April 10, 2015 | Awake & Dreaming

With the recent spate of issues we’ve been having at the apartment with regards to the elevator needing repairs and other residents (the ones in the floors 1-3) being reluctant to shell out their share to fix it / replace it, my family is thinking of moving. The elevator has broken down several times in the past month and a half and it is only being repaired partially in order for us to continue using it. But the ideal thing is for us to replace the whole thing as it is quite old.

We and the families in the floors 4 and above have set aside money to pay our share of the cost of the replacement but we cannot go ahead as the families of 3 floors haven’t coughed up their part right now. Hence we have frequent outages of the elevator. It is working now but who knows when the fuse blows out again. This means a walk up 7 set of stairs for me which is taxing on the lungs and legs of most of us. I have walked up most nights of the past month and a half as I come back from work.

Dad cannot climb up and when the elevator is down he goes to stay at my sister’s place. Mom is however stuck at home on those days even if she could go to her sister’s place or my sister’s place for a few days. It is frustrating for us and we are considering moving to another place. I am not sure but with such an old elevator, even if working, will we get a good price? Especially when they come to know that it goes out frequently and needs to be replaced, meaning a good amount. We shall see; for now it’s fine. But I think we will be on the lookout for a new place.

How Should Parents Address Internet Pornography?

I remember having this very discussion on a Facebook post that I shared where a former schoolmate of mine, a mother of a teenage boy, was furious that I had mentioned that I didn’t want to ban pornography. Her argument was that young kids would see it and get affected by it. Another friend joined in the discussion and he was with me : we don’t want to ban pornography but we don’t want kids to be exposed to it. If you are worried about your child watching porn online, monitor their internet usage and be more active in controlling what your kid sees online.

I honestly believe that if you have young kids at home and you plan on giving them a laptop / desktop with Internet access, do not give them the connection in their room. Keep their personal laptop or tab with them but restrict their internet usage to a system kept in the living room or dining table or whatever, in plan view of the rest of the household. Be near them when they have to go online. Put parental locks or controls or whatever needed to restrict certain websites.

Look at the end of the day, he or she is going to see something that you don’t want them to see. Either by accident or they might be with a friend who has unrestricted access to stuff online or otherwise. Educate your kids, let them know why you don’t want them to watch this stuff. Tell them that there are genuine concerns that could affect their thinking. Do something constructive and treat them like you respect their opinion too but care for them.

Prompt from The Learning Network at The New York Times