MetaTalk

Inspired by this Twitter thread, tell us the freakiest thing a child ever said to you. Or that you (or a family member), as a child, ever said to someone. It doesn't have to be "eery" (as in the thread), just something weirdly unexpected and surprising. [more inside]
posted by taz on Apr 9, 2022 - 45 comments

So this post has reminded me that my least favourite subject for Metafilter posts is pretty much climate change. This is for many reasons, but the biggest one is that many people start sounding off about how happy they are that they don't have kids/how bad it is to have them. [more inside]
posted by Alex404 on Feb 2, 2021 - 221 comments

Over the years there have been a number of AskMe posts about parenting kids with mental health issues, and some of them were written by other people! Which leads me to believe that there are other parents on Metafilter wrestling with the practical, social, and other challenges of raising kids with mental health challenges or diagnoses. I'm certainly not finding the community I want around this elsewhere, so I'm looking to Metafilter. I wonder whether there's an interest for a group of parents who have these struggles, to put heads together, problem-solve and hold space for one another. [more inside]
posted by chesty_a_arthur on Nov 22, 2019 - 15 comments

I just posted an AskMe in the Grab Bag category because I did not find a Parenting/Grandparenting or Children category. Librarians and others, should I have posted it to Human Relations instead? Just looking for a general consensus about where to post such things next time until/unless we add a Children category to Ask. (I think this has been raised in the past but couldn't find a thread when I did a quick search.)
posted by Bella Donna on Jul 16, 2019 - 28 comments

Earlier today after a passing a family while walking down the street I said to my wife, "The interesting question to me isn't why some people murder their children. It's why anyone doesn't murder their children" - I didn’t think comments about murdering any types of people were allowed, but this one still stands. [more inside]
posted by ThePinkSuperhero on Jan 3, 2019 - 460 comments

I'm looking for a music post from the Blue that appeared about a month ago. It was about an elementary school class in California who had written a song that Warner Brothers eventually released as a single (with an industrial film by Francis Ford Coppola). I've searched for this but haven't found anything--does anyone remember this?
posted by pxe2000 on Jul 14, 2017 - 2 comments

I'm too lazy to go back and delete the title pun. Anyway, this deleted post is clearly a spectacle of horror. But I don't think it's *only* a spectacle of horror. When I heard about this incident, I thought the particulars of the event had the potential to add something new to the gun control discussion in the US. And I think the Metafolk could have handled the discussion. I can understand why some topics, ripe though they may be for nuanced & thoughtful debate, are often off-limits (Palestine e.g.). But I didn't think we got that wild on the gun violence posts. Am I wrong?
posted by univac on Sep 1, 2014 - 110 comments

We had a very enjoyable dinnertime conversation tonight with our 8-year-old about the Ask MeFi question about the college student whose friend spilled water on her laptop and killed it. It was really great to say, "OK, here's an interesting ethical question, what do you think she should do? What does Mommy think? What does Daddy think?" And then we talked about the various answers people gave, and how we felt about them, and the whole thing was great. It made me want to make this a regular dinnertime feature! MeFi parents, do you use MetaFilter as a teaching or parenting tool, and if so how?
posted by escabeche on Mar 9, 2014 - 112 comments

Hi. I do not intend this metatalk to be a re-argument of the very contentious and upsetting askme thread about a father saying he has a right to show porn to his daughter. [more inside]
posted by skbw on Jan 23, 2014 - 89 comments

I read a book recommendation on the green for a beautifully illustrated children's book about animals. I can't remember anything about it except that the pages were complicated and full of animals and you could spend ages looking at a single page. I think the illustrations were pretty realistic (not cartoonish). Does this ring a bell for anyone?
posted by Omnomnom on Mar 6, 2013 - 16 comments

While the recent Mefite baby boom is wonderful (and adorable), I thought everyone might like to know that the slightly-older Hive-Spawn are progressing nicely, too:

Me: "Gee, Lil' Thumbscrew, I'm not really sure about [weird question involving the LD50 of gummie vitamins."
Lil' Thumbscrew, Aged Seven: "ASK METAFILTER!"

That is all.
posted by julthumbscrew on Mar 4, 2013 - 54 comments

If you really want the help of parents, maybe don't start by insulting them? Lots of deletions, lots of parenting/breastfeeding flame-war brushfires being put out in this thread. [more inside]
posted by AmbroseChapel on Aug 10, 2011 - 710 comments

Remember that FPP I made about the cool old bassist? [more inside]
posted by zizzle on Jan 26, 2010 - 6 comments

This FPP, a Washington Post article about accidental hyperthermic deaths of children, has elicited some amazing responses, in particular this post by scrump.
posted by jokeefe on Mar 9, 2009 - 296 comments

The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, a book on dealing with child trauma was co-authored by Dr. Bruce Perry and Mefite Maias. Perry's clinical and research work -- the thing that the book is based on -- is the topic of Oprah Winfrey's show this coming Tuesday. Don't think Maias appears on the show, but presumably her sales should see an upturn. Congrats, Maias!
posted by PeterMcDermott on Mar 2, 2009 - 23 comments

Looking for the amazing thread, from a couple years ago (?), that became an anthology of stories about really dangerous things we did as kids. [more inside]
posted by Miko on Dec 18, 2008 - 37 comments

I'm searching for an old AskMe thread where the OP requested a list of indie-rock/indie-pop music that would be good for children. I've already searched tags and AskMe search for various combinations of the terms "kids", "children" "indie" "music" and "playlist" and have not come up with the thread I am remembering. It was not the ice-cream-social thread or the hip-hop for a 10-year-old thread. I seem to recall it was from about 1-2 years ago.
posted by matildaben on Sep 12, 2006 - 6 comments

In revising my post, I screwed up the very first link in this thread. Should have been this instead of the same link I posted later in the description.
posted by Meredith on Feb 16, 2006 - 2 comments

A real quandary here, folks. While Googling for "kisses of love" I found a site called Butterfly Kisses dedicated to lesbian paedophilia. It's very slickly produced and contains lots of photographs by celebrated photographers such as Sally Mann. This makes it all the more disturbing.

I was planning on posting it but somehow I feel put off by publicizing it. I'm reminded of the ethical problems associated with posting nutjob political sites. On the one hand, perhaps posting the site on MetaFilter will make it be denounced and go underground(which would be a good thing, IMO). On the other, it might just draw attention to something best left alone.

Though I'm aware MetaTalk is read by a lot of people, it doesn't attract as many readers as MetaFilter. What should I do? Post it or forget about it?
posted by MiguelCardoso on Mar 12, 2002 - 186 comments