deleted by creator

Our culture phrases damn near everything in metaphors of war. The war on drugs. The battle of the bands. Bob lost his battle with cancer. It’s absolutely pervasive, to the point it’s almost as invisible as the air.

Rule number one: the kids are alright.

A sign that reflects the eternal truth… You don’t buy beer. You rent it.

when “free water” counted as retail innovation

There isn’t near the kind of cultural narrative about stepfathers that there is about stepmothers, especially in media for kids. Kids absorb ideas from the fairy tales they see and hear. Stepmoms have to deal with tropes from “Cinderella” to “My Stepmom is An Alien”. Kids will then carry those notions, amorphous and unexamined, into their new relationship. Kids usually don’t have the capacity to recognize those kind of prejudices in themselves. So now the new stepmom has to deal with the kid’s indignance at a fictional character. But aside from the Dursleys in Harry Potter, I’m hard pressed to recall a wicked stepfather.

Then there’s the puritanical thread, and I’m a dude so I don’t even know what else is lurking in our culture that wants to take a piece out of a stepmom for being the second lady in the family.

Not to reduce what a genuinely good dad has to do, step or otherwise. But if a dad manages to use words to explain something calmly, that’s enough to get kudos from strangers on the street. I don’t think the ladies have the benefit of the same uncomplicated expectations, so they need specialized guidance.

What exactly are you looking for in advice? How to deal with the ex and their branch? How to deal with specific behaviors from the kids? You’ll probably do better to search at the level of those topics than the role of stepdad in general.

I’d suggest going for “How to talk so that kids will listen and listen so kids will talk” series. To be a good step-parent, you need to be a good parent.

Well that’s after the book was mistranslated through version after version.

Utah has an accurate translation that their prophet found by looking into his hat.

Outstanding response and highly relevant username.

“The Dark Beyond the Stars” by Frank Robinson might fit for you. It’s set on a generation ship that can’t find a good landing spot.

I think some motivation is that half-assing your shelter in Yakutsk is dangerous, not merely uncomfortable.

What a savings.

Spud Webb - 5’6", won the 1986 NBA dunk contest

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spud_Webb

Close. You don’t add liquid and flour. You brown the meat, and render out fat. It’s vital to have a couple tablespoons of liquid fat in the pan. If you don’t get enough from the sausage, augment with a bit of butter or oil. Heat around medium.

Then sprinkle in flour, about equal in volume to the liquid fat, and stir. You gently fry the flour in the oil to cook off the raw flour flavor. It’ll go from white to about sand color. If your proportions are right it will look a bit like wet sand, and will smell like roasted nuts a bit.

Now slowly stir in cold milk while whisking gently to mix and prevent lumps. Scrape the bottom to deglaze any browned on flecks of meat. You want to heat it to just bubbling not to scorch the milk. It’ll thicken up.

Then grind a bunch of pepper in to finish it off, and pour over biscuits, fried taters, or whatever.

All gravy works this way, pretty much. Gravy for turkey? Replace the milk with poultry stock. Gravy for steak? Beef stock it is.

Bad Santa. It’s cynical and hilarious and still ends up weirdly heartwarming.

It’s loss. https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/loss

Such an insightful commentary on the importance of the social contract and the irreplacibility of the individual. The only way forward is to share our personal experiences and strive for understanding. Once we know each other’s value, we will never surrender our common bonds, disappoint one another, go behind each other’s backs, nor do each other harm.