It was a happy event. Our young next-door neighbor had just graduated from high school and been accepted to one of her universities of choice, her major chosen and her moving plans underway.  There were congratulatory balloons everywhere from the celebration, including inside our house, after our three-year-old convinced her to share. We didn’t attend the party, but we gave her a card and a gift, and she met me at the chain link fence between our cozy back yards to thank us.

We had the usual polite small-talk. With me being eleven years her senior, it didn’t seem she’d want to spend a lot of time chatting with me when she had a lot of friends and a free summer ahead of her. I asked about her major; she said English. Despite writing being my first thought, surely because of my own profession, I decided to play it safe and ask if she planned to teach. No, she said, she wanted to do professional editing for publication. And it was there, in the subtle way she kept smiling though she lowered her eyes, that I felt an immediate rise of anger.

See, I’m not even sure she knew she did it. But that one tiny gesture told me a story like a thousand others. That, not her parents, as they’re the loving and supportive type, not her friends, or they wouldn’t be her friends, but someone–some time–told her that the path of her dreams was not viable.

It’s a story almost everyone shares, and though it cuts us deep when it happens to us, we always manage to pass it on to the next generation. That what they want to do isn’t viable as a career option; that it’s too hard; that their chances of being hired are slim; that it’s great for a hobby, but not a career; that there’s not enough money in that field to support a family.

I was excited. I told her how incredible I thought that was, that I thought it was an excellent choice, that she would love it, and that the written world was my field, too. Her smile brightened and I took it to mean something. Lots of friends and relatives had likely encouraged her, but I was saying something from the other side. I already had experience writing, editing, working with publishers. Though I devote most of my time and attention to being a stay-at-home mom and the whole “books” thing is just a side gig now, I had done what she wanted to do, and that made it seem that much more attainable.

Careers can crop up in the most unlikely of areas, these days. With the advent of the internet, we can make our way through methods no one ever would have dreamed of before. Encouragement costs us nothing, but it can be what makes or breaks a person’s dreams. It didn’t even take a minute to share a few positive words, but it made a difference.

The next time we crossed paths, both of us walking to our cars to run errands, she told me she’d declared her major and had all her classes lined up. No more timid lowering of the eyes, no more somewhat-sheepish smile while she laid her heart bare by sharing her interests. All I saw was the excitement and enthusiasm, the eager energy of someone just beginning on the best parts of their life.

Nobody likes clickbait.

A few weeks ago, I discovered the magnificent organization Stop Clickbait, where they take clickbaity articles and post the link along with the answer to the baiting headline. It’s amazing! I only have one issue with it: they classify lists as clickbait.

There are two kinds of lists that permeate the blogosphere, and sweeping them all into the same “clickbait” category is harmful to the kind that’s actually worth something. And yes, in case you’re wondering, I write a lot of these!

In defense of those lists, it’s an excellent blog format. It lets bloggers categorize thoughts and ideas under neat headlines that let you, the reader, know if a point is something you want to read about. If it’s a subject you’re already familiar with, or the bullet point is a tidbit you already know, you can skip it. Aside from keeping everything neatly organized, information presented as a list can help save precious minutes of your day.

And then there’s Buzzfeed.

I get it–Lists get a lot of clicks. But when people click a list headline, they’re usually expecting useful information, not a collection of 30 GIFs with one-line, opinionated and non-informative snippets written in “hip” language.

Even worse are the “listicles” (shorthand for list-article, apparently) that offer bullet points and a single line of text on individual pages, rife with popups and obnoxious banner ads, expecting you to click through eight to twelve pages or more to get a tidbit of information.

It’s awful, because as I said, I love lists. Lists are great. But as that kind of list permeates the internet, it becomes harder and harder for me to tell if a list I click is actually going to be informative, or if it’s going to be… well, clickbait.

So seriously, Buzzfeed and everyone taking a page from their book, stop messing up our lists. Stop Clickbait is a great idea, but when a major site’s actions drop people like me under a spammy title just because I use lists, I have a problem with that.

Lists are great. They’re helpful. And when I label a blog post in list format, don’t worry–I promise the only reason I’m naming it “Eight great things about dragons” is because I have detailed articulation that explains those qualities, which I can’t boil down into a few keywords in a headline.

There’s no clickbait here. I promise.

There are some challenges that come with parenthood that people don’t tell you about. They’ll warn you of sleepless nights and spectators when you just want to use the bathroom alone. They’ll warn of messy kitchens and mountains of laundry and the way you’ll worry, sitting up at night with a sick little one.

But they don’t tell you that you’ll lose yourself.

They don’t tell you that every mother ends up overwhelmed and lonely, even when people come to visit or help.

They don’t tell you that trying to look after a child is such an all-consuming feat that everything else ends up being put aside to make it a little easier to wash a little person’s underwear because they’re mysteriously out of clean pairs, or wash a floor your shoes have been sticking to all day. Hobbies and interests stop existing for a while, because there’s simply no time. Time for these things will return eventually, but sometime, things come together in a curious way that makes everything seem far worse than it is.

Growing up in a large family, the idea of hand-me-down clothing was nothing new. Shoes rarely lasted long enough to be passed down, but clothing cycled from one kid to the next. Since I was the eldest girl, I rarely fell into this cycle. My parents would occasionally be gifted bags of previously-loved clothing from friends or coworkers, but for the most part, I got new clothes.

There’s an important form of self-expression that comes through clothing, and often we’re not even aware that it’s happening. We pick things we like or things we feel look good on us, without ever considering our choices. Our clothing lets us reflect our personalities on the outside, helping form a clear idea of who you are. But when your clothes are hand-me-downs, this freedom of expression is stripped from you.

Raising kids is as expensive as it is time-consuming. Clothes shopping with a toddler is a nightmare, and trying to check tags and scout out the things you can afford just doesn’t happen. So after our little one joined the family, I jumped at every offer of hand-me-down clothing, both for her and for me. It saved time, it saved effort, and it saved a fortune.

And yet it led to the slow replacement of the things in my drawers, my carefully curated collection of clothing assembled over the course of years. My own hand-chosen clothing wore out and was thrown away. Over time, I came to own a myriad of clothing from brands I’d heard of but didn’t wear and from stores I’d never visited. And then one day I opened a drawer to get dressed in the morning, and I was already having a bad day, and as I looked in at my clothing, I realized no part of myself was left in those drawers.

The shirts with words portraying my sense of humor, the shirts depicting characters from my favorite video games and movies, the shirts representing my favorite bands–all primarily black and dark clothing–were gone, save a few which were already in the hamper from the weekend.

Instead I was left with neon bright and pale clothing from Aeropostale, American Eagle and Hollister. I wore logos from stores I’ve never even set foot in, in colors I’d never dream of. And when I looked at myself in the mirror, I wasn’t entirely sure who was in that first glance.

That was the moment when everything came together for a pitiful afternoon of gutting my closet and discovering none of my old favorite dresses fit any more, all my favorite pants were worn out and torn at the pockets or the knees, and though the classy Korean clothing I’d imported a year before still fit, it was too warm outside to wear any of those long-sleeved fashions. I was stuck in someone else’s wardrobe, and I spent the day feeling like I was stuck in someone else’s life. Logically, I realized that wasn’t the case, but it still led to an uncomfortable and sort of surreal experience.

I’ve since found myself unhappy every time I open my dresser drawers, but the good news is it’s easy to remedy; a month or so to save money, and a weekend to shop for things that put the essence of me on the outside. A small problem, something most would label as a first-world problem, but a problem, nonetheless.

So to my younger sisters: I’m sorry for the hand-me-downs.