Wednesday's Most Active Threads

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.

Yesterday's next most active thread was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum and titled, "Trump Campaign verbally and physically assaults Arlington Memorial staff, illegally uses site for campaigning". The backstory here is that during his presidency, former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump signed an agreement with the Taliban setting terms for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. When President Joe Biden came in to office, he was bound by that agreement. During the final days of the withdrawal, there was considerable chaos around the Kabul's international airport, culminating in a suicide bombing that killed many civilians and 13 American service members. Trump has long blamed these deaths on Biden and politicized them in attacks on the President. This is in contrast to the over 60 military personnel who were killed in Afghanistan during Trump's presidency. Trump has never shown interest in them. On the anniversary of Kabul bombing, Trump staged a campaign visit to the graves of some of the service members at Arlington National Cemetery. Federal law prohibits political campaign activities at the cemetery and, when an official of the cemetery attempted to intervene, Trump campaign officials verbally and physically abused her. The Trump campaign, in direct contradiction of federal law, quickly produced campaign videos including photography from the event. Only diehard MAGAs believe that Trump's visit had anything to do with concern for the fallen. According to Trump's former Chief of Staff, Trump referred to those in the military as "suckers and losers". Trump famously cancelled a visit to a U.S. military cemetery in France during the D-Day anniversary. The entire visit was clearly part of a political attack on Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Most of the normal DCUM posters were appalled by these events, though Trump's actions were more or less what we've come to expect from him. The MAGA posters, like Trump, view laws and regulations as mere inconveniences and nothing of any importance. Certainly, not anything that should be obeyed. They have no criticism of Trump's illegal actions. Rather, they stress that Trump was invited by the families of some of those killed, or Gold Star Families as they are called. While at least one family supported Trump's politicization of their child's death, that was not universally true. The sister of one service member whose grave was shown in Trump's video expressed concern that Trump and his campaign team did not properly honor and respect her brother's sacrifice. More importantly, Gold Star Families, while certainly deserving of respect (a respect that Trump has not always given as in the case of Khizr and Ghazala Khan), they cannot change the rules of the cemetery or federal law. Perhaps even more disheartening than Trump's law-breaking and the MAGA support of it was the reaction of others. The cemetery official involved in the confrontation declined to press charges due to fear of harassment from Trump's MAGA supporters, a real and valid concern given what has happened to other Trump opponents. The media, most of whom seem to have no idea how to cover Trump and may well be motivated by the same sort of fears as the cemetery staffer, mostly glossed over Trump's desecration of Arlington's hallowed grounds. The New York Times, for instance, reported that Trump "wrapped himself in military imagery on Monday, attacking the Biden administration over its withdrawal from Afghanistan". With the Times doing this sort of "reporting", Trump has no need for a press secretary.

Next was a thread titled, "Our eight grader is so stressed by the tension at home that she talked to her new dean already on the first school day" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster suggests that she and her husband are only staying married until their daughter goes to college. However, the child, who is currently in eighth grade, has approached her private school's dean on each of the first two days of school to discuss tension at home. The dean called the original poster to recommend a therapist for the child and one for the original poster as well. According to the original poster, her husband used to be away for work and came home only rarely. Now he is home more frequently and he and the original poster have constant conflict. The original poster says that her daughter sees her crying almost daily and had described her father as "toxic". The original poster is beginning to think that a divorce would be better than a continuation of the current situation. However, she mentions that a divorce would require giving up their "beautiful house" and renting a two-bedroom condominium. Several posters asked if the original poster is a troll. I have no way of knowing for sure, but the original poster has started other threads that are generally consistent with this one. I am fairly certain that I actually discussed an earlier thread of hers in this blog. A number of posters advise the original poster to immediately begin investigating a divorce. Speaking to a lawyer will allow her to get some idea about potential custody arrangements and financial outcomes. They believe that this knowledge will give her a more informed idea for the best course of action. Some posters suggest divorcing immediately with no further consideration. A number of posters, however, want further information about her husband's behavior. One issue that posters such as the original poster face is that if they do not provide enough details of their situation, posters complain that they cannot provide worthwhile responses. There are constant demands for more information. But when posters provide more information, as the original poster did in a follow-up post, posters Monday-morning quarterback the situation. In this case, some posters don't find the original poster's husband's behavior to be all that bad. Indeed, more criticism is directed toward the original poster than her husband. The original poster is blamed for worrying about the house more than her daughter. She is criticized for not hiding her emotions from her daughter and crying in front of her. The original poster is told that she is the one with the problem rather than her daughter. Several of those who responded were empathetic, some having been in the original poster's situation. The original poster takes their recommendations of therapy to heart.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum and titled, "Here is how to transfer to any high school in the area". The original poster believes he has found a loophole allowing any student to transfer to a Fairfax County Public Schools high school. The poster suggests relying on the "McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act" which is a federal law requiring school districts to ensure that homeless youth have access to public education. The original poster seems to believe that a student need only show up at the high school of his choice and declare himself to be homeless in order to be enrolled. That is not the intent of the law which explicitly says that school officials should prioritize access to the student's "school of origin". That would make transfers difficult. Moreover, the original poster makes a second, perhaps more serious allegation, that this law is used by "a lot of football players to transfer from Freedom HS in Prince William to Hayfield in FCPS" and claims that 25-30 students have done this. I am skeptical about this claim because that would mean that nearly the entire team is made up of "homeless" kids, something that would be difficult to conceal and would likely cause protest from local kids unable to win a spot on the team. This thread was started back in June, but received considerable attention yesterday because FCPS issued the findings of an investigation into the allegation that the football coach had improperly recruited players for the football team. The investigation concluded that the allegations were entirely false. Initially, most of those responding in the thread seemed to accept the allegations as fact. Some posters, even one claiming to be a FCPS teacher, said that the recruitment was an open secret. When posters heard that an investigation was being conducted, that lent credibility to the accusations. When the results of the investigation were released, many posters simply refused to accept them. By this point, attention had narrowed to 12 players. Some families said that they had rented within the boundary of the football coach's old school and moved to the new school when their leases ended. That is perfectly legal. However, posters were skeptical that this was true of all 12 families. Poster after poster claimed that the findings of the investigation were simply not credible. While expressing doubt about the veracity of the FCPS investigation, some of the amateur sleuths on DCUM made their own errors, such as misinterpreting the dates of news articles. Just about the only thing for sure by the end of the thread is that the "McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act" doesn't seem to have anything to do with this controversy. FCPS says that there are no students involved who do not meet residency requirements. Participants in this thread, however, believe there are still some irregularities that are being covered up by the school system.