u/s1dneys

I’ve had my car since February and recently it has started driving really rough, especially when I’m in the lower gears, it jumps, especially if I’m not careful with accelerating too fast. I know I’ve seen a lot of posts about transmission going bad in the mazda3. It only has 46,000 miles on it so it should be covered by the 60,000 mile powertrain warranty, but I was wondering if anyone else has had to deal with this and how getting it fixed went for them. TIA

I’m really struggling with something involving my little sister, and I honestly don't know what the right answer is.

My sister is almost 12 and was adopted by my parents at birth through a private open adoption. Her birth mom was addicted to meth at the time, was pregnant with my sister, and contacted my parents about adopting her because she was considering abortion otherwise. My parents adopted her, and they have always wanted her to know about her adoption and have a relationship with her birth mom. They have never wanted to erase that part of her life. But lately things have changed.

My sister has been contacting her birth mom a LOT more than my parents realize. She's doing it through a social media app that she's not even supposed to have, and apparently they're talking privately. When my parents ask about it, she won't tell them what they talk about or let them see the conversations.

And this is where I'm really torn. I don't think my parents should try to stop her from having a relationship with her birth mom. At all. She's allowed to love her. She's allowed to be curious about her. She's allowed to have complicated feelings about being adopted. And honestly, I'm terrified that if my parents try to take that relationship away from her, she'll resent them for it later. I've read enough about adoptees' experiences to know that adoptive parents trying to control or restrict access to biological family can cause some really deep wounds. I don't ever want my sister to grow up feeling like my parents made her choose between them and her birth family.

But at the same time... she's 12. She's having secret conversations with an adult through an account she's not supposed to have, and she refuses to tell her parents what they're talking about. Regardless of who that adult is, that makes me uncomfortable. And because this is her birth mom, I feel like everyone is afraid to set any boundaries because they don't want my sister to feel like they're taking her birth mom away from her. My parents aren't worried because they don't want her to know her birth mom. They are worried because they don't know what's being said, they don't know what is being shared, and they don't know why my sister feels like she has to hide it from them.

And I think that's the part that scares me the most.
I love my little sister more than I can really put into words. I also love my parents, and I know how much they love her. They've raised her for almost 12 years and have never treated her adoption as something she should be ashamed of or something she should forget.

But I also understand that they aren't her biological parents, and I don't want to dismiss the very real feelings she may have about that. So I'm stuck wondering: where is the line between respecting an adopted child's relationship with their birth parent and protecting that child as their parent? Should my parents be allowed to say, "You can absolutely talk to your birth mom, but you cannot have secret conversations with an adult that we're not aware of" Or is that likely to make her feel like they're trying to control her relationship with her birth mom and ultimately damage their relationship?

I would especially love to hear from adoptees who experienced something similar, particularly if you had contact with your birth parents while you were growing up. I don't want my parents to make the mistake of trying to "protect" my sister from her birth mom only to make her feel like they are keeping her from a part of herself. But I also don't think being adopted means a 12-year-old shouldn't have parental boundaries around private communication with adults.

I genuinely don't know what the right answer is.

For some background, I am 29 and my little sister is 11, almost 12. My parents decided to have another child at 40 via embryo adoption, which gave us my 12 year old little brother. A former classmate of my older brother (34) contacted my parents around the same time after hearing about my little brother, and asked my parents if they would adopt her baby, my little sister, who she was currently pregnant with. My little sisters birth mom was struggling with substance abuse and my parents put her through rehab and helped her get sober and healthy. They agreed to an open adoption and my sister gets to regularly see and contact her birth mom, who now has 2 more kids of her own since becoming sober. The issue I’m seeking guidance is I recently found out my little sister is in contact with her birth mom more than our parents know about and she is becoming disrespectful, telling our mom that she is not her real mom and that she doesn’t have to listen to her. I have never talked negatively about my little sister’s birth mom and would never jeopardize the relationship she has with her. I just feel stuck between a rock and hard place because I love my little sister so much and I want to support her in the best way I know how, but im not sure what that would look like in this scenario. I was just wondering if anyone can speak on similar experiences or help me understand how to best support my little sister? I just want her to be happy and healthy

I’ve been going to this gym off and on for five years. I recently started going heavily again and noticed that every time I go, there is a male staff member who will go into the women’s only section when I’m there. Seemingly he isn’t doing anything important in there as there are other women staff who do the cleaning, training, etc. today he approached me during my workout and asked me how long I’ve been coming and told me that he’d been watching me come in the past couple days and how hard I workout. He looked my body up and down and said something like “I can tell it’s working.” AIO if I report this behavior?? I am in no way shape or form flirty back and I try my best to not engage but I feel uncomfortable going to the gym and getting stared at and hit on by a staff member -_-