Gaashk
1hr ago
Having taken a lot of art classes at lower level institutions, then are generally quite good!
They are not intellectual pursuits, not academia, and that is related to why they are good. Some that especially stood out include a wood fire ceramic program, which works with the forestry program to turn diseased trees and bricks into lovely pottery, printmaking programs, with metal plates, acid dyes, and generally nice and interesting old fashioned printing processes, and an art in the dark Northern Renaissance art history course. They're about the same level of rigor as things like biology for nursing, about median for the not very rigorous institutions they belong to. They also cost less than taking a community art course, something like $100 - $1,000 per semester, depending on the specific institution.
Gaashk
21hr ago
Oh, interesting. Americans don't have mallet valets, they hire out services, so maybe that's why I haven't heart it.
Gaashk
21hr ago
New Mexico has been phasing in welfare for all over the past decade or so, so that perfectly ordinary intact median income families qualify for pregnancy and children's medicaid, for instance. As of last year, all state inspected childcare and pre-K is also state funded. So it's basically normal public school, except with some Head Start appendages attached.
Gaashk
1d ago
I was living on the South Side, and kept going to places like the DMV, or the grocery store, or some cool little fried shrimp place on a bridge, or a nature preserve, and my father in law kept giving me startling strong opinions about the places I had to drive through to get to them.
Gaashk
1d ago
I'm sorry to hear that! There are occasionally people murdering each other in my area (village/exurb), but only if they get involved in some kind of family feud, or possibly drugs. Drugs are bad in general, but the entire Southwest has bad cartel activity and car thieves.
Gaashk
1d ago
My daughter (7) wants to do chores for money. I have been putting it off, because I don't want to commit myself to something that I will later regret. Has anyone else offered paid chores? Any suggestions about it? For reference, I am an extremely bad housekeeper with a toddler at home, so everything just keeps getting messy again immediately, and I have turned down her suggestion that she could clean up a space whenever it seems messy, since that's basicially immediately after tidying.
I would almost rather pay her to do slow concentration tasks, like crafts and reading, since that is what I actually want her to start doing more of. An artist I talked to, for instance, said she paid her daughter to read books like Harry Potter aloud while she painted.
Gaashk
1d ago
How can I? My work schedule completely overlaps with her school schedule. Should I send an invitation card? I don't want people to think it's an event, though.
Gaashk
1d ago
It's not completely random that Breaking Bad took place there, I will be very concerned and possibly move if my kids seem interested in drugs.
Gaashk
1d ago
Maybe that is the answer.
On Substack, especially, people choose to write about things they want to put several hours into thinking about at one go, so I write about art, but not about parenting or socializing, because my deficiencies are practical, not intellectual. I know what to do, just sometimes I'm frustrated depressed about it.
Gaashk
1d ago
It appears to be part of the program design, AI search says they have 90 hours (!) of contract time devoted to this kind of thing, and ten children, so I guess she can put up to nine hours into trying to connect with me this year.
Gaashk
1d ago
Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard it about parts of Chicago as well, and in both places, I don't drive with the windows down or leave my car for large stretches of time or walk alone, and so on.
Gaashk
1d ago
Is choosing a private program for pre-K not an option for you?
No, not really.
For context, I live in New Mexico, which is full of poor people and oil revenue. I had forgotten until I looked it up just now that it produces more than four times as much oil as Alaska, though still half as much as Texas. Unlike Alaska, which gives people money directly, New Mexico invests in various forms of welfare for all, so median income families qualify for pregnancy and early childhood medicaid with no fuss (I was shocked, this is worth tens of thousands of dollars per baby, and I just uploaded a couple of forms, and in the cases of the babies, the hospital uploaded the forms for me). They have a bunch of nice hispanic American ladies (many from the days when the territory literally belonged to Spain) who run nice warm daycares. All the normal daycares are now state funded (with no copay as of a year or so ago), and they have the pre-K program as an optional add-on with more curriculum, or they'll instead pay for regular daycare for four year olds, whatever the individual place decides on doing, which has also been, in my experience, fine. Finding daycare for a 1 year old and a 4 year old at the same time and the same establishment is the main impediment, which has worked out surprisingly well.
This situation has resulted in having a third child, where in another state we probably wouldn't have. As a member of the lower middle class, I like it a lot. If someone institutes low fuss UBI, it will probably be here. And it's democratic without being all that progressive, on account of all the influential people who's parents or grandparents were ranchers, so in general I like it. Also, I didn't save for a house at all, or even think of owning a house, and then a nice local organization said that, yes, we can buy a house, and just led us through exactly how to do that, then sent a non-commissioned realtor who also got up on our roof to show us how to fix the swamp cooler and stuck his hand down the food processor to fish out some broken glass that was inside.
I was more caught off guard by being called up suddenly, out of the blue.
Gaashk
1d ago
I don't clearly remember how things went down with my previous child, but I think they suggested meeting at my house, I suggested meeting at the school, and she pretty much immediately agreed.
The program itself is voluntary, and my older daughter liked it, so I figured to do it again. They have a bit more curriculum than the regular preschool, which is also completely state funded and exists in the same building. I'm not sure how much more, actually, since the regular program is also run by a large national daycare chain and has official stations and activities. I think it's somewhat based on Head Start, which specialized in teaching poor children with parents who would give excuses about not having transportation to parent teacher conferences or something. I'm not sure about the welfare check side of things, I think it's illegal to enter a home under false pretenses, but maybe they do try to get more district resources by finding all the potential IEP kids or families who want extra services or something. The public pre-Ks here do turn some families away, but are explicitly required to accept all children with disabilities.
Perhaps I'll make the appointment. I was mostly put off by how she kept arguing with me about how extremely REQUIRED it was in an annoying and unwelcoming way, and the short notice.
Gaashk
1d ago
I read the public message from the state program, and it does indeed say there's a mandatory home visit, though I think in this teacher's case she was not delivering the news as intended, because the material goes on about cultural responsiveness and learning about the home culture of the child and building family connections and whatnot. She offered to have me talk to her "manager," whoever that is (she is the only licensed teacher, working in a daycare that is not like that), but I said to just send me an email for now while I consult about our schedule.
I could sort of imagine why it might be a thing, but, also, it is absolutely not culturally responsive to... American culture. And I am in America.
Gaashk
1d ago
Presumably you want your daughter in pre-k more than the teacher does. What's with the high pressure sales tactics?
I've already signed her up for the Pre-K program six months ago, and would be happy to bring her in without siblings to introduce her to the teacher. It's the local public school, not like the bespoke private ones that are trying to keep the riff-raff out, it seems to be based in some idea from the legislators that it's easier for parents and less intimidating for the child for the teacher to come to them, and with all the language around cultural responsiveness, I want to say that this is not my culture.
Haha, yeah, it sounds more like what a pastor would say about Jesus washing his disciples feet.
Gaashk
1d ago
She just turned seven, so I think it's the age where the protocol was for me to exchange numbers with her parents, they don't do things directly yet, but also I don't want to invite her and her parents, because that gets into awkward adults failing to get to know each other while their kids come over to have something solved every five minutes, which is probably why they also didn't.
Gaashk
1d ago
I guess that tracks with community in former Yugoslavia and the former USSR areas staying intact better.
Gaashk
2d ago
People on here have been commenting a lot about women not showing up for dates, which does sound frustrating, but apparently they're not showing up for each other either. I was reminded of this phenomenon by this Substack post, about women preparing home cooked meals for each other in their homes, then having people not show up last second. So my initial theory that maybe young women are scared of men from outside their social circle is not the main thing going on.
One woman described her bridal shower, where a friend's grandmother prepared an elaborate celebration, but 19 guests cancelled the day of. Only one showed up. The woman said it was embarrassing and dehumanizing.
What's going on?
I tried going to a local ACX meetup, and it was fine, but after six people initially wanted to do it, only two besides myself ended up coming. Meanwhile, my daughter's pre-K teacher has invited herself to my house. She called today, and went on about a "mandatory home visit", next week, with highly inflexible weekday hours. I did not like it. She said she was going to drop off paperwork and meet my daughter. I said that I would rather bring my daughter to pick up the paperwork. We fought about it. I was perhaps more prickly than is altogether advisable when speaking to a child's teacher. I tried researching how this could be considered an appropriate thing to, not offer, not ask, but mandate. Something, something, building trust, Head Start, maybe the norms of black Americans? Clearly, they have the wrong order of things. If I trust you, I will invite you over. If I don't trust you, I will want to meet at your office. Even social workers know this. Is this related to parents not actually coming to their appointments somehow? It's juxtaposed in literature withattendance, more than understanding.
Also, meanwhile, my older daughter hasn't been invited to anyone's house. We haven't managed to invite anyone to our house. It seems terribly fraught somehow. I mostly do things with one or occasionally two other families with a stay at home mom and a mom who works two mornings a week, respectively.
Also, just because I found it odd, here's Keturah complaining about a situation where someone invited her into the hostess's home, and Keturah came, and then they judged each other for their stance on shoes, that Keturah wanted to keep them on, and the hostess wanted her to take them off.
I liked the culture of Georgians (Kartveli) and Albanians that homes are sacred, guests are from God, and that guests and hosts have important mutual roles and responsibilities.
What's the sociology here? Why are Americans like this, despite seeming deeply unhappy about it?
Gaashk
2d ago
Should I send my kids to this weirdly intense Russian Orthodox camp? https://www.orprcamp.org (I probably won't, as we're not of Russian descent, but it looks intriguing)
Gaashk
3d ago
When I have pockets: cell phone in wallet case with ID and credit cards, small toys my children have left behind, wrapper, receipt. When I don't have pockets, I haven't been carrying a purse lately, so everything except the phone, which is in my hand, stays in the car.
My car has many and varied wonders within it, including a knife, I believe.
Gaashk
3d ago
Ah, yeah, I do think that women are still wildly outnumbered in geek subcultures, even though it's not so socially damaging as it was, mostly just what people are drawn to, I think.
I'm not sure about the political sloganeering. I don't much care for it, but also y husband and I often slide into complaining about culture war stuff from our respective message boards. My mom was always listening to conservative talk radio in the car as she drove us places (literal Rush Limbaugh), but I suppose it's a good sign if you offer your actual opinion, and she reciprocates without too much moral indignation? Almost my first conversation with my now husband was him criticizing the president of Georgia, who had made a program I joined and liked, and me being irritated about it, because I was grateful for the opportunity. I'm a bit confused by whatever current feminism is going around, but sometimes I read conversations here, or have encountered very conservative families, and have some sympathy. I'm not sure where the thoughtful centrist women are looking for men these days, unfortunately, but it seems like the where is probably the bigger question -- it doesn't seem to be on dating apps, and they're also concerned and frustrated about not having an obvious place to meet good men.
Gaashk
3d ago
I think it's important to teach the youth that knives are tools more than they're weapons, and alcohol is a social lubricant more than something to binge in private. I have a bunch of little (but very sharp!) knives in my elementary classroom I inherited from a previous teacher, and I don't let the kids use them very often, but I do want them to see adults using tools that require care to be safe. That's actually one of the art standards, learning how to use tools safely. I think it's a Scouting requirement as well.
It seems like an odd thing to focus on -- I thought that they were also the most likely children to grow into adults who are also a net drain?
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