I really do mean this sympathetically. we are not well equipped as a culture to grapple with the implications of power and violence, because we are intimately saturated in it from birth. cruelty feels natural, and that's hard to unlearn.

a bunch of things that I know are going to sound really corny (which honestly I think is half the cultural problem - the idea that non-coercive parenting is touchy-feely, ineffectual or just kind of cringe - but that could be a whole other post)

the main thing was that they always explained things to me. if I wanted something I couldn't have, they explained why (from 'we can't afford that', 'it's bad for you', 'it's dangerous', all the way up to 'it's made by a big company that treats its workers badly, and we don't want to give them money'). If I threw a tantrum, they either waited it out until I got tired and bored or they redirected what we were doing ('we have to be patient and wait in line. if we don't wait in line, we can't go into the theatre. we can't wait in line if you scream and upset people. okay then, we're going home.')

beyond that, they always spoke to me like a full person. they asked my opinion on things and took it seriously, and asked me why as much as I asked them. apparently I had a phase as a toddler where I always wanted to be the first one on the swings / down the slide, and would throw almighty fits about it, until my mum took me aside one day and said 'why do you want to be first? are you worried the slide will get used up?' I laughed like it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard, and never kicked up a fuss about taking turns after that.

on the granular level, they focused on positives over negatives. My mum would draw little good behaviour charts for me, featuring e.g. me walking a long winding path through the woods with my soft toys. the path would be made up of, say, 30 stones, and every day that I was well behaved I'd earn a sticker on one of them. when I reached the end of the path, I got to pick a treat. something like a new plastic animal for my collection, or a day trip to the aquarium.

I do remember them sitting me down once and asking me to come up with what I thought would be an appropriate punishment if I ever did something really bad. I think my first suggestion was something like 'no TV', which was a real nice try because we didn't have a TV at the time. I don't remember what I finally decided on, it might have been 'no dessert for a week'. We wrote it down together and I signed my name, and they sealed it in an important looking envelope which they put in my dad's filing cabinet (for important documents). This would be unsealed if I ever did something Really Bad. the eventuality never came up, but the act of participating in the exercise kept me mostly on the straight and narrow. It's funny, the conceptual punishment itself wasn't even that bad. It was the seriousnes of the adult commitment I'd made to Behaving Well that did the trick.

When I DID do the standard naughty stuff, my parents would just sit me down and explain to me seriously why it was wrong and what impact it had caused for other people. They'd ask what motivated me, and why I acted on those feelings in that specific way. They would, of course, tell me they were disappointed. If necessary, they would tell me how things would have to change as a result of what I'd done. They were always, always open to hearing out my side of the story, and always, always took my feelings seriously even if they disapproved of my behaviour. they would ask if I was ready to say sorry and get a hug. if I wasn't ready, if I was still upset or angry, they would give me space in my room and ask me to come find them when I wanted to make up. and I always did, because I always knew they would accept it.

and that's not even touching the ai-generated patterns with hundreds of 5-star bot reviews that are stupidly easy to spot if you know what to look for. but most beginners don't know what to look for, so they're straight-up scammed into buying based on a nice picture. then their 'hey, i made this and it looks nothing like advertised' comments get buried under hundreds of 5-star bot reviews, and this is how someone who might have otherwise discovered an interesting and fulfilling hobby drops it, thinking the pattern's fine, everyone else likes it, so it's on them for not being good enough. it pisses me off so much, you have no idea.

anyway, here's some shops selling amigurumi (crochet soft toys) patterns fully created by crafters. i've either bought and made patterns from them or saved them for later, meaning i already checked that they aren't ai-generated. i might make a post later on how to spot ai-generated amigurumi patterns, but i wanted to give these a shout-out. go buy from them if you can, it's cool stuff and an interesting skill to learn.

• straw animals design (etsy store) plushies and accessories, including some knitted patterns. beginner friendly!
• green frog crochet (website store). mostly doll patterns, very pretty and totally worth the time and effort. they also sell full kits for some of the patterns, that include all supplies except for crochet hooks and fiberfill. also, youtube channel with tutorials.
• moonlight crochet (etsy store). mostly doll patterns, lots of clothes you can adapt to dolls of similar sizes
• yan schenkel (website store for individual patterns) has several books out that i really love. it took a bit of digging to figure out if this online store selling the pdf versions is legit and i found that the publisher sells directly through them. there are three pattern books (1, 2, 3) with animal plushies.
• natura crochet (website store) has colorful animal and holiday themed patterns, plus two books of aquatic themed patterns. same publisher/seller as above.
• hanichan (website store) has a distinct and minimalist style that i think is very beginner friendly. there are also useful general tutorials for amigurumi.
• aquariwool crochet (etsy store). a lot of colorful and fun animal patterns. i haven't bought anything from them yet but i have a few saved and honestly just looking through the patterns makes me happy.
• make me roar (website store). one of the more unique styles i've seen out there, especially these.
• jo handmade design (etsy store). both plushies and more realistic toys, the patterns are very well written and illustrated.

whenever possible i linked to a store outside etsy, but not all pattern creators have one, so it's 100% worth checking them out and supporting them despite the absolute tar pit they operate in. also whatever creative hobby you're curious about, don't let an ai-generated picture discourage you from trying it. you are a god capable of summoning something out of nothing and generative ai is a pathetic little string of mathematical operations with ideas above its station.

I AM GOING TO SCREAM AND SCREAM AND SCREAM to the heavens until everyone knows about the Etsy competitor goimagine!!!

The founder of GoImagine refuses to go public or sell the platform: NO SHARE HOLDERS TO APPEASE!!

They have a STRICT vetting process for sellers: NO BOTS, NO AI, NO DROP SHIPPING, HAND MADE CRAFTS ONLY!!

You can narrow down stores you're shopping from by STATE! EASILY SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BUSINESSES!!

2% of every sale transaction is donated to charity!!!

This is baked into the platform. Right now they're partnered with four different charities to fight childhood hunger, provide relief childcare for families dealing with domestic violence, end childhood homelessness, and fund art accessablity. HELPING KIDS!!!!

I have a shop there that I will be stocking soon! If you're a creator, their basic shop front is FREE and you get 12 listing slots! The next size up is only $5 a month and you get 200 listings, and the top slot you're at $15, gives you 1,000 product listings, and a whole ass customizable store front website. That's cheaper than anything else on the market rn.

Current downsides that will not remain downsides: they're only available in the USA but they're planning on expanding into Canada soon. And they've been mostly focused on growing their seller side, so not a lot of buyers know about them yet. But!!! That why I tell everyone I can! Shop with them! List your products with them! Use a platform that has a dedicated mission for community good and is there to support sustainable creator markets, not create endless bloated corporate growth!!!!

And dump Etsy yesterday.

I think many adults reach a point where they become ashamed of the fact that they have gaps in their knowledge, or become defensive in response to having attention called to this fact. IMO one of the most significant reasons learning is so readily accessible to children is because children are both primed to learn through curiosity, humility, and wonder, and socially encouraged to learn, as it is considered developmentally appropriate for them to be learning at this stage. the reality is that we all have a infinite number of things we do not know or understand, and that, if we are to encourage ourselves to pursue a lifelong discipline of learning, so must we cultivate within and beyond ourselves, an environment which encourages learning, rather than stifling it.

there is joy in learning, but that can be difficult to remember when we do not have some of the critical ingredients to encourage learning. whether that be a lack of curiosity, a lack of attention to that curiosity, an inability to know how to pursue leads of curiosity, and so on.

IMO, all the above ingredients are critical to the capacity to cultivate a discipline of lifelong learning. Notably, none of these are things which happen Within Us in a vacuum -- these are all social processes which are informed by our social contexts and social histories, because humans are social creatures and we do not exist in a hermetically sealed world of Selfhood. our selfhood is influenced and affected by our social context -- and so, how we select and modulate and modify our social contexts are also critical to how we encourage learning within ourselves and others.

at the risk of being overly earnest and cheugy, I've genuinely always found this sentiment from XKCD quite touching, even if I personally frequently fail to approach other people with this level of grace.

[image description: the 'lucky 10,000' xkcd strip /end description]

I like this video because it does a great job of introducing the basic foundations of house cleaning (and because he doesn't use bleach, which is a common allergy in addition to being awful to inhale). He also talks a little about how to clean a vacuum. And why you shouldn't put grease from your pots and pans down the sink drain. I also love that he mentions that different houses and different people have different needs and different versions of what clean and cleaning looks like.

He doesn't mention though that the toilet seat comes off. I take my toilet seat off to clean under the hinges and clean the seat more thoroughly once a quarter.

This is another video from the same guy about cleaning and depression. This advice, especially at the beginning, can feel really really difficult and oppressive to hear. However, I find that it's generally pretty solid. But I'm autistic and so is he, so that gets a massive Your Mileage May Vary stamp on it.

I have a favorite part of this video. It's from 10:52 to 12:36. I think we could all use to hear that. There's a HEFTY pause after that one. I promise the narration does come back.

I'm also going to recommend KC Davis' book "How To Keep House While Drowning"

This is a pair of videos about how to correctly load and use a dish washer.

The first one is a quick 1 minute 30 second overview on loading. I can't find the exact video I'm looking for, so consider this a substitute for that. If I can find the one I'm looking for, I'll swap it in.

The second is a half hour deep dive on dishwashers and detergents. The short form of that is you shouldn't need to pre-rinse anything, detergent pods are overpriced and can cause problems, some dishwashers have a filter in the bottom that needs to be cleaned (but most don't), run your sink until the water is HOT before starting your dish washer, and put a little detergent in the pre-rinse dispenser when you're washing extra dirty dishes (or on the inside of the door if your dishwasher doesn't have a pre-rinse dispenser).

Here's a blog post about scrubbing brushes and how to clean them.

And a video for all cleaning tools, including scrub brushes. This video does use bleach. I'll try to find some alternatives to that.

How to clean a front load washer (with bleach). This should be done monthly or every time you wash really soiled clothes.

How to clean a top loader (without the removable agitator thing). This should be done every 1-3 months depending on you unit, or every time you wash really soiled clothes.

How to clean a top loader (with the removable agitator thing). This should be done every month, or every time you wash really soiled clothes.

This video is for pet owners.

These carpet brushes are a LIFE SAVER if you have dogs. This thing allows me to go from vacuuming about 4 square feet before my vacuum is full to vacuuming half the living room (I don't vacuum often enough. You should vacuum weekly, and I just can't.). I have to unclog the vacuum less often. It fluffs up some of the flat spots in the carpet. And I also use the brush to shampoo my rugs in the spring.

A spot cleaner (or a carpet cleaner with a spot cleaner attachment) is another life saver, ESPECIALLY if you can afford to splurge on a heated one. I see them at Goodwill or at yard sales occasionally, and they're worth picking up. The shark one in the video is great too.

This channel is gold. There's tutorials for cleaning EVERYTHING on there. Just go subscribe!

Gonna throw another potential resource at the end of this very long list, which may be potentially helpful for others like me who loathe videos. It's... the weirdest thing that has genuinely been helpful to me in housekeeping. Absolutely full of useful advice, and bizarrely still relevant in large part. (Though, caveat, research ANYTHING to do with chemicals or cleaning products more complicated than vinegar + lemon + water for modern information.)

It's America's Housekeeping Book (1941). Available for free download on the Internet Archive. (Large PDF file at the link here).

The LISTS y'all. The step by step lists. The emphasis on efficiency and arranging spaces for the least resistance possible. The basic concept of "take a tray or basket into a room when you are tidying up so you can put things that belong elsewhere on it and take them out LATER in ONE GO".

My ADHD-having ass could cry.

This feels like a good time for me to recommend some books and articles on bronze age and mythos related to clothing and attire of the time - which would be good sources to draw from for anyone reading, writing or enjoying greek mythos in general, or if you're simply interested in the subject!

Aphrodite's Tortoise: The Veiled Woman of Ancient Greece by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones – while this book looks into the concept of veiling across ancient greece, my reason for recommending it is because it specifically looks into homeric epics and greek plays and addresses in-depth the way in which the women in these subjects veil and dress themselves, alongside the significance in their clothing - societal and otherwise.

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years - Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times (Chapter 9 and 10) by Elizabeth Wayland Barber – the entirety of this book is a fascinating read, but i recommend Chapters 9 and 10 because those are the ones that focus on the art of weaving, tunics and other such in mycenaean greece + mythos. it addresses the class divide present and how labour is divided.

Ariadne's Threads: The Construction and Significance of Clothes in the Aegean Bronze Age by Bernice R. Jones – this is one of my personal favourites because how in detail it goes through of clothing and accessories, and addresses the difference in dressing across the ages.

Dressing A Late Bronze Age Warrior: The Role of 'Uniforms' and Weaponry According to The Iconographical Evidence by Angelos Papadopoulos – it's what the title says really. Briefly looks into a lot of the paintings, frescos, pottery and such, and how warriors of the time were portrayed.

Woven Threads: Patterned Textiles of the Aegean Bronze Age edited by Maria C. Shaw – This one goes into the varying textiles of the Aegean Bronze Age, one of my favourite parts of it was the use of Aegean textiles in Egyptian ships, and what that implied of the trade aspect of the time.