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People on here have been commenting a lot about women not showing up for dates, which does sound frustrating, but apparently they're not showing up for each other either. I was reminded of this phenomenon by this Substack post, about women preparing home cooked meals for each other in their homes, then having people not show up last second. So my initial theory that maybe young women are scared of men from outside their social circle is not the main thing going on.
What's going on?
I tried going to a local ACX meetup, and it was fine, but after six people initially wanted to do it, only two besides myself ended up coming. Meanwhile, my daughter's pre-K teacher has invited herself to my house. She called today, and went on about a "mandatory home visit", next week, with highly inflexible weekday hours. I did not like it. She said she was going to drop off paperwork and meet my daughter. I said that I would rather bring my daughter to pick up the paperwork. We fought about it. I was perhaps more prickly than is altogether advisable when speaking to a child's teacher. I tried researching how this could be considered an appropriate thing to, not offer, not ask, but mandate. Something, something, building trust, Head Start, maybe the norms of black Americans? Clearly, they have the wrong order of things. If I trust you, I will invite you over. If I don't trust you, I will want to meet at your office. Even social workers know this. Is this related to parents not actually coming to their appointments somehow? It's juxtaposed in literature withattendance, more than understanding.
Also, meanwhile, my older daughter hasn't been invited to anyone's house. We haven't managed to invite anyone to our house. It seems terribly fraught somehow. I mostly do things with one or occasionally two other families with a stay at home mom and a mom who works two mornings a week, respectively.
Also, just because I found it odd, here's Keturah complaining about a situation where someone invited her into the hostess's home, and Keturah came, and then they judged each other for their stance on shoes, that Keturah wanted to keep them on, and the hostess wanted her to take them off.
I liked the culture of Georgians (Kartveli) and Albanians that homes are sacred, guests are from God, and that guests and hosts have important mutual roles and responsibilities.
What's the sociology here? Why are Americans like this, despite seeming deeply unhappy about it?
What the hell? No one gets to enter your home without an invitation (except maybe rent inspections that are highly regulated with advance notice or police with probable cause). Has this teacher appointed themselves as a child protection officer that MUST inspect the living conditions of each and every child? I'd tell them to go pound sand.
I'd frankly report her to the principal. This is completely unacceptable.
I read the public message from the state program, and it does indeed say there's a mandatory home visit, though I think in this teacher's case she was not delivering the news as intended, because the material goes on about cultural responsiveness and learning about the home culture of the child and building family connections and whatnot. She offered to have me talk to her "manager," whoever that is (she is the only licensed teacher, working in a daycare that is not like that), but I said to just send me an email for now while I consult about our schedule.
I could sort of imagine why it might be a thing, but, also, it is absolutely not culturally responsive to... American culture. And I am in America.
Things must be pretty bad for them to mandate something like that. I'd be curious to investigate how this mandatory visit came to be. Is the state program voluntary?
This sounds like complete nonsense made to be a figleaf for a welfare check. I can't see a teacher flipping out over the importance of 'learning about the home culture of the child' and deciding to die on that hill. They could figure that out over a half hour parent and teacher discussion in their office.
I don't clearly remember how things went down with my previous child, but I think they suggested meeting at my house, I suggested meeting at the school, and she pretty much immediately agreed.
The program itself is voluntary, and my older daughter liked it, so I figured to do it again. They have a bit more curriculum than the regular preschool, which is also completely state funded and exists in the same building. I'm not sure how much more, actually, since the regular program is also run by a large national daycare chain and has official stations and activities. I think it's somewhat based on Head Start, which specialized in teaching poor children with parents who would give excuses about not having transportation to parent teacher conferences or something. I'm not sure about the welfare check side of things, I think it's illegal to enter a home under false pretenses, but maybe they do try to get more district resources by finding all the potential IEP kids or families who want extra services or something. The public pre-Ks here do turn some families away, but are explicitly required to accept all children with disabilities.
Perhaps I'll make the appointment. I was mostly put off by how she kept arguing with me about how extremely REQUIRED it was in an annoying and unwelcoming way, and the short notice.
Yeah, it sounds like it was how the approach was made, which I completely understand. This reminds me of something that happened to me recently. Weird slice of life story incoming..
I rent and had the real estate agent ring me midweek at 5pm saying that the owner wanted to come over to fix a light at 9am the next day. I obviously denied that request, but knowing the owner is literally probably around 60-70 IQ and wasn't being malicious (I've met him before and he basically needs his wife to manage his life for him) I agreed to allow him over the day after.
The Real Estate Agent apologised and we had a bit of a chuckle over it in the end. We've both had to deal with all sorts of strange antics from the owner in the past (not helped by the fact that his Filipino wife is a financially ruthless would-be slumlord and has to be reminded of the tenant laws in our first world country), and they're more on my side rather than the owner's. They consider the couple more trouble than they're worth as clients and have threatened to drop them more than once.
The owner did actually come over to fix the light, but he came with a middle aged friend (which is his usual modus operandi; I've never seen him unescorted). They had to go to the hardware store to get the supplies they needed and the whole drama took up more of my time than I would have liked, as I wasn't going to let them wander around my home without keeping an eye on them.
At the end of the whole thing, the friend asked me how I was at home on a weekday and what I did for a living. My first instinct was to tell him it was none of his fucking business how I spend my time, as he seemed to have presumed that I was unemployed (probably because I hadn't mowed the front lawn in a while). I told him I worked from home in a professional role and he seemed genuinely surprised.
Anyway, I was glad to see the back of them. I was a bit cranky until my girlfriend calmed me down, pointing out the guy's age. I just didn't like people coming into my home and making judgments on how I live my life, no matter how old they are. The PTSD from this incident probably makes me upset on your behalf haha.
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