The other day at the bus stop I overheard a mom saying how amazing it was that her husband not only cooked dinner - pasta - but also then put the kids to bed. The woman she was talking to nodded sagely in agreement: clearly this was laudable.

Is the bar for being a good father and husband so low? What the hell?

This isn't really new to me, I suppose. I've worked mainly with women my whole life and too often I hear that the bare minimum seems to be "they provide money" and occasionally throw down a meal and play with the kids. Sometimes, even that is expecting too much.

Can I get some perspective on this?

Well, I have a lot of stuff going on.

In May, I graduated with my Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. That was good, and I was glad to do so. After that I took a short well deserved break. It feels so good not to have to go to class and listen to a lecture from a lecturer who doesn't want to be there.

Now that I have my degree, I need to find a job that uses that degree. (or any thing remotely related) That may sound simple enough, but it is tough.

I don't know what I want to do with my degree. That's hard for me to say, but it's true. Like I have always been looked at as someone who was "smart" and "had it together" or "had a straight path". Very much not. Anyway, I don't know what all that degree qualifies me for. I know it opens me up to the development field. I did a lot of programming through college and between, but it's not something I really enjoy. I am not particularly bad at it. It just not something I really want to be doing 100% of the time all the time. Then there is the IT field. I am not so sure where I really would like to go in IT though. Support is not really an ideal place for me. I am terrified of the idea of having to talk on a phone. I can do in person support better. Then there is infrastructure. I am kinda interested in infrastructure, but it is huge. I don't even know what to look for in that area. I am just a kid with a CS degree, I don't have this figured out.

I live in the middle of nowhere. or at least it feels like it (rural central Arkansas) You have to really look at the next city over for anything. Even then most things I see are out of the capital. There is nothing bad about any of this. I got my degree in the next city over, drove there every day. The capital is only 40 - 50 minutes away.

It feels like everyone wants to see experience. Either directly or indirectly. This is hard for me. I don't have any professional experience at all. I have some personal projects I have worked on. I do have those listed in my resume. I don't feel that helps that much. I spent my time getting that degree, not working.

Family is troublesome. In many many ways. They are always like "you need to get a job", "have you found anything yet", "are you filling out a job application". Like please leave me alone about this. I am doing what I am doing. You don't have to know every single thing about me. I am me, not you. Troublesome and frustrating. Another thing is they are stuck in the past. Two of them are going deaf. One of them is nuts, and does not know how to respect privacy at all. Its a lot. It leaves me with an annoying bootstrapping problem I have to solve. I still live with my parents, with my grandparents next house over. I have to get a place that is away from family. To do that I need to get a job. To really look hard, and even want to do so and not just do some and get frustrated, I need to get away from family. There are solutions. Just go elsewhere and look for stuff. Not easy when they always want to know where you are all the damn time. Always wanting you to keep them updated and know where you are. I have a few tricks, location services is very inaccurate when wifi is turned off. I also can just say "I am going somewhere", and when they ask more I just say "I am 23 blooming years old". Not the kind of trouble I want to go through all time. Family is frustrating. Even more so, when you are an introvert and just want to be alone for a while. When you get into actually doing something, they come to you to ask about something. "do you know where this [item] is?", "I need you to do this [task]". It's like they can sense when you are actually focus or are just vibing or actually happy. They go on and complain that you snap at them. When they were the ones that were interrupting a rare moment of focus, or appear out of nowhere. Annoying to say the least. Never the one to actually win. By default, "I am older and know more then you", "I gave birth to you". Saying I am in trouble when I do nothing wrong. Like when I got in trouble for going to my grandparents house early in the morning during the summer. Lost all trust that summer. Or when I shared some cinnamon rolls that I bought with my grandparents. Got into trouble for not bringing my parents any. It was just a kind gesture and I am made to feel like I don't care about anybody over it. Troublesome and difficult.

If you just read all that, thanks. I promise I am decently put together in real life. That is rawer then I would usually like to put out.

So far I still don't have a good title for this post so I guess I'll just add some more.
I have not found anything yet. I have not applied to many places yet. I did apply to a regional ISP and got an interview, but was rejected for lack of work history to show I can deal with phone support, and for potential lack of clarity. I applied to a local audio cable manufacturer, but was caught by ats or lack of checking. Actually applied to their website for that one. I have asked some of the local Facebook groups "who was hiring locally in CS / IT fields". I got a few responses from it. A pyramid scheme. Someone who would look at their employer. They didn't have anything open, but at least they have my information now. Someone who is likely looking more so for a general laborer then an IT person. I still kinda want to hear them out, but they still haven't said anything else to me. I have brushed up my LinkedIn. I have also signed up for more accounts then I would have liked. I have talked with a local employment agency, but I don't think they will find anything like what I am looking for.

Well, its a process, and I am just at the beginning. If you do have any advice for my job search I would be glad to read it.

TLDR: Dotz graduated and is looking for a job, then rants about family.

When is is okay to give up on making a situation work?

I legitimately ask, as I’ve pretty much given up on most “immediate” family in recent months. As an American federal civilian employee, I found the rhetoric of my immediate family crazy enough to warrant cutting them out of my life. I can’t get beyond their clear contempt for my livelihood. Despite conversations regarding how a certain admin’s policies are making my life worse, I have been told constantly not to complain because it could be worse. So I have “given up” and no longer interact with them. There have been further conversations prior to this, but I don’t think it’s necessarily important to the conversation.

I ask this legitimately, as I am feeling guilt over it, despite the fact that I no longer feel dread or anxiety about it. I haven’t visited immediate family in over 2 months now, despite living within walking distance.

At what point should one continue making attempts to repair to maintain relationships, even familial, and when is it okay to end them?

It's 5am. My family is asleep. I slide out of bed, creep down the stairs, and enter the kitchen. Through the window, faint light dapples the horizon, teasing a rising sun.

I turn on the stove. While it heats, I prepare my station. A knife. A bowl. An old plastic mixing fork.

I inspect the fork. It is old and worn and made of cheap plastic. I don't remember where it came from, perhaps a dollar store. It seemed like something we've always had, following us from home to home to home, always finding its own place to settle amidst our ever-changing lives.

I like this fork.

The dogs grow restless. They wonder if I have forgotten them. I have not. I fill their bowls with food and water. They thank me with wagging tails. I return to—Oh right, the cat. I haven't forgotten you either. Heh. Sorry about that. Here you go.

I return to the kitchen. I can smell hot metal. It's time.

Oil. Hashbrowns. Sizzle. Nice.

I lean my back against the counter and close my eyes. The oil crackles on the stovetop. The rest of the world is still. The day ahead will hold many moments for many people, but this one belongs to me.

I open my eyes. The sun is showing a bit more of itself now. It peeks through the window and spies on me. It wants to know how I make my eggs.

One egg. Crack. Two egg. Crack. Three egg. Crack. Into the bowl they go. A splash of milk. The mixing fork does its job. Around and around and around. Good job, fork.

I turn back to face the sun. Soon, the Earth will finish a single rotation and the sun will rise high into the sky. It has completed this ritual 1.6 trillion times. More times than every breath I will ever take.

I hear a creak from above. My family is awake. They come down the stairs. My wife smiles. My son smiles. I smile. Away they go. They have rituals of their own to attend to. The sun, the fork, and I will attend to ours.

I dump the eggs onto the hashbrowns. The mixing fork does its job yet again. Fried salami joins the fray. I top it all with melted cheese. Nice. I grab plates, utensils, napkins, and orange juice. The ritual is complete.

In the next room, my wife has finished feeding our son. I set her breakfast down. She thanks me. She doesn't know I'm the one thanking her.

I sit down beside her and grab a remote. I press shuffle. The music plays. David Bowie. Nice.

♫ I heard the news today, oh boy
I got a suite and you got defeat
Ain't there a man who can say no more?
And, ain't there a woman I can sock on the jaw?
And, ain't there a child I can hold without judging?
Ain't there a pen that will write before they die?
Ain't you proud that you've still got faces?
Ain't there one damn song that can make me
Break down and cry? ♫

We eat our breakfast. The sun has risen. The world is awake.

Today will hold many moments. But this one is ours.

I have a bit of a curveball for the kind folks of tildes. I have a fairly successful, flourishing and comfortable business of manufacturing-export in India which I handle with my dad.

I handle communication with customers, some documentation work like invoicing, the wages for the workers (we employ a 150 people). I also handle the manufacturing schedule, the quality team and the product development along with planning for material.

It is a fairly technical line of business ;processes range from press stamping, welding, milling, drilling, turning, hot forging, polishing, chrome plating, zinc plating, powdercoating etc.

Alot of my work is just looking over what my team does and just guiding them, motivating them and making sure they are taken care of.

I have worked hard to reduce the Labour turnover and uplift my workforce financially. It's a big family, albeit with hiccups from time to time.

But I have learned from mistakes and kept on improving.

Now on to the advice bit. I got married and my partner moved from the UK to be with me. We discussed all the challenges and thought we could make it work.

But it has been extremely difficult for her to move here. Quitting her job, leaving her family and not being able to settle here is affecting her mentally.

Seeing the state of the country she doesn't want to raise our kids here. Which I wouldn't mind either, but it will be extremely difficult for me to start afresh in another country.

The business is very hands on, and I'm not sure I can handle it remotely even if I find someone to handle the supervisors. Training someone alone for that role will take a lot of time, trial and error.

To find someone who will care for the work and put in the effort will want a good amount of money, and finding someone you can trust in itself is a challenge for a small business.

30% of my revenue goes into salaries, rent and electricity. About 40 to 50%% into material and maintenance, not to mention unanticipated expenses like bribes. So there isn't a lot of margin to experiment with big hirings anyways.

A big reason for our profitability is because we're quite lean.

Winding up the business would also be difficult. It would take a few years to do, it would be difficult emotionally for my parents and me. I know the amount of work my dad put into it.

They will want my happiness so it's not impossible to do. They could live their retirement years on rental income and me taking care of them.

The final challenge would be finding a job in UK or Europe (wherever we move). I'm not sure how employable I will be in a corporate environment. I don't have any other work experience other than an internship in Toyota in supply chain during my mba days (I have an economics background with an mba in marketing)

I know ultimately only I myself can figure this out. But I just needed a sounding board and just share as much as I could.

If anyone read this far ahead, thanks for taking out the time, really appreciate it.

I've had this idea rattling around in my head all day and feel I need to get it out. I apologize in advance if my thoughts seem jumbled or unoriginal, I'd just like them to escape.

As a preface, I speak of being a step-parent to young children through adolescence. The dynamics change when you are older and your parents remarry.

What does it mean to be a step-parent? I've wrangled with this most of my life in some way - my grandparents divorced before I was born, and I had a step-grandma from the start. Being around her always came with extra rules. I would later realize this was always the case with new step-parents, after my own parents divorced. Is that really what it means to step-parent though? To come into a situation and impose your own new rules and routines on this child that isn't yours, who has no real connection with you? I chafed with these restrictions and impositions. I disagreed many times, and it hurt me when I felt that my parents didn't support me, their child, and instead agreed with this impostor.

Of course this is a simple, childish view, but it was certainly correct in some ways. Most often, I simply felt confused and angry about why these adults who were not my parents were pretending to be. Much of this is likely unresolved trauma from the divorce itself - it was very messy.

At times though, I was right to mistrust these people who had step-ed into my life. My stepmom was (is) emotionally abusive, and my dad enabled and supported that behavior. My stepfather tried to force religion on me, nearly kicking me out of the house over it. Fortunately in that case my mother was ready to leave with me (literally, with packed bags) and he backed down.

So how does one handle a step-parent? How does one be a good step-parent?

Years ago I met a woman who I came to love. She came with two children, who I became a stepfather to. Now I was in the position of the impostor, the interloper to this family dynamic which was already established. I really tried my best to figure out where I should draw what lines. How would discipline be handled? What rules did we need? How would I know that I didn't overstep some boundary or line? Given my history, I felt both prepared and utterly lost for what to do. I didn't feel that I'd ever had a positive model of a step-parent in my life. The closest was my stepmom in some moments where she truly supported us - between the abuses. I certainly wasn't going to be just like HER though.

Like any rational human being then, I talked to my wife about this at length. We established a few ground rules: We would do our best to be consistent (between mom, dad, and me), We would always keep the best interests of the children in mind, and we would never badmouth/doubt/cast shade on the decisions or actions of the other parents involved - at least not to the kids. These gave a good foundation, and we are also fortunate in that the adults in the room could get along and act in good faith with each other.

I work as a teacher, and fell back on that role often - a person of authority, who isn't a parent, but is certainly there to help you succeed and work with the parents. This seems to be a good framework to build off of.

What does it mean to be a step-parent? For me it means being a co-authority, a sort of triumvirate of care for the children. It means accepting that complex situations mean there are few easy, simple answers, and being able to navigate that. It also means knowing where your boundaries are, and not butting up against them, or worse, going over them.

If you are a step-parent, or have had one that's been a positive influence for you, I would love to hear your thoughts. Even if you aren't, or don't, I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for reading my messy opinion piece, and maybe for the next one I'll write when I have more than an hour to work on a post!

Hello Tildutes!

I have an elderly relative (91) who spends a lot of time alone in her house. I was thinking it would be nice to do an offbeat bonding activity in town somewhere to relax her.

I’m looking for suggestions on things she might enjoy, ideally something interactive but low-stakes.

Requirements/notes:

• Something one can do in a place like Newark, Wilmington, or maybe Philadelphia.
• She can walk and stand (her cane helps), but not too fast or for too long. She would need to sit.
• She can see alright with her glasses and can hear you with hearing aids, but not from a distance.
• She is astute and can follow conversations just fine, thought it can take a moment for her to put together her thoughts.
• I’d like to get her out of the house—managing her own living space is stressful and she is more relaxed when she does not feel obliged to be hostly.
• I would like this to be calming or relaxing or refreshing for her. She has some obsessive/compulsive habits and I kind of want her to zen out more. Or just have fun—she’s often worrying.

Some ideas I had (input/feedback/additional suggestions welcome):

• Some sort of guided meditative or zen garden-type relaxation thing, but suitable for a kinda tired senior with OCD. I don’t know what to look for exactly. Maybe even something a little New Age. She is nominally Quaker and I would say a good-natured and open-minded person.
• She mentioned once that her dream job was to be an artist. I was thinking about an abstract painting session at a studio where they provide all the materials. Some way for her to let out her inner Jackson Pollock?
• I thought about a spa day. Do they have specialists who work with seniors? She has some aches and pains but is obviously fragile and extremely unused to being “treated.” She might have to overcome some… guilt (?) for being attended to.
• Some sort of guided cultural experience—but maybe more engaging than walking around a museum? She is well-traveled and remains interested in world cultures. She used to be a teacher of English and French, spent a considerable amount of time volunteering in Mexico (before it was developed), and seems to often appreciate learning about cultural things on Wikipedia or in magazines.
• She seems to be quite pleased with animals, at least cats and dogs. I considered going to a cat cafe but, having been in those before, I know the animals are not always accessible. Are puppy cafes a thing? Indoor petting zoos?

In contrast it would be unsuitable for us to play any sort of competitive game, or to do something requiring a lot of physical strength or dexterity, or anything that would be emotionally overwhelming.

If you have experiences of activities or programs that might be fulfilling to my relative, I would love to hear them!

My goal is mostly just for her to have a nice time for that day. If I can get her to be more relaxed generally, that’s great too.

Thank you!

Apologies if this comes off as rambly or even entitled. Also for the title, didn't quite know what to put there.

So firstly some context. I live in an Asian country where it's normal AND expected to live with your family past 20. Housing is expensive, and you're really only expected to move out once you're married. Also, I'm 21M.

I really enjoy expressing myself with things more traditionally associated with femininity, like makeup, nail polish and fem clothing sometimes (side note, definitely don't think I'm trans).

But as they say, god gives the gayest children to the most homophobic parents. My parents have told me multiple times that if I was gay I'd be kicked out of the house. My dad for some reason follows American politics (and by that I mean right wing grifters) despite having no link whatsoever to America. In fact, I think he'd be hatecrime'd if he went there. So yea I'm inclined to believe their homophobia.

One incident in particular which made me genuinely angry was when I bought something pink and I was sat down and talked to like I commited some crime.

Anyway, that's all just to say how do I keep up this balancing act? I do my nail polish then sneak out the door. Before I come back, I remove it somewhere quiet. I feel like a fugitive, and it's so damn exhausting. I want to express myself. But it's not the end of the world if I don't (I feel somewhat entitled that I'm even asking this when LGBTQ+ people in some places of the world are in actual danger).

If I tell my parents, I don't think they would accept me. And worse, I might get kicked out - they'd probably think I'm gay.

Being kicked out would be terrible. Renting is still prohibitively expensive for me, I'd have to get a full time job and effectively stop my studies. I don't think I'd be able to survive in this country like that, where it's expected for you to have a degree.

Eventually I'd like to move to another country where I'd be more accepted, but that's years down the line and I don't even know where to start with that. Do I just keep my head down and just be satisfied with the status quo?

Thanks for reading, any input would be appreciated.