2024

Yesterday was Labor Day and it appears that many DCUM users were offline celebrating rather than posting on DCUM because the active threads were not all that active yesterday. The most active thread was titled, "High schoolers can’t write", and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. The original poster says that her kids go to Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, are native English speakers, and get all As in school. Nevertheless, their writing is "awful". They have poor grammer and punctuation and can't correctly form an argument. The original poster says that she is in shock and wants to know if others have noticed this issue with their kids. Almost all of those responding have noticed this. They blame it on Montgomery County Public Schools not teaching grammer, spelling, or writing skills anymore. Some posters allege that the problem begins in early grades so that by high school the teachers have given up. Others say that kids don't read enough these days and that reading is important to gaining writing skills. Another poster, however, says that reading doesn't build writing skills but rather practice does. A teacher says that in public school she had too many students and not enough time for reviewing their writing, implying that she didn't provide writing assignments as a result. However, after switching to private school, she had greater support and fewer students and the school placed more emphasis on writing. Therefore, she was much more involved in teaching writing. Because of the shortcomings posters see in MCPS with regard to reading and writing, many posters say that they have either supplemented with tutors or writing classes, or moved their children to private or parochial schools. In their search for whom to blame for the current state of writing education, some posters focus on kids with special needs who, in these posters' view, require too much support and take away resources – especially the teachers' attention — from the other students. According to these posters, teachers are spending their time assisting students with special needs and, therefore, don't have time to teach writing. The second target is the "social justice, social emotional learning, anti-racism" initiatives that some posters believe have replaced traditional teaching in MCPS. Several posters would like to see MCPS return to focusing on the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Other posters blame the parents who are complaining, asking why they didn't read to their kids and teach them writing themselves. These might be valid questions for the average DCUM poster, but it ignores that some MCPS parents may lack proper English reading and writing skills themselves and, therefore, are not in a position to assist their children. Much of this thread is devoted to debating the pros and cons of private or parochial education compared to public. Catholic schools are especially debated with several posters praising their traditional teaching while others decry them as "archaic" or unappealing to non-Catholics.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Breakfast drama", and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster says that she has a 5 year old child who is just starting kindergarten. She and her husband divide up parenting duties in the morning. While one parent is getting ready, the other serves breakfast to their daughter and then the first parent takes the child to school. Two days this week the original poster's husband was responsible for breakfast. The first day, he served the girl toast with peanut butter. When the original poster took over, her daughter had not eaten and wanted jelly with the peanut butter. They didn't have jelly and the girl refused to eat. The original poster, believing that eating before going to school was more important than a food struggle, quickly made her cereal. The next day, the original poster's husband attempted to serve the same leftover toast with peanut butter which, again, the child refused to eat. This time the original poster made oatmeal and an egg. The original poster is worried that her husband thinks that she is coddling the child but she is also frustrated with her husband for providing the leftover breakfast which the girl had already rejected. This post involves at least three very touchy issues: 1) child-parent relationships; 2) husband-wife relationships; and 3) food. DCUM posters have strong feelings about all three and even a single one of these topics could have provoked a long thread, let alone all three at once. Many posters focus on the first issue concerning how the parents are handling their child. While a few favor the "eat this or nothing" rule for meals, most prefer offering the child at least limited choices. Once the choice has been made, the child is expected to eat it. Because the original poster was not there when her husband provided the toast with peanut butter, she doesn't know whether the child initially requested it. However, she faults her husband, as do many other posters, for providing the day-old bread with peanut butter on the second day. Some posters say that at kindergarten age, their kids were already able to take care of their own breakfast. Regarding the original poster's relationship with her husband, a few posters believe that her husband is trying to fail so that he will be relieved of responsibility for breakfast due to incompetence. The original poster doesn't think this is the case because he wants to do it, but she says he is very stubborn. Some posters argue that the original poster should stay out of her husband's breakfast choices and let him deal with it, but that means that the original poster would end up taking a melting-down hungry child to school. Others say that the original poster should just have a conversation about the issue with her husband and work out ways to address this sort of thing. Finally, the issue of food. Posters have a range of opinions about what children should eat in the morning. From "anything" at one end of the spectrum to "must be protein" on the other. Probably the only thing those responding agreed about is that day-old toast with peanut butter is not appropriate.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Sooo am I just the best parent ever or are the others complete duds?" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster is very proud of herself because she just completed a 3 hour flight with her preschool and elementary school-aged children. She had packed lots of games and engaged her children constantly during the flight. Meanwhile she noticed that other kids on the airplane were all using iPads while their parents used their phones. The original poster feels she is superior to the other parents because she used the travel time for talking and engaging with her kids while the other parents did not. The original poster did not post again until the 13th page of the thread at which point she criticized DCUM posters as "screen-addicted parents with screen-addicted kids". In terms of the replies, one of the posters responding basically did my job for me by writing a lengthy post that described the types of replies the thread received. I'll just crib some points from that post. As the poster noted, there was not agreement among posters about what constituted "good parenting". Many posters considered that good parenting was determined by how little their children bothered other passengers. In this regard, providing a child with a iPad and headphones is great parenting if it keeps the child quiet and still during the flight. Other posters, including the original poster, based their judgement on what they believed to be best for the child. But members of this group were not in complete agreement with each other because there were differences of opinion about what was best for the child. The original poster believes that engagement with a parent is best while others have different ideas, including the suggestion that using an iPad might be best. Another group of posters prioritized what is best for the parent. Because travelling can be stressful and parents, especially moms, are expected to not only plan and pack for themselves, but the children as well, the plane ride may be the only time parents will have to relex and de-stress. An iPad can help distract the kids while the parents have a break. The bottom line is that almost all posters beyond the original poster and a very few others view children using iPads on airplanes as potentially good parenting, rather than bad as the original poster believes. This includes posters whose families are "screen-free" in most other circumstances, but make allowances for air travel. As you would expect, there are plenty of posts that are critical of the original poster who is considered "judgemental", a "troll", and someone who likely has parenting failures as well and probably shouldn't be so smug. More than one poster noted that for all of her criticism of screens and screen-addicted adults, the original poster was using a screen to post on DCUM and appeared to be quite familiar with the website, suggesting frequent screen use. But, I'm sure the original poster can quit at any time.

I'm skipping yesterday's two most active threads because they are ones that I've already discussed. The third most active thread yesterday was titled, "Bible verse card at work", and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. The original poster says that she is a public school teacher and that yesterday every teacher received a sealed envelope in their school mailbox containing a personalized Bible verse signed by a local church. The original poster is very upset and believes that the school secretary must have been involved in allowing the envelopes to be distributed. The original poster considers this an unacceptable intrusion of religion into a secular space. Responses can be categorized as three different types. There are many posters who think the Bible verses were harmless and many of these posters consider sending the verses to have been a nice gesture. This group believes the original poster is wrong to feel offended. Next are posters who agree with the original poster that distributing Bible verses in public school teachers' mailboxes is inappropriate. But they simply don't consider it to be a big enough deal to be upset about. They would have tossed the envelopes in the trash and not given them a second thought. Third were those posters who both agree with the original poster that the envelopes were inappropriate and that their distribution was worthy of a response. The original poster said that she had talked to her principal and emailed the church, steps that are consistent with the advice offered by other posters. Other public school teachers posted about the intrusion of religion into their schools. This includes prayers during meetings at which attendance is required and the reading of Bible verses at staff functions. Many posters argue that this is not only an unwelcome violation of the separation of church and state, but potentially an illegal one as well. Those who support the Church in this episode argue that it is simply the Church's right of free speech to distribute the Bible verses. What is particularly notable about this group is what I can only describe as their passive aggressive methods of practicing Christianity. The thread is full of such things as offers to "pray for" the original poster that are clearly not meant to be true offers to help the original poster in anyway. Rather, these are clearly attempts to further poke her. In addition, as several posters point out, it is very likely that the same posters who so adamantly claim support for the 1st Amendment that would be among the first to support banning books that offend them. Moreover, these folks have a very specific understanding of the 1st Amendment. Even if we disregard the establishment clause issues of distributing Bible verses at a public school, many of the supporters of that action don't seem to recognize a similar free expression right to oppose the activity. If we accept that a church can send teachers Bible verses, certainly we must also agree that a teacher has a right to vocally oppose the church's action. But many among the pro-Church crowd consider that to be intolerant and, because liberals are supposed to be tolerant, hypocritical (they also assume the original poster is a liberal).

The two most active threads yesterday — the Fairfax County Public Schools boundary changes thread and the Jennifer Lopez thread — were ones that I've already discussed and will, therefore, skip today. The next most active thread was titled, "Cuts" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. This thread was started five days ago by a poster complaining that Montgomery County Public Schools had conducted a "midnight massacre" and cut about 100 teaching positions. The poster warned others to get ready for bigger classes and asked why this is not a bigger story. The first issue with this thread is that there was no source provided for the original poster's allegation. This led some posters to doubt that it was real. Other posters accepted it as fact, but attempted to justify the cuts. One argument was that while positions were being cut, many of them were currently unfilled. If there is a current teacher in the position, that teacher will be offered an opportunity to transfer to another school. As such, these are not job losses. Contrary to this, some posters said that actual layoffs are in the works in some cases. Another argument was that in a school system of 14,000 teachers, 100 teachers being forced to transfer to different positions is not really that significant. Soon enough reports of positions being cut at posters' schools arrived and provided some evidence of the veracity of the original poster's claim. Discussion then turned to what might be cut other than teaching positions. The main target was the MCPS central office which poster after poster criticized as bloated and filled with high-earning staffers that either do little or lack competence. Two days ago, the Board of Education held a meeting to discuss the school system's budget. According to posts in the thread, teachers were barred from entering the meeting. When a small group managed to push their way in and attempted to start a protest, the meeting was recessed and after the break teachers were again prevented from attending. Based on teacher reactions in the thread, these cuts — whether of positions or employees — are one more factor contributing to already high levels of frustration among teachers. There are many warnings that more teachers will leave rather than put up with increasingly difficult work circumstances. As one poster wrote, "MCPS trying this after arguably the worst year most of us have ever had… is just laughable." The poster then went on to say, "This is going to be the straw that broke the camels back for A LOT of teachers in the county … good luck next year when there’s no one there to staff their huge classes."

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Rant: ‘you look amazing’" and posted in the "Expectant and Postpartum Moms" forum. The original poster is a new mother and, as such, is "exhausted and struggling". Nevertheless, "at least 10 times" other people have told her that she "looks amazing" or something similar. Because this compliment does not match how she is feeling, it is awkward for her and she is annoyed by it. She ends her post by saying, "Don’t comment on anyone’s body ever, but especially a hormonal new mom." This is a 12 page thread and I don't have time to read the entire thing. But, obviously a thread of this length is going to contain a lot of different opinions. The first thing that I will note is that the original poster does not seem to have returned to the thread after the first post. However, another poster who feels very much the same way as the original poster took over and posted nearly 30 times. So the original poster's viewpoint was very well represented even if she herself was not. The basic argument of the original poster and the poster who agreed with her is that by focusing on a women's appearance, her friends and acquaintances were missing the physical stress and emotional challenges the she was undergoing. Because they looked good, people assumed that they must feel good and that simply was not the case. Moreover, they don't even agree that they actually looked amazing. They concede that they lost weight and they attribute the compliments to that and nothing more. In their opinion, others are focusing exclusively on weight and missing the signs that they are somewhat in distress. Some posters are concerned that the original poster may be suffering from postpartum depression and urge her to talk to her doctor about it. Others explain that people are simply trying to be nice. Moreover, they say, some women appreciate the compliments. But a number of posters support the other two women in arguing that comments about people's bodies just shouldn't be made. I suspect that there is somewhat of a generational divide on this issue with younger people generally being more sensitive about comments about appearances. This is reflected in one post in which the poster stated that only "old women" think that others appreciate being told that they look amazing. My thinking is that a lot of people are more or less on autopilot when it comes to informal conversations. It might be common to ask another person how they are doing, but only in unusual circumstances does anyone really want to hear a litany of things bothering the other person. Telling a new mother that she looks amazing is a simple way of offering reassurance and support. Almost no one is going to tell a woman that she looks stressed and haggard. The bigger problem is not listening. Several of the posters describe replying to compliments by explaining the struggles they are encountering and having that shrugged off. In many cases, people simply might not want to deal with it or may not know how to react to it. But, that, more than the compliment, is where the focus on improvement should probably be.

Yesterday most active thread was a thread that I've already discussed about the Montgomery County Board of Education elections. The primary was held yesterday, creating a lot of interest in that thread. The most active thread after that one was a bit surprising. Titled, "Why is Indian food always expensive?" and posted in the "Food, Cooking, and Restaurants" forum, this is not a topic that I would expect to be more active than Taylor Swift, the Gaza war, and bike lanes. Yet, here we are. The original poster started the thread by, as the title indicates, asking why Indian food is so expensive. According to the original poster, naan is always $5 a piece and palak paneer costs $22. Moreover, the original poster claims, this is true of every city, not just Washington, DC. The first four responses were all from posters in California who claimed that Indian food tends to be cheaper out there. Other posters also suggested cheaper options. Many posters responded saying that the relatively high cost of Indian food is due to the large number of ingredients and its labor intensive nature. As labor costs have risen, prices have followed. Some posters suggested that small family-owned restaurants are often able to rely on family members for staff and reduce their cost of labor. I am far from an expert on India, but I've always heard about its many languages and many different cultural groups. Given its diversity, it is no surprise that generalizing about the country's cuisine is not easy or even possible. I think that this explains much of the debate in this thread. Whereas some posters insist that expensive ingredients and labor-intensive preparation are required, others argue that neither of those are true and that, in fact, Indian food can be prepared at home cheaply and easily. It appears that both sides in this argument are correct. It simply depends on what specific Indian food you are discussing. Moreover, it also depends on how true you want to remain to the traditional recipe. One poster pointed out that butter chicken traditionally should rely on leftover tandoori chicken and therefore the first step is to make tandoori chicken. But another poster praised instant pot butter chicken. There are obvious differences in ease of cooking between these two styles. One of the more absurd aspects of this thread was a huge several-page debate about the cost of naan. A poster disputed the original poster's claim that it costs $5 a piece. However, several posters described recently paying close to that, if not more. Then a poster, relying on Google, took it upon himself to dispute their first-hand experience. As a result of this thread, I am probably going to be ordering Indian food for lunch. For the record, I will be paying less than the original poster claims to pay. I've always seen naan as the item on which Indian restaurants make their money and reluctantly pay more than I think it is worth. But even so, it will only be $4. Moreover, that is for garlic naan. Plain naan is only $2.50.

As has been the case lately, the first two threads are ones that I've already discussed and, therefore, will start with what was actually the third most active thread yesterday. That thread was titled, "Marriage is hard" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Before getting to the thread, after complaints about the lack of paragraphs in my formatting, I've decided to try things a little differently today. So, let's see how that goes.

Back to the thread, the original poster simply stated that the phrase in the thread's title is common and would like to know what makes marriage hard for others. The first and most common answer is "communication", though it is not clear to me whether these posters mean that communication is difficult or that a lack of communication makes marriage hard. Other posters say that as long as you marry the right person, marriage is not hard.

I'm going to have to work my way up to discussing the most active thread yesterday. As many are aware, DCUM originally started as a mailing list. The first use of forums was to offload posts advertising or searching for nannies because they were creating too much traffic for the mailing list. After that, the forums grew organically and we mostly added them at the request of users. I don't remember the circumstances that led to the creation of the "Family Relationships" forum, but I am fairly certain that it would have been due to users' requests. I would never have come up with the idea for this forum and have never had great expectations for it. For years the forum trundled along almost like a backwater with nothing much happening within it. But more recently the forum has become a source of endless drama. Posters have a knack for turning the most mundane of interactions in to a double-digit page length spectacle. Such was the case with yesterday's most active thread. Titled, "Invitations haven't been sent yet" and, as I alluded to, posted in the "Family Relationships" forum, the original poster's conflict could hardly be less remarkable. Her niece, who lives across the country, will be getting married this summer. Apparently a date for the wedding has been agreed upon, but not officially announced. The original poster contacted her sister to ask if the date is solid because she wants to purchase airline tickets while they are still cheap. It will be an expensive trip regardless and she doesn't want to have to pay even higher prices later. The original poster's sister responded by saying, "Invitations haven't been sent yet" which angered the original poster and seems to have brought to the surface other longstanding resentments she has towards her sibling. The original poster seems to have meant this post mostly as a vent. The entire incident is pretty simple from the original poster's point of view. Her sister is strange and inconsiderate, she provided a strange and unhelpful response, not for the first time she has upset the original poster, and the original poster will simply ask her niece about the date instead. Personally, I can't imagine a response to this post beyond, "I understand your frustration and I hope it all works out." That, of course, is only if I bothered to respond at all, which I wouldn't have. But, those who did respond are not like me. Instead, multiple posters attacked the original poster with one calling her "way out of line" and accusing a her of pressuring a stressed-out bride. Others analyzed the sister's response, suggesting it might mean that either the wedding is in trouble and might not come off or that the original poster is not invited. No amount of assurances by the original poster that this was not the case would stop the speculation. I am not sure why the original poster chose to repeatedly engage the responders. That only seemed to cause them to pick more holes in her story or find new reasons to criticize her.

In yesterday's wrap-up of 2023 I described how the Gaza war threads have dominated the most active lists since October 7. I appear to have almost jinxed the lastest iteration of the thread as it fell all the way to 10th on the list, almost not making it at all. The most active thread of the first day of the new year was titled, "Be honest. Would you marry a guy making $160K at 55?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster initially provided very little information, simply saying that the man in question should be assumed to be attractive and normal. Most of those responding think that a salary of $160k being held against an attractive and normal man who was otherwise an acceptable partner to the original poster is ridiculous and that the original poster's concern reflects poorly on her. Somewhat surprising to me, a number of posters expressed opposition to 55 year olds getting married regardless of their salaries. A small number of posters warned that the guy might be after the original poster for her money, though the original poster had not provided any information about her own wealth. Quite a few posters argued that salary was not the important factor, but rather the man's net worth which would influence retirement possibilities. Later the original poster clarified that she is in the "top 5%" and had previously been married to someone in the top 1%. She is concerned that her wealthy friends would look down on the guy due to his salary. Perhaps feeling that opinion was strongly against her, the original poster began responding in the third person, though not exactly sock puppeting. There was at least one poster who shared the original poster's salary concerns, writing "[m]en who make that little at that stage in their lives have failed". This attitude was far from the norm in the thread. Most posters either found the salary entirely acceptable or thought that other characteristics were more important when considering marriage. A number of posters listed professions in which individuals made significant contributions to society but were not likely to make much more than $160k, if that. Similarly, some posters questioned the values of the extremely wealthy, suggesting that they were likely fixated on accumulating wealth and might not be the best relationship candidates. Throughout the thread posters questioned whether the original poster deserved the guy she was describing or whether he would even be interested in marrying her. In a subsequent post, the original poster said that the man had "asked me today what it would take for me to marry him". Presumably she answered, "doubling your salary".