Here are a few things that I would love not to worry about. These are a few things we need to just stop over analyzing. These are things we need to just get over. We need to ultimately get over ourselves but hey we have to start somewhere.
1.Brain Lies
I have read on FB over and over again about people being really offended that someone in the grocery store said something about or to them about their children. People say some really weird things I know. People can be rude I know. However, people are also..people. Have you never said something dumb before? Do you think that you have never offended someone? Yea, probably not. So when the lady says she is happy her kids are grown it is not some insult. One day you may have the exact same thought. I have thought that before. I am kind of curious how that could be and insult at all? Oh yes, because you make up stories in your mind about what she reeaally meant. She was really saying, “I am so glad I don’t have to listen to my bratty kid cry just like yours is right now.” But of course those words never came out of that ladies mouth. Of course, you could never really know because you are indeed not a mind reader. These are called micro-aggressions and they are the devil. They should just be called..hmm…brain lies. Yeah, I like that. Brain lies has a nice ring to it. It is kind of like it describes the action perfectly. We assume we know what someone really means and then react to that brain lie instead of what is actually happening in front of us. People, stop doing that! It is okay if people say something to you that may not necessarily be, “Oooo your baby is adorable.” If you think it is intended to be malicious just move on. We get way too offended way too easily. I feel like even smiling at a mom with a crying baby is considered offensive. Why? I am not judging you. I am sympathizing. I feel your pain. We get all angry and offended if someone calls our child a big eater, a small eater or a picky eater. We get mad if someone talks to our child. They must be a creep. They couldn’t just really like kids. We get offended if someone says, “Hey wear are your kids shoes?” Hey dude that is valid question. My kid never wears shoes and I get asked all the time. I just smile and say, “He doesn’t wear any yet hahha!” I have a funny story about this topic. I am a server. As you can imagine or may know I serve a wide variety of people. Sometimes, I get people who just look for bad things. One day I had a family that came in and their teenage son ate a huge steak, a side, a salad, bread and an appetizer. That is super impressive. So I smiled and said, “man you did good!” Well this mother was very offended by my comment. Why? I am still not really sure. She told my manager to tell me to think about what I say and that her son is a growing boy and has a big appetite. Uhm yes mama that is exactly why I was so impressed. I never said, “oh your son is big fatty who eats too much.” I am sure that is what she assumed I meant. This woman did not know me. She just assumed I was a catty blonde telling her son that he eats too much. But in reality I was just being funny commenting on the fact that not many people can eat that much food and it was impressive for a kid. There were literally no negative thoughts towards that kid or his family. Well, until she called my manager over and complained then I was a little less chipper. For about a week or two I was afraid to make any jokes or funny comments to my tables in fear that someone would be offended. Give people the benefit of the doubt and show love to the people that may not deserve it. I promise you that if you do that you will leave a place less irritable and much more of a blessing than you think.
2. Advice
Okay, I know in my post about what not to say to pregnant women, I said people need to chill out on advice. I still stand by that when it comes to the overwhelming amount of weird pregnancy advice. I still believe people should ask if you would like advice first but I also think that we should listen to people when they decide they want to give you advice or help. If a parent has 5 more kids than you, works hard and has a good head on their shoulders than you should listen to their advice. If a parent has extremely well behaved children and tries to give you a tidbit of advice to keep your children in check…LISTEN. If you have a friend who is a parent an d she calls you on something that may not be benefiting your child you should listen. Because, get real you are not a perfect parent! Nobody is but some people have mastered certain parts. Some people are incredible at teaching, loving, disciplining, being patient, cleaning, grocery shopping or whatever. Our pride starts rising when people start giving advice. We get all defensive. We have excuses on why we don’t do…whatever they are saying. We say stuff like, “weeelll I don’t think that will work.” We have never tried it once. Oh man, it is the worst when it comes to giving advice on feeding our kids or disciplining our kids. We just write off anyone’s advice and assume they just have some super child who eats anything all the time. Or some super child who just naturally obeys with no question. I will tell you right now. That is not the case and you can just get over yourself real quick. Listen and accept advice and help. Imagine if all the parents in the world actually helped, molded and encouraged each other while still being able to be hoenst? Oh man that would be insanity. But, instead we have “know it all” moms who just form with other “know it all” moms to make the rest of us run away. Then of course they complain that they have no friends or anyone to count on. Yeeaa. Be humble. Accept good advice, evaluate advice that is different from your norm and just weed out the bad advice.
3. Human Error
Oh man , oh man. This covers a wide variety of issues but we get really upset and offended when people make any human error. “WHAT YOU FORGOT MY KETCHUP!” “WHAT?!? YOU DIDN’T ADD MY COUPON CORRECTLY!” “WHAT MY FOOD ISN’T COOKED RIGHT? YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE!! I AM NEVER COMING BACK” ß They always do. Ugh! “WHY DID THAT %$^#%# PULL OUT IN FRONT OF ME HE IS JUST A #&$^” How in the world could people be so slow at the fast food place? Don’t the doctors know that your kids have a 1 hour waiting limit? How dare people act like people?! How dare they make mistakes? This dumbfounds me.( I am not saying I do not do some of these things on occasion.) I am dumbfounded by the fact that so few people actually remember that they are also humans. Few people choose to think past themselves. If people actually thought about anyone other than themselves than they would see people, just being people. They would see a lady who just isn’t good at judging distance and hey man that’s life. They would see a guy in a 90 degree kitchen cooking 8 steaks, 3 salmons, 4 skewers of shrimp and a lobster tail. They would see a young teenager making burgers and is overwhelmed by the amount of orders she has. They would see that a computer error occurred and the cashier is just as upset or frustrated as you are. If we learned to just see error or misunderstanding as, just that, than we would be so much kinder. If we chose to go to the doctor with the expectation that we could be there for a really long time than we would be less irritable. You can bring toys and snacks to a doctor’s office. Bring something for kids to do because you never know how long it will take. We really just need to give about 100% more grace. We get mad if a line is long, we get mad if someone curses around our child (that is life), and we get mad when someone gives our kid candy because our kid has an allergy to red dye. We get mad when someone uses Lysol spray around our kid because he has asthma. People, it’s okay! People make mistakes and most of all life is just not all about you.
People are going to believe differently, think differently, talk differently and have different ideals. Some people think its offensive to wear a hat in church and some people don’t. Should the person that finds it wrong attack the person who does not? No, or vice versa.
Sometimes people do things we really hate and it makes us sick but we still have to give grace and love. We want the same. We are always so willing to fight for our own justice and our own forgiveness but never willing to give it back. We want everyone to cater to us but we don’t want to sacrifice our time or energy to cater to anyone else. This is extremely true in marriage. I find it in women in particular. Women get offended and hurt when a man doesn’t tend to here every need and desire. Yes, a woman works really hard tending to kids, a home and other things but then said woman expects her man to come home and take over everything. Uh what? He just worked too. He just spent his day working just as much as she spent her day working. So if we expect anyone to give us love, affection, attention and grace we must first give it. We don’t deserve it because we breathe.
Just accept that life is really never about you and you will just be super happy when things do go your way. Stop, assuming everyone is out to get you. Stop believing in micro aggressions (brain lies)! They are just in your mind. Your insecurities are being projected onto other people. That voice in your head that says, “They are making fun of you” is most likely a lie. Even if it isn’t a lie you can still show people love and grace. They might even feel bad about treating you badly if they know how kind you are. Our society teaches to focus on ourselves, get what we want for us and take no prisoners. We are never to show any mercy. To make it in this life you have to be selfish. THAT IS STUPID! To make it in this life we need to be lovers of people. We need to be less about everyone meeting our needs and more about seeing need around us.
The Honest Mom