As the saying goes, the punishment must fit the crime, and if the repercussions are too severe, no one is learning anything, and you're simply going to create a bad memory and lifelong resentment that will get brought up in 20 years at tense family dinners and when your kids attempt to talk to you about the trauma that you unintentionally caused them. Of course, as a parent, even if you have the best of intentions, you're not going to get everything right all of the time . And as teenagers, we'…

This family had the strangest Thanksgiving food ever, thanks to one sister's extremely creative cooking. I assure you, you've probably never thought of making any of the foods this woman made for her family to eat. Thinking outside the box is what makes a lot of chefs really brilliant at what they do. Next, read about the funniest ways that workplaces hide their issues from customers, like one clever boss who “ invented a fake employee that he would blame all problems on .”

Up next, read about how this snow shoveller got some excellently petty revenge on a neighbor who stole their parking spot, writing that they “must have poured about ten gallons of water on his car .”

Memories are a funny thing in that each memory is shaped and reformed every time you recall it, making them easily susceptible to suggestion. Essentially, every time you recall a memory, you destabilize it and partially “destroy” it with your brain, then completing a process called reconsolidation to re-store it with your current thoughts and emotions added. As a brief tangent, this one one of the reasons why witness testimony is so problematic. This fluidity and fallibility of memory and abili…

This mom isn't 100% sure that she's doing the right thing here. After her son ate an inordinate amount of pizza, she turned to the internet to steer her in the right direction. After that, read about the ridiculous requests that hotel guests had, like one guest who “demanded a room upgrade because ‘their aura didn’t vibe' with the one they booked.”

This person has a serious chip on their shoulder about their wife's debt issue. Right off the bat, the topic of debt can make people really jumpy. No one likes to talk about what happens when you keep spending because it's fun, only to realize that you're sinking deeper and deeper into debt. As the debt balloons, it makes you sad, and that makes you want a little treat. The cycle continues, and it can be difficult to break. But with the right support and a good plan in place, there's still hope…

After saving up for a trip for ages, this family suddenly realized that had a few unwanted guests trying to tag along. No one ever said it'd be easy to plan a family trip ! There are so many details that go into bringing a trip to fruition. Step one, though, is usually knowing who is going on your trip. This person, u/Altruistic_North1050, thought they were planning an 8-day trip with their husband and two kids , but then her sister-in-law got involved. It would seem that the husband's side of…

Regardless of whether or not you've achieved immaterial enlightenment or are neck deep in the current iteration of the social-media-fueled consumerist frenzy, it's more than likely that you possess things that are your favorite. Chances are these items have some sort of sentimental value—a keepsake from a loved one or photographs that are irreplaceable despite having no measurable value. They may have some monetary value, too, regardless of whether or not you'd ever want to sell them. Heck, may…

It really should go without saying that you can't just go around renaming people just because you don't like their name for some reason. Even if—no, especially if—that person is a foster kid under your care. Some things like this are so outrageously laughable and out-of-pocket that they would be silly if they weren't so cruel… This 16-year-old foster child found himself facing hostility from his new foster family's extended family, who apparently came to the decision that his name, “Nico,” was…

They left her everything for a reason.

No one is going to agree on everything, and when it comes to a game where almost everything is in part determined by imagination, what you imagine might not be in line with everyone else at the table. As with anything in life, inevitably, personalities, ideas, and preferences will clash, and it's all down to tolerance and an ability and willingness to go with the flow. Not being set in your own ways and ideas just makes everything easier, even if everything isn't exactly the way you want it. Th…

As a kid, bedtime is one of the ultimate constraints; being forced to go to bed right at an exact time every night feels like authoritarian oppression, almost symbolic of the limitations being imposed upon you. Of course, when you're seven years old, your bedtime is really for your own good, it's not really like you can be trusted to make your own decisions at that point for whether or not you're tired. But still, who among us didn't “cheat” our bedtimes, playing in our rooms long after our par…

For many of us, next week, we will be sitting around a large dinner table exchanging passive-aggressive remarks with family members before the tryptophan makes us all fall asleep before 9:00 pm. This is, of course, the most ideal scenario for Thanksgiving. We all know that in practice, something always goes wrong. These wrong outcomes can range from family members bickering over how to get all the dishes prepared and cooked in time to siblings letting old wounds out in the open. Anything can ha…

Spending the holidays with your husband's ex-wife sounds like prime material for a straight-to-streaming holiday-themed romantic comedy, but the reality is that it's not nearly as funny when it is your reality. This stepmother turned to this online community for advice on a complex personal problem she was facing and wondered if she was in the wrong for encouraging her 19-year-old stepdaughter to speak up about ending their joint family holiday gatherings with the stepdaughter's mother, her hus…

Generosity only goes so far when you're asked to give up your first-class seat on a 10+ hour flight. If you are the type of person who would willingly downgrade your experience despite what you paid for, then you are a greater person than most people are. We are inclined to side with the Redditor in this situation. She had splurged on this flight experience because she had been overworked and exhausted. It was a worthy gift to herself. When a pregnant woman's husband asked if she would give up…

Many parents have to beg their children to pick up a book, but some have the exact opposite issue: They can't get their kids to stop reading! When you get really into reading as a child , you want to read all the time. Whether you're reading under the table at dinner time, or sneaking a flashlight into your room to read under the covers, you'll find any scrap of time to read. It's addicting to be engrossed in a fascinating mystery or a horror book. It's also a lot better than playing endless vi…