I've been considering writing some letters to my son (currently a toddler) that he can open during different times in his life. I think that this is a good way to connect with him, but also if anything ever happened to me I'd like to still be able to offer advice and encouragement during tough times.

What are/were some times in your life when you could really have used a note of encouragement, or advice? How about times when you wanted to talk to your parents but were afraid to ask them questions because you weren't sure how they'd respond, or you were too embarrassed to ask?

Some of the ideas I have right now, in no specific order, are:

Open this letter when you:

• Are getting your first job

• Want to know about sex

• Fall in love for the first time

• Don't think you have any friends

• Hate me

• Have just gotten engaged/on your wedding day

• Discover you are having a baby/adopting

• Think you might be gay/straight

• Are trying to decide what to do after high school

• Get your first apartment/house

• Are being bullied

• Feel overweight/underweight

• Wish you had cooler stuff

• Are starting a new school

• Think the world would be better off without you (It won't)

• Are grieving someone you love

• Consider trying drugs/alcohol

• Are having a really bad day

• Have a huge regret

• Graduate High School

• Graduate Post-HS Education/Training

• Are getting your first car

• Think your parents just don't understand you

• Have a really awesome day

• Need a hug

I'm also thinking of doing manila folders for certain age groups, like: Grades 1-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult

That might enable me to give my third grader some explanation of sex without discussing the finer details ("Always wear a condom, kid, and get tested!").

Any suggestions?

Basically I believe that this is something for which reddit provides a great platform. The linked thread in the sidebar is proof of that. I intend this subreddit to be an ask away type of subreddit with links to lots of static resources and threads as they are found and/or created. Moderation will develop with time but the basics should be enough for now. If this idea takes off then I expect its model to be similar to ELI5 as it's very similar in nature.

Feel free to submit threads that may be useful information. AND ASK QUESTIONS!!! Even if we don't know the answer, we may be able to track someone down that does.

Text links only for now.

Thanks

PS: WE ALSO NEED PROMOTION! No unsolicited promotion. If necessary, ask the mod of the subreddit. If you find a thread and think it's relevant or someone is asking a question that you think could fit here, throw a shoutout to /r/RaisingReddit. If someone is giving saintly advice, tell them they are the type of people we're looking for here to contribute.

My parents both passed away before I became 21, and while I'm not a minor, at the age of 23 with an inherited house that is slowly falling apart around me, I just want to sell the damn thing. Of course, having no guidance in adulthood in regards to this kind of thing, I don't even know where to start.

Are there certain cheap(ish) things that I can do to improve the value of my home? Who do I contact when I'm ready to appraise/sell? Any insight at all into this process would be of use to me.

This has been on my mind since Senior year started and I've dreaded graduation day since. How did you deal with this?! Does it just happen? It seems so sad!

But seriously, who are you? And what do you do?

Introduce yourself. Let us know what you hope to gain from this place. Any particular areas of life do you find confusing or have a general curiosity about? We may at least be able to find some information or resources if we don't have first-hand experience with what you're going through or where you're at in life.

Also, don't be afraid to contribute if you think you're too young. Your experience may help someone who is soon to be in your shoes. Just graduated college? I'm sure that can be more relevant to a student going into their first year than one of us older guys who did it a long time ago. Get the idea?

You don't have to get too personal (I know I don't like to put too much personal information out in the ether), but I think at least a little detail is what will make this subreddit work.

So...big secret is that I'm 28, but I've tried other places. People asked me if I was a teenager. So I figured, what the hell, I'll ask here.

If you're curious, I'm questioning whether I love my mother (or anyone for that matter).

I am going to my university as an undecided because there is simply way too many fascinating career options to choose a major! I want to be an editor for a publishing company so I can work with people to make their novels even better, I want to write my own novels one day too! I want to be a Spanish interpreter because I've already started learning the language. I'd like to know German too. Just because. I'd love to be a public speaker and an actress (especially a voice actress for Pixar and DreamWorks and Illumination) and I would like to be a news anchor too! And an English teacher and a Drama teacher and a Yearbook teacher. I'd love to be an interior decorator and a graphic designer and a cupcake decorator and a successful crafter (like, flipping furniture and upcycling and such for a profit).

I suppose these careers aren't very realistic, and I bet some of these are downright laughable, but these are jobs I could see myself doing and enjoying them all fairly equally. Soooo, how do you pick?

EDIT I also wouldn't mind being the mayor of my hometown one day if it meant I could actually get all the druggies out and the teenagers to stop getting pregnant. And jobs created.

16 years old.

All over reddit and real life I hear people say enjoy your youth. Well what exactly does that involve? What things must I try/do which I will not be able to do when I am older?

hello,

i don't know if i can write this so that anybody else understands what i mean, because 1) i'm german 2) it's pretty weird.

as a student, my life is pretty straight-forward. i wake up at the same time every day, one hour after i got up school starts (8 am fyi), i come home at the same time everytime, do my homework and study if necassary, than spend the rest of the time with hobbies until i go to bed, amd it starts all over again. i don't know how it should be else. but when i think of it, this sounds pretty boring to me. whats your daily routine and whats your job? and what do you do on the weekend?

http://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/1knnhr/im_buying_a_car_from_a_dealership_for_the_first/

http://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/1j7oyh/im_19_years_old_and_i_want_to_buy_a_used_car/

First car, second, fiftieth, doesn't matter. Can always use some good "dealing with the dealer" advice. You really have to be as stubborn as possible. They want your money, not your friendship. If you don't feel comfortable making the deal, you have to fight your inner impulse to sign. It's your money and your debt. Don't let anyone control that other than you.

Alright, so this is a bit of a strange one. The upstairs of my house is drywall, done in a texture that google tells me is the orange peel drywall texture. It essentially looks like this. I have a bathroom upstairs that also has this type of wall.

There was a stuck on piece of dirt in my bathroom, so I took a damp washcloth to the wall... and the texture/wall came off on my wash cloth. Image

So here's the deal: I have some various stains/spots of dirt on my walls, and clearly scrubbing them isn't the solution. Can anyone give me advice on this?

So I just turned fifteen, and in about a year I will start looking for a part-time job. But this whole thing about resumes confuses me. How do you write a resume? What am I even supposed to put on a resume? I'm just a high school student, I don't have any skills or experience.

Edit: I forgot to write this, but what the hell is a cover letter?

This is one of many similar questions I've been asking myself for a long time (I'm fiteen atm). I think it is a question without a specific answer. I have a hard time, trying to explain my thoughts but I hope I can still put it across.

I was born and raised in Germany, but for a big part of my life, I've always wanted to move to the USA. I can't find a specific reason, but I think it might have to do with me being influenced by american media (so not a good reason to move there).

The problem is, I fear one thought, and I want to do anything to prevent this from happening. I fear that, after I finish school in one year, I will go to university for some years, go to work for a lot of years. Then I retire and life the final years of my life. Every day, I would get up at one time, go to work, come back 12 hours later, spend 2 hours or so with a hobby and go to bed. On the weekends, I would have a lot of time for my hobbies, but also for things like going shopping, things that need to be done. I don't want to grow up, live and die in one city, only leaving it for holidays.

But when will I get to know my future wife? When will I experience things that I'll never forget? When will things like that happen? I've watched Lost In Translation recently, and just like the characters from the movie, I feel lost and helpless in this world, and I don't know what to do. There are so many options, so many countries to live in, so many jobs to do in my life. But I don't want my life to become boring and monotonous.

I still feel like I couldn't quite express what I mean, and even in my mother language, german, it would still be hard. But If you have any questions about me or my thoughts, I'd love to answer them.

EDIT: One thing I forgot to mention was that I like programming, and a dream of mine was to found my own IT company (kind of similar to the movie the social network, but of course I'd never expect/plan to be so successfull)

From what I understand, you're just paying someone money to pay you money, and you don't actually get anything out of it.

I realize this is a weird question. I'm fifteen and a guy freshman in high school. I've been acting in local theater sense the age of six, and I've been in 29. I like to think I know a lot about acting and I've taken countless professional workshops, out time and effort into it, and I'm a Acting Honor's Society student.

My problem is this: My older brother (21) is also an actor and was accepted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in L.A., a world renown acting 2-3-year academy. He's only been to regular college for about a semester. But the fact that he's gotten accepted, is thriving, and is finishing his first year with the lead in the Academy's Taming of the Shrew, makes me really scared.

I don't want to follow his footsteps because me and my brother have never had the best of relationships. I'm very emotional ad expressive, and he's always been very introverted about his feelings. This has created a big distance between us.

Long story short, I've always done acting my whole life and I'm just realizing now that I don't want to because he's doing it and becoming successful. And maybe I wanted to do something else but it seems meaningless because I've put so much time and effort into acting. i can't make those kinds of changes very easily.

So how can I make this decision? Acting isn't my only passion. I am a very good writer I think, artist, photographer, and basically anything expressive and artistic. It just seems like I have to because of my whole life being devoted to it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/20meby/minors_of_reddit_what_concept_of_adulthood_do_you/cg4rnze

Do I have to use a lawyer? Does it need to be notarized? Is there anything special I need to do for my will to hold up in court?

My friend in Finland (we've already found the site that ships out of the US) is trying to buy things online, and he's already got a bank account, but his parents but a block or something on his account, and any time he tries to order something online it won't let him. Any tips from y'all? Even happens on Amazon, if that helps

Bit of an odd way to phrase the question, but I couldn't think of anything else. I always thought college was more than four years, so what makes you a college freshman, or senior, etc.

Hi,

So as I'm singing happy birthday to myself alone(Yay moving away and having no friends!), I moved from India, living with parents... to USA, ALONE... two months ago. I'm currently in the first semester at a college in NYC. I'd really love any tips anyone can give about settling in, money, jobs, student life, making friends.... Anything would do. Basically I'm trying to be an adult and support myself. Currently don't have a job and only have an account with $3000 in it which I'll have to last a few months. :S

On the plus side of jobs, I'm pretty experienced(4 years volunteering at OLPC and other stuff) with computers so it shouldn't be that difficult...but it is.

Anyway, so yeah, sorry for broken up idiotic ranting, but I'm basically looking for any kind of tips on how to be an adult ...well I'm just 19 but still.

I'm 20 going on 21, a single non-smoking female. Only pet is a lizard at home. New junior in a 4-year university. I work part time and could juuust cover a $400/month rent. My home life is not ideal. I've tried counseling for years and I have been told I need to get out of the unhealthy situation I am in or spend as little time there as possible. Is there anything else I can look for? I am totally able and willing to work to earn my keep if such work-for-board options are out there. I've never struck out on my own so I don't know what my options really are.

If I could just stay somewhere else temporarily, that would be fantastic. Anything like a week or month here and there, long term would also be great. I only need it to cost me under $400/month and be near my campus.

I'm kind of freaking out about getting ready to start my senior year of high school because I have to choose my career and there is a major problem.

Everything I enjoy doing I am not good enough to make enough money to ever support a human being. Writing, drawing, illustrating, etc. I'd also have to move to a huge city to have a chance of a living. That just isn't my pace. I just want a town that has a movie theater and more than just a freaking Wal-Mart to buy clothes from.

Because my hobbies will only afford me a cardboard box, I was thinking about going into physical therapy. It's a medical occupation, but not one that involves organs and gushing blood and needles and all the things that would make me sick, and I can help other people. At least that's what I thought til I asked around.

A woman from my church, "Oh sweetie, you will have to whirlpool so many infected injuries."

A teacher, "My nephew graduated five years ago and still can't find a job because that job market is so competitive."

An adult friend, "Are you a sadist? Do you enjoy others' pain? No? Then pick another career."

I really do not know what to do. When you take away the creative hobbies, my only other thing is that I really, really like to help people. You know that person that helps the little old lady in the parking lot pack away her heavy groceries? That was literally me this morning. I'm a people pleaser to the extreme. I won't go into a career that my parents can't proudly tell other people I'm in.

If I could have my choice of career, I would work with my yearbook supervisor forever. We've stayed after school working together many a time, sometimes even til midnight. We come in on weekends to get things organized. I'm more proud of being the student editor than I am of getting straight A's while working a 35 hour a week job and paying off a car before I turned 18. If there were anyway I could work as my supervisor's assistant and make a living wage, I would do it.

I'm sorry for the rambling nature of this post, if there is anything you need me to clarify, please let me know and thank you for your time.