I did not take the comment badly - I in fact thought immediately of my grandmother, who was a force of nature. At her funeral, the [religious person doing the service*] talked of when the women's group had introduced some coating to the brass to hopefully stop it tarnishing, which my grandmother promptly removed, because it wasn't good enough, and she was happy to continue doing the polishing. It seemed telling that in decades of being at the church, this was the anecdote that was brought up.

Youngest is having a bit of an issue with a teacher who is a gender prescriptivist. I gather that part of the issue is that youngest is taking on the fight so that the genderqueer/gender variant kid in that class doesn't have to do it. In the other two classes, I suspect it has more to do with the fact that youngest only waits a short time for other people to give answers, and then just gives up and gives their answer. Because so many people (even very bright ones) often doing want to be the first to speak.


* I'm sorry, I have no idea which of the possible words are appropriate here. Anglican church.