Cassi Villanueva

A southern mom of 4 parenting outside the box. Freelance writer. Runner. Skeptic. #writingcommunity

[Taya Bass @travelingflying]

Elon Musk:”You get taxed on what you earn, you get taxed on what you buy, and you get taxed on what you own. And what does it get spent on? A bunch of stuff you don’t even agree with.

That’s why we need to reduce the size of government, spend less money and let the people keep a lot more of their hard-earned money.”

[Orietta Rose 🇺🇲 @0riettaRose]

Homeschool mom talks about things that are normalized in public school but are actually insane:

[Owen Strachan @ostrachan]

Go see "Project Hail Mary." It's genuinely beautiful, clean, life-affirming, family-friendly, very funny, and open to wonder. Ryan Gosling deserves an Oscar for it. It's probably the best family movie to drop in 10-20 years.

Spend the money; buy the popcorn; enjoy a good movie!

[Plain Runner @plainrunner2]

Things I learned last night watching "Project Hail Mary."

Amazon can, in fact, produce a movie befitting the cinema.

Ryan Gosling is the best actor of his generation.

The notion that puppetry could ever be completely replaced by CGI (or worse, AI) is the fever dream of morons. Rocky is the greatest onscreen Muppet since Yoda.

Teens still want to believe in goodness, truth, and beauty (the row behind me was all noise and obnoxiousness during the previews, but they were captured once the story kicked in. They even applauded during a certain moment).

Disney did not realize what they had when they fired Lord and Miller from "Solo."

Andy Weir deserves his success.

Movie popcorn and I are no longer on speaking terms.

Hollywood needs to stop trying to engineer this sort of thing, and really just let movies live again.

I can not only cry in a theater, but I can, apparently, still honestly laugh. That felt so good.

I loved this film.

[Nicholas Fabiano, MD @NTFabiano]

Purpose is one of the most potent antidepressants

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Yes

[True Red Gal @gal_red11250]

This is so true, more for my girls than my boys. Both of my daughters entered middle school extremely popular, confident and well adjusted. They left middle school a broken shell of themselves after extensive girl drama and extreme intentional exclusion. It was the hardest years of our family life. The stress I went through as a mother who loved her children and wanted to protect them was insane. My youngest recovered fairly well because she was very close to my husband and myself and confided in us regularly. Additionally, she was an extremely gifted athlete who won many awards. My oldest never really recovered and ended up in an abusive relationship right out of high school. It took her years to finally pull her life back together. I’m not sure she would have if she didn’t come from such a strong family. She has a great life now, but that insecurity is still there, despite the fact that she was once super confident. I would never want to relive these years. If I were to do it all over again, I would 100% homeschool. It’s not worth it to have children in middle school.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Good for him!

[Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog]

I used to be entirely in the camp that said you should kick your kids out at 18 and force them to live independently and make their own way in the world. I don’t feel that way at all anymore. I want all my kids to live with us until they get married. Even after they’re married, if they want to live on our property, or close by, my wife and I would love that.

The important thing is to teach your kids responsibility, which we’re doing. They need to contribute and help around the house, which all of our kids do from a very young age. Provided you aren’t raising ungrateful useless moochers, why kick them out? Why drive them away from your family home? I don’t see the point in it anymore. I actually like my kids and like being around them.

Maybe they’ll all end up scattered to the wind. But I’d prefer to keep the family together. Why wouldn’t I?

[Cassi Villanueva @justcassi22]

@KellerWomack We had these exact clouds in Georgia yesterday.

[Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog]

It’s not just nostalgia. This was our childhood and it’s gone now. As a parent you can, through great effort, create the conditions for some version of this for your own children today. But the problem is that most of the other kids are screen addicted zombies who don’t really want to run around outside until the streetlights turn on. So an energetic, free spirited kid who’d rather climb a tree than stare at a screen ends up being kind of isolated. 30 years ago he’d have been the most popular kid in the neighborhood. Now the other kids in the neighborhood are home with the screen and he’s climbing the tree by himself.

[Nick @nicksterwixter]

I hate that I had to grow up in the generation that got to see what life was like before the internet and then have to watch as it single-handedly destroys every single social entertainment space. Video rental stores, movie theaters, malls, arcades, bowling alleys, etc. The infinite access to at-home entertainment is turning us all into lazy, antisocial, depressed hermits and we’re just willingly allowing this to happen to us. The long term ramifications of this are so dire.

[PoIiMath @politicalmath]

I'm so frustrated at being a parent in this garbage digital age.

I hate short-form video. TikTok / YouTube trash is just pure brain-rot and I can't stand it. I try to keep my kids away from it.

I gave them access to Spotify b/c I want them to enjoy music and develop their musical tastes and personalities. That was working pretty well. They would go onto Spotify on the XBox and listen to music and explore that space. Good for them.

But what does Spotify do? They put short form videos into their app. Now my kids are watching the videos instead of listening to the music. I have to decide if I have to take Spotify away from them (along with all their playlists) because Spotify pulled this bait-and-switch on me and turned an app that I felt good about giving to my kids into another brain-rotting platform of garbage.

Every month something like this happens. It's impossible to navigate this as a parent, even if you're largely on top of things. It's exhausting and dispiriting.

[Robert Bortins @TheRobertBshow]

What homeschoolers miss in public schools:
The grinding conformity.
The soul-deadening boredom.
The ideological indoctrination.
The bullying renamed 'socialization.'
The learning disabilities created by sitting still.
The replacement of parents with the state.
The preparation for jobs that won't exist.
The severing of faith from knowledge.
We're devastated.

[Anthony Bradley @drantbradley]

Dear Parents, the day you give your child a smartphone with social media is the day 1) their childhood ends and 2) you hand your child over to be raised by strangers who want to manipulate him/her. Kids know how to get around “parental controls” & screen time does not matter.

[𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞 🇺🇸 @creation247]

Big thanks to Elon Musk for retweeting this article

Every parent needs to read it...

[Benjamin Watson @BenjaminSWatson]

I miss Christmas break already. Having all my kids at home, staying up late, eating meals together, and just hanging out gave me life. These moments are becoming fewer and farther in between. And one day they will only be memories 😔

[Roman Helmet Guy @romanhelmetguy]

I just want everyone to understand that America has not been trying. We bully our smart kids. We spend 1000 times more on special education than gifted and talented programs. We eliminated honors classes in the name of equality. We even came up with a replacement for phonics so stupid that half our kids can’t read. Then we take the smartest kids that survive this system, and we racially and sexually discriminate against them for entry into college. Then we do that again when they apply for their first job. And again for every job after that. Then we undercut them in favor of foreign labor that’ll do worse work for cheaper. Most kids see this and just say “fuck it” and focus on sports, or trying to be an influencer, or just give up on trying altogether. Meanwhile in places like China every kid spends 16 hours a day studying trig tables or gets the belt. Yet America is still number one. In everything. There is so much latent potential in the American people. We have tried before. We crossed a continent and carved this country out of clay. We recrossed the oceans and conquered the world by accident as a favor to our friends. One day (hopefully soon), we are going to start trying again. America will wake up. Don’t be on the wrong side when it does.

[Kia 🧸ྀི @xevekiah]

I had a friend who used to call me at 4am crying about her boyfriend. I’d wake up, listen, let her vent, and then go back to sleep, more than once. One night I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d return the favor and called her at 4am. She answered and told me she was sleeping, & I should call back tomorrow. Moral of the story: always remember that energy you give isn’t always going to be reciprocated—set your boundaries, even with “friends.”