u/OwnComb3707

Im finishing out my general education credits right now with a projected start date of November, I’m 26, a stay at home mom that also works part time from home.

My mother was the first to actually get a degree in the family, she got her associates degree in health information management in 2015, and passed from cancer in 2020. I truthfully had no interest in college at all, no work ethic, no motivation, I had my son in 2024 and became a stay at home mom, which I absolutely love, but I know I want to use this time at home to achieve something that can further my education. I spent the first year and a half of being a sahm just peddling around with hobbies, taught myself the piano, harmonica, banjo, I switched to candle making, oil painting, and even woodworking (I made some fairly decent shelves) and then I realized I actually do have a fairly good work ethic now and should put it towards something that counts, did some researching, discovered WGU at 2am one day and applied, I’m going to get my bachelors in information technology.

Honestly just applying and getting through that process was enough to make me kinda proud of myself, I started to tell a few family members about my plans, a few would say “oh wow! I’m proud of you” and then my grandmother said “oh wow, you can do anything online I guess” and I knew from the way she said it that she was implying it wasn’t legitimate. but now i feel so proud of myself for being able to say that i am pursuing my bachelors, that IM going to be the first in my entire family to achieve one, but then i feel this weird feeling of embarrassment to say that it’s an online university when people ask where im going for it :/

Im 26, im a stay at home mom to a 2.5 year old with autism (not severe) and a significant speech delay, and honestly I have never had the motivation or urge to seek a professional career outside of my home, Im definitely a homebody but also the fact that EVERYTHING costs so much.

I do have a pretty good resume of experience in data annotation with AI (yes i know, AI is bad.)

I started work for appen in 2018 when I was freshly 18, I freelanced for them for a year with social media moderation, I dabbled here and there on other platforms but eventually just lost interest. Since May of this year, I have been a generalist for another AI platform which pays slightly more than minimum wage, but I can't even complain because it pays some bills and buys necessities.

I was homeschooled until I was 16, and finished out my last two grades in public school, and honestly i have found that i work hardest, and best in a remote environment, I absolutely love remote work. I have this overwhelming urge to get a bachelor's degree but I still haven't decide for what yet.

I've always avoided subjects with lots of math, which has never been my strongest. I know that computer science is probably absolutely worth it but i genuinely do not think I have what it takes to actually succeed with that. I'm generally a very fast learner but anything with extensive amounts of math will absolutely not work for me.

I've also been looking into IT/Cybersecurity, but I also know that with the rise of AI, those roles are on a steady decline.

Honestly I don't know where to start, I do know if I do decide to pursue a degree, I'll be getting credits on something like straightliner first. I just want something to feel proud of, something that has a title that proves I am kinda smart and motivated, I'm pushing 30 almost and have no career or accomplishments to show for anything, aside from being a mother.

I went to visit my grandparents today, which I haven’t done in two months. My grandma is notorious for spanking kids, she spanked me and all of my siblings, all of my nieces and nephews. I had convinced myself that if she ever attempted to do that to my son, that I would stand up to her.

We had only been to their house for 30 minutes at this point, my grandpa was giving my son drinks out of his cold water bottle, and eventually closed the lid and sat the bottle on a shelf out of reach, my son really wanted it so he started screaming. My son is almost 2.5, he has a pretty bad speech delay which is been in therapy for, for awhile now, so he doesn’t actively tell me what he wants, it’s all mainly gestures. I understand that a child (ESPECIALLY 2 years old) screaming is developmentally normal, fits and tantrums are normal, I don’t scream back at him or hit, usually I just tell him that I can’t understand what he’s wanting if he screams, and I ignore him till he stops so that I’m not reinforcing it.

not even 5 seconds after my son started screeching for the bottle, my grandma grabbed his arm to pull him closer, and spanked him, and I did nothing. I didn’t say or do anything. I was completely frozen and I do not know why. I wanted to say something so bad, I wanted to react and I just couldn’t. obviously she did not hit him hard, obviously I know that it did not hurt him, but the point is that I don’t know WHY anyone would be okay with swatting my child while I’m RIGHT there. she picked him up right after and held him, I reached for him and said “here let me take him” and she said “no that’s okay.”

I went to the bathroom and cried, I was shaking. my son was fine, he went back to playing within 5 minutes. But I can’t shake the feeling of being such a horrible fucking mom, WHY didn’t I do anything. why did I just sit there?? I love my grandma, I really do. They’re in their 80’s and my grandpa has been declining in health. I’ve never been a confrontational person, especially with family. My sister in law went off on my grandma for doing the same thing to my youngest nephew, and for years they didn’t get along.

My grandma talks about how when my mom was growing up in the late 60’s early 70’s, she’d run around with the neighborhood kids and it was just a common thing to be able to spank the neighbor kids if they misbehaved, same for the neighbors being able to spank my mom. I understand it was normal then, and I don’t label myself a gentle parent, but I fully believe different discipline styles work for different kids. I was spanked growing up and I didn’t need to be, only hearing “I’m disappointed” shattered my heart. my oldest sister on the other hand, spanking was genuinely the only way my mom could get her to understand anything (So she says)

My son is very sensitive, all I have to do is say something in a stern voice and he listens, obviously not when it comes to tantrums, but I understand those are normal. is it annoying? Yes. Do they make me appear like a permissive parent who has a misbehaved child if that’s all you see? Also yes. but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a developmentally normal part of childhood because they don’t understand how emotions work. if he had been doing something life threatening, or even if I had let her babysit, sure. but screeching as a toddler who is missing his nap time? Why the fuck would you hit my kid? even if it is normal for you??

Idk. I have spent this entire day thinking about what I should’ve done, I’m supposed to be my son’s biggest advocate and I couldn’t even stand up to my own grandmother for him.

I'm really just looking for a reputable platform that I haven't tried yet, and I've tried lots with little success. I'm a sahm so contract/freelance work with flexible hours is my main source of income, not tremendous amounts of money, but enough to pay a few bills and buy some necessities.

So far, I've registered with:

Telus International - zero projects, applications have been "Under review" for over a month

AfterQuery Experts - same as Telus, zero work, and applications remain under review.

DataAnnotation - passed initial onboarding, but the dashboard remains empty

Outlier - Zero projects or tasks, have been waiting for months

Alignerr - Same as Outlier, absolutely nothing

OneForma - still waiting on apps to be reviewed, but not looking too great lol

Handshake AI - I've successfully been working on a project since May, making roughly $350-400/week

CrowdGen - worked for them when they were just Appen from 2018-2019, the platform went downhill since then. The pay on the tasks offered are minimal, and very rarely even have projects available.

Mercor - zero projects, was rejected from a few roles as well

Turing - recently registered to them, waiting to see if I get any response from applications

I received an email saying that I successfully joined a specific project, I clicked the link to complete onboarding and it just takes me to my dashboard, which still shows no projects available, nothing. Nothing in my project history either. I received two emails pertaining to this specific project, I asked the AI chatbot about it on the dashboard which offered literally no help, I'm so confused and frustrated as to why I cant access this project that i was told im apart of.

I’ve been on HH evals since May of this year, and then was added to HH once I passed a certain assessment early last month. I keep seeing people having multiple projects, i understand it’s basically a “maybe you’ll get invited, maybe not, who knows!!” situation, but are there ways to increase my chances? (without having bachelors, advanced coding skills etc)

I don’t have any college degrees or coding experience which I feel is bringing my chances down. I do have extensive experience with image and video evaluation, transcription, multimodal training in general.

I (26 F) have lived with my fiance (25M) for a little over two years now, we have a two year old son as well. We got a really good deal on this house (which we now know why it was so cheap) for 60k (it’s a double wide with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bath)

our mortgage is $900 a month, light bill is usually around $300, if it’s SUPER hot or super cold, it can get up to $600, water bill almost always averages $50, WiFi is $30, phone bill is $180, my fiance also has had a loan out for a few years that costs him $120 a month on top of that.

Ive been a sahm since we’ve had our son, daycare prices are high enough that if I were to get a job, it would honestly only be paying for daycare and gas. My fiance makes $22/hr, 40 hour weeks (his employer pays straight up 40 hour weeks, regardless of hours worked, so even if he works 35 hours a week, he gets paid for 40) working blue collar.

In May, I began freelance work online and make $17/hr, but I only average about $300 maximum every week because working and taking care of toddler is so physically hard. I had originally told my fiancé that he can pay the bills, I can buy necessities, like toilet paper, paper towels, diapers, dog food & cat food, litter, trash bags, etc. and I’ve also been paying the wifi and water bill since they’re the smallest bills.

on average, I might have a few hundred left that I can freely spend, usually I’ll buy us a pizza, or I’ll buy my son a toy, lately I’ve been going to the thrift store in town and will buy vinyl records, as well as maybe every now and then buying a vintage life magazine (I collect them)

I recently bought a bissell vacuum mop because my vacuum shit the bed on me, and I hate mopping, so I just bought something that will do both and I was really excited about, my fiance got mad at me saying “if you have money to buy a brand new vacuum then you should be paying half the bills like you said you’d do“ which I never said I would do 🫩

in my personal opinion, paying half the bills would be reasonable if half the household responsibilities were also split, but they’re not. I’m the only one who cooks, cleans, IM the one who push mows our yard (yard was too wet for a riding mower so he let it grow out for over a month and said he refused to push mow instead) but we have 2 acres and I’ve dealt with tachycardia since I had my son so obv it’s done pretty half assed. I begged him to build a shoe rack and he didn’t, so I built the shoe rack myself. everything chore wise is always done by me. I make appointments and take my son to them.

i always buy stuff for my fiance when I go the thrift store that I know he’ll like, and the only situation where I buy something semi “expensive” is when it has to do with cleaning, or cooking that will generally make my life easier.

I can’t tell if I’m being an asshole about it or not, I just don’t feel like it’s reasonable for me to pay half the bills when I’m the only one actually doing things around the house.

to preface, this is for my father in law. He has chain smoked Marlboro reds since he was 14, and he said he really wants to quit and switch to vaping to help, but there is only ONE kind of vape that he says he can even tolerate or like because it looks just like a cigarette.

He has been to jail several times and prison twice, he said the ONLY vape he liked was what they had in jail, he told me they were cigarette sized, disposable, colored like a cigarette as well and that the ends of them lit up blue (I think that’s what he said)

he said they looked very close to what a Marlboro looks like, he said they had three flavors and that was it, but that he has looked the depths of the internet and has never found them.

I have absolutely zero musical knowledge, I’m 26, I grew up homeschooled so I never had opportunities to take music classes, and my parents were too poor to get me into lessons or even buy instruments, I did have an organ that was passed down from my great grandma, (lowery genie 300 TG-88H) it had a broken pedal, hadnt been tuned for since the 80’s, I taught myself a few songs when I was little like Mary had a little lamb, yanky doodle, etc. 3 years ago I found a vintage fischer piano for free on fb marketplace, severely out of tune but I love the sound of out of tune pianos, I’ve taught myself several songs like Fur Elise, the entertainer, wherever I may roam, for the damaged coda, and even several riffs, but it’s always been memorizing the keys for the specific songs and after playing for so long, I’m very good at using both hands. (though the technique would probably send a professional player into the grave)I have since got a harmonica and learned basic songs like piano man (ironic) and cowpoke, a kalimba that I’ve taught myself a lot of songs on as well. I’ve wanted a banjo for years now but I’m worried that being a string instrument, it just wouldn’t click in the same way as the others ive learned, my brother used to play guitar a bit so I borrowed his when I was around 13 because in my mind, I’d become amazing at it in like 3 days and get rly famous and rich (I watched the Hannah Montana movie so.. yeah..) but i spent like 2 hours trying to figure out the chords and got mad that I wasn’t instantly good at it so I gave it back. is the banjo something I can just learn songs by memorizing hand placements the same way I do with the piano or kalimba? i hope to someday have enough knowledge and experience to play a funny little bluegrass lick so I can annoy my fiance

Im 26, F, I used to sleep SO lightly, I had my first baby in 2024 and I would wake up even at the sound of him moving a tiny bit, when I was younger and lived at my parents, we would get in trouble for oversleeping so I was very good at waking up.

fast forward to now and I cannot wake up from alarms, I’ve tried so many, I even got to the point where I would set my phone RIGHT next to my face for the alarm, I bought the old classic alarms, I got the watches that shock you awake. I don’t wake up for my son crying, and I genuinely do not know what to do, I go to bed at the same time every night (around 11pm) because I work an online contract job, k cannot go to bed early. I take vitamins, I drink plenty of water, I get 10k steps a day. I just don’t know what to do :/

my son is 2 years old, he used to be SO good with eating, and would take any medicine. the last two months have been so, so rough. He refuses to eat anything that isn’t crunchy, solid, or bread, he refuses anything that is cold, wet, chunky etc. he refuses to eat ALL fruits and veggies, I’ve tried smoothies too and it didn’t work. within the last week, he also refuses any medicine, I’ve tried adding it to milk, I’ve tried adding it to bread, I’ve tried gently offering, he has a cold right now and his pediatrician told me to give him this medicine, and I literally cannot get him to take it. do any of you have any tips or tricks?