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Yahoo
3 minutes ago
- Yahoo
This dad canceled a ‘period party' to protect his daughter's privacy—and parents can't stop applauding him
A viral Reddit post by @YocaLocaChoca is sparking deep reflection for parents navigating puberty and consent. In a story that has since gained more than 28,000 upvotes, a dad shared how he stepped in to cancel a surprise 'period party' his wife had planned for their 12-year-old daughter—a party the child explicitly said she did not want. AITAH for putting a stop to my 12yo daughter's 'period party'? byu/YocaLocaChoca inAITAH 'She told you specifically she DIDN'T want one of these,' the dad reminded his wife, blocking the doorway when she tried to retrieve their daughter from upstairs. 'She knows what's going on, she's getting a handle on it, she just doesn't want to talk about it with anyone else for right now.' The mother, insisting the party would empower their daughter, responded, 'She needs to know not to be ashamed of her body.' But as the dad pointed out, their daughter wasn't ashamed—she was clear: she wanted privacy. The post struck a chord, with many commenters sharing stories of similar boundary breaches. @Fonzee327 wrote, ' Got my period at 13 during a softball game in 8th grade…I found out later that she (mom) announced it to all of the parents, and I never told her anything I didn't want to be public knowledge ever again.' So what happens when a celebration feels more like a violation? Related: Single dad seeks advice about daughter's first period—and the internet came through When a milestone becomes a spectacle Period parties have gained attention in recent years as a way to normalize menstruation and celebrate a major milestone. Think red velvet cake, uterus-themed decorations, and group affirmations. Some kids genuinely love them. Others, like this Reddit user's daughter, feel overwhelmed or exposed. As the brand Knix explains, these gatherings are meant to celebrate periods as a normal and positive part of life. But they also note that first periods can be 'an emotional, confusing, even scary experience.' The key is meeting kids where they are. Celebration without consent isn't empowerment In the age of Pinterest-perfect parenting and viral TikToks, even private milestones can become public moments. But when parents prioritize the performance of parenting over the child's actual experience, the result can feel deeply alienating. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), adolescence is a critical time for identity and boundary formation. When those boundaries are ignored—even with good intentions—children may internalize shame or struggle to trust their caregivers later on. Supporting kids through puberty with care The AAP recommends that conversations about puberty be ongoing, honest, and responsive to a child's comfort level. Here are a few ways parents can provide support: Ask first: Instead of surprising your child with a celebration, ask if and how they'd like to mark the moment. Normalize without spotlighting: Stock the bathroom with supplies, have casual conversations, and let them know you're available to talk. Follow their lead: If they want to celebrate, great. If they want to keep it private, honor that. Boundaries are not barriers to connection. They're the foundation for it. For many millennial parents, their own puberty experiences were shrouded in secrecy, shame, or misinformation. Stories like this one offer a chance to do things differently—to respect autonomy, rebuild trust, and raise kids who feel safe in their bodies. Because the most meaningful celebration might be the one where a child feels truly heard. Related: Why I'm proudly teaching my sons about periods Solve the daily Crossword
New York Times
5 minutes ago
- New York Times
Investigators Home in on Altitude Discrepancy in Army Helicopter Before Potomac Crash
The Army pilots whose Black Hawk helicopter crashed into a passenger jet over the Potomac River on Jan. 29 may have been misled by their instruments, causing them to believe they were at a safer, lower altitude when they were actually headed straight into the jet's path, according to evidence that federal investigators unveiled on Wednesday. That revelation came as the National Transportation Safety Board began three days of public hearings into the midair collision that killed 67 people, the first fatal crash involving a major American airline in 15 years. Those hearings revealed a series of malfunctions and fateful decisions that night that heightened the dangers of an already crowded airspace over the river near Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport, crisscrossed by passenger jets and helicopters flown by the military and local police. Inside the helicopter, for instance, investigators said that the Black Hawk's instruments might have shown the pilots were flying below their actual position. The area in which the helicopter was flying did not have much room for error. Helicopters there were expected to fly in a narrow band between 100 and 200 feet above the Potomac. Inside the airport's control tower that night, investigators found, a single controller was handling both helicopter and airplane traffic at the time of the 8:48 p.m. crash, though the jobs are not typically combined at that hour. Then the controller instructed the Army helicopter to go behind the American Airlines plane as it was landing, which other pilots told the N.T.S.B. was unusual. Typically, controllers tell helicopters to simply wait upriver until planes on that path pass. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
What your barista thinks of your small talk game
'Maybe it's just a midwestern thing, but can we please stop having the cashiers ask intrusive questions to the patrons as they check out?' a woman pleaded in a viral tweet this month. The 'intrusive' question: 'Any big plans for the night?' Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. Grumbling about small talk with service workers is the bread and butter (in a complimentary basket) of social media. Considered outside the context of likes and retweet buttons, these complaints can sound a bit like 18th-century gentry commiserating about the help. 'Uber drivers PLEASE stop trying to make conversation,' groused a rider on Reddit, criticizing the driver's 'constant yapping.' Another woman, ordering through Instacart, complained of her shopper's incompetence in failing to secure her Neapolitan ice cream without engaging her in a back-and-forth. Other commentary is friendlier - across social media, the theory that Trader Joe's employees are trained to flirt with customers is repeated as fact. Despite the rise in self-checkout, the quiet creep of robotaxis and the ubiquity of door-to-door delivery services, opportunities for small talk between customers and service workers persist. And while person-to-person interactions are more optional than ever, some things haven't changed: Some customers complain when they encounter small talk, and some customers complain when they don't. In a paper in the European Journal of Marketing published in 2022, a group of marketers laid out the argument for this phenomenon: In customer service, you truly cannot please everyone. There are 'exchange oriented' customers, who value efficient service and are impatient with small talk. ('Exchange oriented customers may be particularly well-suited to being served by virtual assistants or service robots,' the researchers mused.) Then there are 'communally oriented' customers, who value connection and positively glow in response to questions like, 'Any fun plans for the weekend?' Given this, the researchers suggested, 'Service providers should consider customers' relationship orientation before starting a conversation with small talk.' For America's 24.6 million service workers - who make an average of $33,396 each year, half of the national average income - this means trying to read body language, note eye contact and interpret tone in a matter of seconds, sometimes while working an espresso machine. 'I usually start my interactions by saying, 'Hey how's it going?' so they can either engage with that, or they can blow through it,' says Allie Lawrence, a barista and manager at an independently owned coffee shop in Brooklyn. 'It's kind of like you're having to micro-therapize people before even interacting with them because you're not sure what the energy is you're going to get.' Scotty Ross, who lives in Chandler, Arizona, and drives for Uber, starts with, 'How's your day going?' And then, 'I kind of catch the vibe from there,' he says. (When he's a passenger and doesn't feel like talking, he gives polite one-word answers. 'It feels like one of those 'Seinfeld' episode situations,' he says.) Customers who respond harshly to friendly overtures may not realize that at some businesses, small talk is a requirement for workers, not a personal choice. When Lawrence trains new workers, she suggests a few phrases, like, 'Hey, how's it going?' or, 'Good to see you, what can I get started?' At some places, she says, workers can get written up for skipping this step. 'It is kind of our job to give a 'wow' experience,' says William, a Trader Joe's employee in Seattle who asked to withhold his last name to speak freely about his workplace. 'Hey, how's it going?' is William's only prepared line. 'From there, if they seem like they want to talk, I'll ask more questions. If not, I'll let it be, I just ring them out and bag them and let them go.' Shoppers tell him about their ongoing chemotherapy and the death of their beloved cats. This kind of thing didn't happen when he worked at Costco, William says. During morning shifts at Trader Joe's, elderly people come in wanting someone to talk to. But the conversations aren't always pleasant. Customers have yelled at his co-workers for not engaging in sufficient conversation, he says. According to the American Psychological Association's 2023 Work in America Survey, nearly a third of respondents who worked in person with customers or patients said they had experienced verbal abuse in the past year, compared with 22 percent of office workers. For some service workers, small talk makes business sense. 'I would say most riders don't tip, and they're more likely to tip if they get into a conversation,' says Ross. When Ross started driving for Uber in 2016, he remembers keeping 80 percent of each fare. Now, he says Uber gives him only 30 to 50 percent of what each rider pays. Tips can make the difference, he pointed out, between making around minimum wage in Arizona (before the cost of gas, car maintenance and taxes) and making double that. Lawrence also sees a correlation between conversation and tips. 'The more of an experience or a show that I'm able to curate for the customer, potentially that results in higher tips,' she says. Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski is credited with first describing 'a type of speech in which ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words.' In 1923, he described these exchanges, which he called 'phatic communication,' as 'purposeless expressions of preference or aversions, accounts of irrelevant happenings, comments on what is perfectly obvious.' Like, say, exchanging observations about the weather with a stranger before making them an oat milk latte. Malinowski's definition hints at why small talk can be strangely polarizing - it is by design both meaningless and crucial. 'It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy,' Elizabeth Bennet demands, when her dance partner refuses to make small talk. 'I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.' The European marketers might say that Elizabeth is more 'communally-oriented' and Darcy is more 'exchange-oriented.' Ella Fuller, a server in Iowa City, says that these exchanges are a part of the job she enjoys. 'If there's a place in between small talk and overshare, I've always really liked that part of service,' she said. Fuller works at a bar and cafe and had previous gigs at a barbecue spot and an Italian restaurant. At each of these jobs, she says, she had experiences where instances of small talk devolved into customers making inappropriate comments about her body. At the barbecue spot, she told those customers to knock it off. But at the Italian restaurant, she felt obligated to smile through all customer behavior. She eventually brought the issue to management and was supported. The idea that the customer is always right, writes researcher Dana Yagil, 'implies, for customers as well as for service providers, that customers are entitled to misbehave, while service providers are expected to put up with such misbehaviors.' A shift, as of late, is that service workers are responding to customers with their own complaints and screeds. On TikTok, nearly 6 million followers tune in to watch actor and longtime server Drew Talbert dramatize restaurant behavior from a server's perspective. Bartenders go viral for satirizing pushy customers. Lawrence, who does stand-up comedy, makes videos reenacting interactions with customers who inexplicably demand made-up coffee drinks. Servers have taken to TikTok to imitate the 'Gen Z stare,' a reference to the way some young adults stare coldly at servers, as if rebuking them for the question, 'Hi, what can I help you with today?' Finding the right balance of small talk is a customer-facing worker's struggle. 'I don't know why - I can't stop myself - I talk too much,' moans Willy Loman in 'Death of a Salesman,' comparing himself to more successful colleagues. Ross advises other Uber drivers to let customers do 80 percent of the talking. 'Try not to interrupt them and tell your own stories,' he cautions. 'Basically, be an interviewer.' He notices that he gets his best tips when he's drinking an energy drink and feels cheerful and energized. That service-oriented self isn't always accessible, and that affects his income. 'The first week after my dad died I don't think I got any tips because I was in a bad mood, but I still needed to make some money,' he says. 'You never really know what someone's going through,' he notes - whether driver or rider. Related Content The U.S. military is investing in this Pacific island. So is China. In a stressful human world, 'mermaiding' gains popularity in D.C. area 'College hazing' or training? Amid shortage, air traffic recruits wash out. Solve the daily Crossword
