I had the exact same experience in the Midwest (where my husband is from) and on the East Coast (where we were living). In both places, I definitely felt like the engagement ring was used as a proxy for, exactly as you said, slotting folks into mental brackets in terms of socioeconomic status.

I had the exact same experience, which I'm sure is pretty directly linked to my sense that engagement rings are just a way for women to show off what a great choice they made.

I was bitter about it at the time, but nowadays we more than have the money to "upgrade" and I don't want to. I like my ring. More to the…

Basically, she's a matchmaker for rich middle school and high school girls, and rich parents. Kind of like one of those dating services that only works with folks who went to Ivy League schools.

Now, this begs the question of why the rich parents don't know any rich teens. I guess you don't just run into teenaged…

I thought it was a bird landing on a mine field.

I assume there are fees associating with filing for guardianship?

I'm not saying it isn't a good idea to have better checks on this sort of thing. I'm staying that the system we have, today, has historically been so weighted against marginalized groups that I wouldn't blame folks for not wanting to get the…

Of course there is. Of course. But do you trust lawmakers or CPS to craft policy that cracks down on the second without adversely affecting the first? I don't.

I'm so glad for your friends' children that their parents are so well situated to help them. I've reluctantly decided against international adoption because the one country where I feel culturally competent to adopt from is also known for adopting out children with undisclosed behavioral and attachment issues. I…

So, this is actually kind of interesting. It's relatively common in some communities to sign over your rights to a child for a period of time. Usually to an aunt or grandmother, and it's all rather informal. In a sense, this is actually not a terrible system. Families in crisis are able to get through the crisis…

Yes, and so much of it is because these families are completely unprepared for the needs of the children they are adopting. They come in with some nonsense narrative about "firm discipline" and "all these kids need is love" and find it is so much harder than that. So they give up and hand the kids over to the first…

The Victoria's Secret Angels aren't in a production aimed at 5 year-old girls, for starters. Why give her cartoonish proportions by using a corset anyway? Would the legions of little girls have loved Cinderella any less if she had a waist that was 3 inches bigger?

I understand, and the last thing I want to do is play into the Kremlin's "all those North Caucasians are terrorists" narrative. I know how complicated the situation in Chechnya, Dagestan, South Ossetia, etc. is and how Moscow's response has only made the situation worse. From the way in which both Chechen Wars were…

Certainly some of them are acting out of genuine political conviction, but I suppose the degree to which they can be free agents after almost a generation of being terrorized by Moscow is questionable. I'd say that at least some of the Black Widows have been genuinely radicalized (the women behind the 2010 subway…

There's probably no way to know now, but Boko Haram has not typically left that in the hands of the bomber herself. It's not even suicide bombing. It's more like homicide because the girls have no choice.

My understanding, limited as it may be, is that this young girl would not have detonated the bomb herself no matter what, so the fact that she didn't is not probative. Someone else would have been in charge of the actual detonation.

Of course, very very few of these young women are acting out of conviction. They…

I'm eleventy million times positive that this one is also an anti-vaxxer, which just proves what I've been saying around here for years, which is that non-vaxxing is an equal opportunity stupidity.

Nah. I'm deep in non-vaxxing territory and am involved in a lot of communities with high non-vaxxing populations. It's bipartisan. Probably equally made up of liberals who think vaccines are a drug company hoax, and conservatives who think doctors are trying to turn their girls into slutty whores by vaccinating…

What I've heard is that, if you are from a group of people who experience keloid scarring, that scarring is less likely to occur if you get the piercing done when the child is an infant.

I have no idea if that's true, but it's what was explained to me.

It looks like these are going to be in places that are ALSO Safe Have drop-points. Hospitals, fire stations, etc. So, while it is possible that the alarm will fail, it seems the baby hatch will still be near enough for someone to hear the baby cry, or check it occasionally.

I'd like to take this chance to plug companies that use recycled gold and lab gemstones to create jewelry.

I personally like Brilliant Earth but really anyplace that uses recycled metals is a better bet (environmentally and from a "funding rape, torture, war, and terrorism") perspective.

http://www.brilliantearth.com/…

Right, but are white women really on the front lines of fighting for everyone else's rights? I'm not so sure. Her answer also totally erases WoC, who earn WAY less than WW.