Tuesday's Most Active Threads

On Monday one of the most active threads that I wrote about dealt with a fight between Montgomery County Public Schools high school students from Bethesda-Chevy Chase and Walter Johnson high schools. As I noted in that post, I had locked that thread because several users had fixated on the race of those involved with some posts including racist statements. Posters asked me to unlock the thread so that more details about what had occurred could be learned, but I asked that a new thread be started instead. That thread, titled, "WJ/BCC Fight - No racism please!" and, of course, posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum, was the most active thread yesterday. Despite the interest in the thread, there was not much news to be shared. Posters reported that the police were investigating the incident and relayed rumors learned from students at the school. There was considerable discussion about the reaction by MCPS officials, something with which several posters expressed dissatisfaction. Filling the vacuum of actual news were esoteric discussions such as whether the incident Friday night constituted a "fight" which some posters argued might be legal or an "assault" which would clearly be against the law. Similarly, a number of posters debated why students would have been congregating near the Metro station. One poster seemed completely incapable of understanding that kids might actually be there for the purpose of accessing transportation. In addition to the Metro train, several Metro buses have pickup locations at the station. Moreover, nearby restaurants are popular with the students. As in the earlier thread, some posters argued that what had occurred was less a fight between students from opposing schools and more of an attack on WJ students by students from B-CC. In contrast, at least one poster questioned whether students from either high school were actually involved. There was continued discussion about the appropriate punishment for the attackers. The lack of news about what, if anything, would be done frustrated some posters, while others reminded that information about juveniles was normally not released. There was a lot of concern expressed about the condition of the students who were seen on video being beaten and hope that they would recover quickly. But, as with most other aspects of this topic, there were very few actual facts in this regard to be shared.

The second most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum and titled, "dh refused to sign laptop acceptance form so school won't send home laptop". The original poster explained that her son was provided a school-issued laptop. Because the school does not have insurance on the devices, families were asked to sign a form agreeing to take responsibility for the computers and cover any loss or damage. The original poster has a 3-year-old child who has a history of damaging computers and the original poster's husband doesn't believe young children should do work on computers. So the original poster's husband refused to sign the form. This post raises a lot of issues. There is the topic of the husband's refusal, the question of whether young children need computers for school, a debate about who should have liability for school-provided computers, and a discussion of why the original poster's 3-year-old is so destructive. All of these topics get attention in the thread. It is not clear to me, and I am fairly certain that the original poster did not clarify this, who the laptop is for. As far as I can tell, the original poster didn't mention another child, but I would be surprised if a preschool is handing out laptops. The question about the husband's refusal turned out to be moot fairly quickly because the original poster began defending the decision. Posters were divided about whether young children should need computers for school. Similarly, posters disagreed about where liability belonged. There was considerable discussion about the behavior of the 3-year-old who apparently has broken two laptops previously. Many posters see this as a parenting failure but the original poster simply believes that she has a destructive child who is impossible to supervise completely. The original poster spent much of the thread defending both the decision not to accept the laptop and her son's destruction of the other computers. In the course of doing this, the original poster engaged in sock puppeting. Once writing in the third person to defend herself in the guise of a neutral party. Another time the original poster posted without identifying herself and then responded to that post. Both messages were essentially sock puppeted. Due to the sock puppeting and the fact that the original poster was now in agreement with her husband's decision which was the original topic of the thread, I locked the thread.

Next was a thread titled, "Husband doesn't help with hardly anything" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster is venting because while both she and her husband both work from home with demanding jobs, she is the default parent who does 98% of the parenting of their 8-year-old daughter and the work around the house. Her husband's main contribution is to criticize her and to complain that she makes things miserable. In many ways, this post distills the forum down to its barest essence. Women don't want to get stuck doing all the housework and parenting and men don't want to be nagged. But, this is not a symmetrical relationship. The forum's women appear to have long given up hope that men will contribute half of the load and would seemingly be thrilled if they could do even 20%. The forum's men, on the other hand, appear to consider anything coming out of a woman's mouth that is short of "Honey, can I bring you another beer" to be nagging. That leads to the other constant of the forum: advice to divorce. That is suggested in the very first reply as well in several of the other responses on the first page. The original poster is reluctant to get a divorce becasuse she doesn't want to split custody of their child. Several posters assured her that her lazy husband would not want much in the way of custody. In lieu of divorce, some posters recommended that the original poster simply stop doing anything for her husband or to unilaterally leave him with childcare responsibilities. They thought this might force or at least incentivize him to start doing more. Other posters showed concern for the husband's well being, wondering if mental or physical health issues may be contributing to his attitude. There is considerable discussion around speculation that he might have ADHD. As is also typical of the relationship forum, the original poster came in for a lot of criticism. Some posters blamed her for not predicting this behavior before they got married or not addressing it prior to now. One poster turned the entire discussion around and essentially put blame for the entire conflict on the original poster, even suggesting that her husband might be the real victim here.

The final thread at which I'll look today was also posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum and also involved a wife upset with her husband. Titled, "Can you even respond to this insane behavior?", the original poster explains that she and her husband just returned from a long international trip and were exhausted. The original poster's husband said that he would like chicken thighs for dinner so the original poster went to Whole Foods to get the chicken as well as a few other groceries. While the original poster was at the store, she saw some delicious-looking chicken kebabs and called her husband to see if he would like those. He told her that he really just wanted chicken thighs. The original poster picked up the thighs, but, craving the kebabs, also picked up some of those to eat herself. Her husband called again while she was still at the store and became angry when she mentioned that she was getting kebabs. When the original poster arrived home, her husband threw a tantrum, called her "disrespectful", and locked himself in his home office. Responses are all across the board. Many posters think the husband was completely wrong and owes the original poster an apology. Others think the husband may have been overreacting due to lack of sleep from the international travel and due to financial pressure he is facing with his business. These posters believe that if this behavior is not common, he deserves some understanding. Others almost completely sided with the husband, blaming the original poster for not heeding his wishes and spending unnecessary money at a time that they are facing financial strain. In a follow-up post, the original poster says that this sort of behavior is, unfortunately, fairly common but very random. She also mentions that they don't have children. This, of course, leads to advice that she divorce him. The original poster is not interested in divorce because she says he has many good qualities and, "Don’t people have bad moments?"