all men’s bathrooms should have changing stations

This is unfortunately one of those things that people care about greatly for a very short time when it affects them and then never more. It never really gets any traction.

Thankfully it never was much of an issue to me, even if I almost singlehandedly changed every single diaper due to my wife having a bad shoulder. I quickly learned to change a diaper everywhere. On the floor, in the car, busting into the ladies nursery rooms, just everywhere. I got so good at it, that I bet I could change a diaper faster and cleaner than a Formula One wheel even without a table.

Nobody ever complained. The only odd situation was when I busted into a nursing room full of muslim women where a young mother was breastfeeding. Her entourage gave me quite the looks and standing in my way shielding her, so I said “I need to change diaper”. The mother looked up and everyone was watching her for a reaction, but she smiled and said “It’s right over there” pointing me to the changing table. It was quite the stinker, so I apologized on my way out.

However. I admit. This is not the best way to change diaper. A good diaper change is not fast. It’s a time for bonding. It’s not something I want to do in a public space with the rest of the family waiting for us, but at home, it’s the perfect time to get some eye contact with the baby and confirming that, yes, your father is there for you to get you out of all the shit you get yourself into. It’s perfectly fine if it takes half an hour in which most of the time is spent playing peak-a-boo. It’s a chore, but it’s also a much needed break from other chores. And this counts for both parents at the same time. Your partner would love nothing more than for you to disappear with the baby for half an hour.

And that is why paternity leave is really important for the father and baby.

The traditional view that the father needs to work is strong. In Denmark we have had the opportunity to share the maternity/paternity leave between parents for several years, but most often the mother would take the majority, with only 2 weeks being specific for the father.

This is due to the imbalance in pay, since the cut in pay would be larger for a man (generally), so men voluntarily gave the leave to their wives. This is obviously not the intention of the leave and also based on the flaw of unequal pay. Keep in mind that the wage difference is often explained as being caused by the mother taking more leave and thereby not advancing her career during the years when they have small children.

So, to fix his, the latest law make more weeks untransferable. The father now has 11 weeks that can not be transferred. Use it or lose it.

One would expect such a removal of flexibility to make people upset, because technically it will cost the families more potential income, but it hasn’t.

It turns out that most men actually wanted the additional weeks of paternity leave. They just needed it to be normalized and/or the legal framework to demand it, so they don’t have to have this discussion with their employers or wives. No man is ever asked why they’re taking it now. Use it or lose it makes sense to everyone.

In addition we still have 26 (13+13) weeks that can be transferred however the parents want. Still very flexible.

American eggs are required by regulations to be washed. This includes wholesale.

European egg producers are not going to invest in washing machines for a temporary market. America needs to either accept a breach of their own regulations and wash the eggs themselves, or offer a price that makes it worthwhile for the European producers to follow American regulations.

Overall, with potential tariffs and additional cost for transport and washing, it seems like a bad solution. It would probably be easier for US to produce more eggs themselves.

That’s basically the answer to the opposite question: what is something that someone thinks isn’t obsolete, but really is?

You will need to check your local legislation.

There are EU regulations, but those are minimum requirements and they are not implemented everywhere yet. Unfortunately it’s basically impossible to know where the animals come from unless they tell you.

I used to look forward to weekends and would often postpone personal projects to the weekends where I would have the time to do them.

It’s a lie. I don’t have time in the weekends. There’s always something else in the way, because everyone else also want to connect in weekends. It only causes frustration from not being able to do whatever I actually want.

It’s also bullshit that I have to postpone private stuff for weekends. I want to live my life 7 out of 7 days. Not 2 and then work 5. I’m not happy with giving 70% of my life away, and hoping to catch up in the remaining 30%.

It might seem somewhat egoistic, but if you want time for yourself, you will have to prioritize time for yourself. That includes giving lower priority and more often saying no to work, friends and family. If you try to please everyone, then your time will be consumed by everyone. You have to put yourself first and align other people’s expectations.

However, it’s not really egoistic. It’s better to be fully present when you’re doing stuff with others, than to sit at their place wishing you were home. That includes work.

Also, I’m now focusing on carving out time in weekdays for the things I want to do. No more overtime work, no more procrastenation and relaxing just to prepare for the next day. Sure, I will work the agreed hours to make money, but I am going to take ownership of the rest of the day. That’s somewhat easier in the summer where I have more energy and the weather is better. In the winter I am almost hibernating but then I also lower my expectations for what I can do.

So in short, it’s necessary to plan your time and it’s necessary to align expectations from others but also your own.

I’m beginning to consider the idea of having an apartment but then also a plot of land with just a shed or cottage. Something like that. I’d like to spend more time outside in most of the year but also keep the convenience of an apartment during winter. I have a house in a good location now, so it’ll probably not happen unless something drastic happens. Maybe when the kids move out.

The tweet stops there. Character limit or something.

However, the pasted text comes from an article which continues :

He even wrote a comic song in which a woman responds to her husband’s questions with nothing but meows, until the poor man has no choice but to break down and meow, too. In English, the song is known as ‘The Cat Duet’.”

I’ve used Connect the most. Also tried Jerboa and Voyager.

The reason is that I prefer a tiny list view with thumbnails on the right, just like old.reddit used to look and RiF could be made to look. I left Reddit due to this. When they cut off 3rd party apps like RiF, there was really no good way to view the site (in my opinion). Connect simply has the settings to make it look and behave exactly how I want it. I think Voyager can be made pretty close too. Jerboa was kind of buggy when I tried it.

I’m sure things have improved in all the apps during the last year, but I’ve stuck with Connect because it’s both stable and flexible enough. It gets frequent updates and issues are fixed quickly. I reported a bug once and the developer got it fixed within hours.