I dropped my daughter off at a sleepover and went home to finish some work.
Around 11pm, she texted me: "Dad, did you feed the fish?"
We don't have a fish. That was our code.
"Fish" means:
"Come get me, don't ask questions here."
I grabbed my keys and drove straight over.
When I got there, I told the other parents she'd forgotten she had an early appointment tomorrow morning.
She grabbed her bag, thanked them, and got in the car.
On the way home, she told me what actually happened.
The girls had started passing around someone's older brother's Instagram messages, planning to prank call a boy from their grade and record his reaction to post online.
She didn't want to be there when it happened, and didn't want to explain that to a room full of girls who thought it was funny.
I told her: "You don't owe anyone an explanation for leaving," and she fell asleep in the car before we even got home.
Kids should always have a way out of a situation that doesn't feel right, no interrogation required, no story owed to anyone but the parent picking them up.
WHAT BIG PHARMA DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW
1. Baking soda removes 96% of pesticides from non-organic fruits. (Surface residue)
2. Castor oil with baking soda made 12 age spots disappear naturally over time.
3. Black seed oil reduced bloating and inflammation.
4. Coconut oil with baking soda noticeably whitens teeth within just 48 hours.
5. Turmeric with black pepper reduces chronic inflammation better than most pills.
6. Magnesium glycinate improves sleep, anxiety, and muscle cramps within days.
7. Zinc rebuilds your immune system faster than any supplement on the market.
8. Salt, electrolytes, and water first thing in the morning before anything else.
In traditional cultures throughout human history, young men at twelve or thirteen were out hunting, fishing, exploring, sometimes fighting. They were proving themselves. They were earning status through real accomplishment. They were developing genuine competence that their community valued and needed.
We took that entire developmental arc and replaced it with sitting in a chair while someone talks at you. No real challenges. No real stakes. No real status to earn. Any anthropologist looking at our system from the outside would recognize it immediately as insane. We've broken something fundamental.
When you start homeschooling and you see how much you get done and how quickly your kids learn in very little time you quickly come to the realization that public school is essentially a glorified daycare center.
26 (New) Rapid-Fire Parenting Tips
Absorb them in 2 minutes and upgrade your Paternal Arsenal 🧵
1/ Give them a "heads up":
- 5 minutes until bedtime, 10 minutes before leaving the playground...
Nobody likes abrupt endings.
This neuroscientist worked until she was 103.
She also:
• Won a Nobel Prize at 77
• Became a senator at 92
• Stayed mentally sharp into her 100s
Her secret? 5 daily habits that prevented brain aging: 🧵
To have the life you want, you need to start the practice of disappointing people. Teach yourself that adults are capable of being upset, and that your role isn’t to fix everyone else’s issues. Anxiety and depression are signals that you’re neglecting, you.
Aus housing crisis by the numbers:
Proportion of income needed to pay a mortgate: 50.6%
Time it takes to save for a deposit: 10.6 yrs
Home price/income ratio: 8
Proportion of income spent on rent: 33%
You don't fix this with tinkering around the edges.