Stupid “opinions” on gifted kids

A lot of people seem to think that they are entitled to spew their opinions on gifted kids, parents of gifted kids, and gifted education without having read *any* of the research or without even ever spending time with gifted children.

Here are some of the things you should stop saying on the internet, behind people’s backs, or to their faces:

1.  Why do gifted kids need to be challenged anyway?  Why can’t we let kids be kids?  What’s the rush?

Gifted kids who are not challenged are at a greater risk of dropping out than normal kids.  They’re also more likely to have bad behavior than gifted kids who are sufficiently challenged.  And, if they’re not challenged early on, they can flame out spectacularly when challenged later as young adults.  (All of the previous statements are verifiable from pretty much any research-based book on gifted children.)

On top of that, most children find learning to be fun and to be part of childhood.  It is only adults who seem to feel the need to make learning not fun.  Fight that.

2.  It’s so important for kids to be with their same-aged peers.  It may not be important in elementary school, but just wait until they’re old enough to drive/go to prom/go to college.  Then you’ll see.

Gifted kids are often out-of-synch with their same-aged peers.  It would be great for them to hang around other gifted kids their same age, but many populations don’t have a large enough population to support gifted classes, and tracking is not currently in vogue.   A Nation Deceived makes a clear and convincing case that gifted kids actually do *better* socially on average when accelerated than when with same-aged peers in a normal classroom.  As for driving and prom… those are not the end-all and be-all.  Not all kids go to prom.  Many freshmen go to prom with seniors.  If a freshman hangs out with juniors, hir friends will be driving anyway even though ze can’t, and not all kids have cars or get licenses at 16 anyway.  In terms of college, there are many possibilities not limited to going early, taking a gap year, taking courses at the local college or community college, and so on.  There’s an exciting world of possibilities that may be even better than the status quo.

3.  I knew a kid who skipped grades and ze was totally messed up.

Correlation is not causation.  Gifted kids are often odd and out of synch compared to other kids.  Chances are they’ll seem messed up in the view of some subset of the population whether or not they’re accelerated.  Compared to gifted kids who are not accelerated, those who are accelerated do better academically AND socially, according to A Nation Deceived.

4.  Being bored/miserable/picked on/the only person doing work on a group project is a part of adult life.  Kids need to learn to get used to it in school.

When you’re gifted and do well in school, you can often sort yourself into a profession in which you’re more likely to be surrounded by other competent hard workers doing interesting things.  Being picked on is not normal as an adult.

5.  I’m so sick of hearing X complain about the problems she’s having with her so-called gifted kid, if the kid is actually gifted, which I have my doubts.  Gifted kids don’t need special treatment, not like real special needs kids.  She should just shut up.

It is not easy being the parent of a gifted child.  Gifted children are often intense.  They often do not sleep much, are energetic, are sensitive, act out, get depressed, can be crippled by perfectionism, and many other things, particularly if their needs are not being met.  And society is not set up to help meet their needs in many places.  Additionally, parents of gifted kids often do suffer from isolation.  They often cannot talk about their kids to other parents.  It is wonderful being a parent of gifted children, but there are also challenges.

6.  Kids aren’t really gifted, they’re just hot-housed by over-achieving parents.

We don’t believe there is a such thing as over-achievement (that’s an opinion).  However, gifted kids often achieve quite a bit without the least bit of hot-housing (that’s a fact).  Parents do often provide more academic enrichment for gifted kids because that is what the child needs to help behavior and happiness, but there are generally no flashcards or pressure involved.  Gifted kids often teach themselves to read.  And reading is fun!  All kids are sponges, and gifted kids seem very eager to soak things up.

Remember, opinions and facts are not the same thing, and sometimes incorrect opinions that are not based on actual facts can do real damage.  Do you really want to be one of those people who hurts an entire group?  Well, we know that none of *our* readers would, but occasionally people find their way to us via google.  If you’re in that situation and you say stuff like this, knock it off.

What are incorrect “opinions” that you find annoying, gifted-related or other?

Man’s search for meaning Part 2: Plant your garden

The Penny-Arcade guys are awesome.  They started out as a couple of dudes with a web-comic.  They’ve taken that web-comic and their fame and channeled it for something much bigger.  Yes, they run conventions, but more impressively, they started an awesome charity called Childs Play.

This charity, aimed at showing that video games are not evil incarnate, and that gamers can do good, connects children’s hospitals with games, books, toys, and other resources to help sick children keep their minds off their illnesses.  Donations started small– one hospital and the PA guys’ garages as storage facilities, and they made deliveries themselves.  Now they’ve ratcheted up into a large non-profit that connects with and ships directly to hospitals.

You can donate here.

And now for some negative griping.

Compare the PA guys to the onanistic navel-gazing you see from other movements.  The minimalists.  The travel the world folks.  The motivationalists.  [Note:  we are not saying that all minimalists, world-travelers, self-helpers etc. are onanistic con-artists, but you know they exist.]

The Penny Arcade dudes are real.  They have authenticity.

So much of that motivational crap seems so hollow and insincere, aimed just at making money off other people.

For the most part, they’re not actually doing anything.

The P-A guys, OTOH, are teh awesome.

And that, perhaps, is why I don’t expect them to get mid-life crises.  When you’re busy doing things that are real, you don’t have time to feel like life is meaningless.

also:  I like the word onanistic

Language is important: A feminist primer

Dr. #2 is going to have to help me out on this post since she’s the feminist scholar.  (Everything I learned about feminism I’ve been learning from her and academic blogs!)  But I’m beginning to know subtle sexism when I see it.

Language is a tricky thing.  We can say one thing overtly but use language that implicitly says something quite the opposite.  How we say something can be more important than what we actually say.

Woman as child

There is so much infantilizing of women.  When’s the last time you called a woman over age 18 a girl for any reason?  Please, check yourself.  If you get together with a group of women, are they girlfriends?  Who gets called baby?

[disclaimer:  I think this song is MAD CATCHY!]

Pronouns matter

Much of this information comes from the work of Janet Shibley Hyde and colleagues. 

Much research shows that when people read, say, or hear “he” or “him” as generic pronouns, they almost always think of male examples.  In one study, participants read a sentence about “the average student” at a university, and that student was referred to as either  his, their, or his or her.  Then participants had to make up stories about this fictional student.  When “the average student” got the his pronoun, 65% of the stories were about men.  Using their resulted in 54% of stories being about men.  Using his or her, 44% were about men.  There are a lot of studies that replicate this finding.

That study was from 1978 with adults, so Hyde wanted to look at children and how they developed these ideas. She gave children a sentence such as:  When a kid goes to school, ____ often feels excited on the first day.  She filled the blank with either he, they, or he or she.  When the word was he, not a single boy in all of elementary school (through fifth grade) made up a story about a girl.  In fact, most children, girls and boys, did not even know about he being (supposedly) gender-neutral.  However, despite not being aware of the rule, most children thought of “human” as equivalent to “male”.  In another sentence, Hyde had children fill in the blank: If a kid likes candy, ____ might eat too much.  Overwhelmingly, the children filled in “he” to represent a random kid.  Even the girls.

This is true in English, which does not have genders on all our nouns, and also in other languages, like German and Spanish, which do.

Finally, Janet Shibley Hyde gave elementary school children a paragraph describing the fictional occupation of wudgemaker.  She varied the pronouns, and then asked children how well a woman could do the job, and how well a man could do it.  When rating men, pronoun had no effect on what children thought of them as wudgemakers.  They answered that a man could do the job pretty well whether the pronoun described wudgemakers as he, they, she, or he-or-she.  However, when figuring out how well a woman could do the job, pronouns mattered.  Children who heard the pronoun he to describe a typical wudgemaker rated a woman as being “just ok” at that job.  Children who heard she rated a woman as being very good at the job.  The other two pronouns were in the middle.

Sexist language can even lower females’ ability to remember content from a passage of reading.

Media and sexual abuse

Rape

And don’t get us started on language used in rape cases.  Well, I guess it’s too late.

Problems include passive language:  “Every year thousands of women are raped.  How can this problem be stopped?”  Hello.  Every year thousands of men rape women!

In another study of sexual assault coverage, most of the quotes used were from the perpetrator or his lawyer (eww).  Who gets to tell their story?

Child Abuse

It gets worse with child sexual abuse in the media.

The media often use “it” to describe a child (most victims of sexual abuse are girls), and even when the media identify the gender they will later revert to using it, in something called Gender Slippage.  Language is of critical importance in influencing societal views.  When they do this, the article becomes more neutral and reduces the reader’s emotional involvement.  It also reduces the perceived seriousness of the problem.  Do we want to do that?

When adults abuse children, the media often frames the situation as a consensual relationship.  Media sometimes use the word “affair” between a 60-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl.  That is not an affair.  That is abuse.  “Jailed teacher afraid lover boy will dump her”  (O’Mahony, 1998) is one example.  Again, ewww.

Domestic Violence

Johnson (1994) did an incredible study of San Francisco newspapers’ coverage of domestic violence (DV) cases involving death of the victim.  Professional DV experts were quoted in only 25% of articles; the main source of quotes was perpetrator’s family.  Who has voice?

The term “domestic violence” was used repeatedly for non-white couples but rarely for white couples.  White perpetrators were usually described as nice, normal, sweet, and loving; minority perpetrators were described negatively.  In the articles, violence was seen as aberration in white communities but expected in minority communities.

Bullock and Cubert (2002) studied over 200 Seattle newspaper accounts of domestic violence.  They find that many many articles shifted blame from attacker onto victim or circumstances (“the divorce was hard on him”).  EWww!  One possible mechanism for how this happens is DARVO.  There was also a misconception that abusers should be readily identifiable (i.e., not the rich white people-next-door).

But wait, you also get…

We’ve already covered stereotype threat.  Yes, words really can hurt.

You get to choose what you consume in the media.  What will you tolerate?  Do you write letters to the editor?

Having a little bit of economics is worse than having none at all

When it comes to policy.

P. J. O’Rourke on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me just made a joke about how Obama needs to read an economics 101 textbook and apologize to Paul Ryan.

As a professional economist who knows and has personally met (and is known! by a subset of) economists who have advised the past FOUR presidents, I submit that Obama knows a hell of a lot more economics than Mr. P. J. O’Rourke does (who, admittedly also made jokes during today’s broadcast about how bad he is and has always been at math).

The problem is that a lot of folks take Econ 101, maybe Econ 102, which teach very basic theory and then they don’t take any field courses that deal with economics in *reality*.

In Econ 101, we have to keep things simple so that people can get the basics down.  How do supply and demand work?  What does thinking at the margin mean?  What are sunk costs?  How do interest rates work?  What is GDP?  And so on.   These are really complicated and deep ways of changing the way most of us think.

In order to make these concepts as simple as possible, we have to make a whole lot of simplifying assumptions.  We assume that markets always work– there is no market failure.  (Advanced classes may get to externalities by the end of the semester, but that’s generally the only source of market failure that they get to.)  They assume that the world is in perfect competition (and again, more advanced courses may get to monopoly power by the end of the semester, but many do not).   We assume that markets have full information and that all (identical) people are able to make rational decisions that involve complicated math problems instantaneously and in their heads.  When we make all of these simplifying assumptions and do the math, it seems very obvious that we shouldn’t have government at all except to enforce contracts and property rights.

It is true, a few PhD economists are still stuck on these theoretical dreams.  For example, Gary Becker’s work *proves* that taste-based discrimination cannot exist in theory… given the assumption of perfect competition and that we are in general equilibrium.  And if we had perfect competition, then of course nobody would discriminate against blacks or women.  Therefore if we see any differences it must be because blacks are inferior (he allows that that might be because of pre-labor market conditions like bad schools) and women should stay at home and support their husbands.  [Note:  he is wrong.  The perfect competition assumption does not hold, so owners can take some of their oligopoly rents as tastes for discrimination.]

Reality is, we live in a messy world of imperfect competition and there’s room for a lot of market failures whether we’re talking general equilibrium or partial equilibrium.  In addition to the basic problems of monopoly and externalities and partial equilibrium that are often covered in Econ 102, there’s a whole host of problems that lead directly to market failures.  There’s moral hazard, public goods problems, adverse selection, and sometimes paternalism (since most people who aren’t economists and even some who are aren’t the fully informed rational actors we assume they are in Econ 101).

All of these complications and all of these sources of market failure lead to the potential for government intervention.  Now, there are always costs to government intervention, and sometimes the costs outweigh the benefits or vice versa.  But suggesting from your very limited knowledge of economics that anyone who believes in any government intervention needs to read an Econ 101 textbook is ludicrous.  Instead, I submit that such folks need themselves to take and understand more economics.  They need to understand what happens when those simplifying assumptions we made in Econ 101 break down.  And they can use those tools that they learned in Econ 101 to get that understanding.

Until then, I submit that knowing a little econ is more dangerous than knowing none at all.  And I urge people who teach Econ 101 to add caveats when they’re doing this teaching and be very clear about the assumptions being made in order to get to the conclusions.  My 102 professor (a labor economist) was very good at doing that and those caveats awakened my thirst for further knowledge for when that world isn’t as perfect as it seems in that initial 101 class.  My sister couldn’t handle the unrealistic assumptions in 101 (stated as fact) and rejected the entire field– and perhaps that’s another way to go.  Personally I’m glad I stuck with it until I got to the more reality-based stuff.

And that’s my rant.  Any comments on when knowing a little of something is more dangerous than just using your common sense?

Students will drive me out of academia

When I was putting together my tenure binder I had to do the awful thing of reading my student evals, and that was horrid in every way.  And I cried to my partner for hours about it and we worked it out, but the fact is, I still have that job.  I still have the job where, in every class, there is one student who will write inappropriate things that are extremely mean, and I don’t know who that is, so all students are the enemy.  I have the job where a hundred 19-year-olds judge my appearance, and then my boss reads it and it goes in my personnel file. HOW IS THAT OK?!??!?!?

It shouldn’t be.

But that’s how academia is.  19-year olds are going to insult me for the rest of my career and say mean things about my appearance, forever.  And I don’t get to say mean things about them, because I have to be professional and they don’t.

It’s not even necessarily the ones earning bad grades who are writing hurtfully inappropriate anonymous evals.  I mean, it has to be correlated, but it’s not direct, I’m sure.  I suspect some former A students among the worst commenters.

You might say that nobody cares what 19 year olds think except advertisers.  To which I reply, AND THE DEAN, and the provost.  Though maybe they won’t have the time to read my evals anymore after tenure.  Who has that kind of time?

This time around the evals hurt when they shouldn’t have because they picked one thing I was already bothered about and poked it.  ASSHOLES.  Rationally I know they’d just make fun of something else if it weren’t this one thing.

For just that reason, I considered investing in a completely crazy and very weird-looking hat, just so that I would know what they would criticize.  It would be like a hate-catcher.  Except they’d probably say it was cool.  They’re messed up like that.  Goddamn bastards.

I have a job where they get to lash out at me and say whatever they want, and I can’t lash back.

And I’ll probably get to keep this job forever, if I want it.

But I don’t have to read the evals anymore.  Ever again.  (Unless I want to go up for full.  Your eval numbers have to be even higher than for assoc here.)

I can worry about that then.  Stupid @#$%ers.

pout

It’s not really your money if you’re in debt

Here at Grumpy Rumblings, we’re all about enjoying life’s little luxuries… *if* you can afford them.  You won’t hear us castigating you for buying a nice car or fancy cheeses or lattes or traveling or whatever it is that makes you happy.  If you have the money, spend it on whatever (legal) thing you want to spend it on.  It’s not a race to financial independence unless you want it to be (and some of us prefer working to taking cold showers).  He who dies with the largest asset portfolio isn’t the winner.

However, we get irritated when folks with high debt loads make the same argument, especially when that debt is of the high-interest unsecured kind.  Not only are you shooting yourself in the foot someday living near the edge, but you’re also living it up today at the expense of other folks if that house of cards comes crashing down.  One day you may get hit with a negative shock.  You could lose your job or hit your credit limit or get hit with a big medical bill or any number of things that many of us self-insure for with cash in the bank.  And at that point, someone will have to bail you out.  It might be family or it might be bankruptcy or you may get suckers on the internet to help shoulder your burden.  It may even be the government paying for your problems in old age or nonprofits taking care of you.

Those folks say they’re entitled to their high debt loads.  They fund more lavish lifestyles than we have on their smaller incomes.  Travel, fancy handbags, daily meals out, nice cars, a house with no money down… why should they have to pay off their unsecured debt before living life?  They say it’s their money, they should be able to do what they want with it.

Except it isn’t their money.  It’s their money plus the expected value that they’re going to screw up and someone else is going to have to take care of their mess.  And the probability of that happening is pretty high, much higher than folks who are responsible with their money.

And those responsible folks are the ones who end up footing the bill, whether because they’re family or just society as a whole.  And that’s irritating.

Now, we wouldn’t trade with these entitled folks.  We *like* having real actual money of our own more than we like the consumer goods or additional travel or whatever it is we could be funding instead of saving or keeping our credit lines open.  But it is still obnoxious.  (And why is it that almost every person I know IRL like this votes Republican and hates folks on Welfare?  The only difference is access to credit!)

Student debt isn’t as bad because it’s virtually impossible to discharge in bankruptcy, but it can still keep folks from retirement saving, which eventually comes back to bite society through old-age Medicaid costs if nothing else (2/3 of Medicaid is long-term care).  Housing debt is secured which means the bank at least gets a house in return for the debt.  But we still cringe when people put 0% down on top of all their other debts.

Anyhow, I guess the point of this post is, stop bragging about your expensive purchases until you’ve taken care of yourself first.  We don’t want to hear about it.  It’s not your money that you’re spending until you’re out of debt.  Stop talking about spending other folk’s money.  Even better, stop spending other folks’ money… but that is probably too much to ask.  ETA:  Stopping complaining about your debt would also help, especially if you’re always attributing that debt to the universe being against you.

What do you all think?  Should people be entitled to lavish spending so long as they can make the minimum payments on their credit lines?  At what point are you allowed to live a lavish lifestyle?  What’s your limit for what you would do to get out of high interest unsecured debt?

RBORant

• Dear friends of wives/fiances of my male colleagues, Please stop inviting me to women-only bridal and baby showers.  I do not know your friend, I only know her husband/husband-to-be.  Also:  I hate shower games.  Seriously.  If you want to invite me to a shower, please make it co-ed so I know someone there and have food and conversation but no games.  Yes, I will stick a gift into your friend’s husband’s work mailbox anyway.
• Related:  Dear husband’s aunt whose daughter (that I did not know existed) lives several states away from me, please do not send me an invitation to a woman’s only baby shower for your daughter.  If you want a gift, just send an announcement to your nephew once the baby is born.  Of course, given that the baby will not be born until fricking October, this may not be the last baby shower you are planning on throwing.  Please do not invite me to those either.  (And yes, I sent a gift card anyway, but am not planning on sending one at the birth.  You get one gift.  It would have been twice as much had you followed proper etiquette.)
• I hate it when people say that parents are showing off with their kids when they’re interacting with their kids in public.  You don’t know why people do what they do.  And it most likely isn’t for your benefit.  (You’re not actually that important.)
• Dear relatives, Please stop pressuring me to have the baby.  Ze will come by 42 weeks, and it is not my fault if you expected hir at 38 and ze’s still not there at 40.
• Psychology researchers doing long-term laboratory studies on relationships find that contempt is the #1 predictor of divorce.  It isn’t fun to read about other peoples’ contempt for their spouses on the internets.
• Dear student, I am afraid that a recommendation letter from me could not be very strong as it would have to contain information about your performance in my class.
• Some people are more likable before they drink the self-help motivational Koolaid.

Grumpy readership, do you have any random rants to share?  Let it all out.

I am so old

Ways that I know I am old:

Things are too sweet for me.  I now take my coffee black.  Even soda is awfully sweet.  Thai iced tea is right out.

Taking care of my physical body takes, it seems, ALL my time.  I get a haircut, go to the doctor, the dentist, the eye doctor, eat healthy.

Call insurance.  Go to pharmacy.  Yell at pharmacy.

Go to gym.  Go to bed early.  Buy clothes for riding.

Drink more water.

I don’t even have time to do things except for take care of this body!  I like being in my head better.  ARGH so much time!  If only this body didn’t take so much work.

I know you feel me, grumpeteers!

Equifax sucks: A Rant

Chat with a Customer Care Agent

Status: Disconnected

Misty: Hi, my name is Misty. How may I help you?
Me: I recently was contacted by Etrade because they had changed my date of birth to the date given to them by Equifax.  The date of birth they had was incorrect.
Misty: I would be more than happy to address this concern for you.
Misty: I do apologize. We can only report what is being reported to us by creditors. If the personal information is not correct, you will have to send in documents to have it corrected.
Me:  From where does Equifax get date of birth information, and why did it change?
Misty: I do apologize. We can only report what is being reported to us by creditors. If the personal information is not correct, you will have to send in documents to have it corrected.
Me: That is not a helpful response.
Misty: You need to contact all your lenders and creditors to make sure they have the correct information on your account with them. To update any personal information, such has your name or address, it requires information be sent to us. You will need a cover sheet with your name, address, date of birth, email address, phone number, and a brief description of the changes you need made. This is the information you will need to send:1. Copy of your Drivers License or State ID (with current address)
2. Copy of Social Security Card or W2 Form
3. Copy of a utility bill, bank statement, or rental/mortgage agreement in your name.
4. A Cover letter stating what you need verified with an email and telephone number.You may fax to 1-888-729-0083, email to customer.care@equifax.com, or you may mail it to:Equifax
PO Box 740256
Atlanta, GA 30374 Me: All of the above or one of the above?
Misty: We can only report what is being reported to us by the creditors. If the information is reported, then by law we must place it on your report. You will have to send all the information provided above.
Me: From where do you get this information?
Me: And what do you do when the information from different creditors contradicts itself?
Me: Because I was not born in 1970.
Misty: We get the information from your creditors. So, one of them may have reported the information incorrectly.
Me: ok, well, this was somewhat helpful
Misty: I do also want to let you know you can monitor your reports so you can keep an eye on any key changes.
Misty: We do have the Equifax Complete Premier Plan.
Misty: You can purchase Equifax Complete Premier Plan for 19.95 per month. With Equifax Complete Premier Plan, you get one 3-n-1 report with scores per 12 months, you get unlimited access to your Equifax Credit Report and Score, and monitoring of all three reports and your Equifax Credit Score. You will receive alerts every 24 hours if there are any key changes to your credit reports or score. You also get automatic Fraud Alerts, with the ability to lock and unlock your Equifax Credit Report. That way you control who and when someone looks at your credit report. You get one million dollars of identity theft insurance per incident. To purchase Equifax Complete Premier Plan for 19.95 per month you need to go to  http://myservices.equifax.com/CC2K01_uplanr.
Me: unhelpful
Misty: Are there any other questions or concerns that I can assist you with today?
Me: Looks like the other two credit agencies have my correct information.  That’s something at least.
Me: No.
Misty: Thank you for contacting Equifax.
Please disconnect or close the chat window to end this chat session.
Misty has disconnected.

So, dear readers, I contacted all of my creditors and not one of them had the incorrect date of birth.  I would also like to note that of the three credit agencies, Equifax had the scammiest page that tried hardest to get people from annualcreditreport to accidentally give them money.  Also they still think I have a capital one card open even though they have no information from Capital one since it was closed.  (Again, the other two agencies had everything correct.)  I hate them, yes I do.  Have I send in all that paperwork yet?  No… I’m hoping a creditor will send my correct information in and then “by law they’ll have to change it.”  Hopefully that will happen before they convince the world that I was born in 1970.  Because I wasn’t.

Do you have any general ranty complaints to share?  We will shake our tiny fists on your behalf.

Extreme Patriarchy-Induced Rage (now decaf!)

Quality ranting in today’s instant-messaging:

I should probably not talk to people while I am cutting back on caffeine for the summer.  Also it’s possible I shouldn’t make a major life decision while pissed off about travel and things.

#2: why are you pissed off about travel?

#1: because it sucks ass to get to and from Blighted Town.  It’s super-expensive and massively inconvenient.  Also I maybe shouldn’t make a major decision while detoxing off caffeine.  did I mention we went to another wedding this weekend

#2: ick, caffeine detox

  no wonder you haven’t been up

#1: my favorite person in the dept is leaving here because her hubby can’t get a job here.  and I feel like the seniors in the dept hate me and they’re not retiring

#2: nobody could hate you

  maybe they have bitch faces

 #1: wrong. they are crazy mad insane people and they hate me because of no reason. But they do.

if they have bitch faces, they must also have bitch sentences.

#2:  ha!

#1:  sorry, I’m really really ragey right now due to my mom’s IMing me in the other window about how people screw her over and SHE LETS THEM

#2: my mom is IMing me about how she’s almost done with her revision for a book chapter.  She’s working on the citations

#1: see, my mom is IMing me about how her male authors don’t do the revisions on the book chapters, so she has to, because her boss accepts sub-par work from authors.  my mom does the citations for men. Because her boss lets it be that way.

  my mom, BTW, is not a secretary.

#2: My mom used to be more of a pushover, but since they were assholes when she got breast cancer, she’s gotten less doormatty.

#1: I don’t understand why I have to produce publishable work in order to get published, but other people don’t!

 #2: Because you’re a young woman?

#1: other people get my mom to fix it for them!

#2: It isn’t fair. Though I bet you could get your mom to fix things for you.

 #1: my mom wouldn’t fix MY papers when I was a KID IN SCHOOL! she made me do it myself!  she did proofread part of my dissertation, but she damn sure didn’t do the citations for me.

#2: obviously she’s only a doormat for men.

  hm, your mom is part of the patriarchy?

#1: patriarchy combined with lack of caffeine makes me extra-ragey.

 #2: Perhaps I’m being too mean. [#1 doesn't think so]  But seriously, I’m glad my mom isn’t a doormat anymore.

#1: mostly, my mom’s BOSS is patriarchy. My mom knows this is wack but refuses to change. She is patriarchy too, but less so.  I wish my mom would quit being so patriarchy. She raised us to do better than that.

#2: you should tell her that.

#1: WTF second-wave feminists who taught me that I’m as good as a man but apparently don’t actually live that.

#2: “Mom, I’m sorry to have to say this, but you’re setting a bad example.”

#1: I’ve tried.  but she also has low self-confidence about her awesome skills and ability to get a different job if this one lets her go. Which if they have any brains they won’t because she works like a workhorse and for cheap.

#2: ridiculous

  but I suppose it provides health insurance

#1: how the F*CK can we make OTHER people pay us what we’re WORTH when some people think it’s totally ok for a woman to get treated like a doormat? As long as there are some doormats, the rest of us get trampled too.

#2: it is true.   we get blowback for not being not doormats

#1: IT’S PEOPLE LIKE YOU THAT MAKE MY STUDENT EVALS GO DOWN

#2: exactly!  My mom says she wishes your mom were her editor.

 #1: my mom doesn’t seem to understand why I’m so mad about her job. It’s because she’s teaching men that a woman will do their work for them, and then I have to deal with the little shits in my classroom.

#2: yup

 #1: I told her that but she doesn’t believe it’s anyone’s fault but their parents. HELLO you are a parent too.

 #2: My mother agrees with you.  I’m sorry that your mom is a tool for the Man.

#1: maybe your mom and my mom should swap jobs for a week. My mom can write things. Your mom can be an editor that’s not a doormat.

 #2: She wouldn’t though.

 #1: the pay isn’t good enough!

p.s.  Sorry Mom, I know that patriarchy is a system, not just you.  There are many systematic forces going on here.  I love you even though you annoy me.

Grumpy Readers, Does it bother you when other people are used by the system (and have given up on trying to stop being used)?  Does it matter if the person is a loved one?