RustyRaven

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

Miss Meow has been coming in for cuddles a lot more now that the weather is cooling down. I sleep on my side so she usually curls up on top of me. She’s pretty good at moving off if I roll over and then climbing back on again, but if I move too much she either curls up at the end of the bed or leaves the room entirely. If she is still there in the morning she is generally displaced by Mr Woof’s enthusiastic jumping when he decides it is time to get up.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

I’ve been reading a lot of stories on Reddit about people who are caretakers for elderly relatives and there are an alarming number of people who are the victims of abusive relationships with their parents - often being groomed from childhood to care for their parents and grandparents at the expense of their own lives. It does make me wonder how many examples of elder abuse are the result of people who have been victimised hitting back.

Coercive control is generally talked about in terms of romantic relationships but it is a major theme in the way a lot of these people have been treated by their parents/families. There was one woman who was put into a caretaking role for her grandmother when she was 12 and raised with the expectation that caring was her only role in life - to the extent that she was pushed to become a nurse so that she would be able to provide full time nursing care for her grandmother in the future.

The worst part is that a lot have had all their options taken away - they have given up their working lives so have no money and no employment history, they have not had a chance to establish relationships and families of their own, and staying in an abusive caretaking relationship is the only reason they are not homeless. There are so many parallels to the experience of “battered wives” who eventually retaliate against their abuser.

I’m not sure there is any real solution to the mess that is human relationships, but hopefully the increased awareness of coercive control will help people recognise it in all sorts of relationships and increase the support available to people to get out of them.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

Is this a thing specifically about what happens when you come home? If so you might want to think about role shifting and how that is working for both of you - you have had time on the trip home from work to mentally make the shift from your working role to your home role, but she is going instantly from her role of mother to partner and might need more time to mentally make that shift. Talk to her about what she thinks about it, but it might work better for you both if you start a routine along the lines of you taking tiniest for a while to give her some time alone to just regather her thoughts and prepare to be “partner” and not just “mother” - maybe take a shower, go for a walk, whatever works for her.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

The cultural norms part is definitely an issue here too - a lot of the people trapped in these caregiver roles either have other family members calling them selfish for wanting something different (I think we probably need to recognise that coercive control can be commited by groups of peoples as well as individuals) or have internalised that idea and think they are being selfish themselves. Seeing someone worrying about being selfish when they have given up everything else in their lives to care 24/7 for parents who are constantly abusive and require more physical care than one person can reasonably handle is heartbreaking.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

I’m sorry you had to go through that. 🫂

Families can be awful to each other, but we seem to have a bizarre cultural blind spot to abuse that occurs beyond childhood (as well as to the real ongoing impacts of that abuse). Once you are an adult people tend to act as if everything is a misunderstanding that can be resolved through some stereotyped Hallmark movie moment and all old people are assumed to be sweet and innocent. No, some people are just awful and they don’t magically change once they hit a certain age. People dying alone is often blamed on a cold and uncaring society but in reality it can also be people lying in the bed they made for themselves.

If we want to make meaningful changes in our society we need to accept that multiple different stories can be true and relationships are complicated - people can be both victims and perpetrators, they can have good relationships with some people and bad relationships with others and single cookie cutter responses based on unrealistic stereotypes often do as much (or more) harm as they do good.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

Some abusers do worse than isolate their victims, they manage to get others on side supporting their abuse. In romantic relationships it might take the form of acting charming and winning over the family with public displays of affection so that when the partner expresses concern about problems their own family dismiss them. In parent/child relationships it can take the form of treating one child as a scapegoat so the whole family learn to treat them differently - a lot of the stories in the caretaking forum have people with extended families all presuring them to stay in abusive caretaking relationships while they offer nothing but criticism and blame the caretaker for being “selfish” if they ask for any support. Escaping abuse from one person is hard enough, when your entire family joins in it would be near impossible ☹️

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

I’m pretty sure AI speeds up the enshittification process. I used to think all the sci-fi AI taking over the world stories were unrealistic dystopias, but it seems like the people in charge thought they were something to aim for. Things like robo-debt should have made us take a step back and think a bit about how we want to use AI but we still seem to be going full steam ahead with a plan of deliberately putting AI algorithms in charge of everything.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

It looks to be a fairly common situation - hopefully the reddit sub is a self-selected group with a higher than normal number of people in that position, but so many people posting there are miserable and feeling trapped. I went on there looking to get a bit more of an idea of what caring will be realistically like (I’m intending to care for my mother in future) and was not really prepared for the sheer volume of people who are being abused and don’t realise it. I mean I love my Mum, but I would not care for her if it would leave me broke and homeless, and if she develops dementia and starts to scream 24/7 or smear her own shit all over the walls she’s going into a home. No one should be in a position where they feel they have no choice but to live like that.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

Pretty much, but the scary thing is that it is learning what people want to hear and in the process often amplifies human bias. It picks up on things like racism and uses that in its decisions. Then those decisions go into the records that AI systems are being trained on, entrenching the biases more and more over time. Because the processes are pretty much invisible it is hard to do anything to stop that from happening. Then we have this weird idea that computers are somehow impartial and should be trusted over human decision makers, and we are using AI to make decisions on things like who to shortlist for employment, who to flag for closer scrutiny in immigration, what level of aged care someone receives - all major life changing things!

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

I’m pretty sure the full time caregiver role was by design, often the youngest daughter. But the way everything worked was different back then and most people got assigned roles in life rather than being able to choose. Being a caretaker back then would have come with a home and board, which was about all most people could hope for at that time. Sometimes we have a similar idea happening now - one child becomes a caretaker and in turn inherits the family home. But too often now I think we have moved towards the idea that you (or more often that someone else) should care for someone out of “love” alone and have forgotten that does not pay the bills.

I think a lot of people’s negative attitude towards nursing homes is them mis-attributing their own decining abilities to the place they live, in much the same way some people refuse to go to hospital because “people die in hospitals”. Being stuck at home with insufficient support for your needs can be much worse than the institutionalised care of a residential home. Especially in situations where you are expecting other people to juggle full time work with a caring role being in a nursing home can be a much better situation.

There are definitely some people who have good experiences with caring for parents (which will hopefully be my experience!) but that can only happen if it is a free choice, not one forced on someone through guilt or coersion, and not when it leaves the carer with no resources to look after themselves. The “old maids” in the past would have generally gone on to be cared for by someone else in the family, or perhaps entered the church as a nun where they would have been cared for.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

researchgate.net/…/7396985_The_case_of_the_disapp…

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

I think most people with a healthy relationship will do some things for their parents as they get older. But there is a line where it becomes unreasonable - imagine that your parent’s live in a place you don’t like being in or get benefit from going to (which may be how your brother feels) and you are expected to give up all of your free time to do those things. I’d be pretty resentful of being expected to give up all of my own free time and happiness to be a worker bee for my parents. It sounds like you are currently in a position where you consider the balance between what you are giving and receiving to be fair, which is a positive thing for both you and your parents. But where you have mismatched expectations and priorities (which could be the situation with your brother) it can really tear relationships apart. (I’m not saying this is the actual situation in your family, just projecting a bit and using it as an example!)

For my situation I think caring for my mother will work out well for both of us and should actually be financially beneficial as well. My sister on the other hand is in a completely different situation - she and her husband have been working towards being able to partially (or even fully) retire early and are looking forward to being able to enjoy their free time. Expecting her to give up what she and her husband have been working towards would be way too much, whereas for me giving up a job I’m not enjoying that much these days is a bonus! I’m anticipating my sister being the “fun daughter” that pops in to take mum out to lunch occasionally while I’m the one doing all the hard work and cleaning 🤣 . But that’s a role I am choosing of my own free will, not one that is being forced onto me. If it did not suit me we would work out other solutions.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

I expected the concreters over the road to lay a fairly standard driveway for the new townhouses, but they have instead set up some quite complicated formwork to create a series of irregular charcoal coloured blocks which I assume will have a lighter coloured infil for the gaps. Should look pretty good. They needed to use a huge amount of timber to set up the formwork though, including a bunch they were happily scavenging from a neighbour’s hard rubbish pile. I guess that makes it a community endeavour.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

Red.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

My favourite used to be a deep royal purple, but I’m all in on red these days.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

Miss Meow is snoring away loudly in her tunnel tonight, so Mr Woof has taken over her bed in the corner. I think he’s decided it’s a good spot to look through the window and keep an eye out for marauding possums in the backyard.

RustyRaven, 17 days ago

Interesting. Is that to do the actual caretaking, or to provide the home & financial support and someone else provide the actual care?

RustyRaven, 18 days ago

Lobster tacos this morning please.

RustyRaven, 18 days ago

Poor Ted Cat. The missing landing surface is a terrible trick for any pet. One of my previous dogs attempted to jump onto a chair I was reupholstering, not realising the seat was missing and was very startled to find himself falling through straight to the floor. He never fully trusted a chair again.

RustyRaven, 18 days ago

Obviously her kids won’t get sick, they have iMunNe sYStEmS and haven’t been messed up by all those evil vaccinations. Surely they’d welcome the opportunity to be exposed to an infectious disease to increase their immune system superpowers.

RustyRaven, 19 days ago

That is disappointing. I have them supplied at work, so if you want lots of them you could try an office supply store.

Edit: I just had a quick look and Officeworks has it available online - you can get a 750g pack of the same mix if you don’t want to buy 100 individual sachets!

RustyRaven, 19 days ago

**Trigger Warning: corriander

I’ve been out enjoying the lovely weather in the garden and am pleased to report that the late planting of corriander last year has successfully self-seeded and I now have a patch of baby corriander. There is also a bit of self-seeded lettuce popping up, and my bok-choy mustard hybrids are going well now the weather has cooled down.

I’ve also planted some snow pea seeds and will cross my fingers they don’t get eaten before they manage to grow.

RustyRaven, 21 days ago

Did you check for ice magic in the magic section?

RustyRaven, 21 days ago

Having spent a lot of time recently on Facebook groups about retirement and superannuation I think I can safely say about 60% of the content consists of three posts:

1. It’s not fair that I’m not eligible for the aged pension and getting free money from the government just because I worked hard to have lots of money
2. How can I get rid of some of the money I saved up to qualify for the Aged Pension and get me some of that sweeet free government money
3. It’s terrible how many people are so entitled to think they should get the Aged Pension instead of working to support themselves

These three posts in multiple variations are on repeat multiple times a day, and always filled with comments arguing about who should be entitled to what. I’d be willing to support a Universal Basic Income being introduced just to get rid of all these tediously repetitive arguments!

I would also like to tell all of the people asking for advice on their self managed super funds that if you have to ask for advice on Facebook about how to manage it you should not have a self managed super fund.

RustyRaven, 21 days ago

People are obsessed with their pensions. People with large Super balances generally don’t recognise that they have received and continue to recieve, more benefits in the way of tax exemptions on their Super than people on the pension get. Many seem convinced they will somehow be better off with less assets and the “free government money”.

I personally think all of our welfare payments - unemployment, aged pension, childcare subsidies etc. should be paid regardless of income to anyone in the right category and keep a progressive tax system (that charges people with more means a higher percentage) with no tax-free threshold and higher taxes at the very top. Get rid of HECS - if the education leads to higher wages then those wages will be paying higher tax anyway, there is no need to double dip! People on high incomes would still be paying much more in tax than they receive back in benefits and the reduced time wasted on bureaucratic compliance and assessment procedures would probably free up enough working capacity to change everyone to a four day work week.

Obviously it would be difficult and destabilising to actually bring in such a major change, but when I become Supreme Leader of the world that is what I intend to do. Along with mandating that pets count as family for workplace leave policies.