The Follow-Up Thread

This thread is simple - we’ve all (well, a lot of us) have posted questions, personal problems, etc on the Dope, and this thread is for those of us who want to voluntarily update Dopers on what’s happened. Of particular interest are examples of where you took Doper advice, and how that came out. :eek: ( :wink: )

Oh, and link to the original threads if you can!


I’ll go first (long):

I started a thread (twice!) about growing up in an irreligious household as my wife and I weren’t big believers and church-goers, and we weren’t going to raise Sophie in a religion. We had her baptized as a Catholic, but that was more to make the family happy and not through any need to do so out of a sense of religious obligation (however, speaking as a dispassionate observer, my God, that baby was just adorable in her baptism gown!) But, regardless, we weren’t actually going to raise her as a Christian.

Well… let me tell you how that turned out!

As Sophie grew from toddler-hood to pre-school-hood, we started looking at various school options (a lot of people were puzzled by this act, by the way - “What do you mean you’re ‘looking at schools’? I just ‘sent my child to school’ - there was nothing to look for!”) near our home @ Knoxville Tennessee. We found a few affordable Pre-K options, but once the real schooling started, all the secular private schools were laughably expensive for our budget - $13k/year+, prices like that.

However, Knoxville has a very strong Catholic community and a number of Catholic schools, so we started visiting those… and were pleasantly surprised, both at the quality of the schools and at the tuition (1/3 the rates of the secular schools). So it was a no-brainer: put Sophie in the Catholic school that we like best, and when we can afford it (or if we move to a better school district), we’ll take her out and put her in a non-denominational school. Simple.

Which was a helluva plan guys, except for one unanticipated problem (yet always obvious in retrospect) that is met by every set of parents in existence - we forgot that our kid has a mind, and a personality, of her own.

Sophie loves Catholicism. She’s not going to become a nun or a theologian or anything, but she loves the pomp and ceremony, believes in Jesus and God far more than I ever did, is respectful to church officials and elders in a way she isn’t to other authority figures, and has a children’s Bible and a cross in her room (as well as her palm from Palm Sunday mass - it’s on the wall above her bed). As much as a nine year-old American girl can be, Sophie is not just a good kid, she’s moral.

She altar serves about 3 times a month (the fourth Sunday we usually skip and go to Sea World) and is in the children’s choir - once, she had to do both duties on the same Sunday, meaning two straight masses, a prospect that would have driven her father to tears (when I was her age, that is!) She makes sure we say our prayers before dinner. She participates in charity drives, and looks for stuff to give up to give to Goodwill (but doesn’t give away anywhere near enough stuff to satisfy her parents - as many of y’all know, there is a virtual flood of plastic that comes with having small children.)

As for me, I’m pleasantly surprised. The Church has been good for my daughter, and I’m very appreciative of how all this has turned out. I read posts here from people who have had horrible experiences in Catholic schools, and I sometimes want to say (but don’t because it would be rude) that not all Catholic schools are like that (but I’m sorry that yours was).

So instead of trying to figure out how to instill a set of secular morals into the kid, future living plans (we’re thinking of moving back east) must now take into account the quality of Catholic education available.

Life (and kids) are weird, huh?

tl;dr version: read the damned thing! It’s only 630 words!

Take her out now. :smiley:

This thread might actually be more suitable for MPSIMS…

A sad one…

Had a question about what to do with our basset hound, Shelby, who suffered from these huge cybacious (sp) bumps that appeared on her body, getting worse as she got older.

A month after I started the thread, we eventually had to put poor Shelby to sleep because of this. :frowning: The vet was unsure if an operation would really improve her quality of life as Shelby was 14 at the time, and that an operation wouldn’t do anything about future cysts. She had twenty-five bumps on her body (most of them very small, under the hair, but 3-4 that were inches wide and tall), and in the vet’s opinion, the dog wouldn’t be able to take an operation that consisted of 25 separate incisions - and we didn’t want to do that to Shelby anyway.

:frowning:

Anyway, we said our goodbyes as the doctor slid the needle in, and Shelby left us for a world where her legs ran again, there are plenty of rabbits to chase, her coat glistening with health.

I hope.

How sad! I remember reading your previous thread on this. Condolences.

I’m trying to think of a good one where the Dopers helped. There have been many!

Click on your name.

In the drop-down menu, select “View Public Profile”

Click on the “Statistics” tab

Click the link “Find all threads started by…” (This shows you every thread you started, up to 900 or so).

Follow-up by reporting back here!

I’m still trying to use up my 65-oz jar of artichoke hearts.

You know, there’s a simple, yet profound, pleasure to be had in ridding yourself of undue burdens. Throw the damned things away. :stuck_out_tongue:

:wink:

Brian the budgie is still with us and seems happy with his lot in life. There have been several times where he could easily have escaped, but he just runs to his cage and scolds us for leaving the door /window open.

**Maggenkid ** was having trouble writing, just the fact that her hands couldn’t keep up with her brain. She responded to Lynne42’s suggestions and is now not only writing smoothly & quickly, she’s also applied some of the techniques to exams (which she also had trouble with) and she’s getting brilliant marks. Thanks again.