You prompted me to read up on the subject of bacteria in washing machines and now I never want to use one again. Suffice to say that tap water should be the least of your concerns.

To misquote Princess Leia: "If test scores is all you love, then that's what you'll receive."

I agree! I used to think it was 50/50 nature:nurture, but now I think it's more like 70% nature and 30% try-not-to-fuck-them-up. My kids are super different and their personalities have been pretty stable in many ways since infancy.

Now with regard to screen time and the scroll-and-drool experience that permeates the modern interwebs, the scientific evidence is mounting that childhood exposure to dopamine response mechanisms like social media has almost inevitable bad effects and that some can be permanent. Note that I don't include reading books on a Kindle to be "screen time", or drawing in Procreate on an iPad, or other creative endeavors.

Yes, you are right on target!

Where did I say there was a 0% rule? Maybe your attention span is the problem, put the phone down and go for a walk.

They are hip to all the latest stuff, but they have to earn that screen time by engaging with literature that stretches their minds--you know, books. It makes them more mindful of the time they spend. There has never been a struggle over this because the rule is fairly applied and liberally interpreted. Keeping screens out of rooms is just common sense.

People kept telling me how bad it was going to be once my kids hit their teens. My experience is the opposite: they are awesome young adults (one just exited his teens) and a joy to be around. I see what other parents have gone through and my experience seems almost too good to be true. Some of those parents are strict in a controlling way, and the bad effects are apparent there, too. Firm boundaries, fair consequences with the intent to instruct rather than punish, and compassion have worked well for my kids.

I screwed them up in other ways, to be sure, and I will hopefully accept their judgment with humility when the time comes. Parenting is the act of standing in front of a mirror that reveals one's own shortcomings. There's no other way to truly grow up as a human being.

My kids say their peers are incredibly fucked up by social media in particular and have repeatedly thanked me.

Several years ago I talked to a Navy doctor who said he started getting a lot of sailors with sexual dysfunction issues. It turns out all these guys (mostly, not exclusively) had been porn-dependent since childhood and needed all kinds of help when confronted with the real thing.

How many kids have you raised to adulthood?

I suppose you have data for every washing machine to back that up?

There is a growing body of scientific evidence that suggests dopamine-trigger mechanisms exploited by social media and other online outlets can cause permanent neurological effects in children. It's much worse than TV, and TV was pretty bad when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s.

I'm not super judgmental about how other people screw up their kids after having spent a couple of decades screwing up my own. We want to save them from everything, but taken too far it robs them of seasoning and even agency. It's difficult to know where the line is! To be a parent is to be confronted on a daily basis with one's own shortcomings. My kids still want to talk to me, and they say they are grateful they didn't end up like their peers.

I pat them on the head and send them back to their dark, safe closets. :-P

Why are you posting anon if you're so proud of this?

I grew up to be a responsible citizen despite messed up hippie parents, what's your point?

My kids didn't have unsupervised access to anything with a screen until age 11 or 12--and by "supervised", I mean "actively being watched". Until age 18, nothing with a screen and an internet connection was allowed in a bedroom. Screen time had to be earned at a 1:1 ratio by reading assigned books. NO SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS.

The result is wonderful. They have their issues like anyone else, but I look at what other parents are dealing with and feel like I didn't completely bungle the job.

I read that too, are you saying the author is wrong? If you're ultra literal minded and want to offer up the existence of just one service in one city to prove them wrong, then you're not being reasonable.

Your response still reads as a non sequitur, but thanks for playing.

I can't read the paywalled article, but there's no reading of the story in front of us that would imply the author expressed anything that would lead to your comment so I had to assume the author in question was me, the one you were replying to.

"Solids" doesn't describe the goo that came out of my kids all too often, and I'm not gonna wash my clothes and such in something that was a vat of e. coli the load before and which can't be autoclaved. YMMV, glad it worked for you.

I just looked and I can't find a diaper service closer than 80 miles away in a rich suburb where there are several to choose from.

I actually said "I raised two kids ...", why guess?

I raised two kids and I can't imagine dealing with cloth diapers! I heard enough about them from my grandparents who raised Boomer kids to never want to return to the Bad Old Days.

We need diapers that biodegrade better, for sure. Plant-derived plastics, maybe, but cloth? gtfo