Thursday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Redshirting August boy?" and posted in the "Private/Independent Schools". The thread might be better suited for the "Schools and Education General Discussion" forum since the topic is not necessarily specific to private schools. Nevertheless, the original poster is considering redshirting her son who has a late August birthday and would be the youngest in his class. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, "redshirting" refers to having a child repeat a grade of school. Redshirting is a controversial topic on DCUM with a few posters absolutely obsessed with the issue. While the practice has traditionally been used to accomodate children with late birthdays or who may lag somewhat behind their peers in learning or maturity, some parents suspect that it is used to give unfair advantages to children who otherwise don't need to repeat a year. In the dog eat dog world of alpha parents whose entire self-value is tied to the academic and athletic achievements of their children, the thought of a rival child obtaining an advantage through redshirting is more than they can countenance. In less than 24 hours, this thread reached a whopping 23 pages, none of which I've read. I've seen enough of these threads to know that they offer little more than a depressing view into the perception of some parents that education is a zero-sum game.

The second most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Should Biden even continue as POTUS?", the original poster suggests that due to classified documents being found in private offices and the residence of President Joe Biden, Biden should temporarily step down in favor of Kamila Harris while an investigation is underway. At 9 pages, this thread does not rival the redshirting thread in length, but it still exceeds my interest in reading. As a result, I've only skimmed a few posts. For those who missed the news, attorneys working for Biden discovered a small number of classified documents in a closet of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. More documents were later discovered in his garage and his residence in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden's critics have been quick to compare this to the classified document scandal involving former President Donald Trump. Biden's defenders, on the other hand, point out that there are many differences between the two cases. Most notably, Biden's staff immediately notified the government of the documents and returned them. Trump, on the other hand, refused to return the documents and continues to claim that they are rightfully his. Since I haven't read this thread, I can't say what is discussed within it, but I'm sure it is just various permutations and combinations of the above. In regard to the original poster's suggestion that Biden step down during the investigation, I would simply point out that Trump did not step down during the Mueller investigation. Moreover, one contention made by the original poster — that "Any ordinary citizen would have been in handcuffs by now", is simply untrue. Unintentional mishandling of classified documents is rarely prosecuted and often doesn't even result in an individual's security clearance being revoked.

Third yesterday was a thread titled, "On the 'Catholic/conservative' scale, where is Villanova?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster says that Boston College is a good fit but her child wouldn't attend Notre Dame even if it were free. Presumably this is because Notre Dame is too conservative. I've written before about how many Catholics feel — often with some justification — that they are targets of unfair criticism on DCUM. Sometimes, however, the fiercest debates about Catholicism take place between Catholics themselves. In this case, the original poster describes herself as "Catholic in name only" and her son as socially liberal. Enough of the responses steer her away from Villanova that she has already given up on the University by the second page of the thread. From what I've read of the thread, which isn't much, it sort of goes all over the place. There are arguments about which Catholic universities are conservative, how Catholic universities rank in terms of their conservativeness, and whether or not even conservative Catholic universities are really conservative. There is a dispute about Jesuits and how Jesuit-run universities stack up against other Catholic schools. While the original poster didn't ask, there is considerable discussion about the Villanova's academic level and how it compares to other schools, both Catholic and non-Catholic. Some posters described Villanova as a "safety school", but others were offended by that notion and characterized it in more laudable terms.

Finally, I'll look at a thread titled, "It's 2023 and we still have baby crying in the background in a Teams meeting?" and posted in "Jobs and Careers" forum. As the title suggests, the original poster is bothered by the sound of a crying babies during online meetings. He thinks that any parents who have crying babies should hire nannies. As might be expected on a website focused on parents, the original poster didn't find a lot of sympathy. The original poster was mostly told to get over it and reminded that a nanny would not necessarily prevent a baby from crying. In a follow-up post, the original poster stated that he didn't think that it was too much to ask for a meeting not to be interrupted by a crying baby. He was fairly soundly disabused of that expectation as parents weighed in on all the circumstances that could justify such a scenario. Other posters complained about barking dogs and one complained about cats who walk on keyboards. There is some discussion of the lack of daycare opportunties in some places. While there are a handful of other posters who agree with the original poster in disliking child-related interruptions, the general view is that this is just a part of our new work at home reality and something that should be expected.