For many years now I have been dismissed in certain conversations. I�m not talking about folks who disagree with me I�m talking total and complete dismissal of any thoughts I might have on the topic based on the erroneous assumption that unless you have given birth to a child you can not know anything about the act of child rearing.

I was recently involved in a conversation with a co-worker about her boy child of 12 who has his first girlfriend. The mother thought that it was cute; I was invited into the conversation I assume so that I would agree. I think that�s too young but that is not where we disagree truly. It seems the girls mother does not allow her to have a boyfriend and so the two children and the boys mother are �not telling her� about the relationship. I personally believe that the boys mother is being disrespectful of the girls mother all the while teaching her son that it�s ok to lie (or hide) if you think something is not right. This is the beginning of the idea that rules do not apply to you and there is altogether too much of that in this world.

Here is where I get slammed. When I voice this opinion I am summarily dismissed with a wave of her hand in my face and the statement �you don�t have kids so you can�t say anything�. This has been said to me in one form or another for 20 years now and I have had enough. I told her she was disrespecting me and I wouldn�t stand for it and left.

As everyone knows children don�t come with manuals and everyone who has ever had a child thinks they know the right way to raise them. If having a child made you an intelligent parent then there would be a lot less screwed up children in this world.

I do not live in a bubble and if nothing else I have observed parents and children around me for twenty years and seen the parenting styles that were successful and the ones that weren�t. If anything I think I am in a better position to comment on the topic because I am not tied up in my own parenting and thus married to a style based on my own children. I am not an idiot and resent being treated as one by people whose only claim to fame is that they popped out a puppy. They use the lack of reproduction to dismiss opposing arguments. It�s like saying I can�t have an intelligent conversation about the civil rights movement if I�m not black (excuse me, but black men got the vote before women and I am still fighting the fight against the �man�).

Here is the best part. This woman met her husband when she was 16. She never dated anyone else and had her son in her late teens. She was never really single and never without a child (as an adult) yet she has, in the past, felt comfortable commenting on what it�s like being single and childless and how I need to have a man and family. I disagree but I have never waved my hand in her face and said �you have never been single and childless so you can�t say anything�.

I�m tired of being dismissed and I am thinking it�s time for me to just shut up. I figure if I don�t hazard an opinion I can�t be disrespected for it.

Leave me alone for God�s sake, I don�t care anymore. I just don�t want to be here anymore. I want to go home.

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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