One helpful thing to keep in mind as a retort-stopper is that you won't "win," you won't change anyone's mind, you won't change any votes, you won't make the atmosphere in the room any better, YOU won't feel any better.

I'm sure there are people who can toggle quickly from all-in caregiving to structured socializing, but I can't think of any offhand.

If you are being shuffled around, then you should feel shuffled around.

I'm not a big fan of the white lie.

Sometimes the pain outweighs the good things.

Bodies and minds need breaks or the work suffers, this has been proven and reproven to the point where we don't even need to post links to support it.

I think we'd all hate to be the one who gets declared undateable by one's entire grad-school population based on a couple of told and retold stories.