I was recently reading a great post by Charlotte Taylor on being a single mum which then led to us having a twitter conversation and her saying that "motherhood should be about embracing our differences" which got me thinking. She is so right! As I have previously said in my mind the (age) gap post sometimes it feels like if you're not doing what others see as right (I.E. what they do) then it must be wrong. But isn't this really narrow minded and should we be bringing up our children to be this narrow minded? No, as Charlotte says I think we should embrace our differences.
I would love us to start embracing and celebrating all our differences. Differences in where we live, how / when / if we work, child care, how many children we have, age gaps, routine and so on and so forth. We are all different and we all have different circumstances, I'm fed up feeling like I have to explain my circumstances when I say I'm going back to work or justifying a 15 month age gap with our children and so I'm going to (try to) stop doing this. My husband and I are different people but we're a team and we're different to everyone else, why don't we all enjoy being different to each other rather than judging others and their choices and the circumstances that are forced upon them. I know that I've been lucky with the people I have met since I became a parent and I have met some really nice people and have some great groups of friends. I love how different all these friends are and what they each individually bring to my life now and the support they give me as a parent. I have different people to go to depending on the circumstances and this is a great thing to be celebrated!
One of the most annoying people that is around at the moment is a certain ex-apprentice "star" who's initials are KH. I refuse to put anymore than that or link to her because this gives her publicity and I think as long as she's getting publicity she's going to continue coming out with controversial statements. But I feel that she is very narrow minded and of the impression that if people aren't doing what she is then it must be wrong and her children must not come into contact with them. I actually feel like some of views are almost dangerous in the sense that she is a parent of impressionable young children and I worry how narrow minded they are going to grow up to be. If they are not allowed to go to a party of a child the mum doesn't like the name of then they're not going to learn about people different to them and often this is where you learn the most. We're supposed to be moving away from a class based society but if our children are already having it drummed into them that they are better than others just because of their name then this is never going to happen.
So before I rant anymore especially about KH let me sign off. Parenthood is a journey (argh hate saying "journey"!) and we are all going on separate ones. Let's enjoy the differences that meeting other parents brings and enjoy the differences that our children will encounter. Of course we won't like it all but we can learn from almost all of it and surely that's important for us and our children? I feel that it's such an important thing to bring them up to be more open minded and accepting of the people they meet and to judge people on the values they live their life by rather than the house they live in.
If you want to follow Charlotte on Twitter it's @charltaylor
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