Amelia Bedelia taught me something
I have been reading Amelia Bedelia (the newer books where she is a kid) to my child, and it made me come to a realization that made me embarrassed, but was interesting because I don't think I as a grown-ass adult had taken anything useful away from the kids books up to now.
In these new books, she says "whenever she didn't know what to say, she asked a question".
I literally never did that as a child, nor as an adult. I would ask a question if I had one, but I never searched for questions as a way to continue a conversation, which feels like such a basic skill now that I hear it out loud but I have been totally clueless. I always had a hard time figuring out how to be a human around other humans, and had no friends for most of my childhood. I fake human interaction well enough as an adult that I have managed to make friends, but I have been catching myself actually saying this advice to myself in my head when I want to talk to someone. It is great and embarrassingly obvious advice now that I hear it, and I hope my daughter ends up more socially well-adjusted than I was. It is the thing I hope for her the most.
Maybe this isn't a conspiracy but this is the only subreddit I know about where adults talk about the shit being pedaled to kids, so here's my two cents.