> I think one thing I worry about is my daughter possibly not growing up with a mother. Like how that will affect her.
Don't worry about that! My daughter lost her mother when she was 1.5 years old. It's important to have a sensible female role model. A grandma or an aunt will do just fine.
When my partner died, I read up a bit about the problems children face when being raised by a single father. By far the biggest problem was the father's alcoholism. So I decided not to become an alcoholic (a prospect which actually looked rather enticing at a certain point in time). Also I try to be gentle with myself: it's ok to mess up.
Again, hang in there and best of luck to you and your family!
My wife died suddenly when my son was two years old. He’s almost seven now.
So far, he’s completely fine without her. He claims he has memories of her, but I think he just remembers photos and videos that we’ve watched together. I don’t think he knows what he’s missing.
To your first question, I don’t know. We do celebrate her birthday, light a candle whenever we walk past a church / go into a temple etc. If I’m brutally honest I think it’s more for my own sake than his.
To retain the connection, we look at photos together every week and I tell him stories about her, and their relationship.
I spoke to him just now, and he says that he misses her but is unable to articulate how. Perhaps these ceremonies will grow more important over time, and as he grows older perhaps he will appreciate that we took the time to celebrate her.
I have an adult friend, who lost his mother at a young age too. He tells me that he only really started to miss her once he got older, around 12, and as an adult. He doesn’t remember who she was or why, but he misses the idea of having had family dinners at home every day etc. The dynamic in a household is very different when there is one adult and one child at home, versus two adults to a child.
Yes, but not for the reason that I want a mother figure in the house. Only recently, have I been able to date without comparing any new prospective partners to my late wife. I have yet to meet the right person.
It’s also a very big ask of a new partner for them to step in and fulfil the role of mother to your child.
Fair enough. I feel it's not uncommon for people with children to remarry, but yeah I imagine it has it's own challenges.
I feel like for me it would be a) Wanting someone I have a deep connection with and b) Someone who's interested in children. I feel that keeps it simple.
But yeah, I just think about how much I wouldn't be able to provide my daughter as a male, given I know so little about hair, make up etc. I mean, I'd obviously learn it all, but it would be easier to have someone who was already on that page.
I think you'll find those same people were wasting an equal amount of time in the work place as well. They just find other ways. I know one guy who was writing their novel at work, because it only requires a computer/is discrete.
I’m someone who finds it hard to stay productive at home but has no trouble focusing in the office.
Ala Atomic Habits, my home environment is set up to make my personal life easy. During the workday it’s way too easy to slip into leisure activities, while on personal time it’s easy to unwind. The office, on the other hand, is the opposite: it’s not full of things I enjoy doing, so distractions come with a lot more friction.
Working from home can be a net negative for some, even if it is a huge boost for many.
Even before COVID and the standardisation of remote work I got my best work done when I just grabbed my laptop from the office and went to a pub or a cafe to work.
There's some actual science in there how changing the place where you work makes it ... different somehow and you can focus on what you need to do instead of falling into old habits based on the location.
That’s definitely a big factor, and I’ve noticed a similar pattern with cafes or other locations.
The office is just the most reliable “not at home” environment for getting work done for me—there’s no guilt about camping out all day, seating is always available, internet is reliable, and so on.
I have thought a lot about this and it is why I think remote is doomed long term at the mass market because of a type of scaling property.
I am much more productive working remote. It isn't even close.
The dysfunctional slacker at the office though can get some productivity squeezed out of them at the office. Remote, they are completely useless and dysfunctional.
Then take the average worker with kids who can save a ton of money by not sending the kid to daycare and the loss of productivity from that.
At some scale, the productivity increases do not make up for the productivity loss in aggregate. The more you scale up, the worse it gets.
Remote is only going to work long term for small organizations who won't be much effected by this scaling property.
> The dysfunctional slacker at the office though can get some productivity squeezed out of them at the office. Remote, they are completely useless and dysfunctional.
Honestly, I think part of the issue I see with this is "squeezing productivity" out of them. Almost every other manager I've spoken to would see this as a complete waste of their own time and would simply fire the slacker instead. I know that it's easier or harder in different companies/countries. Maybe it's a sign that the slackers are in HR? ;-)
Back in the 80s my dad worked at a factory as a chemist. He said one dude who worked the night shift had put a cot in a closet. He'd come in and sleep basically his entire shift so he'd be well rested for his day job.
As someone who was once a young weed smoker, I get the sense that this is more correlation than causation. I know as many failures as I do successes from this position.
Those who have been failures were going to be failures anyway irrespective of whether they smoked weed or not, as was the case for those who ended up successful.
With that said, I don't deny that weed smoking at a young age would likely affect your brain negatively. But I don't think it determines what your outcome will be.
The article does not claim that smoking determines outcomes for any individual. It gives statistical evidence that outcomes (measured brain activity while performing certain tasks) for weed smokers are worse than for non-smokers __on average__, and that this pattern persists in various subpopulations determined by demographic and lifestyle factors.
This is actually an area that I find a little frustrating.
Generally to produce music you need to use a DAW. Ableton, Logic Pro etc. What sucks is you can't easily just assign a lyric to a note. Like it's just not a feature they provide.
It's something you can do in MuseScore because it uses traditional notation, but it would be great to be able to do it in something like Ableton.
Yes, lyrics are usually part of a traditional notation "score". Of course, Ableton is too hip to provide traditional notation with a score editor, but quite a few other popular DAWs do, including Logic:
Logic has support for adding lyrics. Create a MIDI region, select it, and press N to open the score editor. Make sure the inspector is open on the left, press I to open it if necessary. There is a block which says “part box” and inside it, LYRIC. This lets you put lyrics in the score.
That said, it’s not one of the strengths of Logic to use it this way.
The information (history/discoveries) can be distributed throughout the world and not dependent on one place anymore.
Past that, we'll have to leave the planet.
It's that "in almost every case" that's the problem. The whole point of insurance is to cover that case where it does happen, irrespective of how unlikely it is.
Case in point, my partner was diagnosed with a very, very, very rare terminal cancer at 32. Insurance turned out to be a great investment for us.
I think an issue with this kind of policy (not necessarily in Manhattan) but in other cities is that often there is no alternative other than to drive to the city.
For example, my partner needs radiation for her cancer and the hospital is located in the city. There is no other option than to drive. I feel like this type of policy negatively affects people in this situation, with no other alternative.
A $9 congestion charge is probably a huge help to you. For just $9 per visit, you get much lower traffic and easier parking. Your very high priority trip is easier because lots of lower priority trips either didn't happen, or used transit instead.
Not if you're poor. $9 daily would be quite a lot for poor people, especially since radiation is daily. Furthermore you often have no choice but to use paid hospital parking due to mobility issues, as opposed to cheaper parking near the hospital.
I think this policy is only feasible in cities with decent public transportation. I’d struggle to list any more than 1-2 other American cities where this could be done though.
A lot of cities that do have public transportation seem to have extremely frustrating (i.e. multiple transfers) gaps if you aren’t using the system to-and-from work.
It’s also only feasible if actions like this congestion charge are taken to tilt the scales. Most people would not use public transit if they could avoid it. When there is enough road infrastructure to match the density, private transit is preferred because you can drive directly to your destination, not have public safety issues like on the subway, haul cargo, and do it all quickly. The only way to make public transit attractive is to artificially and maliciously mismanage things to make driving cars slow and expensive. Which frankly is hostile towards people.
I agree with your rebuttal in response to that other person's comment, but ultimately I do think those programs are regressive for the poor, at this very point in time.
I guess the question becomes, should those poorest suffer for the betterment of all future generations? I would personally say no.
Life is regressive. Charity is a good thing, but not every single conceivable public policy has to include a charity component. Charging citizens a reasonable price for the cost of services rendered is a perfectly fair thing to do. The fact that life itself isn't fair doesn't change that. I'd prefer we try to address that later problem separately through a centralized welfare program rather than by hamstringing good public policy.
Thank you for letting me clarify my point with two examples of how these seemingly regressive policies ultimately help the poorer among us: 1. carbon taxes will improve poor air quality which currently impacts the poor more than the wealthy who can afford to live in cleaner areas. The poor will enjoy significant health benefits that far outweighs the small regressive tax they pay know. 2. A Congestion pricing stands to dramatically improve mass transit options like buses, which the working class rely on far more than the wealthy to get to work on time and will even expand the job options they have available to them.
I think one thing I worry about is my daughter possibly not growing up with a mother. Like how that will affect her.
It's been traumatic for myself personally, but it hasn't been ...I'm still highly functional and I'm still continuing to live life to the fullest.
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