So I was just reading an article about homeschooling where the author got a letter from a person against it and the author was for it and they just went back and forth being mean to each other and belittling one another and it made me sad. Why can't we just get along? Why does one person have to be right and one person have to be wrong? Why with the winners and losers all the time? (can you tell that I'm not in any way competitively athletic?) It's like if someone says, "I like the color green." there has to be a line of people out there with data and statistics saying that if you don't like red you like to torture puppies and feed your kids high fructose corn syrup for dinner.
Why can't people just say they like sending their kids to a certain school without being judged and put down by everyone else? I like sending my kids to the public school down the street. It is not a perfect school but I feel like I wouldn't like it if it was a perfect school. I want my kids to have a hard time sometimes, especially now when they are young and I am there to help them sort through it. If they have a less than awesome teacher who consistently pronounces their name wrong and doesn't seem to recognize their awesomeness, that's okay because we can talk about it and see that sometimes that happens in life - not everyone is going to recognize your awesomeness all the time. You will survive.
People feel like they have all the answers and they comfort themselves with knowing that their way is the only and right way to go about things. But there's lots of ways to do things. I read a great article by a woman who tried for 10 years to have children and has finally accepted that having children is just not her path. Through her long and harrowing experience with infertility she has learned a lot about herself and that this is her journey and hers alone and not to let other people get her down with their helpful advice and judgment. I've got sort of the opposite problem with being uber-fertile, if anyone would call that a problem. But any experience can be challenging, just as any experience can be a blessing when looked at the right way. I feel like I can relate to this woman in that having many children is something of a challenge. Not a super PC thing to say when it seems like half of the women I know struggle with infertility issues. But it is true nonetheless. I can get pregnant just about any time I want. So where does one draw the line? Should I be like my fourth great grandmother who had 16 children? I'm sure she was happy and she loved her life but where would I stash all the little people? She did it with a two room cabin lots of the time and I have a four bedroom house so what am I complaining about? Plus sometimes my children don't appreciate me for the awesome mom I am. They yell at me and roll their eyes and resist every helpful suggestion I give them. When does that start getting fun? I could go on and on about my challenges but I'll move on.
What the nice infertile lady and I have both decided is that we have to find our own happiness and fulfillment. I have found it in my relationship with my Savior and in service to others. I have found that when I am in the service of my fellow beings I am in service to my God. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has helped me to turn my challenges into blessings, it occasionally takes a while for me to find just the right way of looking at things to see the blessing, but He always helps me turn it to the right angle and put it into the right light.
And that's the key I'm trying to give my children so that they can do the same thing. They have to bloom where they are planted, whether it is a rocky dry cliff side or a nice squishy meadow. There's benefits and blessings to any situation and with the help of their Savior they can see them and let them lift them up instead of slam them down.
So I'm going to try to be nice to people and assume the best about them. I don't understand everyone's choices and I don't have to live them but I don't have to try to make them feel bad about what they've chosen.
2 comments:
Well said.
I just love you.
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