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Jan 21

Help! I Watch Horror Movies With My 7-Month-Old. Is That Bad? – Slate

Lose Weight Safely Comments Off on Help! I Watch Horror Movies With My 7-Month-Old. Is That Bad? – Slate

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Dear Prudence is online weekly to chat live with readers. Heres an edited transcript of this weeks chat.

Danny Lavery: Good afternoon, everyone. Lets chat!

Q. Am I raising a May queen?I am a horror fan. I also have a 7-month-old daughter, who often sits in my lap while I watch horror movies. At what age can she comprehend what she is seeing, and when should I stop watching horror films and gory content in her presence? I dont want her to grow up thinking its normal to capture men in bear suits or do I?

A: Parents of young children, please feel free to chime in! My totally nonprofessional guess would be sometime between the first and second years, or whatever age toddlers startwantingto watch TV and movies. But doctors and child care professionals have a pretty good sense of the stages of childhood development, so I think theres probably a pretty straightforward answer here. (And you want her to be able to choose when she wants to watch scary stuff when shes a lot older, if only because you dont want to have to deal with nightmares that wake you both up at midnight.)

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Q. Does Jillian Michaels win if I lose weight?I am fat. Despite this, Im in mostly good health (just a little joint and muscle pain), and for the first time since I was young, I love my body! Ive always been a big womannow Im just a little bigger. Ive been joining some fat-positive and fat-liberation movements, because, you know, we deserve to have rights and be a part of life! But lately, my foot has been hurting, and even though I am on good terms with my body, Im noticing certain physical pains that I dont remember having when I weighed even just 100 pounds less. I think I would like to start trying to lose weight again (just without the fad diets, while exercising reasonably), just until I get comfortable.

Only Jillian Michaels recently said some fatphobic thing about the singer Lizzo, and it puts into perspective again how vile people can be to fat people and still get away with it. (After all,The Biggest Loseris back AGAIN.) Am I betraying a worthy cause by losing weight? I love my fat self, but I want to be comfortable again. I know my body is my own, and I can be fat-positive as a fat person or as a thin person. Im not even talking about getting thin, just losing some weight, but I feel like a fraud for even thinking about it. Should I stop following my fat-positive peers and take a step back while Im losing weight? Am I a fraud?

A: Its a difficult position to feel yourself to be in, I think, when you hold yourself responsible for the awful things so many people say about fat people, as if you can personally either stem that tide by remaining at some particular weight forever or betray the cause and let down fat people everywhere by pursuing a moderate diet-and-exercise routine. Id encourage you to talk to your doctor, if you havent already (while also realizing plenty of doctors de-prioritize their fat patients health concerns), to find out what other short- and medium-term options you have for treating your joint pain so youre not just grimacing and bearing the pain right now. Even if you do lose weight, if youre pursuing a safe and non-crash diet, youre unlikely to lose 100 pounds in less than a yearyou deserve to seek out effective pain management strategies in the meantime. That is, I think, the key aspect of fat positivity you should apply here: not that you owe it to anyone else to stay a particular size, but that regardless of your size, and regardless of the pace of any weight loss or gain you may experience over the course of a lifetime, you deserve an opportunity to treat your pain, seek medical attention, and be met with respect. (There may be other factors at play that dont have anything to do with your weight, and it will be important to investigate all the possibilities so you dont overlook an important cause of your pain.) That doesnt mean you have to abandon the goals of fat liberation or stop following the work of fat-positive people; if nothing else, I hope you can stop putting so much pressure on yourself to embody either perfect self-acceptance on the one hand or idealized quick-but-moderate weight loss on the other.

Q. Move in:My daughter is getting a divorce. She has been making noises about moving in with me. I have a small condo. I love my daughter and my grandson but I know that if they move in, they will never move out. I will be raising my grandson until he graduates. My daughter has always taken the easy road. She always had to be bribed to do her chores. She quit every sport or activity she tried as soon as it got hard. She quit college to marry a rich man (whom my husband and I never liked) and be a stay-at-home mom. She needed a nanny to accomplish this. I love her, but I know her. I still have the dog she got rid of in college because it was too much of a hassle. I lost my husband last year after a long illness. I am burned out on being a caretaker. How do I talk with my daughter and support her while keeping her from returning to the nest?

A: Dont let her move in with you. The good news is that she cannot move in with you against your will. If she makes noise about wanting to move in with you, tell her clearly that wont be possible and that shell need to make other arrangements. If youre worried about your own resolve, ask some of your friends for solidarity and support; if she tries to manipulate you or threaten you by claiming that youre hurting your grandson, have an exit strategy so you can end the conversation. If you have a history of giving in to your daughter against your own better judgment because shes good at wearing you down, practice walking away from conversations that have become endlessly repetitive or unproductive. Become more comfortable with your daughters discomfort.

It may also help to think through ways youarewilling to offer your support to her, whether through helping her update her rsum, offering child care while shes meeting with her divorce lawyer, finding support groups for single parents, etc. None of these involve saying, Come on homestay forever. You dont have to choose between either letting her walk all over you or consigning her to a lifetime apart. There are plenty of options in between.

Q. My friend gave me a painting:A few weeks ago, I went to hang out with a friend of mine and we had dinner and chatted for most of the evening. While at their house, I noticed that theyd been working on a painting of two cats dressed up in military regalia (akin to one of those joke Renaissance-style pet paintings that you can buy online). They were making this painting for another friend, and I politely complimented their work before moving the conversation elsewhere.

Yesterday, out of the blue, I received a photo from this friend of a brand-new canvas with a painting of my own cat wearing Kylo Rens costume fromStar Warswith a First Order symbol in the background. Prudie, I hate this painting. I hate that its my cat. I hate that its the First Order, the Star Wars analogue to Nazis. I hate that in the near future this painting will be in my possession. I hate everything about it. I wish I had never seen it.

I have absolutely no idea where this friend would have thought that this was a gift I wanted, since my compliment of their first painting was strictly along the lines of: It looks nice. I bet your other friend will like it. I am positive that I did not express a desire for a painting for myself, let alone one of my own cat. Since this friend has revealed themselves to be the kind of person to personally paint a custom Renaissance-style cat portrait and gift it to me at the mildest hint of polite interest, Im worried that they are also the type of person to comment if I dont hang the painting where they can see it the next time they visit.

What do I do? I would rather quit my job and move across the country and assume a new identity than hang this painting anywhere in my house, let alone in my living room or a common area. I equally dread the idea of having this friend confront me about not hanging up the painting.

A: I dont know why you would wait for your friendto confront you about not hanging up this painting when you could just say this: I appreciate that you thought of me, but Im really not comfortable having my cat drawn in a First Order uniform, even as a joke. Im not able to accept this. Nip this in the bud. You have every right to object to a painting you did not solicit, and your friend needs to be able to accept that with good grace.

Q. He wants our sex tape, but he just had a baby with another woman:Several years ago, my friend with benefits of three years ended our with benefits because he was starting to get serious with someone else. We kept in touch nominally over the past two years, always at his initiation over Instagram DM, but we have not physically seen each other. Around the holidays, his now-fianc sent me a note asking, essentially, if I was the other woman. I told her the truth of our past relationship but that I took any conversation since as his attempt to be casual friends only. Yesterday, he reached out again, asking me to send him the sex tape we made. Something felt off. I did some snooping on his fiancs Instagram, and it turns out they just had a baby (and are very much still together). I told him off, weve not spoken since, and I have no desire to speak to him again. But do I owe it to the fianc to let her know? Im inclined not to say anything, but what sort of social contract is there about this? For what its worth, neither of them is in my social circle and I live in a major city where well likely never run into each other.

A: Keep the video, block him on Instagram, and wash your hands of this almost-certainly-doomed relationship.

Q. In the locker room: I am a trans man. I love to swim, but I quit for a few years because mens locker rooms dont have private areas and I couldnt figure out how to shower and dress comfortably. Recently, I joined a YMCA because they have family changing roomsprivate, with a shower, bench, and bathroom. Perfect! Problem: I get looks and attitude from families with little kids while we all wait for our turn to get into one of the six private roomsthey fill up when its busy. They are all wondering what this guy is doing, standing there waiting. Do I say something to management? Maybe they could designate these rooms family/gender neutral? I would have to come out as trans, which isnt a problem per seI am an activist in other contexts. Or should I just go to the mens room and let it all (not) hang out since its 2020? I need the exercise and dont want to stop swimming. Whats your advice?

A: Certainly I think asking managementto designate one of the changing rooms as family/gender neutral is a good option. Ive seen that exact phrase at a number of airports, so I know its not without precedent. In the meantime, if youwantto use the mens room, I think you absolutely can. Without making too broad a generalization, usually everyone in a mens changing room is trying to get in and out pretty quickly without making eye contact with anyone else. But youve mentioned that youve found it uncomfortable in the past, so dont feel like you have to just because youve gotten a few quizzical looks from busy parents. Its a shared space, with a lot of competing interests; youre entitled to change in private, and if a handful of strangers want to wonder why youre waiting, let them wonder.

Q. Can I ask guys to not text me boring, everyday stuff?I just recently got back on dating apps after nearly seven years. I havent been in a relationship for 10 years. Im at a bit of a crossroads in my life and might be moving in the next six months, so Im not looking for anything too serious. Ideally, Id like something casual but monogamous. The one thing Ive realized I absolutely hate in relationships is banal chitchat. With the advent of the phone, this makes banal texting very common. So far Ive met some people online who seem to like regular chitchat. I know some girls would kill for a guy who messages them every day to ask how they are and what they did, but I just hate it. Is it OK to ask guys not to text me unless its something really practical or really interesting? Is that the right way to phrase it? I dont want to come off high-maintenance (although Im starting to think that maybe I am). I just want a really easy relationship to transition back into the dating world.

A: I wish I could promise you a really easy relationshipwith regard to transitioning back into dating! But I think its the kind of thing where you caneitherchoose to communicate your (possibly) high-maintenance needs clearly and upfront to potential dates,orhave a really laid-back, low-processing early dating phasebut probably not both. You can most easily, I think, put something in your profile (or mention it really early into messaging if your apps dont include lengthy profiles) that you really dislike small talk and prefer to save text for arranging your next dates. But you will have to put up with at least alittlebit of I saw something that made me think of you or I had a crazy day at work today if your dates find the occasional bout of small talk meaningful or helpful when it comes to building trust and intimacy. So you can certainly cut down on a lot of it, I think, but you cant adopt a 100 percent no-small-talk across-the-board policy because there are more interests than just yours at play.

That said, maybe youdowant to take a really hard line and just hold out for the guys who are totally thrilled not to text about banal stuff in between dates. If youre cool with cutting a lot of chaff over this, you can absolutely hold the line here.

Q. Re: Am I raising a May queen?Studies are all over the map on this one. Ive opted to avoid it for my kids. Honestly, I dont think it matters until they start asking, around ages 2 to 3, at which point Id learn to start lovingPaw Patrol.

A: Thanks so much for this. The answers Ive received from readers are also all over the map! One reader wrote that kids can be affected by content when theyre 6 months old. Someone else said no screens for the first three years of the kids life is the best way to go. Another advised the letter writer to ask their pediatrician, which is probably the best route to take here.

Q. Re: Am I raising a May queen?I dont know the psychology of when a child can comprehend what theyre seeing, but from working with kids in libraries, I have observed that kids younger than about 7 to 8 retain and regurgitate information in a truly chaotic manner. Kids always pick up on more than you think they do, whether something is from a movie or from a grown-up discussion you thought they wouldnt understand. Even if your kid turns out to be a huge horror buff and can handle anything, if youre concerned about her spouting scary or inappropriate factoids about her favorite movies and scenes to other kiddos (or judgy adults), you might find that a child 6 and younger has a hard time grasping what is OK to share, when it is OK to do so, and with whom it is OK to share it.

A: I think thats a good point. Kids are sometimes naturally drawn to the bloodthirsty and macabre in ways adults really dont need to encourage. The other day a friend of mines 3-year-old staged a puppet show that included the line Drink the queens sweet blood, and that kid doesnt even watch TV, so

Discuss this column with Dear Prudence on his Facebook page!

Q. My husband retired young and does nothing but goof off all day: My husband achieved professional success and wealth early in life. His work involved long hours and lots of stress, and by his 30s he decided that he wanted out. His accumulated wealth could easily support our lifestyle indefinitely, so he retired about 18 months ago, shortly after the birth of our first child. He has not found anything to do in that time! We have an excellent nanny 40 hours a week, and outside those hours my husband is an extremely involved father. We split the domestic duties roughly 50-50, as before, but now I am the only one working and he says he shouldnt be penalized by having extra domestic responsibilities. So he spends the week dicking around (gym, squash, books, movies, etc.). Its making me crazy with resentment, especially when I come home from a hard day at work. He tells me I should just quit if I dont like it, and that I shouldnt worry about being dependent because hes set up a trust fund for me and our son. But I also think it sets a bad example for our son to see a father who doesnt have some productive purpose in life. My husband disagrees and says he will be an excellent corrective to the productionist propaganda schools inflict on kids to make them the unquestioning worker bees the economy demands. He says he doesnt care if our son grows up to work hard and that work is a lamentable necessity and it is only false consciousness to think otherwise. Im tired of this devolving into a sociological debate! How can we resolve this? Read what Prudie had to say.

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Help! I Watch Horror Movies With My 7-Month-Old. Is That Bad? - Slate

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