Dear Swistle,

I have been trying to figure this out & suddenly thought of you because you know a lot about names and also about etiquette.
For 2 people getting married, but neither changing their last name, what are monogram options (for the couple/for the wedding/later, after the wedding)?
I guess I could just make something up using all 4 letters. But is there any set ways it is done?

TYIA.
Britni

I do think couple monograms are fun. I remember learning about them around the time Rob was a baby: I was ordering towels from Lands’ End for someone’s wedding present, and I think it must have come up on the order form or something. I was thrilled with the idea, especially since towels had felt a little dull and this would let me do something fancier.

For a couple monogram, the couple’s surname initial goes in the center, and then one person’s first initial goes to the left of that, and the other person’s to the right. For a couple made up of one man and one woman, the woman’s initial goes to the left—but I think the rule there isn’t “the woman’s initial goes first,” but rather “the one who gave up the surname goes first.” (On the other hand, if it were the guy who took his wife’s surname, I would be split between wanting his initial to then go first and wanting the woman’s initial to still go first.)

couple monogram for Swistle and Paul Thistle

For two women or two men, I think you could go alphabetically, or whatever looks better, or flip a coin. I’d follow the concept of “the one who gave up the surname goes first,” if it applied. If both were changing to a new joint surname, I’d go with alphabetical or what looks better or a coin flip or which member of the couple I liked better.

Anyway, when I read the question, my first thought was that I wouldn’t do a couple monogram for a couple that didn’t have a shared surname. I think of a couple monogram as a quaint/old-fashioned thing, perfect for someone who is giving up a surname and is happy about it, risky for someone who isn’t/isn’t. For example, I did give up my surname, but I wasn’t happy about it; a couple-monogrammed item would have been a risky gift for me. Not as risky as addressing my letters and packages to Mrs. Paul Thistle, but somewhere on that spectrum.

But let’s say we have a situation where each person in the couple is keeping his/her name, but we have reason to believe a couple monogram would go over very well. My first idea was to do a “carved into a tree”-type couple monogram. Like, let’s say my maiden name was Whistle, and I’d kept it when I married Paul. This would be cute on the towels, if the store could do it:

couple monogram for Swistle Whistle and Paul Thistle

My second idea was to make the two surname initials large in the middle, flanked by their respective first-name initials:

couple monogram #2 for Swistle Whistle and Paul Thistle

I think that would look significantly prettier if it weren’t in Sharpie marker on a memo sheet.

That’s pretty much when I ran out of ideas, so I searched online. Mark and Graham has a whole section on monogramming. They suggest a two-initial monogram of both surname initials, like this:

couple monogram #3 for Swistle Whistle and Paul Thistle

I like that, especially if the couple’s style is more formal: SW+PT is a more casual look. They also suggest a monogram of “wife’s first, husband’s last, wife’s maiden,” but I assume that’s the woman’s new personal monogram, not a couple monogram.

Wait wait wait. No. I am wrong. A second site (The Etiquette School of Ohio) says that the TRADITIONAL couple monogram is wife’s first, husband’s last, wife’s maiden, and that the MODERN couple monogram (wife’s first, husband’s last, husband’s first) is what I’ve been thinking of as a couple monogram. Well. That may be true, but that seems wrong to me. This does not at all seem to me like a couple monogram for Swistle and Paul Thistle:

no

Where is Paul in that? That seems like the monogram for me, if I moved my maiden name to the middle and became Swistle Whistle Thistle. Well, I’m ignoring that whole idea and going with the modern version.

Southern Weddings has a good idea about an interlocking monogram. They use first-name initials, but you could also use surname initials. I won’t try to draw it here, because it looks best with big fancy letters. The downside, I thought, was that it was hard to see the initials, or even that they WERE initials.

All the sites agree that couple monograms are not used until after the official marriage has taken place. That is, you can use them at the reception, but not on save-the-dates, invitations, anything you wear as you walk down the aisle, etc. However, they don’t count the SW + PT as a couple monogram, so that would be fine to use before, during, and after the wedding. It would also be fine to use the idea I saw on Neat Cards, which was to use each person’s own monogram with a little decorative thingie between them, like this:

couple monogram #4 for Swistle Whistle and Paul Thistle

Also, wait, I forgot to look it up in Miss Manners. BRB.

Okay, Miss Manners is not in favor of couple monograms. Here is what she says:

Household linens may be monogrammed with the maiden initials of the lady of the house, a custom dating from premarital monogramming that serves equally well for serial marriages. Couples who are tempted to entwine their initials should try to get it out of their system by carving their names on a tree.

I’m wondering if anyone else has done anything with a non-shared-surname couple monogram before, or has any other ideas or suggestions.

Hello there,

So, I don’t know if this is an odd thing to do or not, but I was wondering if I could suggest a topic I would be so curious to hear your thoughts on.

I was wondering how you talked to your kids about sex/ how you framed your families expectations of sexual propriety. Much like you, I grew up in a very religious household and had the strong “no sex before marriage because Jesus says so” training. But now I’m not religious and so my values have changed on that topic but I find I sort of miss (weirdly) the clear line of “no sex before marriage” to tell my kids…even though I am okay with sex before marriage but I don’t think they’ll buy my real feeling of “no sex until I think you are ready”.

I’m not sure if this makes sense…but, basically, how did you approach this topic with your bigger kids?

Best wishes,
Wendy

One thing I’ve done when talking especially to my older two (they’re now 15 and 13) is to mention ahead of time that my own upbringing was religious and that all my own decisions/experiences at that stage of life were influenced by my own religious beliefs at the time, and to be frank that that means I’m not always sure what to tell them or what the rules should be. There are things that still freak me out just because they freaked me out at the time and in that context, and it’s hard to know which things are still good things to freak out about (“FEAR/PREVENT THE STD”) and which things could use a little adjustment (“PREMARITAL SEX CAUSES ALL FUTURE MARITAL SEX TO FOREVER FALL SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD”).

It helps, I think, to know that people who were taught about sexuality from a non-religious standpoint ALSO have to figure some things out before teaching their own kids: what’s considered normal and proper changes with time, and with inventions/discoveries, and with changes in the way the culture thinks of things.

And people continuing on with a religious structure have to do a fair amount of interpretation: the Bible, for example, goes into a lot of detail about clean/unclean foods, but is a little skimpy on the sort of thing a parent might need for the Where Did I Come From? talk. I remember being very surprised to learn in college (from the boyfriend of my roommate: it’s uncanny how studious a young man can be when properly motivated) how unclear the Bible is on the topic, and seriously out of date at this point: women in our culture, for example, are no longer stoned for failing to bleed on their wedding night, nor do most religious people follow the extremely strict rules about dealing with menstruation and childbirth (UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN! UNCLEEEEEEEEEEEEANNNNNNNN!!!). Most of the sexuality teachings associated with Christianity (and I assume with other religions as well, but I only have experience with Christianity) are church teachings rather than biblical teachings: i.e., ways the people who follow that version of Christianity tend to believe people should behave based on their own understanding of God and the Bible, rather than anything specifically discussed by God himself. Which is fine, but means that even religious families have to do this kind of figuring things out before they start passing that information on to the next generation.

In general, my method with kid questions on difficult/unclear topics (afterlife, politics, ethics, religion, etc.) is to start with something like, “Well, different people think different things,” and then go on from there. This is good for stalling, and also for filling up a long car ride with a chatty child. So, like, when Rob was little and liked to talk about things Very Thoroughly, and he asked what happened after people died, I said something like, “Well, nobody really knows for sure. Some people think….” and we went through reincarnation, heaven/hell, heaven without the hell, limbo/purgatory, ghosts/spirits, anything else I could think of, and the “nothing at all” theory. I also mentioned that there were a lot of other theories I didn’t know about from other cultures/religions.

With sex questions/lectures, I do pretty much the same thing: I say that different people think different things. Some people believe in abstinence before marriage, some people believe in abstinence in theory but not in their own specific situation; some people think sex is dirty/bad, some people think sex is natural/good, some people think it depends on the situation; some people think sex is for fun, some people think it’s only for when you’re in love, some people think it’s only for creating babies, some people think it can be for different things in different situations; and so on. Which leads naturally to listing a lot of different reasons, too: because of believing that God (or someone else in the Bible) said so or thinks so, because of health reasons, because of safety reasons, because of emotional reasons, because of pregnancy hopes/fears, because of ancient and recent beliefs about sex and morality and romance, and so on. I don’t always know what I’m talking about, and I try to make that clear as the discussion goes along—like, “I don’t know all the details, but as I understand it…”

Sometimes I talk to them about it from a parental point of view: “Some of my friends think kids shouldn’t even be taught about sex and birth control, while some of my other friends take their daughters to get on the pill,” etc. (I don’t say which of my friends are which, for general privacy and because sometimes my kids are friends with my friends’ kids.) They seem to like that kind of talk, and will often be very strongly opinionated about other parents’ decisions. I think it’s easier for them to argue with Theoretical Unnamed Parent than it is to argue with an actual parent—and it’s easier for me to present the point of view fairly when it belongs to someone I know and like.

Or I’ll tell them about parents/kids I knew when I was a kid. My parents took the religious/abstinence view of sex but my mom was extremely big on giving us information, so I ended up having to pass on that information to a fair number of friends whose parents thought they didn’t need to know. “Oh my gosh,” Never-Had-a-Boyfriend Swistle would say, “No, it is not going to work to rinse out afterward with diet Coke, you are going to need something that works better than that. Let me tell you the stats on condoms vs. the pill” or “YES you absolutely CAN get pregnant that way and he is either a JERK or STUPID for saying you can’t.” And they explained to ME what French-kissing was and what “69” and “third base” and “feeling someone up” meant, and gave me a dog-eared copy of Forever, so really it was a well-rounded education for all of us and gives me some comfort whenever I hear talk of taking sex education out of schools.

Here are the things I like about this “let’s talk about all the different opinions and ideas, with lots of anecdotes” method:

1. It makes it clear that I don’t necessarily know the right answer
2. It makes it clear that there isn’t only one way to think about it
3. I find that kind of conversation fun

Plus, it forces the children to take some responsibility for their own decisions, which takes some of that responsibility OFF of ME. And it IS off of me: I DON’T have to make the decisions for them, and in fact I CAN’T: THEY are going to make all the decisions. I can set some boundaries and/or make things difficult for them (“No, you can’t lose your virginity here at home, so it will have to be in a car I guess” or “No, you can’t date, so I guess you’ll have to lie and tell me you’re going to a friend’s house”), but that’s it: the actual decisions are in their hands whether I like it or not. So rather than telling them what The Right Way is, or even what our family expects, I tend to tell them what I hope: that they will wait until they’re ready, that they won’t be pressured into it, that they will be safe, that they will be kind and respectful and careful with other people’s feelings, that they will remember that sex is about sex but it is also about the people involved, that they will not accidentally ruin their lives, that I will never have to catch them at it, and so on.

Another method I use is the Making Books Available method. As a child/teenager, I really really really really did NOT want to ask my mom questions—not because she was unavailable or wouldn’t answer, but for the OPPOSITE reason: she would get twinkly-eyed and LOVED to use Embarrassing Words and discuss Embarrassing Concepts. I was very glad to have the books Where Did I Come From? and What’s Happening to Me? for reference (though less thrilled to receive the latter for a pre-teen birthday (11? 12?) and have my mom start leafing through it laughing and pointing out the “perky boobs”).

Even more helpful was a book I found at the library; I don’t remember the title of it, but I remember it was written by someone who sounded young and cool but was also an Experienced Adult Woman. I think it was in a Q&A format—maybe an essay on a topic, followed by questions submitted by young girls? something like that. It had lots of stuff about sex and periods and kissing and boys and pregnancy and STDs and birth control, and lots of embarrassing stories from the author’s own experience (I remember one story about the time she and her boyfriend tried to have sex for their first time and COULDN’T FIGURE IT OUT). Here’s a list of the books I’ve bought so far for the kids:

Where Did I Come From?: The Facts of Life Without Any Nonsense
What’s Happening to Me?: An Illustrated Guide to Puberty
What’s Going on Down There?: Answers to Questions Boys Find Hard to Ask
The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls (this has since been republished in two volumes, one for younger girls and one for older girls)
It’s So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families
It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health

I read Where Did I Come From? and It’s So Amazing! to them as littler children—different ages for each depending on when they started asking questions and showing more than a passing interest, but basically very early school age (kindergarten/1st). The other books, I’ve handed over with a brief official statement about having access to information they might not want to ask me about, but of course they SHOULD ask me if they want to, and they can also ask me if they don’t understand something in the book. The rest of the talking is done forcefully, usually in the car with one or two children at a time, at my initiation (Swistle: “Today we are going to talk about various methods of birth control!” Children: *groaning*). I like to talk in the car because there’s so much less eye-contact involved, and because they’re trapped. I’m glad to know too that their schools are covering some of the material, to reinforce points or in case I forget something.

But I think it’s important to add that at this point I don’t have any children who are clearly sexually active. (That is, my impression is that none of them are involved with it at all, but I’m aware that I could be completely unaware of it. I remember as a teenager noticing the wiiiiiide gap between what parents knew and what was true.) At that point I may become significantly less chill about the whole thing: right now it’s theoretical and interesting to discuss, but how will I be when it’s “Can he or can’t he have a girlfriend/boyfriend in his bedroom?” and “Will I or won’t I ask her doctor to put her / let her be on birth control?” WE SHALL HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE.

Yesterday at Goodwill I found a purple velour skirt-and-shirt set for Elizabeth. I’m never sure what she’ll end up liking/disliking, but she went NUTS for it. It was extremely satisfying: I laundered it yesterday evening and she put it on first thing this morning and was dancing around with happiness. It cost $3.59, unless that was one of the ones that rang up as half-price, in which case it was more like $1.79.

I also bought a pair of flannel-lined Gap cargo pants for William. They cost $1.79, which was weird because right next to them was a boring logo Gap t-shirt in so-so condition marked up to $3.99 (everything in the kids’ section is $1.99 unless otherwise marked) (and then I get another 20 cents off because I have the $10/year Goodwill card that gets you 10% off). The pricing is a little inconsistent.

AND I found Edward a great Gap sweater, dark green with pine trees so it’s nice for Christmas but also nice for the rest of winter, $1.79. AND some other things, but I forget what. Which brings me to this:

Monique writes:

I was at Goodwill the other day and felt very lost. I thought of you and wanted a Swistle tutorial of how to shop at goodwill, including the the things you look at when you pick out clothes, how you know the clothes are good finds and how to pick the clothes you know your children will like. I know you have done posts in the past but I felt so very lost.

So it was just a thought if you felt like it.

Ah! I am new to this as well: our Goodwill opened only this past February. (Though we used to have one near us back when we were first married.) And it can definitely be overwhelming. It can also be UNDERwhelming: some days I go and I find NOTHING. Or I find lots of good stuff, but it’s stuff we don’t need. Or I find lots of good stuff, but it’s all been inexplicably marked way above usual prices. Or I find the entire atmosphere of the store depressing and I leave feeling sad.

Are you a list person? I find it very helpful to have a little list of things I’m looking for. For example, the first time I went to the new Goodwill, William needed sweaters: he was wearing the same three sweaters over and over and ignoring all his other shirts. Goodwill had ONE MILLION men’s sweaters, $4.99 each but many marked half price: each day a certain color of tag is half off. Many of them were the same Gap and Old Navy sweaters I’d been upset to see for $20-30 online, so I walked out that day with many, many sweaters.

Or, like, right now, Elizabeth wants knit jeggings. They have to be stretchy, they can’t be baggy. She’s quite particular. They have some jeggings like that at Target for $12.99, but while I wait for those to go on clearance I’m keeping an eye out at Goodwill to see if I can find some for $1.79 instead.

It happens pretty often that I go to Goodwill and I don’t find anything I’m looking for but I do find something else I want. This is the category a lot of people try to avoid (it’s a good way to end up with Too Much Stuff), but it’s how I ended up with a happy purple-velour daughter this morning. Or, like, Edward and Henry don’t really need any more shirts per se, but when I found a Mini Boden shirt in Edward’s size for $1.79 and a Lands’ End rainbow tie-dye hoodie in Henry’s size for $.89 ($1.99 but it was the tag color of the day plus I got the additional 10% off), I went right ahead and bought them and felt happy about it.

Goodwill was especially great when I was trying to get Elizabeth set up for sleep-away camp. I didn’t want to send clothes I minded if she lost/ruined. So I looked through the racks and specifically kept an eye out for the half-price tag color, and I got her a bunch of shorts and pants and shirts and a couple of sweatshirts, all in the $.89-$1.79 range.

I tend to look for BRANDS. If I like something I’ll buy it even if I don’t recognize the brand—but I already know I like Old Navy and The Children’s Place and Gap and Lands’ End and L.L. Bean, and I’m basically familiar with their prices, so I’m more likely to buy those. Periodically I find brands like Hanna Andersson or Mini Boden, and that’s always a thrill.

I check for rips and stains. I TRY to remember to test zippers and snaps and make sure all the buttons are there, but this is my biggest area of forgetfulness. Still, I’ve only lost one or two things that way.

Here is my usual path through the store, with what I’m looking for right now or have looked for recently:

1. Men’s section ($4.99 unless otherwise marked or tag-color-of-the-day). Sweaters for William (EXCELLENT success: I think a lot of guys get sweaters as gifts and never wear them, so I get new-looking Gap sweaters for $2.49 minus another 10%). Shorts and pants for Rob (medium success; a good way to see what 31×32 is like in a variety of brands). Barn jacket for Paul (no success yet). Sleeping pants for Rob (good success: $4.99 is too expensive considering after-Christmas clearances, but I’ve found several nice-condition, nice-brand pairs for $2.49). Hooded sweatshirts for Rob (no success yet). This is also where I found Rob a pair of great dress pants for $4.99 when he needed them for graduation, and I found Henry a tie for $.99 when he wanted one for a school event. T-shirts are $2.99, which is about what I pay for them on clearance at Target, but sometimes they have fun ones, or better brands than Target’s.

2. Kids’ section ($1.99 unless otherwise marked or tag-color-of-the-day). I basically go through the entire section from size 6 (Henry’s size) up. Right now I’m particularly looking for pants for Elizabeth, but the three little kids can usually stand to have some new clothes: the boys particularly are the third and fourth to wear the handmedowns, and sometimes styles have changed, and sometimes I’m just sick of some of the items. And Elizabeth would be happiest if she had every single clothing item in every single color and pattern, so this is a good way to increase her wardrobe. I’m especially happy when I find an item I’d like to own but am unsure if we’ll really USE—a raincoat for sleep-away camp, for example, or a nightgown when Elizabeth has been wanting a nightgown but I don’t think she’s going to like it, or see previous paragraph about the tie Henry wanted.

3. Dishes. This is where I found the Swistle-blue mugs (“Does this MUG coordinate with my WEB SITE?”). I don’t usually buy things in this section, but I always like to look.

4. Stationery/knickknacks/misc. I don’t usually find anything, but I like to look. The kids sometimes find something to spend their allowance on: a little animal figurine, a shaped candle.

Sections I don’t usually look in:

1. Books. Most of them are in the $2.99 range, tons of close-outs/remainders. More importantly, the books are in a huge unorganized jumble. I understand why it isn’t efficient to spend the time organizing them, but it does mean I don’t feel like looking at them.

2. Shoes. They don’t appeal to me, and I usually find them at 50-70% off at Target.

3. Toys. Huge messy aisle, and always crowded, and everything looks broken and lost-piecey. But the kids look here while I’m looking at clothes, and sometimes they find something and I buy it. We also had great luck with Beanie Babies: $.99 each, with tags.

4. Linens. They don’t appeal to me, and it’s too hard to figure out sizes.

I often glance in the women’s clothes, but the plus-size section is small and depressing (elastic waists! decorative sweatshirts!) so sometimes I just skip it.

I think Goodwill works especially well if you:

1. Enjoy that kind of shopping: it can take a lot of browsing to find good stuff, and if the browsing is unpleasant I doubt it works out as a money-saving strategy. Also, if the LOOKING isn’t also fun, then it seems like it would be way too discouraging to keep going back after those days where you find one single thing, or nothing at all.

2. Are relatively unpicky—or are picky in a way that meshes well with Goodwill. The Lands’ End hoodie had a little rip near the hood, and sometimes something has a small stain. I don’t really care about that: most of the kids’ clothes are handmedowns and ALREADY have little rips and stains. I also try to keep in mind how much worse clothes look when they’re in a big used jumble instead of prettily arranged on store racks, and how much better they look once I get them home.

3. Have relatively unpicky kids, and/or are good at keep straight what they will/won’t wear. Edward will wear anything. Rob won’t wear button-downs. William loves sweaters. Etc.

4. Don’t mind things occasionally NOT working out. If I get something home and think, “Oh, crap, I forgot to check the zipper—and it’s broken,” I’m disappointed, but I’m fine with tossing it out and losing the $1.79: I think of it as a donation to Goodwill, or as a Careless Tax on myself. Or sometimes, just as with things I buy at Target or Old Navy, the child doesn’t like the item and I end up donating it back to Goodwill.

5. Are willing (and have the space) to store things that are too big. It’s pretty common for me to find a great sweater in the size above William’s size, or a dress two sizes too big for Elizabeth. Sometimes I’ll pass it by, but sometimes it’s good enough to be worth the trouble of putting it aside for later.

6. Are in a lower income bracket than the average household in your Goodwill’s area. If you mostly buy Target clearance but your neighbors are donating Hanna Andersson and L.L. Bean and not shopping at Goodwill, you’re going to be very pleased with the goods/prices. If instead your whole community is shopping clearance sections and Goodwill, you might find nothing but pilly scraps.

I do like my Goodwill card, but it’s not a good deal for everyone: you have to buy $100 worth of stuff at Goodwill in a year just to BREAK EVEN on the $10 annual cost of the card.

Goodwill can be overwhelming at first even if you’re going to love it in the long run: it takes awhile to figure out the pricing system, and where things are. If you ARE going to love it, soon you’ll start feeling happy to go dig in your usual treasure-map places, and you’ll start bringing things home and feeling happy about your finds every time you see  them come through the laundry.

Amy writes:

I’ve been reading your blogs for about a year now, and I really value your opinion as a person and as a mother. I don’t know if you would be willing to address this issue (as it is pretty heavy, and not really like anything I’ve read from you before), but I recently was in a situation that made me uncomfortable, and I was wondering if I could get your thoughts about it. If not, that’s ok, I just thought I would ask what you would do (or would like someone else to do if they were your kids) in this situation.

So I work as a supervisor at a bakery in a particularly snooty upper class town that is frequented by (often unsupervised) middle school and high school kids. Last week two young girls (around 12 or 13) came in, ordered some food, and sat down while I was mopping and cleaning the dining room. I wasn’t purposely eavesdropping, but I overheard them discussing how one of them was planning to force herself to purge the food she was eating, and seemed to be pressuring the other girl to do the same. I really wanted to do something about this, but didn’t know what to do. I told my manager, but she said that since we didn’t know the girls or their families, that there wasn’t anything we could do. I though that maybe if they went into the bathroom, I would follow them and clean the bathroom while they were in there so they wouldn’t do anything on the premises, but they left without going in. I’ve been feeling incredibly guilty for not speaking up, yet don’t know what I should/could have said or done.

Since they were unsupervised, I’m sure that even if I had said something they wouldn’t have any reason to listen to me, and it’s not like I could ask them for their parents’ contact info.

Yes, I think the real question here isn’t so much “Should you have done something?” but rather “What exactly is it you could have done?” If you had gone into the bathroom to prevent them from throwing up in there, do any of us think they would have said, “Darn it, we couldn’t throw up at the bakery—we’re going to have to give up this whole eating disorder idea”? If you’d gone over to them and said “I couldn’t help but overhear, and you shouldn’t do that because it’s bad for you,” do any of us think they would have said, “This advice from a stranger has changed our lives! We had no idea it would be bad for us! Whew, that was a close call! No more eating disorders for us!”

If these were girls you knew, like girls in your church or children of your friends, we would have an intense and sticky dilemma on our hands: whether and who and how to approach. But as your manager pointed out, you didn’t know them or their families at all. There isn’t a dilemma here, because this was not a situation where you had the choice to intervene. You may have that choice in another situation in the future, and someone else may have that choice with these two girls, but this particular encounter didn’t contain that choice. It was like….a bus that went past you without stopping: you would have been willing to either get on the bus or not, depending on what was the right thing to do—but the bus didn’t stop.

It was an upsetting encounter, and it would have left me feeling uncomfortable and unhappy too. My guess is that the feeling you’re perceiving as guilt (which would be the appropriate emotion if you’d led them into the eating disorder or had refused to help them when you had the opportunity) is more like spinning: your brain is trying to fix something unfixable. And if you’re like me, you’re also feeling a sort of universal despair about eating disorders and teenagers and our society, not to mention the difficulty of trying to fix ANYTHING in ANYONE else’s life. I could perhaps soothe you by saying it’s a good sign that they were talking about it within earshot of adults and that they didn’t go into the bathroom afterward—but that wouldn’t take away the reality that even if these two particular girls were just showing off, there are many others who are doing it and hiding it.

Melissa H. left a comment on this post:

At what age can/do children start staying home alone?

In our situation we’re talking about one kid home alone for up to, say, 30 minutes while a parent runs to the store. She is pretty mature for her age and she is pleased with this arrangement (she doesn’t have to run the errand). When I mentioned this to a friend I could tell they were slightly horrified we left her home and they have not left their years older son home at all. Our kid is 7.5–is this too young?

At our house I’m finding a big difference in what age each child Seems Ready. My eldest (age 14) seemed ready when he was quite young, because he’s always been the responsible and cautious type; I’m STILL not entirely confident about my secondborn (age 12) (I do leave him, but I worry more).

I probably base it mostly on my confidence in the child’s ability to use the phone. Do I think they could use it to call 911, or to call my cell phone, or to call their grandparents up the street? Do I think we’ve had enough conversations on the topic that they’d know for what situations to call each number? Do I feel pretty sure they’d know NOT to use the phone if there was a fire, but instead to run next door?

I also base it on how much interest the child has shown in hypotheticals. Three of my kids think it’s fun to talk about things like would they be allowed to use the microwave, and what would they do if someone came to the door, and what would they do if the phone rang, and what would they do if they got a small cut but I was due back in 5 minutes. Two of my kids find such discussions boring, and they tune out if I try to discuss it with them. The two who tune out don’t get left on their own as much—and I prefer to leave them with one of the other three, just in case.

I also base it on how quickly and easily I could get home again. If I’m walking next door to talk to a neighbor, I’m much more likely to leave a responsible child on his or her own than I would be if I were going ten miles away, or if I were going somewhere I might not have phone service, or if I were going somewhere I wouldn’t be able to leave. I can easily abandon a grocery cart, but would reallllllly not feel comfortable leaving in the middle of a hair cut or a doctor or dentist appointment.

And finally, there’s the miscellaneous issues for an individual trip: how many other kids are home and which ones are they (is there likely to be fighting?); whether the kids are playing nicely at the moment or whether they’ve been bugging each other; how much faster/easier it would be for me not to bring them; whether I’m pretty sure my parents are home in case there’s a problem; etc.

How do you make the decision about when a child is old enough to be home on his or her own?

Edited to add: I think when we’re discussing this it would be useful to keep in mind that there’s a big difference between leaving a child at home for half an hour to run an errand, and leaving a child alone for a workday or overnight. I suspect the laws and recommendations are set up mostly to address the latter situation, not the former.

Life of a Doctor’s Wife left a comment on this post, saying:

I would be interested in more on any of the topics you briefly addressed, but perhaps specially (and… not as… potentially personal) in the topic of first sleepovers. I feel stressed out about the idea of sleepovers and I do not yet have a child. How did you get to be okay with the parents and the overnight situation? How did Elizabeth feel in preparation – anxious, excited, meh? I suppose I am so interested because sleepovers were tough for me as a kid. I did not make it through many of them. (My poor parents. Who lived waaaaaay out of town and had to fetch me at odd hours of the night.)

I was Not Particularly Okay with Elizabeth going to a sleepover, but Elizabeth was so completely Relaxed and Fine about it, it made me wonder if this was one of those “No, in fact DON’T listen to your gut” situations. I mean, my gut was clearly telling me she SHOULD NOT GO—but my gut also tells me the kids shouldn’t get on the bus the first day of first grade, shouldn’t be left at birthday parties even when all the other parents are dropping off, and shouldn’t go up to other children at the park and try to play with them. So my gut is not really calibrated for being in charge of decisions.

In this particular case, I reasoned it out. I don’t KNOW-know the parents, but I recognize the mother enough to say hi if we cross paths. Their house is in the same neighborhood as ours. Another acquaintance of mine babysat for their daughter when she was a baby. The only other sibling is a sister (not, for example, a much older brother), and one of my older kids is in her same grade and knows who she is and has been on the same bus with her for years. I found out from Elizabeth who else was invited and what the plans were, and it sounded well-organized and well-thought-out (four girls total; plans to make cupcakes and watch a Pixar movie and stay up until TEN!! O’CLOCK!!).

Fine, I also went on Facebook and snooped the family. I looked through photos and saw pictures of the family at Disney, at what looked like a big family event, and in Christmas-card photos. I looked through wall posts and saw things like “Hey, great talking you the other day! Let’s have coffee next week! Thursday?” and “Sophia left her sweater at our house—I’ll send it to school with Ella tomorrow!” It’s not like non-okay families couldn’t have these photos and wall posts, I realize. Nevertheless, it added to my decision-making process.

I’ve heard of other parents deciding to allow things like sleepovers (or even playdates and birthday parties) only when they know the other family well—but I have almost zero social life, so that’s not going to work for me: I hardly know ANY other families well. If that were the cut-off, then my social life would have an inappropriately heavy and limiting impact on my kids’ social lives. (Or else theirs would have an inappropriately heavy impact on mine, when I was forced to form a large fake social circle to accommodate their friendships.) But this would be a great tip for people who know a lot of other families: I can picture being ENORMOUSLY reassured if Elizabeth were sleeping over at my friend Melissa’s house, instead of at the house of someone I only know to say hi to.

I also talked myself through it like this: Elizabeth is more social than I am, but at this stage she needs my help to arrange the logistics of her social life—and I have to try not to let my own social anxieties get in her way unnecessarily. I can of course say no to anything that seems genuinely dicey to me, but most situations are NOT genuinely dicey even if they make me nervous. If three other moms feel it’s appropriate to have a sleepover party at age 8, and if Elizabeth herself is fine with the idea, then I can either decide that she’s not ready and/or that I don’t want her to go—or I can let her try it, which is what I decided to do.

And it went great. I talked with her ahead of time about how to handle things if she wanted to go home early, even if it was the middle of the night. I also remembered that one of my own biggest issues as a child was not realizing that the other child’s parents were PARENTS and were therefore likely to be pretty easy to talk to if I had any situations (like if I forgot to bring something, or if I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to do something, or if I couldn’t find something), so I told a few anecdotes along those lines to Elizabeth. But she stayed the whole night and didn’t run into any issues except for forgetting to bring a comb, which she just did without.

Oh, and one more thing: I deal with stress via shopping, so I spent a lot of time looking for a good party gift, and I window-shopped for many possible purchases such as a sleeping bag, new pajamas, and so on. I think I must think things over while doing things like that, so that by the time I’m done filling an online cart with sleeping bags and pajamas I never end up buying, I’ve adjusted to the idea of a sleepover.

Here I am, back for more immersion therapy. Leeann asked a question on yesterday’s post:

So, I have a topic that I’d love you to bring up on your blog because I am curious about how other people handle it.

I have three kids. Two are total meant-for-school students- they sit and listen, have great memorization skills, work hard-ish etc. They just do really well at the whole “going to school thing.” My third child, however, is not a meant-for-school kid. He is super smart but to sit and listen, to do redundant worksheets etc is NOT his thing. He works hard-ish but his hard-ish gets him low Bs and Cs (in advanced classes) while the other two get straight A’s. I’m never quite sure what to do when report cards come around. One is clearly not like the others. I don’t want to take away from the first two by minimizing their awesome grades but I don’t want to make child 3 feel inferior for his grades when I know his effort was there, it just that school doesn’t measure his particular strengths like it does theirs. Does anyone have any help for me in this issue? We do talk about making efforts and individual strengths etc but it feels a bit forced to my ears.

I’ve run into this, too. I’m finding it especially difficult with the twins, because they’re in the same grade and getting tested on the same things, so the comparisons are pretty obvious and exact. All of last year, they had the same spelling list, and Elizabeth was getting a much higher grade every single week than Edward; I didn’t want to praise her in a way that made him feel bad, but I also didn’t want to NOT praise her.

So far I’ve been doing a mix and match of these things with all the kids:

1) Emphasizing individual strengths, as you’ve been doing, whenever it comes up. We do a lot of frank  “Well, Elizabeth might just be better at you than spelling; you both spent the same amount of time studying, so it might be that it just comes more naturally to her. Other things come more naturally to you. [Giving example or not, depending on whether one comes readily to mind and/or exists.]”

2) Praising privately. I’ll wait until Edward isn’t around and then say, “Wow, Elizabeth, you did GREAT on your spelling test!” Sometimes I’ll mention to the praised child that I’m not making a big deal about it in front of another child, and I’ll re-emphasize the “People have different strengths” along with the “We don’t brag and make other people feel bad, especially if our strengths are inborn as opposed to coming from hard work.” Then I can also praise Edward separately, saying things like, “You did really well on your spelling test this week!” (if he did, for him), without Elizabeth pointing out that it’s not good compared to HERS.

3. Praising everyone publicly at times when things are more even. “Wow, Elizabeth, look at your spelling test this week! And Edward, good job getting your orange belt! William, this is a great painting!”

4. Finding other things for the doing-less-well child to thrive at. This one’s not always an option. But if the not-as-academic child could do really well at, say, karate, it gives another way to make accomplishments feel more balanced.

5. Just not discussing it much. It does feel bad to minimize someone’s academic accomplishments just because a sibling is getting lower grades—but on the other hand, there have been a lot of mixed reports recently on how abundant praise affects children. Looking at all three report cards and then saying an enthusiastic “Nice job, you guys!” (with no sharing around of grades) might make everyone feel happy. (And this can be combined with #2, speaking privately later to each of the two who got great grades, as if just bringing it up again as you would with any of them: “I just keep thinking of that great report card you got!”)

6. Additional private discussions with the child who gets lower grades can also help: saying that you know the child tries as hard (or harder) for less result, and that his effort is as important to you than the specific letter grade might help considerably. Rob has a lot of trouble with writing, and on his most recent report card he got a non-excellent grade in language arts—but accompanied by a note from the teacher that he was trying hard. I told him that was my favorite part of his report card—and it really WAS. (I’m not sure this method would work if it weren’t true.)

7. Sometimes it’s better to get A’s and B’s in regular classes than C’s in advanced classes. I’ve felt like there’s a lot of pressure from our school system to put kids in the highest possible level their test scores indicate they can handle—but as you’ve noted, some kids are just as smart but don’t do as well with the sitting down and worksheets type of learning. My plan is to whenever possible put kids in the classes where their grades reflect their effort. If that means letting them go down a level, I’m willing to do that. The GPA can even end up being exactly the same (I don’t know if all schools divide things the same, but at our school a C+ in honors/advanced class is the same GPA as a B- in an A-level class—but the B would feel a lot better, and be more comparable to his siblings’ grades).

********

How do you handle it with your kids?

Mattea writes:

Okay, so five kids into it, and having older, larger kids now….what car seats do you have/have had/hated/loved and in WHAT configuration in the car/minivan? We’re about to have number three in April and I’m LOSING MY MIND trying to get them all to fit in out Honda Pilot without having to lay down a grand on new car seats or buy a new car. Because we JUST bought this car last June when I was sure that I wanted another baby and that this car would SURELY fit all of them. Ahem. So.
ALSO! It seems to be too much to ask that these be the safest car seats, and the ones that my children will consent to ride in b/c they are actually comfortable.
Any help! Any help at all would be lovely. Reader input would be great!
Currently I have a very tall (very long torso) 4.5 year old and a not very shrimpy either 2.5 year old and they just seem to want to outgrow things at a ferocious rate. So, when I see people still fitting their 8 (!) or even NINE year olds into the harnassed booster kind of seats on the internet and raving about how LONG your kids will fit in this and how MUCH USE you’ll be sure to get out of this fabulous $300 car seat, but when I look up reviews people with long torsoed children should expect to get to about 4, maybe 5 if you’re lucky—or just like living dangerously. That’s when the ragey-rage and forehead abuse starts.
And, if, in your wanderings you have come across a potty seat that DOESN’T wick wee onto the rim, under the rim, onto the floor I’d be obliged :)

Hm. I HAVE liked our car seats…I think. Right now the three youngest are in those Graco booster seats that have backs on them (like this), and then you remove the backs when the child is tall/large enough. All three kids are tall enough that they’re using the seats without the backs now. Once you get to plain backless booster seats, I don’t think there’s significant safety differences anymore from one to the next; they’re just to get the child to the right height to use the car’s seat belt.

When the kids were littler and needed infant seats and convertible carseats, I remember I used Consumer Reports to choose which ones to buy. Usually the top-rated one or two were triple the price and only a tiny bit safer than the next one down, so I’d get the next one down. The problem is that Consumer Reports didn’t test NON-CRASH usage. That is, they didn’t mention that the covers weren’t removable, or that the strap was intolerably difficult to adjust. They just tested the seat in a crash—which of course is very important, but most of the seats will be through a crash 0 times and will need the covers removed 10 times and the straps adjusted 1000 times, so those issues are important to me TOO.

For all the babies, I think I got Graco infant seats. I liked the ones where you could adjust the looseness of the strap with a bit of belt that came out right under where the buckle was. SO EASY: I could loosen it wayyyy up to put the baby in without annoying him/her, then buckle it, then snug the belt up again.

When they outgrew those, the three youngest used the Evenflo convertible car seats. (I can’t remember anymore what the first two kids used.) They were ENORMOUS but comfy. One of my most enduringly popular posts has been the one where I posted the instructions for removing the goddamn cover (I never did get the cover off, myself). So if I were buying such a seat today, that would probably be my primary concern: that the cover come off (FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY).

And then I think they went from those into the Graco boosters (with backs).

Our 7-seat minivan (a Toyota Sienna) has two individual seats in the middle row, and then a bench-style seat as the back row (which theoretically seats three). When we had four kids, it was easy: the two older boys sat in the back row, and the twins were in the middle row where I could more easily manage their seat belts and straps and so forth.

When Henry was born, we moved one twin car seat to the center of the back row between the two booster seats—or maybe our eldest was by then old enough not to be in a booster anymore. Let’s see, he would have been eight, so yes, he probably wasn’t using a booster anymore. (It’s one of the upsides of having nice tall kids.)

Now that everyone’s so much bigger, it’s a tight fit when we go anywhere all together. Henry’s car seat is in one of the two middle-row seats, and the twins are on either end of the back seat. William is smaller than Rob, so he has to cram himself in the center of the back seat; the seat belt isn’t a shoulder kind, which makes me fretful. And Rob sits in the other of the two middle-row seats.

Rob is old/large enough to sit in the front seat, too, so if it’s just me and the five kids, Rob sits in the front seat, William and Henry sit in the middle row, and Edward and Elizabeth sit in the back row.

But all the car seat stuff has changed since I was choosing. So it’s good we have a comments section, so that other people can weigh in with more current information.

About the toilet seat, this is the one we have:

(photo from Amazon.com)

The child seat nests into the upper lid of the toilet, so you don’t have to take anything on and off each time. My brother/sister-in-law, my parents, and I all have the same potty seat system, but I think there’s a different brand name on each one; it seems like it’s the same seat issued under different brands, rather than competing products. All, I think, have “Next Step” on the upper inner top lid, and then a different name on the lower inner top lid. It’s a great seat for many, many reasons—but sadly there is still periodic wicking of wee.

[P.S. In Google Reader it LOOKS as if there was also another post today, called Lucky. But actually I posted that years ago. I went into it looking for something, and when I went out of it again it had somehow turned into an unpublished draft. So I hit publish—and it showed it published today, with all comments lost. I’m so frustrated, and am just leaving the post down. It wasn’t all that awesome anyway.]

Jessica writes:

I am pregnant with our second. We have an almost-3-year-old with a speech delay and sometimes I feel like we are barely holding it together. We both work outside the home. Can you (and maybe readers) tell me how having a second child changes things? I am really scared.

This question gives me an immediate split response as I remember how HARD it was at first, and how FINE it was in the long run. What I remember about having a toddler (Rob) and a newborn (William) is walking around thinking endlessly “This can’t be done. This can’t be done. This can’t be done.” (When it happened again when Henry was born, I concluded that it’s something magical about the toddler-plus-newborn combination.)

But then after awhile things got more comfortable and familiar and I thought, “Oh I get it: this is what people mean when they say ‘the new normal.'” I couldn’t really remember anymore what it had been like before the new baby arrived, and when I TRIED to remember I found I was imagining it must have been a blissful relaxed time with “only one” child, and how oh how did I fill my time? But as you know, and as I knew, it had NOT been like that. In fact, it had been pretty much the same as I felt now: busy, and sometimes barely keeping things together, but other times things working okay.

It would be hard to say SPECIFICALLY what changes, or how it changes, or what that’s like. Remember before you had your first baby? People could tell you what it was like for them to bring home their first baby, and what changes that made in their lives and marriages, but they couldn’t tell you what it would be like for you—and they couldn’t really explain even their own experience well enough to give someone else a true picture of it anyway. There was nothing for it but to wait and see for yourself. Nevertheless, I can tell you some of the things that changed in our house, and others can tell you what changed at their houses.

One thing that changed for us is that it’s harder for one parent to give the other a break. With one child, one parent can take the child to the store, or play with the child in another room, and the other parent can be free. With two children, one parent can still do these things with both child, but the perceived burden will be significantly higher.

On the other hand, I found that in my particular marriage, this led to my resentment levels dropping considerably: with one child, I felt like Paul was always free to go off and play on the computer or something, figuring (rightly) that there wasn’t much for him to do while I was nursing the baby; with two children, it made sense to both of us that each of us should be taking care of someone. I would be dealing with the baby, and he would be busy, too, playing a game with the toddler; or I would be bathing the toddler, and he would be holding the baby. It gave me a feeling of balance and fairness that led to a happier household overall.

Another thing that changed for us is that a number of things started feeling more “worth it”—I’m thinking of as the younger child got older. Getting out all the painting stuff for one child seems like a lot of work; for two, it seemed like I was getting double value for my time and effort.

A fun change was how endlessly fascinating we found it to notice the similarities and differences between the two children. This was a game we hadn’t been able to play with just one child. Taking pictures of them together was also surprisingly entertaining, as was dressing them in coordinated outfits. Geez, I know this sounds lame. BUT IT WAS FUN. Really, a very pleasing side effect of two or more.

Another change was how big our older child seemed all of a sudden. It was like he was a baby that morning, and a totally competent walker-talker that afternoon. I felt like the new baby gave me a much greater appreciation for the older child’s skills—things I hadn’t noticed so much before, like how nice it was that he could tell me what was wrong, or point to what he wanted, or be set down anywhere without slumping over like a cute little slug.

And the flip of this was also true: I found I could appreciate my second child’s babyness so much more, because I could see it in contrast to the older child. Instead of feeling like his babyness was practically all used up at 6 weeks (as I did with my firstborn, although to be fair that was in the middle of a hormonal cry fest), I felt like he seemed small and cute endlessly. And I could appreciate the simplicity of his needs: he needed food, or warmth, or a new diaper, or snuggles—he didn’t need a twentieth “Why?” answer, or to have it explained why he couldn’t have my coffee, or to have me to decide how much television he could watch.

Oh dear, I don’t feel like I’m answering your question AT ALL. Perhaps now is a good time to get the comments section going.

Update! Jessica writes:

Hello! A couple of years ago I sent you this question.

I wanted to tell you how incredibly reassuring this post and the subsequent comments were. I sadly ended up losing the pregnancy I was writing about, but got pregnant again a few months later and we had our beautiful second son in May 2012.

I think the biggest lesson I learned is that babies are DIFFERENT. Our first son was a difficult, difficult baby. Everything was hard — feeding, sleeping, awake time, going out, staying in. Therefore, I fully expected our baby experience to be replicated, except also with an older version running around wreaking havoc and demanding attention.

As it turned out, our second is the proverbial “easy baby” and our very difficult toddler has matured into a only moderately difficult preschooler.

Because of my paranoia, we had arranged for a young babysitter to come play with our older son for a couple of hours a day during our baby’s first few weeks, and that made a huge, huge difference, especially as I recovered from a c-section.

But my fretting was mostly unwarranted. Older son LOVES the baby, and we haven’t experienced too many alarming backslides in his behavior. He tries to be too rough with the baby — of course — but that’s pretty easily handled. Our days are intense, but joyful.

So thank you to you and the commenters for helping me through the fretful anticipation period. As is almost always the case, the worry turned out to be much worse than the reality.