Indignant Rantings by Heather: Volume 325

Well last week i wrote a blog about sesame street which I promptly forgot to save. Then I wrote one about Mez coming to stay which I did not get around to posting before she arrived. Redundant. And today I am so frigging tired from the early starts and enless winging that I don’t have the energy to give you the update you deserve. Instead I’m rather going to tell you about the war I waged today. On Facebook. I probably shouldn’t have because I think I only further increased the other side’s sense of righteousness, but it’s hard to resist the bait when someone talks with such predjudice.



Somewhere on a status update that displayed on my feed a lass made a statement to the effect that she found it unacceptable that women with prams took up extra room on crowded public transport and was disgusted by their sense of entitlement. Some agreed with this (i suspect the baby-less) and others suggested that they get over themselves (my favourite was the person who asked if such repulsion extended to the fat, the disabled, the grocery shoppers and the musicians). I suggested that it was probably a good thing that such precious people didn’t have children. Which added fuel to their bubbling righteousness. I would have left it then and there and continued on my merry way, had it not been for Facebook’s annoying habit of continuing to email you every comment made after your own. At one point one of the space-afflicted girls suggested that prammed-up women and the ‘physically injured’ should ‘use their heads’ and catch taxis. Precious AND idiots. Who’s calling who entitled?!?



So inspired by my inner Buffy, I took that bait and tried to explain to these young things that a)rush hour traffic for those taking up more than average room is avoided like the plague because it is awful and stressful and most of us feel very guilty about the bulk we bring. That b)they should use THEIR heads and realise this by the proportional percentage of people who do this (In my 10 years of rush hour experience, i’ve only seen prams a handful of times) and c) they should be compassionate and realise the poor person bearing their disdain has a life they know nothing about, choices that might not be under their control and are probably quite stressed .. so be nice, realise it’s not a big deal and give their kid a little smile. Admittedly I suggested this with an appropriately condescending tone, but really – you take a generalised and judgemental swipe at a broad group of society and expect no-one to call you a dick?



Apparently these girls did not. I think they actually thought they were being quite witty.



Because I then was subjected to the rantings of people who perhaps realise they are on a loser and therefore back themselves further into the corner of indignation. After getting LOLed at, sworn at (i can only assume as it was censored), and effectively told to take a ‘chill pill’, I got told that I was a bad mother for stressing out my child on the bus (ahhhh Love. ...As i tried to explain to you -you don’t know me or my child. Buses = Extreme Awesomeness regardless of sardine factor) and that I shouldn’t hate on those ‘not into procreation’ (WTF?! What’s that got to do with anything?!? Surely you are not stupid enough to conclude that if I say I like cats I must therefore hate dogs?!). Oh and then one of them told me that my argument was lessened because i used the term ‘idiots’. Which I will admit is not very classy, but one needs to call a spade a spade. I considered asking them if the physically-injured (??!? I think that is young-speak for disabled) should petition the government for a taxi-fund or whether they should simply not be allowed to hold down a 9-5 job, but decided against it as you can’t argue with crazy/people who LOL.



On one had I should never have waded-in in the first place - I should have held my tongue or simply littered the thread with the word ‘poo’ repeatedly, but the shitting on mothers as entitled, thoughtless idiots is one close to my heart (duh). Whilst hormones and decreased adult-interaction does indeed make us a bit vague, we are not all thoughtless or full of self-importance. We didn’t always have children, we know how their noise and chaos can impact those around us and the vast majority of us try our damnedest to prevent it.



When that man glared at me at the market for clipping his heel with my pram I apologised profusely and felt very bad. But the fact was he had tried to to squeeze in front of my moving pram and i couldn’t stop in time – what did he expect? Why is it my fault? And when that person beams at me at the end of a 12 hour flight and marvels how well behaved my boys are, she misses the point that actually - I am good. Me. Heather Anders. I slaved for 12 hours covered in vomit and deprived of sleep because I am considerate. And on the two times I have had no choice but use public transport during rush hour I wanted to explain to those disgusted people that if they put a TV on that bus playing Mr Holland’s Opus on repeat then my hell could be complete, but that I had no alternative.



And my rant here is not solely about mothers (that just happens to be my area of expertise) but rather on ye olde concepts of ‘judging a book by its cover’ and/or ‘jumping to conclusions’. Whilst I don’t deny that there are some poor examples of people out there that perhaps deserve the judgement, the vast majority of people are doing nothing other than trying to get by. So often we get wound up by the trivial actions of strangers and make a sweeping judgements which lack proper consideration or compassion. But the fact is that doing so is a disservice to yourself because feeding your anger is a waste of energy and quite frankly life is too complex and heartbreaking to be anything other than kind to friends and strangers. OK. So that screaming kid is annoying as hell – but you don’t know why he is screaming. Yes, his parents could need to set a few boundaries but it might not be about that. It might be beyond their control, and it’s probably a lot harder for them than it is for you, so give them a break. And instead of feeling disgusted, I assure you that positivity begets positivity and that your smile or helping hand improved their day tenfold... as well as your own.



Here ends the lesson.