Judgement is only partially the problem. You are never as full of yourself as a parental figure as before you become one. Neglectful parents should be held accountable, that is not the core of the issue.

What bothers me immensely is the thought that “your kid, not my problem, but actually it is my problem, because I want them to behave differently”. This is like eating your cake and have it too.

The other thing that I find awful is that just existing on the outside (for some families even inside) is so anxiety evoking because of all these judgements. Parents end up micromanaging their kids and berating them for minor things because they are so fucking scared that people will judge them or yell at them for not having a picture perfect child that you can overlook. Children are not allowed to show any childish behavior on the outside. And this is what bothers me so much. You have to constantly choose between supporting your kid and gentle (not neglectful) parenting where you don’t yell or hit and simply being on their side or trying to appeal to the scrutiny of the public eye because it wants perfect order and quiet.

When you go vacationing in a child friendly country (looking at you, Croatia) and you feel supported instead of frowned upon for the exact same behaviors of your kid, because they are just having fun and not destroying anything and just minding their own business while not perfectly sitting still, then you just understand how shitty it is to go every day feeling the cold stare of everyone around who wished children would just die out.

Neglectful parenting is worthy of judgement. What I take an issue with is that what you observed was a situation - it was a snapshot of a whole day, of a whole life that these people lead. Is the issue that they didn’t care, that they didn’t try to console the kid? How often did you, as an adult, get mad and calmed down after someone said “calm down”? Are you just bothered that they didn’t remove the kid from the situation for your convenience, as well as for their own embarrassment asap? There can be so many reasons why the kid screamed (didn’t get a piece of candy, didn’t get to throw over cans of beans - which you wohld also not like, probably and understandably -, was told to calm down, had a fight with a sibling, hurt themselves, couldn’t get a booger out), why the parents didn’t care (did they not care, did you see them after they had already tried to calm the kid down, talk to them, walk them through everything, do they try not to give more attention to something that was already talked about, or, god forbid, might they just be absolutely exhausted after the 5th tantrum with no reason in a row), why they didn’t leave (great idea to leave behind a full trolley with products for the workers to put back and go home with no groceries after having already spent time and energy to go to the store and have the shopping almost completed, also cool lesson for the kid that it can just yell long enough if they don’t like being somewhere so that they can leave. Works great in schools and hospitals too). But you saw that and decided the kid is feral and the parents are awful human beings that should have no right to a kid.

You both say that’s not your problem and they have to work it out, yet you are absolutely making it your problem and demand they work it out in a way that you find suiting.

I see so many people who think that if you are just loving and caring to a child and work them through their emotions and all they will be just reasoned to calm down. Man, this isn’t even how it works for adults, with developed brains. You guys don’t just expect too much of parents but also of kids. They cannot reason themselves out of these situations just as their arms are simply to short to wipe their own butts for the first three years.

And you might think you only judge the parents and not the kids, but the kids do feel your disdain. They feel your lack of compassion, understanding, and companionship. They learn so fast that the world is full of people who don’t like them. I’m not even going to start with the parents who are being judged no matter what they do. They are judged because their kid is their own person, that has a personality, and if that isn’t a pleasant personality, well fuck them. And if their kid is pleasant, then they have been too controlling and demanding and were too strict and helicoptered them into obedience.

If you, however, have friends or relatives that you know and see regularly and can make a more sophisticated guess on their parenting style, that might be another issue. Still a high horse to judge from, especially when you don’t have kids, but at least you have more than one point in time to make assumptions from.

Yes, I have a lot of anger for people who meet the most vulnerable parts of our society with hostility. I have an immense anger for people who don’t think these vulnerable people in the making have a place in society.

Congratulations on not being allowed to scream in public, ever. Did you good. Your parents had shitty standards and now you want to enforce these on other children so that they will also grow up and hate children. Great idea.

Then, politely, fuck off.

Children are a part of the society that you live in, whether you liked it or not. I don’t know who hurt you, but you were also a child once. You pooped your diapers, you cried, you misbehaved. How your parents have treated you when you did these things has a very direct effect on how you behave and think right now. My guess is they were shitty, it would explain your irrational anger and hatred towards kids.

Misbehaving in public is a necessary step to learning how to behave in the first place. It’s a learning by doing thing. You won’t get your child prepared to act kind, nice, and considerate with other people if you don’t let them meet other people. You cannot teach your kid how to behave on the outside at home. How is that not obvious to you? It is inconvenient, it is annoying, it is hard, and it has to be done so that we don’t have underdeveloped, immature, dysregulated asshole adults a generation’s time from now.

Parents are always obligated to watch for their kids and show them how to behave. This doesn’t mean they can, or should, control their every move, word, reaction, emotion, or behavior. If a 3 year old cries and it is uncomfortable for you, that’s your problem. It is not the child’s or the parent’s duty to shut them up with a gag ball ffs. It is their duty to help them resolve and guide them through their overwhelming emotions. So that they will grow up to be emotionally healthy adults.

Children have an innate need to play. They learn via playing. They learn via trying things out and touching them. They learn to walk and run by walking and running - and falling and failing. They also learn about the world from the world’s reaction. Being met with disdain for solely existing and breathing won’t help them to grow up to be adults with a lot of self worth.

You don’t get to decide who is part of the society and village you live in. You don’t get to cherry pick your neighbors.

You don’t want kids in your village go live in a cave.

It’s interesting you point that out. It seems it shows the grip of Reddit and Lemmy as well. Since I am not in the US I am not in touch with their regular news outlets and media. I’ve never seen the Dem shooter before. Somehow he wasn’t that talked about.

Bottom left is the Trump shooter, bottom right the alleged Kirk shooter. No clue who the upper left dude is

In my opinion, watching TV was a better experience and healthier and better, including for - but not limited to - children.

(I’ll preface this by saying I am referring to German TV, where you would get one break of commercial ads of 5-8 minutes within a show of 30 minutes, and two such breaks within a show of 60 minutes. I know in the US you get more, shorter commercial breaks. I think that makes the argument a bit stronger; however, I think it still applies to US TV as well.)

First off, you needed discipline. You want to watch that one show that airs at 3:10? You better be at home at 3:10 then. You had to make plans and keep this scheduled like an appointment, or plan to record it and program a VHS recorder.

Second, you also had to focus. No rewinding. If you miss it, you’ll have missed it. Stay focused. No phone scrolling, no attention span shortening, no second screen. You better focus your attention.

Third, you don’t binge watch. I love binge watching as much as the next person. But is it good for you? Cliffhangers are there for a reason. Having this excitement and thrill be resolved within seconds by starting the next episode takes away from the experience. Already knowing that you could just click on “play” any time you want takes something away from having to wait, waiting to know, thinking about it, imagining scenarios how something will play out in your head.

You get your daily or weekly dose of dopamine from this show, and that’s it. You don’t go on a bender. You are also automatically limiting your screen time. Especially for kids I think that is an important point. You can watch peppa pig endlessly on youtube, until you’re absolutely sick of it, or until your parents put an end to it. But if there is just one episode of pokemon a day, that’s it. You gotta wait until tomorrow. There’s nothing you can do.

Let’s even say you watch multiple shows in a row. Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Art Attack, Galileo, The Simpsons. Every show gives you something else. Another plot, other emotions, other characters. You have to follow different storylines or have some non-fiction program points. That’s more diverse than watching 5 hours of handmaid’s tale or breaking bad in a row.

And even ads. Ads allow you to zap. Allow you to release this thrill that we now do with scrolling. But it, again, is self limited - you better be back in time before the commercials end. Who of us has not had days where they spent more time looking at trailers and thumbnails on Netflix etc than they spend watching an actual movie or show.

I have to add that I absolutely love your point about isolation and watching alone. I will absolutely add this the next time I am arguing that TV was better for our brains, kids, health, and sociality.

I even feel like when people from the same household are watching the same show, they now prefer to watch it alone in their rooms at their own comfort and pace. How sad is that? Is it more comfortable? Yeah sure, maybe. But TV was more social. Having to be quiet for the sake of the others. Waiting to ask “wait what did he say I didn’t get it” until there is a good time and waiting to reply until there is a good time again. This is effort. This is socializing. This is community. Using quotes from the show you watched as inside jokes.

Man I really miss TV.

That’s true, there isn’t much sadness going around. It reminds me a bit of the reaction to the healthcare CEO shooting.

I remember the take that resonated with me the most was in a piece by Josh Johnson at that time. He first told a story about a friend named Marty that had died from disease. “Brian Thompson was a human being. He was a husband, a father. Ok. So was Marty.” It feels the same this time around.

It is sad that a person died. It is sad that kids are now left without a father. But you can simultaneously acknowledge that the person who has died has actively helped to create more people who lost their loved ones. And once you do that, it is hard to hold up the general sympathy.

It’s not my thing to celebrate the death of a person. No matter how evil. I cannot wholeheartedly yell out good riddance. But weighing one against the other, I can’t force a tear.

You live in Germany don’t you

Well, this is the worse scenario. If he goes down the “FASD route” it will be rather easy to debunk. An “increased risk” route will be much vaguer, more believable, and harder to disprove.

This might also go down the route of “if it wasn’t safe in the womb we should think twice about giving it to my baby who has a high fever” resulting in brain damage and death. (For the record: Fever is good, but high fever in babies is dangerous.)

This, then, adds up to “I didn’t give my baby tylenol when it had a fever, then it was hospitalized, they gave tylenol after all, now the kid has XYZ, it was the tylenol”.

Not really. A link doesn’t mean a necessary causation. It doesn’t have to be exclusively caused by tylenol. Skin cancer is linked to excessive sun exposure, but it can occur without it, and likewise, not everyone who is experiencing increased UV exposure gets skin cancer. Not every smoker gets lung cancer, not every lung cancer is caused by smoking (IIRC only 50% of lung cancer patients are smokers - it’s just that not 50% of people are smokers). But a certain risk factor increases the occurence of a disease.

I guess what you are thinking of would be comparable with FASD, a mother who has a child with fetal alcohol syndrome but never drank any alcohol during pregnancy would disprove the causation. My guess would be that this isn’t what they are going for but a vague “it increases the likelihood of the child developing autism”.

I do that too! But it depends on the repair. If I just fix a seam or a tiny hole in a shirt (you know, the ones that you need 2 stitches for) then it won’t stand out and look cool but just look out of place to me.

But I agree, in general visible mending is nicer and easier.

Honestly, I have no clue what thimbles are for. But I realized at some point this year that instead of using some hard surface to push my needle through assy material and/or hurt my finger pressing too much, I can just… Use a metal thing that sits on the right spot.

Also I know this sounds weird but go to a shop and try them on. It’s weird how much a good fit helps.

The cutting out would probably be the way to go. I mean you could flap it, so it stays connected to the right spot, maybe it’s time for you to be brave and risk it. Especially since you have a sewing machine! That means the seam can turn out quite nice when put back in place. Anyway, good luck and updates are appreciated!

Love the patches. The pockets seem rather big, so the problem is not that you aren’t getting anything in, but that you cannot comfortably put the needle from inside to the outside? And I guess it is too thick to go in and out with the same stitch? If this would somewhat work you could consider a thimble, I recently rediscovered that little metal thing and it saved me a couple of times. Gets you through thick layers as long as your needle is stable (or you’re willing to sacrifice 4-5 needles for a project).

Are the patches decorative or functional? If they are decorative (i.e. covering up imperfections) you would only need a couple of stitches to hold them in place, right? Or try another glue? If they are functional (i.e. covering up holes and necessary for integrity) you would need a more profound stitch. In that case, would you consider ripping the seam on the side of the pocket to open it up? That would allow you to have better access. Once you’re done you’d obviously have to sew the pocket back on.

The other alternative is to find a friend with a kid that has small hands and pay them in gummi bears for their labor.

I’m 33 and I have been doing minor repairs since I can remember. Sewing buttons on or holes shut. Or making tiny clothes for barbies, looked awful, but worked. There are special ways of hand stitches for different purposes, but in most cases it’s a trial and error approach that in 90% of cases won’t end in “error”. You’ll figure out what feels better (like one yarn or double yarn) very fast.

But only at age 32 I invested in a cheap seam ripper. It always seemed excessive since you can basically just use sharp little scissors for that. I was wrong. I fucking love my seam ripper and I use it as a scissor now. This is so satisfying I would never ever let anyone rip any seam open for me. That’s the orgasm of sewing.

Also, you might want to use a threading aid (edit: is it called a needle threader?). Some thread is just a bitch.

Little side note: when choosing a thread to repair, try to go muted. If you have a green piece of clothing and a light green, dark green, and grey thread, very likely the grey thread will be the least noticeable, unless the green is the same shade. If in doubt go darker. For white thread I recommend going off white - unless you have a lot of white clothes, most of white stuff is off white (i.e. not crisp paper white). Some people say 100% cotton thread breaks easier than blend or polyester. So far I haven’t had any bad experience with cotton threats though.

Hey, that’s the one I bought a while back! It was actually an accidental purchase because I wanted dull needles for darning but now I end up using these needles over my old ones. They are quite nice, have good sizes, and there is at least one darning needle!

Can you post a picture?

No, that’s not it. Often there is free shipping to begin with; sometimes there isn’t.

Sometimes the shipping costs to return the product are covered, sometimes they aren’t; but when they are covered, that still doesn’t reimburse the original shipping costs if it wasn’t free shipping [to me].

I bought patches via amazon a couple of weeks ago - from a German company - with shipping costs since they weren’t part of prime. I had to send everything back and pay for the return too, was absolutely a loss on my end but the quality was too shit to keep them. None of the shipping, neither to me nor back, was refunded.

When I buy directly from companies, be it DMC, Rosie Wool (RIP), Otto - when I pay for the shipping to me I have not been refunded the cost.

That, my friend, was the shower thought that followed the original shower thought

What shops are you referring to? Nothing I ever ordered refunded my delivery fee upon return. This includes but is not limited to Amazon, Ikea, Zalando, Otto, Roller, Kaufland, Lidl, Yarn Shops, DM, Mediamarkt.