, and then get accused of being anti-Catholic for not removing the posts. In the case of this thread, someone did report a very bigoted anti-Catholic post and I promptly removed it. Another poster reported the original post which I struggle to see as being inappropriate. Looking at the thread today, there are some posts that I'm surprised have not been reported but I can also see an argument for leaving them (which I'll do for now). Most of this thread appears to be a debate of Catholicism vs Protestantism. To the extent that the original poster's issue is addressed, most replies appear to say that her husband can make his own decision about where he attends church and, if he is happy with their current arrangement, there isn't a problem. Others suggest arrangements in which the original poster's husband can start attending Catholic mass again, but the original poster doesn't really seem open to that idea.

The third thread at which I'll look today was titled, "Vent/WTF?! Still recovering from Christmas with the relatives" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster provides a long and detailed post that, boiled down, says her child told her slightly-older cousin that "Santa is for babies" — apparently revealing to that child that Santa doesn't exist — and, as a result, the original poster's sister didn't want their families to open Christmas presents together because they have "such different values". Eventually, a compromise arrangement was found, but the original poster is still bothered by the interaction. Much of the discussion in this thread appears to be broken down between those who think that one child telling another that Santa doesn't exist is a devastatingly tragic occurrence that would surely and understandably ruin anyone's Christmas and those who don't think it is a big deal. Posters dive deep in to analysis of exactly which words were exchanged between the children with considerable disagreement over whether the original poster's child called her cousin a baby or not. Other posters hypothesize that the Santa issue is a distraction and that the original poster and her sister have much bigger issues between them. As is fairly common in threads of this type, a couple of posters showed up who are convinced that the original poster is solely to blame for any conflict and is simply not disclosing the truth which would reveal her responsibility.

The final thread is about one of DCUM's hot button issues. Titled, "What percent of males do you know who were not circumcised by the time they were 2 weeks old?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum, the original poster simply states that he or she doesn't know any. I am immediately skeptical of someone who purports to not only know the status of men's foreskins, but the date at which they may have been removed. I think the original poster could have put a bit more effort into the post, but it was sufficient to provoke all sorts of responses. Of course, on this topic it doesn't take much. I'm always baffled about the amount of conflict circumcision topics generate, particularly among the women who dominate our userbase. At any rate, I am not going to trouble my gentle little mind with the responses in this thread because I am sure there is nothing new. If this is your first time on DCUM or simply believe that repetition is the key to learning, then feel free to indulge.