Monday's Most Active Posts

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Husband refuses to help with night feedings" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster and her husband have a newborn baby that wakes several times a night for feeding. The couple initially split feeding duties so that both were allowed decent stretches of sleep at night. But, the husband has now returned to work and decided that he should no longer wake up for night feedings, leaving it all to the original poster. The original poster is struggling with the lack of sleep, thinks her husband is being unreasonable, and believes he should still be responsible for one night feeding. Their disagrement on this issue led to a big fight and the original poster seeks advice and support. Those responding largely fall into two camps: 1) those who agree that the original poster's husband is being unreasonable and that he should either split duties or hire someone to provide assistance, either as a night nurse or for household help to allow the original poster more time to nap; and 2) those who support the husband who they think deserves to sleep through the night because he has to work and doesn't have time to take naps during the day. Of course, the standard advice for all relationships in this forum is to get a divorce and such advice is also offered. However, the original poster, sleep-deprived though she may be, is still lucid enough to soundly reject that suggestion.

The second most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Adult Children" forum. Titled, "Today’s young adults want apologies from their parents; parents want a thank you", the original poster asserts that young adults have a sense of being wronged while their parents are exhausted from having done everything they could. This results in resentment between the two groups. The original poster didn't provide any basis for her contention so it's not clear how she arrived at this conclusion. Oddly, nobody immediately challenged the assertion broadly — though some posters said that it doesn't reflect their personal experience — and the discussion proceeded as if the the original poster is generally correct. Much of the discussion, at least as far as I can tell from my limited reading of the thread, involves posters bragging that since they are such great parents, their children don't have any complaints about their parenting. There also seem to be quite a few posts saying that children always lack appreciation for their parents until they find themselves in their parent's shoes so this is not a new situation. I do see that later in the thread someone did challenge the basis of the original poster's argument, resulting in the original poster throwing a tantrum worthy of the adult children she criticized. She didn't exactly demand an apology, but it was clearly implied.

The third most active thread was titled, "Damar Hamlin" and posted in the "Sports General Discussion" forum. For those who are unfamiliar with the event, Hamlin is a safety for the Buffalo Bills National Football League team. After executing a tackle during the Monday Night Football game, he collapsed in cardiac arrest. Medical personal were forced to perform CPR in order to restore his heartbeat. The game was halted and subsequently suspended. The initial discussion in the thread was focused on determining what had happened since many of those reading had not been watching the game. Soon, discusion turned towards the dangers of football and whether the NFL exploits players and lacks concern for their health and safety. As the thread continued, updates on Hamlin's condition and new information surrounding the event were posted. For some reason, posters were particularly fixated on the reactions of the other players. Some posters were impressed by what they believed to be the players' concern for Hamlin's privacy while others focused on those player's own feelings from witnessing the shocking developments. I don't think this needs to be a "one or the other" scenario and I really don't understand the anger between these groups of posters.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Diet and Exercise" forum and titled, "Will Ozempic and other drugs like it eliminate obesity?". The new family of drugs that have shown success in achieving weight loss have seen considerable discussion on DCUM where weight — particularly that of women — is a hot button issue. The original poster asks whether such drugs will eliminate obesity. Given DCUM's highly-educated audience, one might hope for a thoughtful discussion based on scientific and medical evidence, fully supported by available references, with respect for differing points of view. Sadly, one would be severely disappointed. At least for the parts that I've read, which admittedly are not much, the thread has the sophistication of a dispute between barroom drunks. Posters makes broad assertions with no notable basis, often to be shown to be wrong almost immediately. Some posters see this entire discussion as being an attack on fat people which has the result of turning much of the thread into a discusion of fat people rather than the original topic. Every thread about weight seems to attract posters who are convinced that any extra pounds are solely the fault of personal failings. Posters with this belief show up to express their view that such drugs are unnecessary because overweight people should just eat less. I cannot express exactly how helpful such posters are to threads of this type. Given their faith in self-control, might we hope they might themselves have the discipline to not post such nonsense in the threads of this type, but again, we are left disappointed.