work/life balance! I have visibility of more stressful responsibilities of colleagues a few rungs more senior and think I would very happily progress to a certain point but not beyond, and live my life without the trouble.

I came here to say this too! The other one that springs to mind is Threads. Nuclear conflict as opposed to ‘traditional’ warfare but very illustrative.

Yeah this is the thing, I really enjoy kids and I love my nieces/nephews to bits. However, the structural support seems so lacking for something that’s such a massive responsibility. Lacking for parents/families in general, but particularly mothers IMO. Unfortunately, I genuinely don’t think I’d be able to cope with everything all at once. e.g. I’m lucky to finally be able to afford housing for myself, let alone a child. And they wonder why young people aren’t having kids… 🤷‍♀️

it’s so unfair!!!

I suppose it probably seems strange to an outsider but in a country where it’s the norm for every school, it didn’t feel like that to me at all. I see it more as an equaliser? In a way I also kind of miss not having to decide what to wear every day.

Honestly, my main concern about school uniforms is that I think they ought to be standardised and subsidised, because the expense can sometimes be a problem.

Even if you take the morals/integrity out of it, I’d be so embarrassed to admit to even a trivial association with HP these days. God forbid 🥴

I’m British 🤷‍♀️ not saying it was the case everywhere but it was possible/within reach for a fair amount of people here, or at least one full time and one part time working parent.

see also: it used to be possible to support a family on one income

not to be pedantic but is this the uk? 👀 on the right it looks like there’s the grey back of a road sign. plus the houses, wheelie bins, the cracked concrete paving and red-purple tarmac all scream british to me

I looooved K’nex when I was a young girl, would recommend

Great summary! I’ve been watching Just Have A Think (aka Dave) for a while. Really enjoy his videos. IMO he’s got a good balance of optimism and pragmatism.

Whatever happened to ‘people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’?

that sounds very sensible, but really tough for you that not even the vaccine helps. for me (and for now) it’s not worsened my symptoms so it’s given me quite a bit of peace of mind to get a booster every ~six months. I do wish my otherwise healthy family/friends would consider getting regular boosters though, in the hopes of lowering the chances of this ticking time bomb. each time someone tells me on the phone they’ve got a ‘chest infection’ or ‘nasty cold’ etc. it just fills me with dread that they’ll end up in our boat. 😵‍💫

(I was completely fine after my first infection, it was the second one that got me)

I still have long covid symptoms 2.5 years later 😅 I don’t even think it’s even got better, it’s just the same symptoms being managed. it freaks me out that, with each passing day, there are probably more and more people falling victim to the same chronic pain and exhaustion that I’ve experienced, and potentially with no end in sight

😭😭😭

Even though I have a free student subscription, I uninstalled all Microsoft Office last month because the constant ‘do you want to use copilot???’ was infuriating.

I’m not American, and the only exposure to him that I had the misfortune of coming across was him saying that he’s anti-abortion, even for child victims of sexual abuse. It’s horrible enough to force a grown woman to carry a pregnancy against her will, but a little girl that’s been raped?? That’s indescribably heinous.

god forbid women have hobbies 🙄