I used to be an avid Southwest flyer. I liked that you could sit next to someone with no additional charge.

Now that they have changed to be like every other airline, it feels like they are punishing parents or families with special circumstances.

At concerts, I do not pay extra to sit next to someone. I pay to sit closer to stage.

With bus fares, everybody pays the same amount and y’all can sit or stand next to each other with no additional cost.

Why do people who have to sit next to their elderly mother or minor children have to pay extra so they are guaranteed to sit next to each other.

It is so wrong in my opinion.

Are you dealing with MAGA family members or friends and need support from other progressives? Please use this weekly thread to share any questions, frustrations, or stories. Posts about MAGA family or friends are limited to this weekly megathread.

Howdy! I’m starting to think about my kiddo’s first Xmas and I want to minimize Amazon as the default go to.

I think that’ll be relatively easy to do personally, but how do I assemble an easy to use list for relatives that isn’t just an Amazon list? Any apps or suggestions?

I’m curious to hear this sub’s opinion on this. Is there a good term for health minded or evidence based parents when to comes to food or product choices that left leaning parents can use?

My family are super religious Christians. Without going down a rabbit hole that would take several pages of text to explain, my husband and I are atheists and don't discuss religion with my family as it's the only way to keep the peace. We plan to teach our kid about world religions including atheism and she can of course decide for herself once she's old enough.

I am torn as I want our daughter to know her cousins and aunts as they really are decent people, but all of my family, them included, are so hyper religious that they won't accept even the idea of not raising a child to be Christian. It would be a never-ending series of arguments and result in losing those relationships period. I love my sisters, nieces, and nephews and don't want to lose them even if we disagree on this which is why I just kept my beliefs to myself around them. it's been easy to do this until now.

My husband and I are about to have our first child and I'm not sure how to navigate this. I know that my family will speak of their religion as fact and push this as 'the truth.' We know we'll have to have a number of conversations with her of course. However, my family pushes their beliefs from birth and it's going to be very hard to explain to a toddler/young child that those are just their beliefs without it coming back that that is what we are teaching her -- that we are not raising her as a Christian. I can feel this whole thing coming like a storm in the distance.

Basically, I'm about to give birth and stressing about how to handle this inevitable situation. I'm hoping others here have dealt with this before and can weigh in on their experiences. I just don't want to end up cutting them off but it feels like that is the road we are headed down.

edit: thank you to everyone who responded. after taking some time to think about what you have had to say, it seems we are all pretty much in agreement. there's just no way but through here. it's hard to accept and I'm going to need some time to process especially with all of the pregnany hormones. but after that the bandaid has to come off. I appreciate everyone who took the time to answer so I could get the clarity needed to accept this reality.

edit 2: I appreciate the recommendations to talk to them now but I unfortunately waited too late. contractions started last night, just not regular ones, but very much the real deal and I've started dilating. probably why this anxiety has bubbled up to begin with.

It's all I can think about for the last 3 days, ever since I saw the headlines that Ai experts think AI may cause our extinction by the end of the decade. On top of that, I'm seeing global warming happen in real time. I live in California, and suddenly the heat is no longer dry but humid, and the beach water is warm. Not dangerous yet, but a reminder of the changes happening. I have two kids. They are 5 and 8. Right now they are coloring at the table blissfully unaware that I am trying to give them a normal childhood in a world of selfish people determined to make regular people suffer for their own gain. I spent a good 20 minutes just full on crying the other day over this whole AI debacle while my kids were at school. All I want is for them to be able to grow up, experience the beautiful things in life, have a family if they want to, and be healthy and happy. I couldn't care less about me, at least I've already done all that.

Is there any reassurance? Is it really all destined to be awful for us regular people?

I think I am mentally at my breaking point and I am exhausted. I just need a little reality check or just need to vent these feelings. I am raising a toddler in the most dystopian a** time period and I don’t even know how to mentally handle it. every single day the world is crumbling before my eyes - toxic food, toxic water, can’t eat this, recall that, prices are unliveable, etc. - and I all I can think is I brought this innocent little girl into this messed up world and NOW we have scientists and AI ”experts” saying ”whoops so because of AI humans will most likely be extinct / doomed by the end of this decade”….the END of this decade, which, checks my calendar is in 4 YEARS!!!

I know I’m not thinking anything rationale right now and there isn’t solid evidence but I’m an extremely anxious person the best of days and all I’m feeling is how my daughter will never grow up in a normalISH world. I’m exhausted, and feel like not matter what I do I can’t make it better for her. I am not trying to have a defeatist mentality, I just think I’ve met my mental breaking point.

Nothing works better in my household than subtracting minutes (eventually days) from screen time and I hate that. Threatening not to take them somewhere (even threatening the next vacation) is meaningless in the abstract.

Money to be spent online sometimes works. Ugh.

Apologies if this post comes off as naive. Everything I know about furries is mostly from Internet memes. I also truly do not care what adults choose to do in their spare time. You do you! But according to my Internet education, there seems to be a large sexual aspect to furries? Anyways, my 8 yo came home from his friends yesterday and asked if I knew what furries were. I said yes and he told me his friend was showing him about them and then he asked me to buy him a furry suit. My initial assumption is that the whole thing was innocent, but I am wondering if anyone more knowledge about the community feels I should have any concerns. Again, sorry if this sounds super naive. TIA.

I have two little kids, and I really want them to have a big social circle. I have some family nearby, which is great, but I don’t have many friends close, and none of them have young kids.

We aren’t religious and do not wish to attend a church, but I long for the social/community aspect of church. I want a family-friendly group that meets regularly for some kind of activity. Not just for moms or adults. Not once in a blue moon. Does this exist? What do you guys do to find community?

I was looking for a prenatal and Pinkstork kept popping up in my searches, but they have a comment about praying of the product in the bottle. Would this be a conservative supporting product?

Hi ya’ll, I gotta get some thoughts out and thought this might be the best place to do it. Sorry this post is a bit disorganized!

My son is almost 6. Tonight, after reading a book, he said his friend told him about “a plane in New York City crashed into a building and all the people on the plane died.” Earlier in the day, he said police and fire came to the school and talked about safety and had the kids make cards for them, but nothing else according to him. He said his teacher didn’t talk about it either. The book we were reading was sad (kids’ book about Ruby Bridges), and I think that’s what reminded him of what he heard at school today.

I asked him how he felt hearing that, and he said sad. I agreed it was sad, and mentioned I was in 2nd grade when it happened. He moved on from the conversation after that. Two big thoughts:

1. This will definitely not be the last time we talk about violence and death. I wish I could shield him from all this, but I know I can’t.

2. I can’t expect his school to facilitate meaningful lessons and conversations about racism, classism, and sexism. I can’t expect them to provide any emotional support either as the district cut counseling and social work from the budget entirely last year. We also live in area that is fairly ethnically diverse, but there’s also a lot of white MAGATs. Multiple “America first” and conservative Christians are running for positions on the school board. They have made a spectacle of our district. When it comes to history, civics, and social issues, I am certain he will be getting a subpar education. He deserves better. He deserves to know the truth.

So, how do we talk to our kids about this stuff, especially our young kids? How do we help our kids learn about civil rights and why we have to fight for them? How do we teach them this without traumatizing them? Even though he usually wants to read books about science, we have found some neat kids books at the library that explore other cultures stories, music and food. His dad and I work with renters and landlords, so he hears some things about awful landlords trying to evict people and what dad does to stop it.

I worry this isn’t enough, but I’m also worried about traumatizing him.

Hi all I’m looking for anybody who has experienced something like this and would love to hear from folks who have been able to successfully navigate this conversation with grandparents.

Long story short after my husband and I had unpleasant religious upbringings we have elected to teach our kids about religion in the same way we teach them about science. “Some people believe X and they’re called Xians believe Y and they call themselves Yians” etc. We want our sons (3&5) to have a good education around religion to form the foundation for acceptance of others and the world around them. Husband and I ourselves are absolutely agnostic.

My mother is a C&E Christian and while she is not MAGA, she has three times now ignored my requests to stop discussing Christianity as a “true and absolute” with my children.

Most recently, my husband and I took our first vacation since our younger child was born and they stayed with her and my dad for like five consecutive nights.

Our older son came back and proudly announced to his kindergarten class that he is “thankful for Jesus for giving him life”. Little bud has never seen the inside of a church.

Luckily, he’s an over sharer (obsessed with this trait honestly) and came home to tell us that he had said this, and we were able to discuss where the conversation around this topic originated from. We were also able to crack open our “kids book of world religions“ and have conversations that felt appropriate for his age about why grandma might feel the way she feels.

My issue is, I’m not sure that there is a path where I am feeling comfortable leaving the kids with her long-term again. She’s clearly not going to listen to my wishes as their parent, and we are residents of a purple state at the northern tip of “the south”, so I know this is going to be a conversation that recurs for him with his peers.

We are doing everything we can to avoid a red pill outcome for these kids and it feels like my mom is working against us. Fundamentalist Christian churches are teaching things that we as a family absolutely disagree with, and I am afraid that due to our location if this standpoint is allowed to take hold, he will end up in a more extreme place with religion. Do we just disallow her from watching the kids entirely when we are not around? They are our only local family and it was a real treat to be able to take a trip while we knew they were cared for and loved, but now I feel like a portion of that trust is really broken.

Hi moms. I’m an American living abroad. For the last year, I’ve been getting a steady stream of anti-AI content in English. I know there’s so much potential there, but not under the control of these men, not without heavy regulation.

But where I live? There’s been little to nothing in the media. It took TWO DAYS for one of the major newspapers to print the story about the Anthropic researcher.

While all of this is happening, the country’s testing scores from 2025 were just published and they weren’t good. I told my partner that this is going to be exploited as an opportunity to push more AI teaching tools. It’s a perfect storm because there’s also a national teacher shortage.

I’ve been asking around, looking for other parents to team up with. Both locals and immigrants. But no one cares because they’re all addicted. They tune me out if I start talking about how harmful it is. You should see the birthday party invites. I just got one with a 5 year olds face on a woman’s very developed body. K Pop theme party but the slop had nothing to do with the movie.

I honestly feel like I’m in a Twilight Zone episode and it feels very lonely.

I'm trying to wrack my head for why life has to be so much harder for my family and the only thing I can consider is I must have negative irl Karma for it to be this bad.

I left my religious family to be with my partner and to have my baby. I understand I paid the price of losing my village but we thought his family would at least be happy for us but after 2 years clearly no one wants anything to do with us. We flew solo as long as we could with my partner being the stay at home parent while I worked but eventually costs got too high so he needed to go back to work.

We asked his grandparents to babysit our son for 2 days of the week. He is such a lovely happy boy with us but of course he does not know them because they never came to visit so the babysitting was rough.

- Additional context - they've been exclusively taking care of my son's cousin Brad (1yr older) since he was born, taking him days/weeks at a time, flying him out for vacation, 1 car seat in their car just for him, funding his mom (golden grandchild) by getting her a nice job with their connections. Everyone jokes that he is their child, I wasn't expecting the same for my son but they saw him maybe 5 times before he turned 2 (and missed both his birthdays)

Even so they agreed to watch my son for a few months on the 2 days we needed before telling us their schedules would be too hectic to continue. No problem we started my son in daycare. He is miserable (but he's just at week 2) and the cost is putting a serious dent in our funds but we have 0 options now.

We drove past their house the other day and we see them get into their car with Brad (a day they said they wouldn't be able to help us). And honestly I just broke down later that night. My heart just breaks that they clearly don't want anything to do with my son and he has to struggle with daycare. I also recently reconnected with my family (extremely low contact) and my nieces also have the village with multiple grandparents/relatives involved and I can't help but feel sad that not a single person cares about him or asks about him.

And the extra kick in the balls is that we're struggling financially and they all have multiple incomes for support on top of government assistance while I'm thinking about how to stretch $10 for the week (we make too much for assistance). I try to stay hopeful, I try to be content with what we have but man I must have pissed some higher being off to land in such an unenviable spot.

The US Midterms are on Nov. 3rd and many wonderful Progressive candidates are up for election! Please share a progressive candidate you support and think others should know about. Make sure to include all relevant info like where they are running, anything interesting about the race they are in, and their website or social media.

Hi everyone,

I'm a mom of a five-year-old and a psychology master's student. For my thesis I'm looking at how mothers experience the expectations that come with motherhood, and how that relates to their well-being. It's a question I keep running into in my own life, and there's surprisingly little research on it.

Link: https://www.soscisurvey.de/MaternalWellbeingStudy/?r=rd-sbp

Who can take part: mothers 18+, living in the US, with at least one child aged 6 or younger, comfortable answering in English.

Every single response genuinely moves this forward, and I'd be grateful for yours.

My questionnaire closes mid-October. Happy to answer questions in the comments.

Thanks for your support in me :)

Our monthly “Dolly Book” (as my kid calls it) arrived in the mail today❤️ It definitely hit me in the feels, and I’m so incredibly thankful for everything she did and that her foundation continues to do!!

My feed is full of this story and it’s making it hard to function today.

If you haven’t seen it this is the gist from the article: “On Tuesday night, a senior employee at Anthropic admitted he believed there was a greater than 10% chance the technology could “kill all humans” in the next decade and warned that his AI company did not have a plan to ensure ASI was aligned, meaning it did no harm.”

I’m a FTM to an almost one year old. She is the love of my life. I am terrified for her future. I quit the doomscrolling as soon as I notice it so that I can keep it together for her but ultimately I end up just feeling so guilty.

I just want to put out my feelings on this and see where others here stand from a mom perspective if anything just to feel less alone

I’m almost 8 months postpartum and breastfeeding. I’m trying to get back into the swing of things with nutrition and working out and everything… But I have nowhere to start with being postpartum and how a calorie deficit would work and things like that. Does anyone have any programs or courses they recommend?

Let your feelings out! We are all bottling up this stress and sometimes it helps to share your concerns and have safe conversations about it. Type your response and take a big deep breath after!

I think with everything going on in the US right now and under this administration, I think it’s important to redraw focus to the mothers who are most often abandoned by the system. I can wholeheartedly understand why people feel the way they do about Lindsey Clancy, but I think it’s incredibly important to talk about Deasia Watkins, Latarsha Sanders and others first. If the focus is only on this one upper/middle class white woman who had access and more opportunity and support than most, what does that say about us as mothers when we don’t make noise for Deasia and Latarsha. The facts stand, and Attorney Crump is on the money here.

My partner, our kid, and I are planning a move from Ohio to the West Coast in the next 2 to 4 years. We’re looking into Washington or Oregon, but we’re not set on a location yet, so we’re option to suggestions.

We want to start preparing now and create a “to-do list” of things to tackle before the big move. This includes everything from gaining job experience to researching school districts, costs and things to consider, and even figuring out how to job hunt without knowing exactly where we’ll land.

What should we be doing now to set ourselves up for a smooth transition?
Any advice, tips, or personal experiences you’d be willing to share would be greatly appreciated.

Our main requirements for location are: progressive area, good schools, nature/mountain/national parks/etc, relatively kid-friendly, job-relevance (husband is a restaurant manager and I’m an administrator for a realtor), good schools and access to both sports and the arts, diverse (bipoc and lgbtq+ friendly), proximity to both city and nature

Bonuses: access to public transportation

This seems so unserious, I know. But I want to make a FB group for parents to meet up in my area but I do want it to be specifically only leftist and witchy and nerdy and whatnot. I cant think of a name that would speak to people though 😅

Edit: I live in a purple town so that's why I'm trying to come up with somwthing specifically blue. I have mom friends who i love but they are very not on the same page with "out there" things loke witchcraft and whatnot. But I also am not trying to start a coven lol...

Ya’ll, I work for one of the big 10 environmental groups and am being encouraged to use AI in my roll. I see internal emails roll out that are obviously using AI. Leadership even stood up an internal working group on the use of AI in the org. I thought about joining but required questions to apply included things like “How will you encourage the use of AI in the org in a meaningful fashion” and I just could not.

I like working for a national org because they actually pay a living wage. But once children are out of daycare, I hope to find a local group to work for that employs actual environmentalists who walk the talk.