u/gargoyleinargyle

Went out to dinner with a bunch of old college friends from college last night and realized that out of the larger group of 10 or so friends I had, 5 of us had gone into education after college (art teacher, three grade school teachers, and two high school teachers) and the last of us left the field during Covid.

We all graduated between 06-08 and most of us had left teaching by 2014. I was thinking about my son’s school and found out last year that the only teacher who I would guess is my age was leaving education entirely to go work a sales job for an educational SaaS company.

All the Gen Xer older teachers I worked with while teaching stayed (the pension was pretty good for when they entered the profession) and the Boomers all retired. Couldn’t speak to the younger teachers in my old district since I tapped out after 3 years but at my son’s school, most teachers seem to either be Gen X or recent college grads.

I don’t know if it’s where everyone ended up living in the 2010s that did it (Bay Area California and Massachusetts, which are both obviously HCOL areas where tech salaries ended up impacting the housing economy, etc.) and Covid did drive the very last one of us to throw in towel. Curious to know if any elder millennials are actually still in the field or if we all left for greener pastures?

Sometimes I wonder how much of being an INTP is just trauma from being neglected as a kid vs. my actual personality. The internal, passive, and somewhat fractured quality people who test as INTPs might have seems kind of in line with children of neglect.

Especially since it’s a rarer personality type among women, I’ve been curious whether it’s more of a nurture vs. nature thing. Seems to make sense that I’ve ended up so introverted, have a tendency to get stuck in that Ti-Si loop, and have had a kind of closed off, stoic approach to live since childhood because of how I was treated.

Was anyone else childhood full of straight up neglect like, say, your parents leaving you home alone for 8 hours every day during the summer at 8 years old, having to fend for yourself with meals, laundry, etc. from a very young age, a distinct lack of affection from your parents, lack of attention in general or even some physical abuse?

Wrote a long post but Reddit glitched (probably for the best.) The gist of it was that I was an accidental baby of the family, mostly made to fend for myself growing up, and my older siblings got the lion’s share of parental attention, a pattern that extended through our adulthoods, with my sister and her large family in particular taking up a lot of their attention, a lot of it being childcare related while the pattern of me being ignored or an afterthought seemed to be continued and I watched as my own (elementary aged) child was mostly ignored by my parents. Childcare or invites over for dinner, etc. was rarely provided to my son due to conflicts where my SAHM of a sister needed assistance with her youngest as her two oldest daughters did high intensity travel sports and any attempts I made at fostering a connection also didn’t work out, usually due to “scheduling” issues.

Surprise surprise, my sister’s youngest is now 14, my parents are starting to have health problems, I’ve moved 2 hours away and suddenly my sister is less available to my parents. I luckily do have an older brother who lives nearby who is handling some things but he has a legitimately busy career and his own children including an elementary aged kid. My sister, who was a SAHM for 22 years (yet still needed daily help from my parents who retired early while those of us who worked got very little help) has gotten a job and has stopped doing things like hosting Father’s Day brunches or parental birthday dinners, in addition to suddenly not being able to help with medical appts, etc. My hope/assumption had always been that because she took up all of their attention, she would eventually reciprocate which is why I didn’t lose sleep over moving for this job opportunity a few years ago. My parents are clearly getting lonely, lonely enough that they’ve started reaching out to me more and guilt tripping me about not spending time with them, something they’ve never done in my 41 years. Our relationship has always been like this and they’ve never been caring towards me previously, but seem to expect more than what they invested in me now and even made me feel rejected on a few occasions when I tried to deepen our relationship previously.

How would you handle all of this and what would feel “fair”? I already have a therapist who has been helping me work through all the feelings of neglect, lack of connection with my parents, and all the anger/hurt for the numerous disappointments I experienced every time I tried to extend an olive branch myself.

We’re dealing with my husband having lost his job and I don’t have financial resources to move back to the area or to pay for someone to assist them when it comes to the medical care aspect. I could probably swing visiting a little more for daytrips but don’t necessarily feel inclined to do so.

I had so much trouble losing weight on the shot after hitting a wall for nearly 4 months (on it for over a year), even at the maximum dose, even when being diligent about my shot days. All I got were the side effects.

Switched to the pill mainly because I knew the side effects for me were exacerbated by hormonal shifts during my monthly cycle (I’d vomit, without fail, the day following shot day if it fell during my period) and I thought the pill would be more consistent.

I’ve lost 8 pounds since starting the 25mg dose last month and my usually overactive inflammation/histamine responses are so much improved that I noticed I haven’t even had my usual spring pollen freakout where I spend a week with with pink eyes swollen shut and constant stuffy noses. When I started the first doses at 4 (since I was on 2.7 already), I felt queasy for a day and threw up once and that was it.

I was nervous because I had read only middling experiences about when I first went on it, but it’s been so much better than the shot for me.

Thinking ahead a year and trying to emotionally prepare our son as well. Currently, for a myriad of reasons I won’t get into, my son attends a nice private school for elementary. We managed to buy in a really nice school district after he was already established at the school so we expect he’ll have a solid middle and high school experience.

His current private school goes until 6th, but all the elementary schools in our district are K-5s and the middle school starts in 6th grade. So part of the consideration is wanting him to have the chance to start middle with the rest of his classmates without being “the new kid” in 7th grade once all the social groups have formed (I know some will have formed in elementary and might just continue, but I know that first year of middle school can be a big shakeup.)

There is certainly the financial aspect as well. We’re doing OK and get some grandparent help for tuition but we’re definitely middle-middle class and the differences between our families and they other families are becoming much more obvious to my son. There are also so many expensive extra fees for lunch, lessons and clubs that we can’t afford out of pocket that are “add ons” that we didn’t anticipate when we first sent him. His classmates also share a lot about their families vacations, etc. and I know he feels a little like his experiences are “lesser.”

If he stays through 6th, I also know he’ll be surrounded by classmates who will be staying together and going off to private schools we absolutely can’t afford - some of them are twice the tuition we’re currently paying. So part of this is also wanting to spare him that experience.

Ideally, I’d give him the choice, but I also think I am leaning strongly enough towards having him start 6th at the public school that I’ll take his thoughts under consideration, but ultimately don’t want to leave it 100% up to him, especially since there are very real, adult, financial factors to consider - it would be great to save several thousand dollars and put that in his college fund. I want to also tell him early enough that it doesn’t feel like we sprung it on him.

Curious what you would do in this situation or if anyone else has had a similar experience?

We’re in the midst of an unseasonable heatwave and our kids are under 10. Today’s practice was canceled but the coaches are asking us to go to this one coach’s private home for a “strategy” session.

I don’t know this coach very well and I have some qualms - the first being that this seems unnecessary in the middle of a heatwave. Like many ADHD families, we do sports to get energy out, not to sit in a classroom atmosphere in the evening after his meds have worn off. It won’t really work out as desired and this coach is also extremely strict, often expecting developmentally inappropriate things from kids (ie, no discussing anything but the sport while on the bench waiting to sub in at a game when they were 8.) There has already been some “disciplining” of my kid I’ve disagreed with - like being made to run laps for not hearing instructions on an extremely windy day.

I’m feeling really anxious about their expectations for my kid at their house because there’s no way they’re going to sit quietly for an hour while they get lectured on strategy.

Am I being unreasonable? I also prefer to know people fairly well before my kid goes over to their house, I have no idea if this person will have functional A/C on a 95 degree day, whether they have animals (whole family is severely allergic), whether the family has items that would make me uncomfortable in the house, etc. I don’t want to bombard them with questions and seem high maintenance but at the root - is this even a reasonable expectation for a kids sports team?

This is one of those all volunteer parents, sub $200 leagues, not one of those crazy $1200+ travel leagues.

What would you do? Keep the kid home or send them to the coach’s house? A parent would stay if we decide to go (which is a whole other thing - I’m exhausted from a long week plus weekend of work and have absolutely zero interest in socializing tonight with the other parents - but I’d do it if I had to.)