u/PinkCheekedGibbon

I got off a colleague zoom and it left me thinking about a clinical population I used to be so focused on that it was probably more than half the reason I became a therapist. I wanted to change things for them--to revise whole narratives and make people care and shine a gigantig search light on what the field was missing about this population.

And I struggled and wasn't effective and got utterly exhausted because I cared too much and people were way too invested in their extant ideas and way too insulted that someone so "new to the field" would have the audacity of speaking up about it.

So I shelved it, whole cloth. I focused on other things that I experienced success with: regulatory advocacy and board complaint support (client and therapist side), coalition building, practice mentoring and business/marketing support, helping grad students stay resilient and make strong choices, etc.

But then I look at the population on the shelf and the soft layer of dust sitting on top and I grieve: the changes I couldn't make, the relief I could usher in, the resonance I failed to find.

I don't know what to do with any of it, but I wonder if anyone else can relate. I'm a better clinician now, and have a depth of appreciation now whose absence probably *was* a sign of arrogance before. But still, the population I wanted to help change things for a decade ago still needs support, and I don't find myself taking it off the shelf and carefully blowing the dust away.

The passage on the school's website says a number of things about the elementry curriculum, including this:

I'm horrified. Are they going to talk about making women out of men with ribs, about covering with fig leaves, about the biological kingdoms coming in biblical order?

>The curriculum, for all 6 years, is built around the five great lessons given at the beginning of each year:

>Creation of earth

>Coming of plants and animals

>The arrival of humans

>The arrival of math and language

>Invention...

I can't. I mean, I'm not against religion but just like I don't want anchovies on my hot fudge sundae, nor do I want it in my daughter's classroom except when studying literature or cultural phenomena. It's not listed as a religious school and I feel worried that I'll miss this stuff hidden in a curriculum somewhere as I continue my school search.

How can you be both Montessori and Creationist?

It's all in the title. Daughter is coming with us for a weeklong cruise on the Quantum before she turns 3. We looked at pictures of the room and it looks very much more like a nursery - just toys on a mat and some rocking chairs for the adults. So...

Can an older toddler enjoy it in there? Is there opportunity for active play? Is there a potty that's tot sized for them or should we bring one for her?

So it’s not one of these but let’s say I had a Stacie, Marcie, Tracie, etc. He’s decided to use Staci, Marci, Traci, etc. He is very “European” (immigrated 70 years ago) and thinks the -ie is too American, not sophisticated enough. I don’t care a ton, except I don’t want the dissatisfaction he has in her name to rub off eventually, and if he goes as far as I expect he will with it, it could be a logistical nightmare later on. And I chose her name because I like it as is. We talked about it, no movement.

Thoughts?

Honestly it’s wrecking my budget, digestion, and body so I’m excited for the challenge.

Not asking for a rule clarification. I just live in Arizona and, with outdoor workouts in the summer, for sure need to supplement electrolytes. When not doing the 75 Hard, I use one that happens to also flavor my water, but for compliance, I want to switch to a capsule/tablet, or sugar free gummy, option. Prefer not the latter. Thanks all!

ETA: not sure where “event” came from in the title. I tried to just say “replacement.” My phone is evidently possessed.

Unlike many places, our district lets September–December birthday kids start kindergarten at either almost 5 or almost 6. We actually went to an early childhood consult about a completely different question, and they unexpectedly encouraged us to seriously consider early entry.

We're not trying to create some child prodigy speedrun through life. What sold me wasn't graduating earlier—it was everything that comes along the way.

Some of the advantages we've realized:

• She'd still play rec and club sports with kids her own age since those are birthdate-based, not grade-based.
• She gets access to school-year activities, summer camps, and enrichment programs that use grade as the entry point a full year sooner.
• Band, orchestra, strings, and other school opportunities start a year earlier.
• Lots of other grade-based enrichment opens up sooner.

Then there are the practical benefits.

Skipping that extra preschool/K year saves our family close to $30,000. That's not about pinching pennies—it gives us flexibility later. We'd feel much more comfortable encouraging a gap year, study abroad, a family sabbatical, or even simply taking extended time off if life ever called for it.

The biggest objection I hear is maturity.

But here's where my thinking shifted: if she ever genuinely seems to be struggling socially or emotionally, we can adjust our approach then. What we can't do is reclaim a year once we've intentionally delayed it.

And I don't really buy the argument that this means "rushing childhood."

School isn't the only place childhood happens.

She'll still have playgrounds, soft play, neighborhood adventures, gardening with us, travel, hobbies, museums, holidays, family traditions, and all the everyday magic that makes childhood special. If anything, not spending another year paying preschool tuition means we can afford more of those experiences.

I'm curious whether anyone else has found themselves leaning this direction. Most of the conversation online seems overwhelmingly pro-redshirting, so I'd love to hear from families who intentionally chose the opposite and how it played out.

Our school district’s early childhood specialist brought up something today that I honestly hadn’t considered much: early entrance to kindergarten.

My daughter has a late fall birthday, and in our district, children born Sept-Dec can either start kindergarten at 4 (with an evaluation for academic readiness and emotional maturity) or wait until they’re almost 6.

It caught me off guard because everywhere I look online, the conversation is almost entirely about redshirting.

I can absolutely see the arguments for waiting. At the same time, I’m also seeing some potential upsides if she truly is ready: earlier access to grade-based camps and activities, more flexibility later if we wanted to travel, homeschool, or spend a year abroad, and she’d still be able to participate in sports with kids her own age. It also feels like it preserves options rather than automatically delaying everything by a year. (The financial savings are nice too, but I’m not focused there.)

I’m not looking to debate whether redshirting is good or bad. I feel like I’ve already heard that perspective many times.

Instead, I’d really love to hear from parents who didn’t redshirt, or whose child qualified for early entrance, and are glad they made that choice. What made it successful? Is there anything you’d encourage us to pay close attention to as we consider our options?

My daughter is 2 years, 8 months, and I’m realizing we may have accidentally potty trained her to the timer instead of to her body.

She stays fairly dry at school (about two accidents a week), but with her teachers’ support we recently stopped prompting as much to see what would happen. It turns out that if no one reminds her, she usually pees her pants. She also doesn’t seem to mind wet underwear much.

Looking back, I think the combination of scheduled potty trips at school and lots of pull-up time at home made it harder for her to connect with her body’s signals. She knows how to use the potty, cooperates happily when asked, and is really proud when she goes. She just rarely initiates. In the past month she’s only gone completely on her own once, and only occasionally tells us she has to go before it’s too late.

We need her potty trained by age 3 for school, but I’d also love for her to gain that independence because she seems so proud when she succeeds.

Has anyone had a timer-dependent toddler like this? What helped them start recognizing the urge and initiating on their own?

A woman asked if my embryos could become hers. I held them for three years, checked in about every six months, and didn’t pursue other potential recipients because she consistently said she was committed.

Along with a handful of smaller concerns, the arrangement ultimately fell through (I unfortunately closed it, much to her dismay). One sticking point was that she declined to reimburse the embryo storage costs I’d been paying specifically to hold them for her while we waited.

During those three years, she repeatedly postponed the transfer to prepare her body. She told me she planned to carry herself, was a good candidate, and even shared that her uterine lining looked great.

A few months later, I saw that she’s now looking for embryos again and says she already has a surrogate lined up.

I know finances, medical recommendations, and fertility journeys can all change. But I’m struggling to make sense of the sequence of events. Does this sound like a fairly typical progression, or is there something I’m missing?

Open donation was a huge, proactive part of our family’s plans with IVF, so we could offer more connections to our solo kiddo, but especially, to extend the opportunity forward for other families (at least one) to have their baby/babies and build their families (in open donor relationship) as well, so this has been a hard hurdle.

PS: I know there are things I’d do differently today (contracts, attorneys earlier, etc.). I’m really hoping to stay focused on understanding the timeline rather than relitigating my process. Thanks from a surprised, sad, but still hopeful donor.

I’m a solo mom with an only child, and I’m planning my daughter’s 3rd birthday. I’ve noticed that every little friend comes with mom, dad, siblings from newborn to middle school, and sometimes even a grandparent or two.

Maybe this is just the norm now, but it honestly makes us feel like outsiders at our own party…and it skews the budget for scale and not special extras. Instead of celebrating with my daughter’s friends + a parent each, I’m suddenly hosting entire families and planning for everyone’s meals, seating, and safety.

I’m considering putting, “Due to limited space, we’re limited to hosting kiddos who know the birthday girl, plus one grown-up per child,” on the invitation, but I worry it’ll come across as rude.

Is the Party of Five RSVP just standard these days and I need to budget for it? Or if not, how would you word that boundary on an invitation?

Thanks all! I know this can be a tender topic. We just want a great experience for our family and attendees!

I reconnected with someone who had called herself my mentor when I was younger. She’d really given the impression I was special to her through years of engagement and language that explicitly conveyed it.

Over the next couple of decades, I built exactly the kind of life I thought she’d be excited to see. I genuinely expected the reunion to feel warm and joyful. Not over the top, just, “Look at you. I’ve wondered how you turned out.”

Instead, she was oddly distant and withholding. Polite, but emotionally flat. It was perplexing and made me question my own memories and perception of the relationship.

I guess I expected that archetypal mentor reunion we see in the media: warmth, shared celebration of a lives of meaning, and mutual pride.

Nothing. I mean, she was proud of her own life but…

Has anyone else experienced this? Did you ever figure out what happened, or did you just make peace with the disconnect?

I have an oddly specific question, and I wonder if anyone else has experienced something similar.

When I was a teenager, there was an educator who I believed saw something unique in me. She used the language of mentoring, invested what I perceived to be a great deal of time in me over several years, and wrote about me in ways that profoundly shaped how I saw myself. I carried that with me for decades.

Over the years, I built exactly the kind of life I thought would make that mentor smile. I found work that feels deeply aligned with who I am. I found my mission. I became someone who now mentors other people. In many ways, I grew into the person I hoped I would become.

But when we eventually reconnected, there was no sense of recognition. No “I’ve always wondered who you’d become.” No joy. No feeling of continuity. It wasn’t hostile. It was just… neutral. Vacant.

I’ve realized that what I’m grieving isn’t praise.

It’s never having had someone who witnessed the arc.
Someone who could say, “I remember the teenager you were, and I see the adult you’ve become.”

There’s something uniquely meaningful about being seen by someone who knew you before your life unfolded. Friends and colleagues can admire who you are now, but they can’t say, “I saw the seeds.”

And now I’m left wondering whether I ever really had the mentor I thought I did, or whether I carried meaning that wasn’t mutual and a story that was only peripheral to them.

The strange thing is that I’ve become the kind of mentor I wish I’d had. I genuinely delight in seeing people grow. I tell them what I notice. I try to be explicit when I see something special in someone because I know how much those moments can matter.

But there’s still grief that no one ever did that for me in the way I had imagined.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Not necessarily being betrayed or treated badly, but realizing that a relationship you thought would someday come full circle…never did.

I struggle because I showed up for my part: I listened, revered them, took their guidance seriously, and reflected back their importance to me. And here I sit, holding the bag, feeling rather foolish.

How did you make peace with the missing witness to your own story?

I have an oddly specific question, and I wonder if anyone else has experienced something similar.

When I was a teenager, there was an educator who I believed saw something unique in me. She used the language of mentoring, invested what I perceived to be a great deal of time in me over several years, and wrote about me in ways that profoundly shaped how I saw myself. I carried that with me for decades.

Over the years, I built exactly the kind of life I thought would make that mentor smile. I found work that feels deeply aligned with who I am. I found my mission. I became someone who now mentors other people. In many ways, I grew into the person I hoped I would become.

But when we eventually reconnected, there was no sense of recognition. No “I’ve always wondered who you’d become.” No joy. No feeling of continuity. It wasn’t hostile. It was just… neutral. Vacant.

I’ve realized that what I’m grieving isn’t praise.

It’s never having had someone who witnessed the arc.
Someone who could say, “I remember the teenager you were, and I see the adult you’ve become.”

There’s something uniquely meaningful about being seen by someone who knew you before your life unfolded. Friends and colleagues can admire who you are now, but they can’t say, “I saw the seeds.”

And now I’m left wondering whether I ever really had the mentor I thought I did, or whether I carried meaning that wasn’t mutual and a story that was only peripheral to them.

The strange thing is that I’ve become the kind of mentor I wish I’d had. I genuinely delight in seeing people grow. I tell them what I notice. I try to be explicit when I see something special in someone because I know how much those moments can matter.

But there’s still grief that no one ever did that for me in the way I had imagined.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Not necessarily being betrayed or treated badly, but realizing that a relationship you thought would someday come full circle…never did.

I struggle because I showed up for my part: I listened, revered them, took their guidance seriously, and reflected back their importance to me. And here I sit, holding the bag, feeling rather foolish.

How did you make peace with the missing witness to your own story?

Today I realized I was drinking iced tea out of a Bluey cup during a therapy session. My client immediately spotted Bluey and Bingo dressed as the grannies. 😂

It got me thinking about all the little ways toddlers quietly take over your life.

Breakfast is often leftover eggs and the crusts from someone else’s lunch. I occasionally sit on a tiny potty seat in the middle of the night because I forgot it was there. I automatically leave 10 to 20 extra minutes before going anywhere because socks have become an unpredictable emotional event.

None of these are things I ever planned for, but somehow they’ve become completely normal.

What’s the most “I have a toddler” moment you’ve caught yourself having lately? And are your tender feet surviving the sea of stray toy parts?

I'm curious whether I've completely missed a shift in playground etiquette.

Today my 2½-year-old was standing in one of the splash pad circles playing with the fountains when an older, much larger girl came running around a corner without looking and plowed into her. My daughter briefly went airborne before hitting the concrete and ended up with abrasions and a very frightened cry.

As I picked her up, I calmly said to the other child, "You hurt a child who is smaller than you. Please be careful and play safer."

That was the entirety of my interaction, and I scooped my girl up and went to sit with and soothe her.

While my daughter was still crying in my arms, the other girl's mom came over to tell me I should never have spoken to her daughter. Instead, I should have found her and let her handle it. Two other moms agreed (their over-the-top behavior is another story, but I won't derail myself...).

I was honestly stunned.

To me, there's a difference between disciplining someone else's child and briefly addressing an immediate safety issue in a shared public space. I wasn't assigning consequences or trying to parent her. I was simply naming what had happened and asking her to play more carefully.

I also want my daughter to grow up knowing that if someone hurts her, I'll notice, I'll protect her, and I won't pretend nothing happened. That matters to me.

Have I completely missed a social norm here? Is it really expected now that adults never speak directly to another child, even after they've just hurt yours, and even if only to reflect impact and ask them to stop?