What are you gonna do?
Everyone has an opinion.
I am reminded of a walk and talk with my friend Jessica when she was pregnant where she shared with me the wisdom of this fact. It was something along the lines of--everyone has an opinion about how things should be done in pregnancy, with babies and with children. The hard part is not falling into the trap of the "I know best" mentality, and imparting your "knowledge" on others.
Its true.
You can do your best to shrug off when others impart their "wisdom" on you as the right way, the only way and definitely the best way. But the challenge on you is not to fall piece by piece, inch by inch, hair by hair, into the path of telling others how they should do it--whatever it might be (names, sleeping, feeding, discipline, etc).
Goodness, I am only 17 weeks pregnant and it has already begun. It makes me not want to tell many folks we are planning on a home birth just to avoid the comments, paranoid questions and most of all, the opinions.
Pete and I were laughing today at how many people react when we say we aren't going to find out the gender of the baby until it is born. Even this simple choice: you either find out or you don't, brings on unwanted and unbridled opinions.
"Oh wow, I could never do that".
"Oh good for you, I would never do it any other way".
"I think its silly not to find out. It makes everything so much easier".
"I think you should find out. It helps the bonding process".
Goodness. Its pretty comical. Why do people have to always make it about them? I don't really care if you did it that way or if you found out as soon as you could. Great. No judgment here. You did what was right for you and that is all that matters. I support you honoring our own judgment and your own decisions and if its different than what I choose it doesn't make me think you were wrong in any way whatsoever.
I am on a bit of a soap box at the moment...apologies.
The take away for me comes back to what my friend said way back before this pregnancy/babies thing was even a reality for us.
Our challenge is to stay clear, open and not take the opinions people share (however strong and pushy they may be) as a test of our choices. Because ours may not be "right" choices for someone else but they are, thank goodness, ours and ours alone to make. And the bigger challenge is not to do this to others.
Can't you picture it? A year from now a friend is pregnant. I am excited for her and she is sharing with me that they are considering whether or not to find out the gender of their baby. Can't you see how easy it would be to tell her she should definitely wait? There is a different way though. That of sharing our experiences while acknowledging that it worked for us but doesn't for everyone...
Its a good reminder to do our best to be aware of this in general...for all of us.
A good challenge.
