I worship the lovely soup.

Agreed, although there are other costs associated with pregnancy than healthcare such as extra food and supplies.

I don’t know if you mean this ironically but parents of a miscarried fetus really should get bereavement leave. It’s extremely traumatic and would take time to recover from.

Medicaid has different income limits for different states. For a family of 3 in Michigan it’s about 2755 per month. If you make less (per household) you qualify for Medicaid. Search “Medicaid Requirements” plus your state. Everything is covered. The 2400ish we bring home a month barely covers our bills, but it’s worth it for Medicaid if you have a chronic health condition (or on our case my spouse, our child, and myself all have serious health conditions). My medication for my pituitary deficiency would cost me thousands a month. My spouse and child have a genetic vascular condition and they need scans every year to make sure they’re not about to die.

Another thing you can do is a Medicaid spend down. I’m not sure how it is for every other state. But let’s say your limit is 3000 for your family but your income is 4000 and your medical bills are 2000 a month. You pay the difference between your income and the limit (1000), and Medicaid covers the rest. I believe you have to have a serious health issue to qualify for a Medicaid spend down.

If you are low enough income to qualify for SSI, Medicaid is given automatically (I think in every state).

In our state of Michigan you apply for Medicaid at DHHS. They have a very easy to use website for a few years now (it was a big hassle before that). Let me know if you have more questions about this.

You sound like an attentive cat carer. Cat was lucky to have you. The point of all this is different for everyone, but cats are a big part of the point for me. Maybe for you, you can give more cats a good life as well. When you’re ready of course, you may need time to grieve.

Anti vaccine rhetoric has an extremely high correlation to religious people. The commentor was speculating about how these people in the past would have felt about the anti vaccine people today. It’s a valid question. People back then didn’t have access to information or access to much real hope; it’s not surprising they were religious.

Usually it means the parents opted for this. Not that anyone deserved this, I’m just clarifying what it likely means.

I used to think “good” kids had “good” parents and vice versa but I learned this isn’t always the case. I should have realized, I was only such a “good” (quiet) kid because my parents scared me. I didn’t feel safe. But some good parents raise genuinely respectful yet also self-respecting kids.

What are some fun or useful things you print? I see a lot of prints online that are toys or action figures, and that’s pretty neat but I usually am not impressed with the quality.

If this claim were true (I see comments saying it’s probably biased), 40% is an extremely high number. Baby’s could eat like 10 to 20 (ballpark example figure, I know it varies) jars of baby food every week, it would suck if 4 to 8 of them had toxins. It’s not like it’s a whole fruit you can wash off. I agree with your point about unnecessary gloom in the news, but I don’t think there’s really much of a bright side to 60% uncontaminated baby food. If they took figures like 5% and sensationalized it I’d agree with you more. 60% is barely “most.”

I feel like almost all of it is blatantly obvious everyone the surgeon with the cooler, since I’m not aware of any child organ harvesting epidemic (and I maybe don’t want to be).

I am still so confused about this one. Is this like a thing? Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised anymore. All the rest is pretty real, we basically “sacrifice” children by giving religions so much power, war, unregulated fast food, etc.

Which is why I think emojis are fine. I just think traditional writing does not qualify as a poor medium.

I have nothing against moderate emoji use that accompanies coherent text, but I disagree that texting is a poor medium for communication. We’ve been effectively writing for thousands of years. It’s a skill that can be difficult for some people, and can take practice to become good at, but that doesn’t make it a bad medium.

I don’t know what the person you’re replying to does for work, but I feel like what their work is really makes a big difference. Teachers don’t (or shouldn’t) teach kids any differently based on orientation, political ideology, etc., other than perhaps excusing them from work that goes against their beliefs (for example celebrating a holiday they take objection to). The teacher isn’t required to “go against their beliefs” and do something they disagree with, only to keep their mouth shut about any disagreements they may have with a student’s lifestyle. A teacher should not be able to refuse to teach anyone because they are not being asked to do a special job catering to any particular student. If they disagree with the curriculum, I would guess they just shouldn’t be a teacher then (as in, if you’re a high school science teacher you may be required to teach evolution).

Similarly with a doctor, they should not be able to say “I refuse to treat you because you’re gay/religious/political.” Everyone gets the same medical care. The only exception I can think of is transgender medical care, but if they don’t want to do that they can just not go into that field.

Anything that involves creating is a little different. A wedding photographer would be more actively participating in a gay wedding. Or a Christian wedding, etc. If they feel really uncomfortable with that, they shouldn’t have to. That doesn’t change my opinion that they’re closed-minded and bigoted, and it doesn’t mean people can’t leave them bad reviews stating as much. Plus, these services are not basic rights, whereas healthcare and education are basic rights.

I would literally never pay money for my kid to be able to watch Disney or probably any TV. The only thing I ever pay money for is a few educational apps and they are cheap. You can’t rent kid’s movies at the library if you don’t pirate things.

This article says they’re raising it to $10, no? I think this is the article I read earlier. But Central Park is fantastic and the only thing I know about Apple TV.

I fully quit Reddit in June when Sync couldn’t access Reddit anymore. I sometimes miss aspects of it. I’m trying to do things in the real world more. I’m on Lemmy a few times a week. For a while I was on Lemmy every day, but the content didn’t keep up with my consumption. I do like the content better, but there’s less of it. I’m trying to replace these things with better habits. I spend time online looking for local events and looking up tutorials on YouTube (NewPipe). I’m actually trying to do those events and follow those tutorials. The less content I take in, the better I feel. Trying to develop real world ambitions. It’s a little tricky.

It’s good to keep in mind, but I mean do you sit there through 1-3 minute ads not skipping forward? I don’t watch much television, I mostly watch YouTube. So I watch a lot of it. What good is watching an ad going to do if I’m never going to buy anything from them? Once or twice, I’ve needed or wanted a product or service I thought might be promoted on YouTube, I went and looked for a creator to get a link/code from. But I think I did that two times in the past 9 years of being an avid YouTube watcher, and those times I was not buying the product due to ads, just thought I’d support a creator since I was going to make a purchase. I don’t have sponsor block (I use NewPipe and I don’t feel like learning a new app), but I just skip all the ads by tapping the skip button a bunch. They’re often 2 full minutes.

I homeschool my kid (properly) for medical reasons, and I did not realize until I tried going to homeschool events how messed up the culture is. I’m in a purple state. It’s so hard to find anyone who homeschools who isn’t bigoted. There are a few, and I’m trying to cultivate relationships with them, but it’s difficult when they’re so few and far between. My county is liberal, but the city in the next county over would be a better fit if we could move or regularly travel an hour away. I don’t want my kid around these bigoted parents. He has good friends who are in public school, but my kid is too young to go to school with his multiple medical conditions (especially considering I’ve personally seen these schools neglect medically fragile kids), so he mostly only gets to see his friends on the weekends.