A good "mom friend" of mine with an 8 year old and a 3 year old sent me a message the other day that really touched me, and showed me that there are people willing to learn and change. I asked her if I could copy her email onto my blog and she consented.
It read:
"I've been reading your Facebook posts, checking out the articles you link, long before you started your blog. I read that too though. At first, I thought you were so idealistic. That is was very easy to state you are against things like sleep-training or non-punitive parenting when H was only a small baby. I laughed with my husband even about how nice your perfect life must be where your children sleep through the night without crying, they always listen so you never punish, your husband is always there to help so you never feel overwhelmed and buy a happy meal, you always feed them good organic meals and they never ask for cookies, and of course, all cleaners in your house are chemical free. Your ideas were, in my home, a good laugh for me when I had yet again grounded S or spanked L or had left him once again to CIO in his crib, or committed any of your other many transgressions. Until one day when things were just all around bad, and I figured things couldn't get worse, so why not try out some of your ridiculous ideas. I decided I'd give it a week. For one week I committed to no processed or fast food (sorry, I may never go organic). I stopped yelling at my children and forcing them to do things. L didn't want to wear his shoes one day. I said fine and didn't force it. I brought them along anyway, something my former self would have never done as it would have been "giving in". When he finally decided he wanted them, I helped him put them on. There was no power struggle or tantrum. It was so, dare I say, easy? And when S gave me lip that week or was disobedient in some other way, instead of immediately demanding respect or doling out a punishment, I talked with her. We got to the root of her behavior and together we were able to agree upon an acceptable behavior and I was able to understand her "disobedience". That first week was hard. Very hard. Especially because my husband was not on board. He strongly believed in his authoritarian ways. He's slowly coming around, the transition is definitely harder for him than it was me. But he sees how our children truly respect me, and he wants that too. He is realizing that respect out of fear will not give him the relationship he wants with our kids, especially when they're grown. We are far from perfect, but from reading your blog, I have realized that you are far from perfect as well. And I've realized that you weren't telling me I was bad, but offering a different way. And it was just hard for me to see that because to admit you could be onto something forced me to re-evaluate myself, and the last thing I wanted to admit was that I was possibly not doing things the best way for my kids. The point of this is, I want to tell you thank you. Thank you for standing firm in your beliefs even when I've witnessed other people slam you for them. Even when I was one of those people. And thank you for being such a good friend and for never making me feel bad about my choices even though they were so drastically different than yours. I mean, how many people would happily pick up a can of formula for me when you are so dedicated to boob-feeding? So thank you. You are making a difference, even if it is on a small scale and just me. It matters. To me and to my kids."
Seriously, this message made my day, maybe even the rest of my year. I've been at a bit of a low point, annoyed and fed up with certain people, but K helped to brighten my day and help me realize that although a lot of people either blatantly ignore me, or like her, mock me, sometimes it just takes one very small seed to get things rolling and then people start changing.
So thank you, K. I love you and cherish our friendship more than you know.
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