I grew up in a small town in the midwest, and like a naive, small-town girl who was into books and education and culture, I really thought that people in big cities would have to be more cultured and have a better understanding of (and empathy for and curiosity about) the world as a whole.

My Steam friends basically see me log on and go “Yeah, we know, she’s playing BoI again, stop showing me.”

Well, there go a lot more of my hours.

That’s pretty much how my life and the lives of all my friends went when we were 16-17, so... yes? I mean, we weren’t wealthy, though, so... uh... people maybe expected our parents to actually tell us what to do.

I’m not sure you let your teenager make her own decisions and mistakes when the mistake she’s making includes being the underaged party in statutory rape. I mean, part of being not yet an adult actually is not being “an independent person.”

This is going to get lost among the others, but I feel like this story was made for me.

Well, they start out by calling her a bitch. Move on not to discussing whether or not they find her attractive, but whether she has big breasts or not. Move on from there to lovely, ignorant xenocentrism around the fact that somehow being from the UK makes her big-breasted, bad-teethed and pale. It’s clear there’s not…

The issue is that they think they do, and that their assessment of said sizes must matter.

“the adopted children carry the sins of their parents”

I have never, ever heard this. It makes me deeply sad. I’m glad you were able to learn healthy ways to express yourself and work through it.

Ugh. I’m feeling shellshocked, too. I clicked the link because I figured the account was fake, though what the hell I hoped to achieve by that, I don’t know. That having been said, FUCK that guy.

Out of curiosity, because I haven’t seen anyone else ask— what are your thoughts on the possibility of bringing STDs home to your (presumably faithful) partner? Please note and remember before replying that not all STDs are prevented by protection

You mean parents need to stop teaching their kids it’s not possible for them to lose, and that life will always go their way? I have a friend who’s a college psychologist, and the number of kids who are depressed and can’t deal with difficulty or even mediocrity in any kind of healthy fashion is truly terrifying.

Because sometimes you don’t want to feel like the mom, or the gatekeeper. If your husband asks “Is it okay if I...” or “Do you want help with...” or “Should I do...” then that makes you the taskmaster and the bad guy if you say no (or yes, in the case of the “do you want help with”). If you’re asking, then you…

A few months ago we saw it while we were making our drive to relocate from Boston to Raleigh. Traffic was moving more slowly than it should have been, but still at a decent clip, and we saw that a cop had someone pulled over. As we came up on them, a guy tried to buzz past in the rightmost lane and the officer stepped…

Oh, those are just rubberneckers. Wander up and down 95 around Boston, and one broken down car safely off to the side cripples traffic for hours.

Nah, I know it’s farther away. But I also know people (not just cops) have gotten hit by drivers zooming by, so I always pretend I’m inches away. Objects near my bumper are closer than they appear.

I’ve seen cops step out in front of cars who are coming up too fast (yeah, only once or twice, clearly ballsy guys) to make them pull over, too.

I graduated in ‘99. And it was still pretty much the same.

I think, though, at that age, because you think you have agency and consent and power and are all-knowing and wise, you think the other kids are your age do, too. You talk about how hot the substitute teacher is and hint, without being graphic (or maybe with) what you’d like to do with him (or her) , etc., and only…