Wednesday's Most Active Threads

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "What I’m noticing from millennial high achieving moms" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster describes herself as "mid age millennial born in 1990" and notes several characteristics of high-achieving, elite-educated women as they start to have children. Essentially, few of the women stay at home, they commonly have three kids, they travel a lot, and post on social media about their great lives. I am very confused about the purpose of this thread. Clearly, the original poster's observations don't apply to all millennials and or even to all high-achieving millennial women. Basically, this is a list of observations of the original poster's circle of acquaintances and has little significance outside that group. So what is the point? My confusion was apparently shared by others because the responses in this thread were disjointed, fairly random, and often gave the impression of artificial intelligence bots attempting to converse with each other. Rather than a discussion, this thread is more like posters simply typing out whatever thought immediately entered their minds and hitting "submit". Based on these responses, the only thing that you can say for sure about high-achieving millennial moms is that you can't say anything for sure. Despite the sparcity of stay at home moms in the original poster's circle, other posters say such moms are more the rule than the exception among their acquaintances. Whereas the original poster sees three or more children as popular, others say that one or even no children are common. Posters can't even agree on whether or not high-achieving millennial moms run marathons. Depending on the poster, that is either common or rare. In some cases, posters appear to be attempting to create stereotypes where none exists. Instead of stereotypes, what results are a series of archetypes. There is the doctor or lawyer married to another doctor or lawyer with three kids whose social media is filled with photos of their latest skiing trip to the Swiss Alps such as the original poster might have described. But there is also the Ivy League grad who put her investment banking career on hold to start a family and has no interest in returning to work. Then there is the hard-charging careerist who is at the top of her game professionally, has a single child, and wouldn't stay home if you held a gun to her head. True that all three are high-achieving millennial women, but that is about all that they have in common. Many of the observations in this thread are derived from social media. As such, it is likely that what these posters are seeing about others is not actual reality, but simply what those individuals want others to see about them. They are, therefore, creating stereotypes based on carefully curated images rather than what really exits. So again I ask, what's the point?

The next most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum and titled "AITA: Wife Bought Expensive Furniture W/O My Consent". The original poster says that his wife, who is pregnant, spent a considerable amount of money on furniture for their nursery without discussing it with him. He is angry because they have an agreement that expensive purchases need consent from the other spouse and his wife didn't even consult with him. She is now angry with him because he is angry with her and he wants to know who is correct. The style of this post reminds me of that of a very active troll I call the "breastfeeding troll", despite the thread not involving breastfeeding. This troll has been plaguing the forum for years. I have no idea whether the troll, in reality, is male or female, but on DCUM tends to appear as both. I also suspect that the thread I discussed yesterday about including expensive items on a baby registry is by the same troll, appearing in that case as a women. I see in this thread that another poster made this connection as well and the original poster vehemently denied being either that poster or a troll. This troll's technique has evolved over time, making it increasingly difficult to catch him or her through purely technical means. As a result, I cannot say conclusively that this poster is a troll or, if so, what other threads the troll started. But, based on my intuition and experience, I am comfortable suggesting that this poster is a troll. But, of course I could be wrong. One thing that makes me think the poster is a troll is that I don't think any normal male would spend hours on a "moms" site posting 44 posts in a single thread about an issue of this sort. This is exactly the same pattern of yesterday's baby registry poster who posted 43 posts in a single thread over nearly the same period of time. It is as if DCUM has become someone's late afternoon and early evening entertainment. I'll be interested to see what thread the poster starts today.

Next was a thread titled, "Non-monogamy: dealbreaker? or am I being close-minded?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster is female, 50 years old, and divorced. She is successful, attractive, and looks young for her age. As such, she has no problem attracting interest from men. However, due to several failed past relationships, she no longer has an interest in marriage. She would, however, like to have a committed longterm relationship. She has been dating a man who is a few years older and also recently divorced. Their relationship is great and the original poster would love to have a committed relationship with him. However, the man in question married someone he had known since middle school and never had the opportunity to "sow his oats" sexually. He, therefore, is not interested in a monogamous relationship. He appears open to a longterm committed relationship with the original poster, but not one that requires monogamy. The original poster asks whether she should keep an open mind to this suggestion or "run for the hills?" There are not a lot of possible answers to this question and, therefore, the same answers get repeated over and over. The most common answer is that monogamy is important and therefore the original poster should pass on this guy. In a few cases, posters are either currently engaged in polyamorous relationships or have been engaged in one in the past. While this didn't work out in all cases, in some cases it did. Those for whom it did work are obviously more receptive to the original poster giving it a try. In the middle are posters who feel that this is mostly a low-risk situation for the original poster. She can continue to date this man and see how things go. If she becomes comfortable with the arrangement, that's great. If not, she can always end the relationship. The biggest concern among those who oppose non-monogamy seems to be fear of sexually transmitted diseases. The debate about that runs for many pages and causes some posters to get frustrated that the discussion is taking attention from the primary topic. If there is anything that gets universal or near-universal agreement, it is that it is good the guy is being honest. Though in many cases, that earns him very limited credit at best. Many posters are sympathetic to his desire for more sexual exploration, but believe that desire makes him incompatible with the original poster. In addition, many posters make a distinction between an open relationship in which both partners are free to see others and a polyamorous relationship in which the original partner might be required to have some sort of relationship, or at least acknowledgement of, other women with whom the guy is involved. Several posters advised the original poster not to get involved with the second due to her current discomfort with such an arrangement. Some posters said they would avoid polyamorous relationships but might accept a relationship that involved "don't ask, don't tell" involvement with others.

I thought that we might get through today without my needing to discuss a politcal thread. But, no such luck as the last post that I will discuss today was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "What would a trump presidency actually look like?", the original poster asks what a former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump presidency would look like from posters' personal point of view. This is sort of a strange question given the way that it is worded. I assume that the original poster realizes that Trump has already been president. We already have an example of a Trump presidency. The issue with that is, consistent with the different realities in which we now live, posters have vastly different memories of the Trump presidency. For Trump supporters, Trump's presidency was a time of peace and prosperity. "Trump didn't get us in to any wars" is a common refrain among the MAGAs. While it is true that Trump didn't start new wars, he presided over two wars that he inherited and launched a number of attacks on other countries during his presidency. The COVID pandemic sent the country into one of its lowest points in modern history with Trump's management of the pandemic being uneven at best. Trump's singular legislative accomplishment was a tax cut that primarily benefitted corporations and the wealthy. The fear of Trump critics is that he and his acolytes that he will put in power have learned from previous failures and, given another chance, will be better prepared to implement their agenda. That agenda is largely believed to be based on Project 2025, a plan sponsored by the Heritage Foundation to radically change the government to be more responsive to conservative concerns. This would involve many current government employees who work in a non-partisan manner to support whichever party is in power being replaced with individuals chosen for their loyalty and commitment to supporting Trump and conservative priorities. Trump has been open about his desire to prosecute many of his political enemies. As such, the vision of many Trump opponents for a second Trump presidency is of a bleak wasteland. Trump supporters, of course, see nothing but great things. Everything wrong with the country will be corrected. As one says, "Nirvana!". One thing that is clear is that if Trump wins the election, there will be considerable incoherence surrounding our politics. To reiterate, Trump and his supporters live in a completely different reality than the rest of us. Their priorities and the issues they chose to pursue are going to be completely incoherent to many folks. Personally, I think that Trump will be singularly focused on accumulating and retaining power. Anything that does not help achieve those goals will be of secondary, at best, concern. Therefore, a lot of actions for which Trump supporters are currently hoping will likely not be taken. If the risks were not so high, a Trump presidency would be fun just to watch the reaction of MAGAs when they realize how little he cares about them.