u/ArmorOfGod7

We have a boy and a girl, both teens. When they were in their low teens, they both stopped calling us mommy/daddy around the same time. After a while though, we realized something was off. We realized they weren't calling us anything at all! They never address us, they just walk up to us and start talking.

At first, we just let it go, thinking it would pass, but it's been 2 or 3 years now with no change. We've talked to them about it but can't seem to get a clear understanding of why they're doing this. We've tried to convey that it's starting to hurt our feelings that they just don't call us by any name, but that just makes them feel bad too and then they shut down.

At the end of the day, they're really good kids ('A' students, never get in trouble outside of our house, are active in our church, do their chores and anything else we ask them to do with mild grumbling at worst, and they genuinely seem to enjoy spending lots of family time with us) so it's not that big of a deal and we try to just let it go instead of making a big deal about it, but it still bothers us. We're wondering if any other parents have experienced this?

EDIT: A lot of people seem to be mis-reading/mis-understanding my post here. I never said he is or isn't the funniest, I just said he's my least favorite. Those are two different things. So many of y'all appear to have read "Joe isn't the funniest" and are getting defensive. Read what I actually said. I still find Joe to be very funny a lot of the time, but due to other aspects of his personality, he's come to be my least favorite as a person.

(Kinda awkward title, wasn't sure how else to put it. Honestly, I didn't follow the allegations very closely. To the best of my knowledge, he wasn't charged with anything criminal, but he's at least a piece of crap husband for cheating on his wife. My thoughts here won't be based on the allegations at all.)

When I first started watching Impractical Jokers, Joe quickly became my favorite. Over time, I came to appreciate all 4 of them for different reasons, and found it more difficult to choose a favorite. However, after more and more re-watches, I found myself liking Joe less and less.

Little things just started to add up. First off, you can tell that he thinks he's the funniest in the room, and he constantly has to make sure everyone else knows it. He'll do or say something funny, but then ruins it with all of the bragging and self-props. For example, there must be at least 10 instances when he says he's "playing chess, not checkers". People are already laughing man, just let it sit. But no, he has to keep obnoxiously yelling this over and over, just to make sure everyone knows how clever he was. He does it in other ways too, they'll show him coming back into the behind-the-scenes area, showboating like crazy after doing something funny. But the chess/checkers thing is probably the worst example.

Another thing that's stood out to me is that he takes things too far, and can be mean-spirited. A good example is the tattoo punishment. The whole time during the reveal, he is just laughing WAY too hard. Most people would at least feel a little bad about it, but he just laughs like a maniac, and when Sal gets mad, he laughs even harder. To make matters worse, there are episodes later on where the guys reference the tattoos and Joe actually gets annoyed by it, and tells them they need to get over it. Another example is when he "accidentally" sent the text to Murr's ex. He so obviously did it on purpose, and laughed like a hyena about it. But then when Murr gets understandably upset, Joe gets defensive, and with an annoyed tone starts yelling back at Murr that it's a touchscreen, like that somehow changes anything. IDK, the other 3 guys all have plenty of moments where they express feeling at least a little bad for what they're making the 4th guy do, but very rarely, if ever, does Joe show any kind of empathy like that.

Now, I know it's a show, and some of this could just be the editing, or him playing things up for the camera. So I was still giving him the benefit of the doubt. Until recently, when Youtube started recommending me some videos of interviews with the Jokers. There was one with Joe and Murr, and the skydiving punishment came up. Murr was talking about locking himself in the bathroom beforehand to cry, and Joe proceeds to downplay the entire thing and belittle him. Murr worded it as "you threw me out of a plane!" so then Joe just keeps saying "YOU HAD A PARACHUTE!" over and over again, as if that makes Murr's greatest fear perfectly fine and not scary at all. He was such a jerk about the whole thing. To make matters worse, there's another interview with Joe where he's talking about the Captain Fat Belly punishment. He's so serious and dramatic about it, talking about how he "almost died", yet he completely downplayed the much worse thing Murr had to do. There was another I listened to (I can't find it, so I can't remember the exact details), but Murr made some light jab at Joe about how he falls apart if he has to go off script, something like that. I think even Sal and/or Q had said the same thing too. Joe got SO defensive and bent out of shape about it, and just berated Murr for it. They all pile on Murr constantly, but Joe couldn't take one little jab, it was pathetic.

So yeah, I now see him as the guy that thinks he's the funniest and most clever, has to be the center of attention constantly, and can dish it out but can't take it. I really don't like him that much anymore, he's definitely my least favorite of the four now. He's not the nice guy he had many of us fooled into thinking he was.

I can't grow a beard. My upper lip and whole chin get covered, but the rest is patchy at best. Because of this, I've always shaved every 2 or 3 days to maintain a mostly clean-shaven look, or just a little bit of stubble. However, as I've gotten older, I'm starting to get tired of shaving, and have found myself going longer and longer periods of time without shaving. So there end up being some days when I go to work kind of scruffy. Not just a little stubble, but not a full beard either. I feel like if guys are allowed to have a full beard and mustache, I should be allowed to have a little bit of facial hair going. It doesn't look the greatest, but it's not terrible either. I'm very cleanly/hygienic, take care of myself, dress well, etc. Despite all of that, do you think it's unprofessional to let my facial hair get to that length regularly?

Edit: I work in IT. Cybersecurity, so mostly keep to myself, don't have to interact with others very often. Dress code is a pretty loose business casual.

I love Survivor, but only got into it a couple years ago, so there are still a lot seasons I haven't seen (2-14 and 41-49). I tried 41 and 42 but just couldn't stick with them, they were so bad.

Anyway, I'm curious, has there ever been a winner who was playing from the bottom most of the game, just barely making it through vote after vote, and somehow making it all the way to the end and winning the whole thing, especially by finding idols/advantages and/or winning individual immunities?

That's what it would have been for Devens. First, he had to claw his way back in from the Edge by beating multiple people in a pretty long challenge, Once he re-entered the game after the merge, he had missed out on a lot of time to build relationships and trust with people. He basically just had David, who, didn't last too much longer. Then Devens was on his own. It just seemed like episode after episode, Devens was on the bottom, it was obvious that the main group had the numbers and were going to vote him out, but he would either find an immunity idol (4 total), or win individual immunity (4 times), over and over again. He stayed in the game for EIGHT votes by doing this, that's insane! He came SO close, but then sadly got taken out by firemaking. If he had won fire, surely he would have gone on to win the whole thing, which would have been such an amazing comeback.

So, I'm curious, has anyone ever had a story like this? I can't really think of one. The closest I can think of is Ben, but he just found a bunch of idols, he didn't win immunity, and I don't remember it being "Ben's the obvious one we're going to vote out" every time until much later in the game. Is there someone I'm forgetting, or maybe someone from a season I haven't watched yet, who did anything like what Devens did?

My wife and I are both experienced with interviewing, so we're confident we can help her with the basics, like common interview questions, how to speak, keeping good posture, etc. I was just wondering if there might be anything helpful y'all could share specifically for interviewing for CFA? Is there some weird CFA question that they always ask? What will be the general flow of the interview? Will she be alone, or do they interview multiple people at a time? Any insights y'all could provide would be helpful, thanks in advance!

My wife and I are both experienced with interviewing, so we're confident we can help her with the basics, like common interview questions, how to speak, keeping good posture, etc. I was just wondering if there might be anything helpful y'all could share specifically for interviewing for CFA? Is there some weird CFA question that they always ask? What will be the general flow of the interview? Will she be alone, or do they interview multiple people at a time? Any insights y'all could provide would be helpful, thanks in advance!