Natalia Barnett bizarre case

The story has gone viral about this Ukrainian girl who is supposedly a 30 something year old woman posing as a child. Her age has been inconsistent with the year she was born in because her medical doctors contradicted her age with tests the Barnetts had her go through. In 2012, her bone structure showed she was a 11 year old and then it showed she was a 14 year old. In 2010, she was eight years old which wouldn’t be possible if she was born in 2003. The Barnetts claimed she tried to kill their sons and also stood over their bed with a knife and also tried to poison the mom and also tried pushing her into an electric fence. I saw a video on youtube made by a 14 year old child that had Natalia in her family when she was little before she was passed off to the Barnetts. I read in the comments by her that her parents couldn’t go through the adoption because they didn’t have the money to so she was passed off to the Barnetts. People have many reasons why they believe the Barnetts and I have my own reasons why I think the Barnetts are liars and the mom being a narcissist. I will summarize why I believe Natalia.

“She has a full set of adult teeth”

So a girl in my son’s second grade class had fully grown front adult teeth but if you look at her early photo, you could see she had baby teeth in the back. That photo was taken around 2011-2012 so that would put her 7-9 years of age, she was not 6 in that photo as the Barnetts claimed.

“She doesn’t have an accent”

Kids under age ten who learn a second language are not going to have accents.

“She didn’t understand her own Ukrainian language”

My mom’s father is from Hungary and he didn’t know any English till 1st grade and he also doesn’t know his first language because he had been speaking English for too long. He also doesn’t have an accent either.

“How can an 8 year old live on her own for a year?”

If you watched the episode on Dr. Phil show, she didn’t live on her own for a year and she had neighbors that helped her and her landlord helped her too. She ate on canned foods the Barnetts had left her and they paid her rent and bills while they moved to Canada.

“She told everyone she was 22.”

When you are a child and are told you are a certain age, you believe them. Kids believe lot of stuff an adult tells them.

“The police took her back to her home when they found her.”

Her legal age was turned to being born in 1989 so she was legally an adult.

“How can a random family just take her in than going to the police?”

My baby sitter was also abandoned by her mother and was born in the streets and she came to my neighbors when she was 12 or 13. They took her in and bought her clothes, took her to the dentist and doctor and put her in school and raised her as their daughter and they also never adopted her. She would be in her 40’s now and she baby sat me when I was 3-6 years of age.

“She stood over their bed holding up a knife, she tried to poison them, she put knives on top of the fridge, tried pushing her mom into the electric fence.”

I am not buying any of this because it makes zero sense. She could barely climb and move around and her condition got worse as she got older. Also Mrs. Barnett took it out of proportion when she had some chemical in her hand while cleaning and she pushed her mom’s coffee aside so she could get to the chemical, she never poured any in. She was out on the farm with her family and she fell against her mother and there was a electric fence nearby. Narcissists do this and will exaggerate and fabricate. I am sure Natalia did have behavior but that is common in adopted kids from foster care and orphanages and RAD is common too.

“She had pubic hair and was getting periods”

Ever heard of precocious puberty? 8 year olds can get periods too. I have even seen a 7 year old with breasts when I was 11 and she was tall for her age and she didn’t even look 7. I have even heard if a 5 year old getting their period and she had precocious puberty. They have puberty blockers for this reason and they can give them to the child with precocious puberty. They use it on transgender kids too.

“She never grew an inch”

She had dwarfism, did the Barnetts think dwarfs outgrow growth retardation? They don’t grow to be past 3 foot 5 or past 3 feet. I mean geez, how stupid can the Barnetts be? This is also a bad argument to use to justify what they thought. All this does is makes them look stupid. Either they are stupid or they are just using this to justify what they did. But hey, narcissists think crazy things to justify their abuse. They even think infants have the ability to manipulate and have malicious intention behind their crying so they neglect them as infants. Of course infants manipulate when they get to around 8 months but that is normal behavior. It doesn’t make them a bad baby or evil and they are not doing it to ruin your day and make you miserable.

“She looks 30, she looks 24, she doesn’t look 16”

How many 16 year olds look 16? I looked like a young adult at 16. My brothers could pass off as young men in their 20’s at 16 because of their facial hair. If you think you can tell between a teen and an adult, that is pretty naive thinking there. I have seen a 14 year old I thought was 21 until she said she was 14 when a stranger walked by asking her if she is registered to vote. At 12 years old I could easily pass off as a high schooler because of my fully developed body and breasts and my mom was not going to let me wear clothes that showed my figure because then guys would have hit on me and teen boys and I would not be able to understand because I was too innocent. I would not have read their cues and understand what is going on and it would have caused problems. I may have been “asking for it.”

“She spoke like a teenager”

Do they not know about kids being advanced? Maybe she was a gifted child. There were things my brother understood many kids his age would not have understood because he was advanced.

“She wasn’t into toys and was into things older girls would have been into”

And here is more ignorance here, some kids have higher age interests and the fact she was adopted and came from Ukraine. If she grew up with no toys, she isn’t going to be interested in toys.

“She remembers too well and most kids wouldn’t remember that well from when they were 8”

Some kids have better memories than others and if you have read memoir books, are all those people lying because they all seem to remember too well from their childhood under age ten?

So it looks to me the Barnetts were prejudice and ignorant about precocious puberty and found reasons to believe she was not this 6 year old girl the adoption agency claimed her to be. And if she had behavior problems, why wasn’t she taken to a psychiatrist or to a therapist that specialized in adoption? Oh wait, they did take her there, she was in a mental hospital in 2012 and got discharged in 2013. There she claims she was older than she really is, well of course, any kid will make claims they are told. If you are 8 years old and are told you are really 22, you will believe them.

Instead they had to make up a story using Orphan and fabricate it and exaggerate her behavior. Why weren’t they suing the adoption agency for giving her Natalia?
Also you could tell from her early photos Natalia has indeed aged and she has bigger teeth too and more adult teeth.

So my crazy theory is; Natalia had behavior issues that is consistent in kids who are adopted from other countries and the Barnetts didn’t want to deal with it so they fabricate a story and exaggerate and even get her age changed to 22 so they can abandon her and not face any charges. They even found a doctor that would agree with them. They kept going from doctor to doctor until they found the one that would say she is an adult and told them what they wanted to hear.

Also if you read about child abuse and child neglect and trauma, kids with it tend to be more mature at their age than other kids. It’s part of surviving. Natalia was basically abandoned and had suffered trauma so of course she would be more mature at her age. Kids also learn life skills earlier too than other kids because they have to to survive. Read any memoir books out there written by people who were neglected as kids and they also seemed to be more mature at their age and know more than an average child. They had to do it.

Why would the Barnetts do this? I do not know. Natalia doesn’t know either and she doesn’t want to see them go to jail and stuff but she also doesn’t want them to do this to another child. I say the Barnetts are lucky Natalia doesn’t want revenge on them and doesn’t wish badness on them.

Here is the video I saw that convinced me:

Before the video, I was confused because of the contradictions I was hearing. Part of me was hoping Natalia is indeed a adult that is a sociopath because it would be very horrible what the Barnetts did to her if she was indeed a child. Perhps this family can testify against the Barnetts in court because they would be her witnesses. Also the woman who claims to be her birth mother could also perhaps testify too against the Barnetts and the adoption agency too and all the other doctors who said she was 11 or 14 years of age based on testing results and maybe people who knew Natalia in their school and her neighbors and the landlord. It would be interesting to see what charges they get in January. I also think other things they said about her were all lies like her having a period or the fact she tried to kill them or standing over them with a knife. Her new parents that have had her for 7 years deny any violence from her or deny she has ever had a period.

There are still contradictions in the media I am still confused about like living on her own for a year and Natalia saying she was abandoned in 2014 when her new set of parents say they have had her with them for 7 years now so that would mean they had her since 2012. So she would have been 8-9 years at the time. It’s possible the parents might be off by a few years of how long they had her because they can’t remember. Not everyone has a good memory of time stamps.

Also don’t adopt a child from foster care or from overseas if you don’t want a kid with a behavior problem or with RAD. I am not saying Natalia had RAD. When you wish to adopt a kid from a foreign country or from foster care, there is a higher change that kid will have behavior, higher chance for RAD too.

It looks like the Barnetts have pretty much ruined her life. It will effect her employment, maybe getting into college, she can’t go to high school because she is now legally 30, people might not want her around because they believe the media what the Barnetts said but there are also people out there who do believe her so she still has a chance and since she has a disability, she can get on disability. She can’t get SSDI because she has no work history but she can get SSI. Hopefully she will get her GED still and go to college and she can still get homeschooled. Because she is legally 30, she can do things adults can do and even vote too. Watching the show, it looked she held no ill thoughts towards them and didn’t seem to be mad at them nor upset with them and didn’t seem to wish any bad things on them. I would find what they did unforgivable but not everyone holds a grudge and some just find forgiveness like it’s that easy.

My other crazy theory is the Barnetts made up such a claim because in the past, when parents would send back their violent kids to their home country and that one Ohio family that abandoned their 9 year old child at social services, all those parents have been judged harshly and called lazy for giving up on their child and all those kids had RAD. These parents here made up some crazy story basing it on the movie Orphan so people will be on their side and it worked.

Maybe your kid is just an asshole

Every child is different. Sometimes a punishment might not work on a child that would on one other. Sometimes a punishment needs to take immediate affect after the child does something wrong like for example, a kid wrecks his sister’s birthday present because he was jealous. As a result, his mom tells him he can’t attend the birthday party that Saturday. But for this child this consequence wouldn’t work because he would forget about this incident and not understand why he can’t go to the party so he does the same thing again but with something else and he learns nothing from his consequence. For another kid, a punishment has to fit the crime for the kid to learn. If the parent gives him a totally difference consequence that is unrelated to the situation, he learns nothing from it.

But what about a child that never seems to learn their lesson and nothing works no matter what the parent does? But instead the kid learns to get sneaky, learns to lie and they also try to not get caught. Well it might just be the child and not the parent. Think of how some criminals function, they never seem to learn their lesson. They just keep on breaking the law and they learn nothing from fines and jails and being on probation. Instead they are learning to not get caught so they try harder to not get caught. It’s no different than a child doing the same when they start to lie and get sneaky to avoid any trouble and it’s not like they are being abused. Maybe they are just one of these people. I am sure not all “try not to get caught” people end up being criminals but they are the ones who will just do things and lie about it and they are dishonest because they want to avoid consequences. We see these people around, at work, we see them at school, maybe your boss is like that.

But we parents tend to see our kids through rose colored glasses so we don’t even want to admit our kid could just be an asshole and they don’t give a shit. So we as parents keep trying to find different methods to discipline our child and nothing is working so we blame ourselves and think we are failing as a parent because we are not able to mold them into a behavior we want them to do that is good behavior. No honey, it’s not you, it’s your child. It’s not always your fault for how your kid turns out to be and what they do. They have their own personality so they could just simply have “Try not to get caught” mindset. I swear this is a different brain wiring here.

I am not saying give up as a parent when your kid keeps doing the wrong things. Just don’t beat yourself up when your kid decides to break your child’s toy set or when they decide to sabotage their sibling’s school project and you know as a parent that nothing works for them and punishing them just makes them angry and they act worse and still do the same heartless things and they get more crafty and manipulative to not get caught. We as parents want to keep trying everything and keep finding things that work with our child because none of us want to accept our kid could just be an asshole and we have to put up with them until they are 18 when we can legally kick them out because they can’t follow our rules and respect people in the home and they are now adults so you are done raising them so get the hell out. I realize living with your parents as an adult is a privilege.

I sometimes imagine what would have happened if my mom had decided I was just an asshole, just a bitch than trying to figure out how my brain works because I also wasn’t learning from my consequences. I was one of those kids where punishments had to take immediate affect after my actions so if it had been an hour after I did it and then my mom found out about it, it was too late because I lived in the moment and understanding past actions to current consequence was too abstract for me. So you couldn’t punish me the following day for something I did the day before. Or else I learned nothing and all I learned was the teacher took toy time away from me because she wanted to. The teacher could say to me five times total “You sat in the toy box yesterday” and I wouldn’t have understood why I had toy time taken away when I did nothing wrong. You say “yesterday you sat in the toy box” and I still wouldn’t have understood because it would have been like a foreign language because my brain is in the moment. I would not have understood why I was being punished for something I did the day before. Actually this scenario did happen and I find it very ironic because this was in a self contained class and the teacher was a special ed teacher so how could she have thought this was an effective punishment for me? Also the fact lot of students in my class were also cognitive disabled so why would she think we would grasp later consequences to our actions? I wasn’t cognitive disabled or anything but I lived in the moment and was very concrete. Also I had forgotten about the dress up box I sat in so I had no memory of it and felt confused about the whole thing why I didn’t have toy time and just thought the teacher just wanted to punish me just because. So I remember as a child I used to just punish my brothers just because. I also did it for control too because that was how I viewed authority. People punished you for control, they punished you to get back at you, they do it to make you suffer. I know better now.

We did a Home Alone

It’s been a while since I last wrote here and I was meaning to write some stuff here but never got to it due to being busy.

This summer I went to Montana for 2 weeks and we were at my uncle D’s house (he passed away in 2015) and my parents are fixing it up and going to make it nice again and fix the siding on the house because it doesn’t even look like a house. It’s just a tiny house with 3 bedrooms and one bathroom and the back porch and the kitchen and pantry and dining and living room. The whole entire upstairs is just a bedroom.

But we were there working and had unloaded the truck and trailer and after my parents were done, it was time to go to the lake house. I see my son and my older nephew getting in the truck with my dad and I go to my car and put my daughter in her car seat and strap my younger nephew in his and my dad told me they were both riding with me. I saw my dad taking off and I took off too after him. He went back to the cottage while I went to the lake house.

Later, my Dad came and he unloaded the stuff for the lake house and I noticed my mother wasn’t around so I figured she was looking around. Dad asked me where she is and I said I didn’t know and she must be looking around.

She never came back and my dad kept asking again where she is and I said I didn’t know. Then he mentioned how she came with me and I didn’t see where she went and I told him she rode with her. It went something like this:

Dad: Where did you see her go when you got here?

Me: She came with you

Him: No, she rode with you

Me: No, she rode with you

This went back and forth a few more times and then I realized she was at my uncle’s house and we had left her there. My dad cursed about it and I said we have to go back and get her. He said I could go get her but he wants to finish unloading the truck first and I need to watch the kids.

So I wait until he finishes unloading and I went and got my mother. I tried my aunt and uncle’s cottage first, the one I used to live in, to see if she walked down there and is hanging out there. I park my car there and knock on the door and no answer. I was about to leave when I heard voices inside so i knew someone was home. I knocked again and no answer. I thought maybe my mom was mad so she is playing this game. I push the door open, you have to push hard on it like you are breaking it down because it gets stuck so it’s easy to assume it’s locked. I walk inside and I walk into the living room and there is my mother, sitting on the couch watching While You Were Sleeping and she is eating chips and salsa. I am so nervous waiting to be yelled at hearing how self centered we all were and how dare we leave her behind and how careless we all were. But instead she looks at me and says “hi” like nothing happened.

I told her what happened and I thought she was with my father but he thought she was with me. She told me about how she got left behind.

Here is how it happened:

She told my younger nephew she was riding with us and she is getting her spices. She saw me get my daughter in the car and closing the door and she saw me get in on my side and I start leaving. She shouts after me and tries to run after me and is waving her arms and shouting at me but I kept on going. She told me I must have had the radio on and I said I did. My daughter wanted it on. I also never looked back and I said why would I need to look in my mirrors when there are no other cars behind me because it’s a drive way. So she had to put the spices back in the house and she tried to walk down to the cottage but there were these dogs that these people own that rent my grandparents old house that my aunt and uncle now own. She waited and waited but the dogs never left. She had to wait for the man to get them before going in the house so my mom was able to walk to the cottage. He and his wife saw her and talked to her and she told them what happened.

My mom also figured we will notice her missing and come back and get her but we never came back so she thought she was not important to us. She asked me how long it took us to notice her gone and I said “when he got to the lake house.”
Mom asked me if we didn’t notice her missing at the cottage and I said Dad thought she was with me so he didn’t know and I thought she was with him so I thought she was there with him and the kids.

But when I told her the time line of how I went straight to the lake house, my mom was like “oh, that explains it.”

But I picked her up and she used the toilet and we left and we went grocery shopping for the lake house. She told me none of this was my fault and it was my father’s because he is so self absorbed and he didn’t tell me the plan. He gets so impulsive and doesn’t really think it through so he forgot to tell me. I told her my nephew never told me she was coming with us.

But I told her at least this didn’t happen to one of the kids, just imagine if one of them got left behind, that is very scary and frightening for a child to be left and forgotten like that and who knows what may have happened. I also told her just imagine if she was left at a rest area, that would be terrible and then we are hours away when we realize she isn’t with any of us. She may have to hitch hike with strangers to catch up to us. She did have her phone but it wasn’t charged so the battery was dead. Always keep your phone charged folks. If you get left behind, you can call them and let them know so they can turn the car around and come back for you.

I can see how this can happen where someone gets left behind and this could have been worse. At least this was at my Uncle’s D’s house and at least it wasn’t one of the kids that got left behind.

My son’s anxiety

My son has always had anxiety but it was inside him and not noticeable. In first grade he mentioned he often had upset stomachs in class but always ignored it. Now they have been getting worse and worse. School got out for the summer and then my parents went out of town so his anxiety got more worse.

First he started saying he was scared and saying he was hearing things. He would even wake up screaming at night. Now he has been complaining about tummy pain and he will freak out over slight pain. When I took my kids to Mount St. Helens, my son freaked out about his tummy and acted like he was in tremendous pain.
When he gets hungry, he also freaks out and acts like he isn’t going to be able to eat at all and there will never be food. He also wants to sleep in my bed and not ever be alone. He says he gets scared. Plus his shyness has just gotten worse. He used to just be able to be in a group and just do it and just respond to people but not he has gone shy and won’t talk at all and it takes him a while to get used to being around new kids before he participates. He wouldn’t even talk to the doctor either when I took him for his anxiety and he used to be able to answer questions. The doctor thinks too much change is the issue here so that was the contribute to his anxiety. She also recommended we spend 20 minutes with him.

He has always gotten upset for stupid things before his anxiety got worse. Tomorrow he finally has an appointment to see a therapist for his anxiety. It will be two hours long.

How to interact online

After I have been engaging on the internet for seventeen years, I have also been changing how I articulate myself to make it easier for people to understand.

Maybe you have been where I have been before. Maybe you were confused so you try to ask for a clarification because you thought you saw a contradiction in a user and you just wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt but instead they get defensive and get snarky with you for even asking. Maybe someone out of the blue has gotten angry with you and told you you provoke people and you were left in bewilderment. Maybe you have been called a troll from time to time and you are left confused why you would be targeted and randomly attacked. Maybe you have believed you had so many trolls who just liked to target you for some reason and you have been called paranoid or delusional.

I have gotten better at communicating more so I have noticed things have gotten easier online.

1.

“I thought you love cats and now you are saying you don’t like cats?”

Say instead:

“I saw you wrote you love cats but on another forum you wrote how you would never own a cat or did someone just take your picture from here and put it in their avatar to use. I am just confused here.”

The first one comes off as an attack and as an accusation and most people do not respond well to personal attacks and to accusations. It just makes it look like you are targeting them so that was probably why you have gotten rude responses.

But when you phrase it the second way, it comes off as not an accusation and not as an attack. You are sticking to their exact wording you felt was a contradiction when they said they would never own a cat. Some people would just assume this person is a troll because of a contradiction they thought they saw than asking for clarification because what else could they be lying about? So just ask before you jump to any conclusions.

2.

“You would be happier at Autism Speaks.”

Say instead:

“There is an Autism Speaks forum and there are many people there who would share your views, have you checked that place out?”

The first one just comes off very negative but the second one comes off as support.

3.

“Is this a new place for you to give advice in?” as a joke in your response to someone.

Say instead:

“It’s great seeing you posting in this section now, do you plan on posting in even more other sections?”

The second one lets that person know you appreciate their posts on the forum and you are happy to see them contributing in another section and hope they contribute further on the forum. The first one could make the person think you are trolling and attacking them.

4.

“Noise cancelling headphones, ear plugs?”

Say instead:

“Have you tried ear plugs or noise cancelling headphones?”

Honestly people thought the first one was fine and the person just wanted something to criticize so she took my comment and used it for something else and assumed the worst in my question. Even my online friend told me what this person did was very dirty and while he disagrees about people blocking others for things they say they don’t like, in this case, this is fine to block this person for this scenario. Sure I could wonder if I had asked it differently, maybe she wouldn’t have treated me so horrible. Story here.
But at the end it doesn’t matter so there is no use thinking about what I could have done different and if the person is unstable, thinking about how to ask this question differently is irrelevant because it is unlikely most people would take it that way. You just block negative people and move on.

2 and 3 actually happened to me on the same forum in 2010 and I got randomly attacked by the people I had responded too. I enjoyed both their posts on the forum but then after that, I never cared for them and didn’t like them anymore and I don’t miss them.

The first one was hypothetical but I really did ask a similar question that was NSFW. I phrased it the second way than the first way and yes he does post at both places and clarified some things I was lost about.

In the end, someone can still get offended or provoked and attack you so that is when you just block them and move on because you don’t need their negativity. No matter how you word things, someone can still misconstrue it and attack or give you a trollish response because some people have problems. Maybe you could have worded it differently but you just keep working on your communication.

On a forum I am on where incident 2 and 3 took place, someone made a appreciation thread on me and I got lot of nice comments. They said I say good things and that I am nice so that told me that I am not the most hated person there and I am not ignored (other members feel that way there too) and that showed me how much I have improved in my communication. I no longer come off as a troll or as provocative. It made my day.

My daughter’s concern about what restroom to use

Back in November, the day after Thanksgiving, my daughter had decided to get herself a haircut. She came in my room and her hair looked awful. I thought it just needed to be brushed so when I brushed it, I thought someone had done a terrible job cutting it. Was it my mom in law that did it? I asked her and she said she didn’t cut any hair.

My son had found scissors in her room and found all her hair in the basket. I gave my daughter a time out for it and told her she was not allowed to play with any scissors or use any.

Her hair looked so awful, it looked like someone had grabbed a knife and chopped it off.

That weekend, I took her to get her hair cut so they can make it look nice. The lady had cut it and made it look so nice. My daughter had straight hair for the first time. I paid the money and we went home. My daughter loved her new hair cut because she didn’t like having long hair so that was why she had cut it. I told her next time to tell us if she wants it cut and not do it herself.

Monday came and I brought her to school and I brought her home and she was already concerned about her gender. She was scared she wasn’t a girl anymore and was scared she couldn’t use the girl’s restroom and she didn’t feel comfortable using the boy’s restroom.

It turns out kids were calling her a boy at school so it made my daughter question herself, she thought having short hair turned her into a boy but my mom reassured her she was still a girl and she could still use the girl’s bathroom. She got over it and was no longer worried about her gender.

Kids got over it too and didn’t call her a boy anymore. And my daughter hates having short hair but I guess this is a lesson she is learning. Don’t cut your hair next time or her hair will get cut again making it short to fix the damage to make it look nice again.

This is how debates are supposed to work

Me and my husband were going home after I had picked him up from the store from grocery shopping.

I make a joke about fat shaming and my husband said he wasn’t fat shaming and I told him I was just joking because that is what fat activists would call it. Then I start telling him about activists and how people see things that are not there like fat activists think mentioning medical facts about being fat and how it affects your body is a guise for fat shaming just like how transgender people think people who express concern about the restroom bill about anyone can use any restroom for whatever gender they feel, they say people are saying that out of bigotry against trans.

I told my husband that people are concerned that predators will use the law to go into women restrooms to watch them and stare at them and my husband’s argument was men will do that anyway even without the law. Men were already sneaking in them planting hidden cameras and I told him the concern is men will pose as trans women just to enter the restroom without sneaking. Then I pointed out “that is how debates work, instead of calling someone a bigot or transphobic, you explain why you disagree with their statement which is what you are doing now.”

But anyway my husband mentioned that if a woman gets assaulted or harassed, she can report it and I told him “but the problem is if they do that, they will be the ones charged for harassment because of the law and they would have no way of proving they are not trans.”

This has been an argument on forums about restrooms and who can use them based on gender. Calling people bigots or phobics doesn’t get you anywhere and I don’t think peoples concerns about the restroom bill they are trying to uplift in Massachusetts has to do wit transphobia and I don’t think it’s out of bigotry against trans. No one is saying trans women are just men dressing as a woman to come in women restrooms to peep on them. Women are concerned men will pose as a trans woman to go in there and use the law and the woman will be vulnerable because the predator would be protected by the law that is meant to protect trans people. If someone does say trans women are just men dressed as women and living as one, then that is when you can try and do transgender 101 with them.

I think if people just listen to each other and hear their perspective and drop all the accusations, I bet the topic would be more peaceful and people can actually learn.

Another example I have here is I was once taking my mother in law to the hospital and she expressed her opposition to minimum wage increase. Instead of calling her a bigot and accusing her of not caring about poor people (she is poor herself and on Social Security), I asked her why was she against it and why wouldn’t raising it be a good thing. You can’t live off minimum wage. Her reasons for being opposed to it were out of concern about those on welfare. If their wages increased from minimum wage, it would affect their food stamps and healthcare they get from the state. My argument was people used to live off minimum wage and still be able to pay rent and all their bills and still go to college. My mother in law disagreed that it never was you could live off of minimum wage and still pay for everything. I know that is also true too or else there wouldn’t be social security that started in the 1930’s and food stamps that also started and other welfare stuff. There were even poor people back in the early 1900’s and their kids had to work in factories or work as maids to help their parents. Many of them did not attend school. School was a privilege back then and so was education. Now it’s a right and we make sure every kid can get their education but college is still a privilege. I also know my argument to her was, they can just work less hours then if they need their healthcare. But this could also be another argument about why raising minimum wage would hurt people, it will make people work less and this is what my mom in law said. She is concerned about people who will never get promotions because of low wage jobs they work so therefore they will never get a raise and when they do, it will only be by 50 cents or so and it’s not like they will ever get paid enough to make a living without welfare.

The skit on The Amanda Show.

I watched The Amanda Show recently on Amazon Prime. I own one of the episodes and in one of the skits Amanda Bynes plays a student that is a witch. Drake Bell plays a student that knows that she is a witch and all the other students know she is one too. But the teacher is totally blind to her being a witch and doesn’t see the proof she is one even though it’s very obvious she is one.

When I was a teenager, I thought this was a very dumb skit because I couldn’t see the humor in it. All I saw was a student is a witch and the teacher refuses to believe it, how stupid is that?

Being a lot older now and having more experience in life and seeing online how people act and the fact how some people act about Trump still and all this fatlogic stuff about obesity. Some people still think he is a great person and don’t see how bad he is. They believe nothing he says. Some fat activists refuse to believe how excessive body fat can affect you and how much health problems it causes and shows out there like My 600 Lb Life and even BBC has made shows about obesity too and they have all showed health issues each of them had but yet they still refuse to believe it and call anyone fatphobic and call it fat shaming when you mention facts about it. I see this skit today on the show and I finally understood it. It seemed so accurate about humans in life. Something is so obvious and it’s right in front of you but some people still refuse to believe it’s true even though the truth is right there in front of them, it’s very obvious, what more proof would they need? So they made a skit about it making fun of those people. I saw the humor finally and thought it was very accurate. I just couldn’t believe they would put that humor on a teen show but that just shows it’s aimed at adults too.

At the end of the skit, the witch had turned everyone but Drake into lamps and the teacher still refused to buy that her student was a witch. Sadly people are this stupid in real life too you have probably wanted to scream and hit your head on the wall because of how much denial they are in. I am sure you have even been very tempted to call them an idiot because of how angry you are at their stupidity.

Build Your Age disaster

I never expected how crazy it would get. I thought I would be spending $11 for my kids to get a Build a Bear. My son wanted a Pikachu. I get to the mall and get inside and get to the first level and the line is long. I talk to the store employee there and she told me the line was closed and didn’t know when it would open again.

Been in long lines before, I knew I would be in it for hours and there is no way my son can wait in it and what if we get hungry or they have to go to the bathroom? Plus I work this evening and I didn’t want to stick at the mall for hours for the line and then wait in it for hours. It would not be possible so we left. My son got upset with me saying I promised him so I told him I did not know this was going to happen and that lot of people were going to show up. I had to carry him through Macy’s when he wouldn’t come and he cried on the way home and fought with his sister. He didn’t seem to understand I did not know many people were going to show up and they would close the line. I also told him he can’t even wait in long lines and what happens if they have to go to the bathroom or get hungry. I would have no way of leaving and no one else is with us to hold our spot.

I came home and put him in his room and he came out and had shaped up. No more fighting with his sister or whining. I also decided to put like $10 away every month so he can get his Pikachu but instead I found a $15 voucher on the website under my account. I thought I was already a member but I lost my account information so I rejoined it by signing in with Facebook. I still have the membership card. So I printed it off and decided I will use that on the Build a Bear for my son for his Pokemon. My daughter didn’t seem to care about all this so she didn’t act up. She just acted neutral and didn’t have behavior.

I came home and found this was a problem all over US, UK, and Canada and many parents and kids were left upset and disappointed. The event was actually cancelled too. I don’t think BAB even expected this would happen because they planned this event and announced it few days prior and only had it for one day. Bam over 1,000 people show up and wait outside the malls hours before opening. At least I wasn’t the only one who had this problem and had one disappointed child. At least I didn’t wait in line for hours to be turned away or drive over an hour or over 200 miles for this event.

Perhaps BAB should do this event for a whole month than for one day. But I have a feeling they won’t do this again or they will only announce it via email to bonus club members to avoid the madness. But I found out they do this for a kid’s birthday who is under 14 years of age so I will look into that when I go to the store next time and see if I have to do the party there for my child to do build a age. If not, I will take my daughter there for her next birthday for her first Build a Bear. But I do not plan on buying any accessories. I want to keep it cheap.

The heat is coming again

Every summer, we get a heatwave that happens for about 3 weeks total all summer long. When it gets up to at least 90, we call it a heat wave. I hear about it in the news, hear warnings about needing to drink plenty of water and being lectured about to keep cool. In Montana, we had hot weather all summer long and not one news anchor would say a word about it other than broadcasting the temperature and the weather guy. There would be no warnings about it or being told to keep cool or where to go to cool down or places to go to to cool off. Everyone just knew what to do in hot weather.

But here, we here all the fuss about this heatwave and where to go to keep cool and what we can do on a hot summer day to cool down and being warned about drinking enough water. How long has everyone lived here now? Shouldn’t everyone now know what to do in this weather? A co worker told me at work maybe they make a big deal about it to draw attention. Bingo, I never thought of that. maybe that is what it is. Make a big deal about 90 degree heat or 100 degree heat and it makes the news more fun to watch. In Montana it would be boring to hear all the time because it’s so normal there. But here because it only happens for a few weeks, it’s fun to hear about it and listen to the fuss.

But there are pros about it here, on hot hot hot days when you go to places, there will be lots and lots of water being offered and free showers to cool down. You won’t see that in Montana. If you want water, you just have to buy it like normal. Pack your own water along. At a family fun center and you need water, just go inside and buy some, they have some there already but you won’t find packs and packs of it. Everyone in Montana knows to bring water. Here in my area, no need to bring any, they will have it there, lots and lots of it.

I hear it is supposed to be hot tomorrow so I was hearing at work, “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

Yeah, we have air conditioned. My kids will want to play in the water.