Friday links: 20 May, 2022

Good morning, and happy Friday! As I write this, it’s sunny and beautiful out, but we’ve got some thunderstorms rolling in later on today (including some wind, so I may tip my swing over later on, just in case. It tends to blow over when it gets windy, so I like to gently set it down to prevent any damage). And then it gets cool for another week. Ah, well; we had a good run!

Nothing planned for this weekend that I know of! I’m hoping to at least be able to get *some* rest in there. It’s been such a whirlwind of constant activity lately that I’m getting seriously worn out. We’ll be done with school next week, so we’re going to take some time off for a few weeks after that, so I can do some house projects, get the house in order, and start planning curriculum for the fall. The last few years of school have been so weird and exhausting; I think everyone’s ready for summer break, even homeschoolers!

Here's what I found interesting online this week:

 

Wasted food, wasted money: Why some poor families can’t afford to eat healthy

Besides the added extra cost of fresh vegetables and other healthy items, beyond the need for a kitchen with the basic cooking utensils (which not everyone owns or has access to), beyond the time it takes to prepare fresh, homecooked meals with healthy ingredients (which is another major reason so many people struggle with getting healthy food on the table; it’s hard to find the time to peel and chop potatoes or roast broccoli when you’re working two jobs AND you need to help the kids with their homework…), there’s the issue of food waste. Kids are notorious little food wasters, and parents who struggle financially can’t afford to gamble with their kids not eating. It’s one more factor that leads to poor health outcomes, but one that’s entirely understandable. If your kid needs to eat, and you have the option of feeding them something you know they’ll like, or feeding them something you spent an hour making, cost extra, and you’re pretty sure they’ll reject, what do you do?

  

Mother sues DeVos Children’s Hospital over COVID-19 vaccine requirement for girl’s kidney transplant

Another parent of the year here. Daughter is 17 and was adopted from Ukraine last year. She needs a new kidney, but Mom is throwing a tantrum because the doctors don’t want the daughter to die of COVID-19 when she gets a transplant and then needs to take anti-rejection medications that basically beat her immune system into submission. How dare they, wanting her to live and not wanting the kidney to be wasted, amirite?

I don’t understand these parents. I don’t feel like they see their children as people but more as props, something they can project their political identities onto in order to make a point and win cool points from their friends, at the expense of their children’s’ lives. Organ transplants are serious business, and kidney disease is a terrible condition; even a new kidney will only last so long, and then this girl will be right back where she is now. I’m sure Mom probably sees herself as some sort of brave warrior who’s valiantly charging in and saving her daughter’s life, but from a medical standpoint, she’s only further putting her daughter at serious risk. I hope this girl is able to make it to 18 and has someone in her life willing to explain that her mom is wrong, and that she’s able to get the vaccine and the new kidney, and that she has many more years of a joyful life on this planet despite her new mom’s stupidity.

 

FDA authorizes Pfizer Covid booster for children 5-11 years old

Woohoo!!! My needle-phobic daughter is going to be so angry! Tough luck, kid; we’ll stop by Dairy Queen afterwards. : )

SO glad to hear this. My kiddo is due for her booster after the 26^th, so we’ll be over at the pharmacy getting her protected. I do wish the vaccine offered more long-term protection, but it’s what we’ve got right now, and the booster does seem to make a huge difference in terms of case severity with Omicron, so I’m definitely a fan. This is a pretty big relief to me, because I’d been worried about this, knowing that she was due for a booster, but I hadn’t heard *anything* about it being approved for her age group. Now I can relax a little!

 (Pssst, FDA: Now do approval for the vaccine for the under-5's, mmkay???)

The many, many costs of breastfeeding

*Disclaimer* I’m all for breastfeeding. I nursed my daughter until she was almost three.

I know a lot of us are big fans of frugal living and all the books and blogs that celebrate it. One of the pieces of advice you often see in frugal living circles is, “Breastfeed your babies, it’s free!” …but it’s not really, is it? This web comic breaks down the cost of breastfeeding in terms of time, sacrifices, extra calories Mom needs, nursing bras (which are NOT $25 if you need a size not typically sold in stores. Bras for sizes like, say, 40GG can be over a hundred dollars (because you can’t buy them at Walmart or Target; you have to go to a more specialty store), and I can’t even imagine the struggle of trying to find a nursing bra in those sizes, or what they’ll cost (and you need at LEAST two, and likely more, because HOO BOY DO YOU EVER LEAK those first few months, well beyond what those nursing pads – another expense! – can soak up. The number of times I woke up in the night entirely drenched in my own breastmilk…LAUNDRY! Another expense).

And these are all best-case scenarios. I had mastitis three times with my son within two months (doctor appointments and prescriptions. Extra expense). I had pain issues with my daughter that sent me to the doctor (doctor appointment. Extra expense, including gas because it was over an hour’s drive away) and had me popping ibuprofen ‘round the clock (extra expense) until I left-side weaned at 18 months. This constant pain, which was all day/night long and not just when we were nursing, took a huge toll on my mental health. There’s a definite cost to breastfeeding – it’s just that a lot of it is invisible, because it’s women who bear it.

 

Lake Catholic lacrosse player with swastika on leg used slurs toward Orange team during Monday loss, superintendent says

*sigh* The Jews are tired, y’all.

This stuff? It’s super common. Like, SUPER common. It happens all the time. I hear about it all the time in my Jewish groups: the comments, the uninformed questions (NO, WE DON’T HAVE HORNS. IF WE DID, WE’D LIKELY HAVE BEGUN GORING PEOPLE WHO ASK THAT CENTURIES AGO), the workplace hostilities, the slurs, the vandalism, the death threats (also way more common than you might think. A rabbi I follow on Twitter was recently threatened and had to quit his job as a hospital chaplain because people were threatening his workplace). And this is a kid saying this. Who taught him this garbage? Who taught him to be like that? What is WRONG with people???

 

And that’s all I’ve got today! Busy day as usual; my daughter’s counselor ended up being negative for COVID and is completely better, so we’re masking up and heading over there at our regular time today. Hopefully we’ll be home before the rain starts. My son is making a pan of baked ziti for dinner tonight (I told him he was in charge of cooking on Fridays now, to which he happily agreed. He likes cooking, thankfully!), since it’s *so* hard for me to get food on the table AND get my daughter to the counselor *and* homeschool. There just aren’t enough hours in the day, right???

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend! Be healthy and stay safe out there. Shalom, friends. : )