There are a few reasons I wanted to write this. One, because lately we are losing individuality and active independence in this country on various levels. Two, I notice that growing trend of parents don’t teach their children how to learn things for themselves. Three, for the moms & wives who feel they have to do everything for their loved ones.
So let’s start with the last one. My mom started talking to me about this when she and my dad lived in Florida. She noticed that if the wife got sick or died, the husband didn’t know how to cook, clean, or fend for himself medically. Many of the men that lived in their retirement park didn’t even know what their medication was or when to take it. Recently, my father had a fall and had to have surgery, which meant time in the hospital. He has other medical issues because of his age. One of his prescriptions had to be taken with a meal according to his specialist. As anyone who knows a nurse knows, they sometimes get behind around meal time. He ate lunch around 11 am, and about 2 pm the nurse tried to give him this medication. My father, who pays attention to what his doctors say and not completely depend of his wife to know such things, was able to let the nurse know he had to take that medication with food. The nurse understood and added it to his chart. It’s a little thing, but it couldn’t have been worse.
Let’s continue the trend by going backwards. Too many children are leaving their parents house without knowing how to boil water on a stove, what an interest rate is, or how wash clothes. Simple things that you could learn via the internet, bit easier to learn if it’s part of your growing up. Allow it to be part of your children’s lives. Allow your children to make mistakes. No one is perfect the first time. Allow them to come up with their own way of doing tasks. Mold those brains!
Lastly, it kind of ties into the last one. Independent thinking and individualism. While helping raise my niece & nephew, I tried very hard for them to think outside the box on things. Peer pressure causes group think and is part of their lives majority of the week. They had times that they would try to do something different, but there was always someone influential in their lives that shamed them back.
Another way of seeing attacks on individualism is watching people tell you because of your skin color you have to act or believe a certain way. That goes for male or female, part of the LGBTQ+, political ideology, or religion you may belong to. For some odd reason, we humans like to put labels on everything and put them into boxes. I never understood that. One of my favorite phrases that I and Muffy used to say on our vodcasts was “I don’t even trust myself 100% of the time.” Which is the truth.
Too many cliques are forming. Our country is becoming a proverbial high school. You have to act a certain way or you’re not allowed to sit with us anymore. People are tribal by nature, so they want to belong. In the process though, they lose part of themselves. People are losing their wanting to go against the flow. Not saying everyone, but too many are going that way.
Let’s stop reading the headlines and actually read the whole story. Let’s actually have a conversation or two with people who are outside our tribe. Let’s spend less time with our face in our phones and look at the world around us.
Made Dames 