14 Comments
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Janet's avatar

HEYYYY-men to this:

The home-packed lunch is the love letter. You don’t need to include a note. Especially if all you can think of to say is “you make me tired.”

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Kathryn Barbash, PsyD's avatar

AI meets unfair expectations of parents--you should put a daily note that is focused on your relationship and child's psychological development on your child's fruit snacks. There are just so many levels here in this tiny package of fruit snacks.

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Brooke C.'s avatar

Oh man, this is a LOT that i was not prepared for. 😩 thank you for the palate cleansers!!!

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Miranda's avatar

i needed them, too!

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Clarkie Doster's avatar

I want to just hug these parents who think they need these AI tools and tell them what I used to tell my students who would run their papers through Grammarly (pre-chatGPT) and turn them into actual trash: "Trust yourself. You're better than the computer." Trust yourself, and trust your children. Trust that they don't NEED you to be perfect. And you don't need a computer to make you authentic. Do we need a vocab lesson?? I'm also going to keep yelling for the rest of time about how even our youngest children are capable of asking questions and providing answers and having actual discussions that are smart and thoughtful and important.

Woof. But Ursula! Thank you! Do you still have a copy of the book she gave you??

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Miranda's avatar

yes! Always always always to the self-trust. I don't know how we rebuild that for parents, but a sense of trusting our own gut as parents is so eroded right now. I didn't write it but I feel like not liking who you are (or at the very least not knowing?) is the key to being a Trove app customer, right? which is such a bummer. Your kids pretty naturally adore you! And I think the best thing you can do is show them that you are human and help them understand what that means (having flaws, messing up, being imperfect, trying to be better). And yes definitely, the book tucked in on my bookshelf. I had it on the kids' shelf for a while and the immediately regretted putting it in such a precarious situation.

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Irene Grumman's avatar

Ursula Le Guin stirred me with her acceptance speech. Thanks for connecting us.

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Miranda's avatar

I'm so glad! Me too.

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Irene Grumman's avatar

No, I don't want AI translation to help communicate with my far away grandson. So I just started reading a couple of graphic novels he liked. Until recently, we shared a background, from Goodnight Moon and City Duck to castles thru Star Wars and the Hobbit.

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Georgia Freedman's avatar

That press release for Welch’s reads like a spoof. (But also I can totally see someone at the company wanting to find a way to make AI somehow work for their [non-tech] products, and I can also, unfortunately, envision a SAHM who thinks it’s her chance to say, “I used the new AI.”)

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Miranda's avatar

agree! so very mcsweeney's

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Bridget Shirvell's avatar

My child does love when I include a note with her lunch (I forget most days) but pretty sure she would be more annoyed if AI translated my note to her. Also could we get compostable wrappers before writable ones?

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Miranda's avatar

yes please to compostable wrappers! I include a note sometimes, like when I know he's having a rough time or I feel like I need to give him a little extra love, but I usually just sharpie a big heart on the back of a dental bill or something.

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Bridget Shirvell's avatar

Hearting this but really laughing at “big heart on the back of a dental bill.”

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