sometimes I wonder if my mom just seems so amazing bc i am seeing her comparatively to my dad who my relationship hasn’t been easy with since I was like nine years old and whose anger I was afraid of before that and then the child of my moms sister posts something on TikTok about how their mom found out they could end any argument by saying “I’m going to crash the car” and it’s like. Oh. Oh no. I did get lucky as fuck there 😭. Especially considering THAT EXACT AUNT tried to get custody of me when I was 2 years old 😭.

But, the whole thing just reminded me of this story my mom told me, about how when I was a toddler, they were talking to my pediatrician about how they disciplined me, and my PEDIATRICIAN suggested to my parents that if they were going to spank me, they should use an implement to do it. Her reasoning was that if you had to leave the room to go get the implement (I believe she suggested a paddle) then you’d have time to calm down and wouldn’t be as likely to hurt your kid. A DOCTOR told first time parents that were in their early 20s this. And I’m not that old. This was like, 2001 or 2002. Anyways, while I did end up being spanked with an implement a few times when I was older (something I’ve recently been very fucked up about but that’s a story for a different day) I am very glad that my parents were horrified by this suggestion regarding their toddler, at least.

(ID: a discord message from me reading “that’s exactly what I said after I finished it lol (sorry late reply haters day)” and then correcting my typo by saying “….fathers”)

Happy gay month people

Little hobonichi self-portraits, Jan-May 2026

But in my job it’s actually very important that I be able to show my work because I will be asked “how did you get that number” and I do actually need to be able to answer