Thursday's Most Active Threads

The two most active threads yesterday were the Harry and Meghan thread and the thread about the woman and the CitiBike. Since I've already discussed those, I'll move to the third most active thread which was titled, "Is this how thin people eat?" and posted in the "Diet and Exercise" forum. The original poster explains that she recently suffered from a stomach bug and didn't eat for 24 hours. Since then, she hasn't had much of an appetite and has only been consuming about 1,000 calories a day. She had already been at a healthy weight, though not thin, and has lost 3 lbs since her illness. She says that she feels great and asks whether this is how skinny people eat. Weight loss topics are popular in the diet forum and many of the posters that frequent the forum have very strong opinions about eating. There are posters who seem convinced that anyone whose diet is even a single calorie short of what they believe is sufficient suffers from an eating disorder. Others believe that all weight gain is a result of eating and weight loss is as simple as controlling your eating. Both viewpoints are expressed very early in this thread. I picture a forlorn DCUM poster who is hoping to get advice about lossing weight sitting at their computer with a small DCUM poster perched on each shoulder. One is telling the poster to "just eat less" and the other is saying, "that's disordered eating". These two popular but irreconcilable positions are what causes threads such as this one to be among the most active. In this case, the discussion transformed a bit into a dispute about nature vs nurture. Some posters argue that weight is genetic and that reduced calories can't do much about that in the long term. Others argue the opposite, suggesting for instance that identical twins can have vastly different weights based on differing diets. Posters link to various studies that make often contradictory claims. Intermixed among all of this are a number of posts that offer differing advice. Some suggest high protein diets, others low protein. Some think that protein should be just right, though of course there is no agreement as to that amount. Probably by now the original poster is sorry that she posted in the first place

The next most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Money and Finances" forum. Titled, "The insane cost of elder care", the original poster expresses shock at the cost of eldercare, explaining that in addition to rent, there are many add-on costs for specialized services. She estimates that the total cost might be $9k-$11k per month and wonders how anyone can afford such prices. While a few posters have suggestions for lower cost options, almost everyone in the thread agrees that the costs are high. The most common ways to pay for such care are lifelong savings, long term care insurance, and Medicaid. The thread is full of descriptions of burning through savings in order to pay for eldercare services. Some posters advise not keeping assets in your name after a certain age so that they won't have to be liquidated in order to be eligible for Medicaid. Some controversy is provoked by a poster who describes paying around $5k a month to unlicensed aides to provide around the clock care to her father. Some posters object to the low hourly wage this entails and accuse the poster of taking advantage of the caregivers. A recent immigrant who has not saved for eldercare asks what she might do and it told to expect her family to take care of her. This leads to some discussion about whether or not Hispanic families are better at caring for the elderly than others. A couple of posters tout the benefits of Continuing Care Retirement Communities or CCRCs. One poster describes the CCRC in which her mother lives as almost "too good to be true".

Next was a thread titled, "Are you suspicious of people who chose to work with kids?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster describes recently watching a documentary about sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts. This has caused her to question why adults are willing to accept low pay and what the original poster considers not particularly interesting work in roles such as childcare or youth sports coaches. Her conclusion is that they are seeking access to children. As her post goes on, however, the original poster reveals that her concerns about adults and children go deeper than just the documentary. She describes once touring a daycare and being "freaked out" by the thought that those who worked there just wanted access to her child. Several posters agree with the original poster and are also suspicious of such adults. Most of them are much more worried about men, however. This leads to discussion about whether or not this is discriminatory. Other posters point out that many of the roles that concern the original poster are filled by volunteers and that most kids' activities would not exist without them. One father discusses becoming a den leader in Cub Scouts because his kids wanted to join Cub Scouts. A handful of posters attempt to address what appears to be underlying anxiety on the original poster's part that is probably not healthy. But, those posters don't get very far. The original poster is adamant about the threats that she perceives, later adding that she doesn't trust her child with anyone, not even her own parents. The topic of concern about sexual predators is certainly one of concern to most parents and a thread discussing such threats and how to address them is welcome. But, the original poster of this thread clearly is dealing with deeper issues than the average parent. As such, this thread is not as helpful generally as it might otherwise have been. As some posters suggest, the original poster might consider whether she is suffering from postpartum anxiety or postpartum depression.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. Titled, "Any all-boy moms wistful about not having a daughter?", the original poster describes bonding experiences her friends are having with their daughters that she, as the mom of boys, doesn't get to experience. She loves her sons and enjoys their activities, but feels it's not the same as what those with daughters experience. Among the first handful of posts, there are moms of boys who also sometimes miss having a daughter. There are also mothers who admit to being upset at having boys, but now being glad that they did. One poster doesn't really miss not having a girl because she has nieces on whom she can dote. And of course, there are moms of boys who deny ever feeling a moment of wistfulness. The thread generates quite a bit of discussion about gender stereotypes with many posters pointing that boys can be interested in activities that are often associated with girls and vice versa. Somehow this thread turned into a discussion of children taking care of parents with debate about which gender would be better able to do that. I didn't read the thread closely enough to understand how it got that point. Another diversion was to posts about pregnancy with posters happy that they have boys who won't get pregnant. A bit of a twist was posters talking about the role of gender identity. One poster said that her mother wanted a girl but ended up with a trans girl and was even less happy and now they are estranged. In general, this thread demonstrates the uniqueness of individuals with posters expressing a range of views and experiences. For every poster who believes they have identified a rule of some sort, there is at least one other poster claiming an exception.