Someone should tell Asante Samuel that opinions are like assholes: everyone has one and no one else really wants to hear about yours.

I remember the clear backpacks/handbags. At least in my school, they were due to post-Columbine administrative panicking.

This! I grew up in gun country. Nearly everyone I knew had guns, usually several per household, and were hunting with their parents by middle school. The difference is responsible gun owners. I don’t recall seeing a gun lying around outside of a rifle cabinet unless it was being taken out, cleaned, or put away. They were locked and ammo was always locked in another box with a different key. As kids, if we so much as even looked too long at a gun before passing the hunters’ safety course, we would be in trouble. No one snuck their parent’s gun out because there was no novelty to it and it wasn’t worth the amount of trouble you’d get in. Incidents like this were very rare, but when they happened, the adults around us would always remind us this proved guns were not toys and that safety was paramount. This is why all the furor over gun control baffles me. Out of all the people I grew up around, none of them owns a gun subject to the proposed assault rifle ban. None of them oppose universal background checks. I am pretty sure none of them are NRA members (this used to be mostly because of the fees). The consensus has been that all the stuff in the news makes actual responsible gun owners look bad. The NRA et al are set to become this century’s Philip Morris.

If we’re running dangerously low on helium, balloons at children’s parties probably shouldn’t be at the top of the list. As someone with a latex allergy, I can safely say children’s parties can exist and still be fun without them. Science probably needs it more (not that I have any idea what other uses there are for it).

My main thing with her clothes is that she looks so uncomfortable! I remember when I switched to maternity pants and it was glorious. I wore plenty of form-fitted stuff, but the elastic waist is key.

Don’t worry about glancing at the boobs. After having a baby, one person glancing at your boobs is nothing. New mums are probably more absorbed making sure the baby is latched right and eventually you get so used to it, a glance or two doesn’t phase you. Pretty much, unless you make a snide remark, you’re golden (legitimate questions are fine.) And honestly, even if they’re full of food, at the moment, most of us understand they’re boobs and it’s hard not to look. Even as a nursing mum myself, I occasionally glance too.

Oh, 21… The loudness gene is an Eastern European thing too. I cannot talk to my father in an indoor voice to this day. You only yell and interrupt the people you really love.

Be a stay-at-home parent. Sweatpants, naps, and all the daytime TV you can stand.

This happened to me. I enjoyed my job and planned to return after I had my daughter. When I started having complications (HG, bleeds, SI joint dysfunction), my employer assured me it was okay, they would work with me, and suggested I look into temporary disability til I could return. I was placed on partial bedrest at 4 months. Suddenly, I was being told that they “legally” only had to hold my job for 90 days. Within two weeks, management had hired two part timers to replace me, paid out my accrued vacation/sick time, and there was no further discussion of my job status. Sometime around my 7th month, my job ceased to exist, though I was never informed exactly when. After my daughter’s birth, I had several students’ parents express surprised that I “had chosen not to return”. If only they knew…

I had surgery around the time Pope John Paul II died and was apparently super upset with the nurses because they let them elect a new pope without me.