Nicole Forrester

Host of Thought Experiments on Patios in Austin.
Mom of 2 under 3, nap-time builder, moral dilemma dealer.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@maternalgroyp How often do you breastfeed them? On demand breastfeeding creates bad sleepers. Change to only 3 hours and they will often magically start sleeping perfectly. I did this at 5 weeks and my friend just did this at 3 weeks and worked like a charm. Advice from 10x mom friend.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@thegenesisbl0ck My first was easier and opposite in many ways, but a year in they are both ridiculously happy and sleep through the night and love food. I do think you have some control with consistency. I had to do completely different things, but we got there in the end.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

This week in Austin. 200 people came out to discuss thought experiments in the rain.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@signulll I turn strangers into friends with thought experiments on patios.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@rocketshipalx Austin is so unique. I hosted an event about thought experiments last night, outdoors, in the rain, and 150+ people still showed up. The enthusiasm is different here.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@anothercohen Not to nominate myself, but I did somehow ship “hundreds of strangers debate morality in the rain" last night, so I’d like to be considered.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@CLT_Exam We’ve been discussing these questions at Thought Experiments on Patios in Austin! https://t.co/KdFJuWE8Ya

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@maiab My closest friends has closeish age gaps but no one is near 18 months like us. I find parenting pretty chill, but being 3rd trimester with Texas heat and a not yet walking 16 month old does deserve some kind of plaque. I might make one for funsies.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

Hi I'm Nicole and my hobbies include:
- raising tiny Austinites
- hosting thought experiments on patios in Austin
- helping people in Austin have better and deeper conversations
- investigating every cool new housing innovation project in Austin
- harassing my friends to move to Austin
- building apps for oddly specific social experiments in Austin
- being outside as much as possible in Austin

[Caitlin Cloud @CaitlinCloud9]

hi I’m caitlin and my hobbies include:

- fighting about austin
- dreaming about austin
- living in austin
- tweeting about austin
- hanging with my friends in austin
- talking with others about austin
- eating good food in austin

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@michaeldomps Most of my opinions on this come from growing up poor in a middle class neighborhood (lived with my grandma) and then observing how my friends acted. No big tech or and very few high income parents in that scenario.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

People talk like previous generations lived exactly like us, just with cheaper houses.

They absolutely did not lol.

Yes:

housing
healthcare
childcare
college

got more expensive.

But historically people also:

lived with parents until marriage
shared rooms constantly
skipped college entirely or went local
almost never traveled
ate out like twice a month
drove cars into the ground
owned dramatically less stuff
built assets BEFORE lifestyle

Now the default expectation is basically:
private apartment, convenience everything, international travel in your 20s, fully formed aesthetic/lifestyle immediately, years of consumption before building any capital.
The economy changed.

But so did the definition of a "normal" life.

[Joe Cassandra @JoeCassandra]

Here's your harsh truth:

Inflation isn't the problem.

You just think you're entitled to every luxury.

- You don't want to live in a 1000 sq ft house, it has to be 3000 sq ft

- You need to drive a new car every 4 years

- Vacation has to be at a nice hotel with room service

- Dinner has to be Door Dashed because you're tired

- I need a new iPhone every 18 months

- Everyone goes to Disney World, so I deserve to as well

No you don't.

Make more money or be quiet.

You're not entitled to eat out every day.

Growing up, we ate out 2x a month, and it was a bag of burgers and a few large fries we split.

"We shouldn't have to live like they did in the old days"

No luxury is an entitlement.

You still have to put in the work to afford it.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@CliftonSellers Haha I meant that I don’t have to think about it too much because they’re toddlers now, but that’s my future plan.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@CliftonSellers We have toddlers, but my plan is having them start businesses. Instead of saying, "no, you can't have X", I'll say, ok let's figure out how we can make the money for that!

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@maiab So...every now and again I donate basically all their toys and then they just play with house stuff and my life is so much easier. And then I buy more toys and I realize I'm the problem.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@garyvee Agreed. I'd just change the era to be from 8-25.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

Yes, experiment.

But, why are we starting the “try stuff” era at 18?

Kids should be testing interests, skills, responsibilities, work, art, risk, boredom, competence, failure, etc. from like age 8.

The goal shouldn’t be “have your whole life figured out by 22.”

But it also shouldn’t be “spend your entire prime family-building decade vaguely finding yourself.”

Ideally you know yourself earlier, so by your late 20s/early 30s you still have some of that wild energy left for building a family, wrangling kids, and making something real.

And nothing has ever propelled me harder than having people depending on me.

[Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee]

I’m tired of society making kids think they need to know what they want to do at 18,22,25,30 ..

18-30 should be the era of “testing” and “tasting” ideas, concepts, hypotheses, way too much
pressure on the youngsters to “have it figured out.”

Kids aka people under 35 years old:

try stuff
get new jobs
meet new people
live in new places
try side businesses and ideas and art
live humbly to do this but do this...

It leads to a higher % chance of happiness ❤️❤️❤️❤️

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@vxunderground I have a 2.5 year old and an 11 month old. Everyone tells me my kids are just easy...but then they also tell me to not bother creating so many systems to set them up for being chill AF. Hmmm, what does it all mean?

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

And the avocado toast thing is funny because people act like it means one coffee bankrupts you.

No, it’s the entire lifestyle stack.

Conservatively:

Live at home vs apartment:
+$15k/yr
Getting a scholarship for academics vs community college vs state school vs absurdly expensive and useless degree:
+$10k-60k/yr

Working part time vs unpaid resume-maxxing:
+$10k/yr
Cooking at home vs convenience/eating out:
+$4k MIN/yr

Minimal makeup/clothes/perfume trend cycle:
+$3k/yr
That’s like a $50k-80k/year delta before investing anything.

Over 5 years in your late teens/early 20s, that’s the difference between:
"the economy is impossible"
and
having a down payment, investments, flexibility, and actual leverage.
People keep comparing modern young adult lifestyles to historical middle class lifestyles and the math just gets weird fast.

But yes I get it, humans are comparative creatures and now we have instagram so we can't control ourselves and blame is more fun.

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

@maiab Sameeeee. I'm not out of the physically challenging zone yet, but the winds are changing. Glad to hear that I can expect to feel even more at home!

[Nicole Forrester @_forrestry]

Yep, and it works for the harder stuff too. For example, in more tribal/communal setups, kids basically potty train each other as soon as they can crawl.

I was inspired by this and asked my friends if they'd be down to make the potty more visible during hangs. Instead of going off to the bathroom, having a potty right in the mix. That was just prep.

Then when it was go time, my almost 2.5yo went from resistant goblin to absolute pro. It was shocking.

Every few days we'd basically have a low key potty playdate and tbh I have never heard of an example of a kid learning so fast and so completely.

[Matt Bateman @mbateman]

Remarkable how 3yo and 6yo become immediately and completely unneeding of parental attention the moment they arrive in a large mixed age group of 30 children

Much parenting and childcare is done on hard mode (indoors, few children)