When someone mentions something once, you may let it go in one ear and out the other. When a different person mentions the same issue, you think hmmm. When other people are having that same issue with someone completely different, you start to think maybe it's not JUST me.
In the past few weeks, I have had multiple conversations with people about varying levels of respect. Some call in following the rules, others call it bullying, and some call it just being unaware of the impact your words have on others. Whatever you choose to name it, it boils down to lack of respect. Whether you are a six year old on the playground making a bad choice of friends, making a joke that really truly hurt the other person or laughing and giggling while someone is giving a heart wrenching story, you are showing a lack of respect to the others around you.
It got me thinking about myself and how I often show disrespect to the people around me, to their face or worse, behind their back. As women (for some odd reason) we seemed to turn 13 in junior high and just STAY there. We grew chronologically but not emotionally. When we are threatened we revert back to that junior high girl that is a nit picking gossip queen bee attitude that says I'm better than so and so, I make better choices. When in reality you are making the same bad choices just in different ways.
Now my question is, how do we stop the cycle in our own family... have all boys.That isn't the answer. Is it to show our children (boy or girl) how to respect the people around them. We need to do more than tell them, we need to SHOW them, by doing that same gesture ourselves.
The big question then is, how do we do that. Did our parents have the same problem and were unaware of how to solve it or were they unaware at the whole notion of this. I doubt it. My parents (I believe) taught me how to respect others, yet I've fallen into the same trap that we all do. Viewing ourselves as better than others, or expecting others to take care of us. We are adults, we feed our children, we keep our houses and somewhere in all that, we manage to have a life outside that with other women. Yet we don't value any of that. How can you value you something you take advantage of and talk bad about.
Don't get me wrong, I know there is a time and place for venting and there should be, but come on.. (as my sister the counselor of elementary kids would say) can we just please LIG-it! LET IT GO! I tell my kids all the time to move on and not dwell on it. So WHY CAN'T I DO IT!!!
Are my small children more capable of LIG-ing it then I am. Why is that? I have more experience and therefor have more knowledge or is it because I've been burned and they haven't (at least not in their memory). Our children don't see what we see, they don't feel what we feel. They instead see and feel and innocent, pleasing Godly world. So let's take a page from our children's handbook and LIG-it! (I most definitely will need help with this though)
