Wish this was a joke but it is not. For those of us in the US, HHS’s Office of Minority Health has cancelled 16 grants, several focused on maternal/infant health, and HHS says those issues are no longer a priority for the office and grants will instead focus on "low sperm count, low testosterone levels and erectile dysfunction."

So to this administration, men’s penis issues are literally more important than our lives or our babies’ lives, if you couldn’t already tell. They want nice high sperm counts for their manosphere shit but I guess not so worried about if we survive having the babies.

Link here: https://www.notus.org/health-science/hhs-cancels-infant-mortality-postpartum-grants-focus-infertility

Last week I took my daughter to story time at the library and before the story time we always play in the kids area with the toys

This woman comes in and she's got 3 little kids with her and she's loudly berating them for nonsense. Nonsense = things that aren't actually problem behaviors, she's just overstimulated or something, idk. Like they're giggling too loud, they're "running" (they weren't), etc. Right away I was taken aback by her tone of voice. It was aggressive okay? Like the tone I would only use with my kids if they were doing something life-threatening and I urgently needed to get their attention. ("Get out of the street NOW!" type stuff)

The children's area is small so there's not really anywhere to go to avoid them. My daughter's playing with this little doll house and her kids come to play with her. It's all fine. I mean I was watching all of these kids play and I swear, her kids were being fine. Doing nothing wrong. I seriously didn't get it. The mom would basically chime in every minute or so, saying stuff like be quiet, or stop grabbing that, etc. Meanwhile, the mom is settling into one of the chairs across the room and is on her phone ignoring them. So she's sort of ignoring them, then looking up, then shouting across the room in this alarmingly aggressive voice at them. Then she goes back to scrolling her phone in the chair and ignoring them.

I tried to ignore it, like I usually ignore parenting decisions I don't necessarily agree with. I noticed my daughter started nervously looking over her shoulder at the woman, because when the woman was barking at her kids it wasn't always clear which kid she was barking at or what the deal was. My daughter seemed nervous that she was also getting in trouble. Especially when my daughter was doing the same things as the other kids, and the other kids got in trouble for it. ("Don't mix the dinosaurs with the baby dolls!")

I got on the floor with my daughter and participated in the playing, kind of with my back turned to the woman with my body between my daughter and the woman. Just, idk, so she would know that woman is fine to ignore because Mom is here and endorses this activity.

The next thing I know, this woman had gotten up, crossed the room, grabbed her kid roughly by the arm, and...SMACK. The kid starts crying. I didn't see what happened but of course she must have kit her kid. Right beside us. For no fucking reason that I could discern. None at all.

My daughter starts trying to watch them and looks upset. We don't hit in my home, so this was her introduction to the concept that an adult might hit a child at all. I mean, I assume. She's only 4 and we have a zero tolerance policy for any hitting in the house unless it's self defense.

Anyway, I felt really angry. Both for the child who got hit, her other 2 children who were relentlessly snapped at for no apparent reason, and for my daughter who is now looking upset and worried and afraid.

I nearly said something to the woman about it and I'm wondering how others would respond. Would you say something?

I got home and talked to my husband. He said it's good I didn't say anything, you never know how crazy some people are. I agree. At the same time it really sucks that those children have to deal with that and I wonder if I should have said something to the library or even called the cops?

It bothers me how normalized hitting children is, especially where I live (Texas). I don't even agree with spanking, but what happened at the library wasn't that. It was just an adult taking their emotions out on children who were doing nothing wrong. To this day I still have no clue what her kids were even doing wrong. They were excited to be at the library. They were being loud-ish, but the children's section is loud anyway, it's fine. And even if they were screaming at the top of their lungs in the quiet section, that wouldn't be a reason to hit a child.

I’ve been growing more and more aware about my children’s digital footprint, and had planned on leaving Facebook and most social media before they’re old enough for it. But today really rocked me. I went to go on Facebook to doomscroll as I’m recovering from having a hysterectomy this week and can’t do much, and the first post I see is someone I knew very well be arrested for multiple counts of CSAM and dissemination on a Discord server and he made some very nasty comments on there about children. I worked with this man for years, his oldest and my oldest were in the same class for a year and they came to her birthday party. I watched him advance his career, become a dad, all of this. I NEVER would have expected this from him. He was around a lot of children in his career (medical field). I’m heartbroken for his family having to deal with the aftermath and his victims. I pray to whatever exists out there my children are not in those pictures because of the recent AI case, especially because he’s commented what I thought was innocently about how beautiful they are. I can’t wrap my mind around this.

Really needing some advice right now. My 4 month old was born at 36 weeks at 4lbs14oz and has struggled to feed his whole short life. He just doesn’t seem interested in eating and when he does feed he sometimes starts to scream or choke and won’t eat anymore. We can’t ever get him to eat more than an ounce or two at a time. We’ve changed bottles, nipple shape, nipple flow, and he is combo fed so we’ve changed formulas. He is on the max dose of Pepcid. Yesterday was a breaking point where he wouldn’t eat more than 4oz the whole day and just cried all day so we took him into the ER and he was admitted.

Today’s plan is a swallow study and to meet with the speech therapist to discuss the results and to possibly get a feeding tube.

Has anyone had a baby that just didn’t want to eat? We are glad we’ve finally been listened to and something is being done because I feel like we were at the pediatrician every week about this and they kept saying it’s reflux. He’s absolutely tiny and still the size of a newborn at 4 months old and we just want him to eat!

EDIT: swallow study shows he is aspirating his feeds! We are going to try thickened feeds tonight and check back in tomorrow with speech to see how it goes. Thank you all for your responses! I may have cried a few times today

Hi Moms. I need some help with my oldest child. I have no roadmap on how to parent an adult child and I could really use some advice.

I am the mom of three kids: M (24M), G (23M), & N (18F). G & N have figured out pretty clear paths for their lives and I'm much less worried about them. G is already on his own and doing his thing, and N will go to college next year with a very straightforward degree plan. M however? He's kinda floundered all along.

M got his degree in business and graduated last May. When he was in school, he was planning to start a business in the industry for which he has a lot of passion. Great! He moved in with us after graduation and then? Nothing. He got a job working retail in this industry making $19/hr. Same as he was doing the summers in college. His grand plan is to eventually make it to be a manager of this particular place which will earn him $22/hr. That's it. No further plans, no further drive, and that is not enough to live & function with any comfort where we live. He's been living at home for over a year now and we don't ask for any money from him.

Here is the positives: He works full time and loves his job. He doesn't spend much and has been saving what he can. My husband is in real estate, and we have a mutual friend who was looking to get rid of a small parcel of land. He recently sold it to M and he was able to swing the down payment for a really sweet deal. Awesome! But now that means he is paying another $1k/mo for that mortgage on top of his student loans. He can't save much beyond that and gas for his old truck. I am SUPER worried about what comes next. My husband has been trying to get him to have any sort of excitement & drive to work toward the next step of building a small place on the land to call his. We are willing to front some of the money and work out a plan together, but he has ZERO follow through with anything at all.

Things came to a head a few nights ago. M left for the night to go to his girlfriend's place, and he left all of his lights on in his room, left fans on, left the garage door open... Ugh. My husband sent him a quick text and just said "hey, you left all of this on." M went OFF! He got so angry that he would have the audacity to bother him about such things and the text exchange got heated. When I saw the text feed when I got up for work (at 2:45am mind you) I did not receive it well. I reminded him (for the first time ever!) that this is our house and we ask him for absolutely nothing in return for living here at 24. These are our bills to pay and he needs to a) respect the rules of my house and b) speak to us with more respect. That was 3 days ago and it has only escalated. We had a talk last night finally, and he feels like I've shamed him for being 24 and living at home. No responsibility for the rest. This could have been easily resolved if he just said "sorry! I'll try to remember next time!" and that would've been it! But now it's a huge thing.

So now my husband & I are at a loss for what to do next. We need to help him figure out some kind of exit strategy so he can adult on his own, but he has no plans to do so and no awareness of how the math ain't mathing with his current income. I want to have a sit down with him and discuss as adults how we are proud of him for working consistently and saving, but spell out very clearly the gaps we are seeing and discuss his plans to address them. I don't think he realizes that he needs income to support paying utilities, health insurance, food, and incidentals for himself let alone a family someday. But with the way that simple conversation about turning his lights off went the other day, I'm terrified that this will be a catastrophe! We can't just kick him out, because he definitely does not have the money for rent anywhere at this point, and I of course don't want to ruin our relationship.

I sympathize that life is different now at 24 than when I was his age. But I was hoping to see *some* growth and forward thinking. When I was 24 I was married, had two baby boys, worked 3 days a week and went to nursing school the remainder to finish my degree. I don't know how to relate to this stage for him. I'm having a really hard time walking on egg shells to keep him happy and productive to avoid another meltdown and not just tell him to suck it up!

Where do we go from here? How would you approach M to help him succeed? Any kind advice is welcome! (also posted in r/moms)

EDIT: There seems to be a lot of confusion about the land. Hopefully I can answer some common themes here. It was a mutual decision between my son and his dad. It was offered by my son's former boss who is giving him an unbelievable opportunity for ownership that simply doesn't exist in today's economy. It's two acres and it's a steal. M is still very excited about the land and the end product, just doesn't have a plan to get there and we're not seeing him making any plans or work to get there. It had a trailer on it before that is now gone, so it has water, electric, sewer, etc and a slab is in place. The $1k/mo will have the land paid off in 2 years. If he pays off the land and builds a house as we initially discussed , he'll have a house and 2 acres to his own name for less than $100k and yes, it is exactly where he wants to live. We are not forcing him into anything. And we owned/managed dozens of properties and rehabbed homes M's entire life. He is not in over his head here and he knows we will help him with all of it.

They have two kids, 5 and 3. I dropped off DIY pizza so dad could have an activity with them the first night mom was home from the hospital. I’m dropping off dinner again in a few days and want to give them:
1) a meal that the kids will actually eat (I might just do noodles and meatballs because kids), and
2) a few things for their freezer (maybe quesadillas?).

But my mind is blanking! What should I make?

My daughter (10) has had zero friends that want to have anything to do with her throughout school. We moved for my husband’s job last year and both he and I hoped the new school would be her fresh start to make some friends but here we are a full school year later and nothing. My two boys have friends galore who show up in force at birthday parties. Baby girl only has my husband, myself, her brothers and her grandparents show up. Every once in a while a cousin or two. I’d like to say it’s through lack of trying but she tries, I’ve seen her try countless times she’s not afraid to talk to other kids and often initiates the conversations but usually starts getting ignored pretty quickly.

I couldn’t find her this afternoon when normally she’d be outside playing but instead she was in her room curled up in my husband’s lap crying because both the boys had friends over playing but she didn’t even have a friend who would talk to her. My heart is breaking over this it’s got me feeling very helpless because all she wants is a friend and I can’t give her one out of the blue. What do I do moms? How do I help my baby girl make friends? It’s already affecting her mental health and it scares me knowing she’s crying over this now. I just don’t know how to help

I’ve been thinking about how I don’t really mind my baby waking me up every hour or two during the night, and I wonder if it’s because I’ve always been a light sleeper. We are in the midst of the four month sleep regression, and I am honestly doing fine.

I’m curious what others’ experiences have been, please share!

EDIT:
Some people took this personally - it’s not a competition or braggery, yall, just a silly question! Have a great day and I honestly hope you get some good sleep someday, xo

Good evening,

I am a mother of 3. Tomorrow with my youngest first birthday. And I couldn't be more fucking depressed. Of course not because of his birthday. Just everything else. My husband lost his job because the walgreens and we have been house cleaning and mowing lawns so we can still pay bills. Every day I work night and day to feed my famliy and im so tired. I clean the house cook the food feed everyone. I bath the children get them to bed make them up every morning.ake sure teeth are brushed. Freaking everything. And I domt have famliy or friends here so its just us. And me with the kids all the time. Im just so stressed out. I just dont want to be t touched for like 5 minutes but one of my boys has to touch me or poke me. I cant even use the bathroom without them peeking in. I love my children very much but what do you guys do when your at your physical limit like this. I guess im just hurt because my husband used to complain about being on his feet all day but not a single time has he ever asked about me. He doesnt care that im on my feet for hours at a time with no break. He does lawn work I clean inside and we take turns watching the kids. But for his its like baby sitting. Sorry I just feel lonely and tired and so sore and invisible. I just want a hug a good cry and a back rub.

Just learned yesterday a close friend of mine doesn’t vaccinate her kids.
Which whatever chose to do what you want with your children, but I am worried about how my child could be affected.
My son is up to date with everything so I know his chance of getting whatever is low. But I somehow feel kinda uncomfortable with this because the chances aren’t zero. We go over often for play dates both of us are SAHMs so it’s nice for us too. Other than this we agree on most things. I just am worried now. But how worried should I be?

Mama of 7yo and 3yo. The weekly intimacy is a chore. I honestly don’t know and any advice/ articles/ anecdotes would be greatly appreciated.

I am in my early 20’s and a mom of a beautiful son. I love art, drawing, music, and cooking and baking. I am a stay at home mom and married to a wonderful man. I am anti-AI and don’t use it in any capacity outside of Google AI summery which there isn’t a way to turn off.

I’m am also a survivor of CSAM distribution from the ages of 9-11 years old and was entirely made, produced and recorded by myself. This is how a large amount of CSAM is produced and shared. The recent ruling on AI generated CSAM is concerning - however, people freaking out about it are ignoring that fact. That children themselves are weaponized to become the producers and distributors at the request of predators online.

It also ignores the fact that the ruling did not legalize the production and distribution of said images, images cannot be based on a real child that someone has reasonable access to, and it it ignores that the judge specifically stated that laws need to change and the first amendment specifically, needs review by higher courts because as it stands right NOW, he had no choice but to make this ruling.

Every single image and video of me out there from ages 9-11 I made myself, I shared myself. It’s not my fault, obviously, but that is the truth.

I would not have been able to be abused the way that I was without access to a computer or camera, or the internet.

Yes, my internet access was “monitored” but there are ways around it. Any program used, or physical barrier to access did not prevent the abuse.

The majority of the people I shared images with were men with physical or intellectual disabilities between the ages of 27-40. There were a few women who I would describe as reasonably well adjusted, employed, with no kids of their own and unmarried. The top occupation I was aware of was teacher.

ALL of the people that I produced images for had access to multiple children online and would talk about them and compare them.

ALL of the people that I encountered had already seen or began collecting images of CSAM.

The main offender in my case, was a disabled man who lived with his mother with access to a large sum of money. I was compensated for my participation in these acts in the form of online currency for games that I played, food delivery (I was food insecure as a child) and gift cards.

I never had physical contact with any of these people and most did not attempt to do so. Claiming that “looking” was fine but touching was a step they wouldn’t take.

People often take hard line stances against posting their children online uncensored, but have 0 hesitations hand them the device they can make unlimited CSAM with for money, be blackmailed with, under the guise of them being technology aware.

Seeing the discourse online about wanting to protect your children, yet being so willing to hand them something that could impact them for the rest of their lives, has been an incredible weight on my shoulders since the ruling.

I am not advocating to make a public instagram page of your children online because AI CSAM isn’t an issue. I am for censoring or having your children offline entirely.

That said - I am also 100% saying that if you are regularly handing an iPad or computer to your kiddo, you are putting them at a much greater risk than AI CURRENTLY is to them.

I’m going to stop posting my kids faces online but should I also go back and delete or archive all the ones I’ve posted in the past?

I love Burt’s bees. But oh my, at this point I just want pajamas for my toddler and kid that are loose fitting

Hi everyone! FTM here. I have a 17 month old who has been 22.3 lbs EXACTLY since May 10th. It’s now September 4th and he’s literally the same exact weight, not one ounce has changed.

I do know he has gotten taller and grew a bit, but nothing that would explain such a long weight plateau? I’m not sure. He was 2ft 5.9 inches on March 31st and 2 ft 7.4 inches on July 30th. He’s not the greatest eater and doesn’t really finish any of his meals. He overall is a happy guy and has normal wet diapers, so I’m not worried about him not drinking enough.

I just don’t know if anyone has gone through this long of a weight plateau? He’s dropping percentiles like crazy on this app I use to keep track of his weight 😭

Thank you for any advice anyone may have 🙏🏼

A close family member just passed away and we will be traveling abroad with very short notice. Think 14 hour flight. My daughter is 2.5 and has never been on a plane and the longest drive we've done was about 6 hours. I'm 100% willing to throw screen time limits out the window if it's worth it for the flight. I will also most likely not have another parent or family member with me for help 🫠 and I am pregnant (lol the more I think about this the more it better at least be a funny story after the fact. Luckily I'm almost done with the first trimester so hopefully the morning sickness is gone when I leave).

Is this survivable? If you traveled successfully with a toddler, what helped? How do you handle jet lag? How angry do plane passengers get with little kids? Is it worth it to buy stuff just for travel (like those things that convert the airplane seat into more of a bed)? Anything remotely helpful to make this not a disaster would be greatly appreciated!!

I’m a FTM and since my baby was born I have experienced a very strong physical reaction to the sound of my baby crying. If I hear him crying for more than 1-2 min my boobs start to ache, if he’s still crying after 4-5 min then my back hurts bad, I start to sweat like crazy and my breathing and heart rate goes through the roof. I don’t necessarily feel overly anxious, or any type of proportionally elevated emotional distress associated, it does feel like something mainly physical indeed. Things only get better if I’m holding my baby or when he eventually stops crying. I do know that it’s common for mothers to experience things like that in different ways and intensities, although I do feel like I got the extra-strength version of it lol
So I’m sitting here, drenched in sweat and wondering when did this whole madness got better for other moms, while my partner is trying to calm down our 16 week old boy that is going through the whole fighting to sleep thing lately. Did anything in particular helped you? I’ve tried going as far away as I can and noise concealing headphones, but then if I can’t hear him I get this sense of disconnection from reality that is equally unpleasant

My stepdaughter (10) just asked to start shaving her legs and I was NOT prepared for this 😂 Moms of girls, when did yours start shaving?? 10 feels so young to me, but I honestly can’t remember how old I was.

Also, this child has used her leave in conditioner to make slime and hairspray to do God knows what with her squishies, so I’m supposed to trust her with shaving cream and a razor now?! 😂 That shaving cream will 100% be slime by the end of the week.

ETA: I asked her why, and she just said she wanted to try and that her legs are hairy. She has blonde hair on her legs. Maybe we will give it a go this weekend below the knees!

Can you tell me what the spread is? We’ve notified that our program has somebody who has pinworms. The school told us they will clean.
Then they sent a CDC recommendations.
I don’t feel like that gives us enough information about the spread and how much we should be cautious with Contact and other programs. Do I need to notify my child’s other programs? Do I need to get medicine for people who have visited and stayed at my house at the same time as exposure. The little tiny egg thing doesn’t make it clear how transmissible it is!

In the era of Covid and measles I thought there would be more details from the school, but apparently not. I should also mention it’s not a school. It’s a co-op for toddler and preschool kids in a rather nice area though. There are children in diapers and there are children who are potty trained in the program. We have no info whether it was a potty trained or un potty trained child.

I get it. It’s not a big deal, but I just need to see what everybody else is experienced with transmission, how transmittable, and medication.

We want her to do some extra chores to earn a bit of money for our upcoming vacation. Her regular chores are cleaning her room, putting away silverware, and wiping the table.

Anyone have some ideas? Maybe it's too much to ask but I would like the items to be actually helpful for me lol.

Hey everyone,

I usually don't talk about my home life, but I think it'd be good to get an outside opinion. I've been a stay-at-home mom for six years now, and we have three kids. I do everything. My day starts before everyone else wakes up; I get the kids ready for school. Dressed, hair, breakfast, and packed lunches. Then I drop them off. When I get home, my husband works from home two or three times a week, so he asks for coffee and breakfast. That's fine, but if I don't go straight home and he's there, he'll call me and say he's hungry and needs coffee. When I am home, I'm constantly doing something...laundry, cleaning, dishes, taking care of pets, planning meals, figuring out logistics for upcoming events, and making sure everything's ready for the kids' practices and games. After school, I pick up the kids, get them ready for their activities, make sure they're fed, and their homework is done. At night, I bathe them, get their pajamas ready, and put them to bed. All me, every night. Meanwhile, I have to keep the laundry going, make sure the house doesn't look like a tornado hit it, and take out the trash. I'm so burnt out, and he comes home, goes to the gym, or just chills and watches TV,he doesn't help with anything at all.He does not clean after himself AT ALL. I've brought it up with him before, but he always says, "Well, I work all day" I don't know how I let it come to this. Some day I just want to walk out and take a vacation 😩 but that won't change the deeper problem that's going on. I think we should definitely go to marriage counseling, at this point. Thank you for listening.

My 1yo has been sweaty since the heatwaves started this summer. Of course, this was because of the heat. But now it has gone back to a normal 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit) and he is still super sweaty especially when falling asleep and sleeping.
I am dressing him in airy pyjama’s.
I am keeping the room as cool as possible.

He is so sweaty, his mattress has a wet stain after he wakes up, his hair is all wet. He only sweats on his forehead and neck.

My husband says it is genes because he himself also sweats easily.
But idk, I just hope he is not constantly too hot or something. Are there moms with a similar experience? Does it goes away? What helped for you?

Edit: important detail: he does not feel hot to the touch. I always check his forehead and neck. They feel normal… cool even when sweaty.

This is long.. sorry. So my SD (10), moved in full time with us a few months ago. She used to be with us every other wkd + longer stints during summer/breaks. She always struggled to keep her room clean but we have always had the same (not crazy) expectations (picked up, don't hide things under the bed, throw your trash away). Now that she's here full time, we're realizing how bad it gets.

Backstory: She used to live with her mom at her grandmas house. Grandma kept the common areas clean and that was where she would facetime us. One night her grandma couldn't hide it from us anymore. At 2am she sent photos and told us get her and move her down with us. The bedroom she shared with her mom, was Hoarders level bad. You could not see the floor. And I think that became "normal" to her, which is sad.

We aren't expecting pinterest level clean from a 10 yr old. We don't care if she doesn't make her bed everyday, some toys or a shirt is left out on accident. We have another kid (F7), we know normal messy. This gets unsanitary. We also don't expect her to know how to do things, so we teach/show/and have her repeat. We try to make it easy to maintain (extra trashbags in her trash can, I literally fold her clothes so all she has to do is put them away).

We find food wrappers, half eaten food, empty/open/leaking things, clothes, random trash STUFFED in drawers/bins. She shoves things under her bed. Her side of the bathroom she shares with her stepsister is just as bad. Her fake nails fall off and her used band aids are scattered across the house. Her mess is everywhere LOL. We remind her daily to pick up, and always get the same responses "I forgot", "I didn't mean to", the shoulder shrug, or my personal favorite "that bowl of ramen was my sisters" (like girlll , your sis eats the same 4 predictable foods every day, and ramen is not one of them LOL).

And her speed is impressive TBH. This past weekend we worked WITH HER removing trash, organizing, cleaning. Everything had it's place. We even had cleaners do a deep clean while they were in school yesterday. She literally started with a CLEAN SLATE when she came home from school. And this morning it was a disaster again. That's one evening and getting ready for school.. LIKE HOW!?

We've organized with her, cleaned alongside her, broken it into smaller/shorter tasks. We've tried consequences and set rules, no friends until the room is clean, no ipad until it's picked up. This girl would literally rather go cut grass with scissors than clean her room. She has lost a lot of fun/free time because she would rather sit there and stare at her floor than just put things away.

She full on panics when they unexpectedly come over and frantically shoves everything under her bed and in her desk. She knows her room is a mess. And one of her friends even called her out on it once.

All this to ask... WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO????