Respect – by Robin

I was driving through town tonight, and traffic was particularly horrific on the main road.

Why?  I couldn’t figure it out, and I wanted to get home…to be there to receive Seth from camp when he got dropped off by the bus.

We had survived the tornado that shockingly hit us last week and wreaked havoc, including many, like myself, losing power.   I was so very grateful when we regained our power after two nights of sleeping without A/C, lights, television, computers…not to mention having to throw out food.

So, the traffic today wasn’t due to that.  The storm mayhem in town was resolved.

Today, a man driving in front of me, gave me the finger twice when I beeped him once for stopping short  to talk to someone.  That was after he made a really quick and crazy u-turn in front of me.  I’m guessing that perhaps he was lost…but did he have to give me the finger…and twice?!

I drove a short distance behind him after that (had no choice), and when he came upon a parking lot he planned to turn in to, he deliberately stopped and sat in his car ..looking at me through his rearview mirror…as if to say “screw you.  I’m going to make you wait here now.”

I ignored him.  I refused to play into his obnoxious game.  This was so beyond the situation at hand.  This was a driver looking to take his frustration out on someone.  And, I wasn’t going to be the one. 

Eventually he turned into the lot, and I went on my way.  I must admit, I was mildly shaken up by the incident.  Here I was basically minding my own business, and because I beeped him, he went off on a rampage.  It made me acutely aware of the fact that there are people in this world who are just plain jerks, and we have no control over their behavior.  But, we can control how we react to it.

I found myself wondering…what is his story?  Is he married or single?  Is he a father?  If so, what kind of role model is he for his child?  Does he unleash his anger on him?

And, I found myself thinking…did he realize who he gave the finger?  I know there was no reason for me to take it personally, but did it occur to him that I’m a nice person?!  Of course not…that was irrelevant at the time.

And, what about the fact that I’m a mom?  There is a car seat visible in my car…though my son wasn’t in it at the moment. But, what if he was?  Would this man still have exhibited such behavior?  Doesn’t the mere fact that someone is a mother command some level of respect?  Their child needs them to be there to love them.  Their child needs them to be safe and not preyed upon by rude people with a vendetta agenda.

Did this driver feel better afterwards?

Should I have laughed when he stopped in front of me?  Or was it best to ignore it?

All that said, it raised my consciousness of teaching goodness and respect to our children.  I’ve always felt this is important, but today’s incident pushed my buttons, and it really rang home.

I would never want my son to behave that way  to another person.  Even if it were justified, what does rudeness get you in the end?

Children should be taught respect.  Respect for their parents.  Respect for elders.  Respect for others children.  Respect for animals.  Respect for authority figures.  And so on.

We may not always agree with people, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy of respect at the end of the day. 

I will do my best to impart this lesson to Seth.  And, as he grows up, while he may at times get his buttons pushed, as I did, hopefully he’ll learn to channel his reaction so that he doesn’t add fuel to the fire.  Drivers like the man I encountered are living in the heat of the moment, and one day, he may just come up against someone like himself, and it won’t be a pretty picture.

I can’t shelter Seth from having experiences like this of his own, but in my heart, I do hope that my child will find the world a mostly welcoming place.  It pains me to think that he will have fights and challenges along the way as he develops, but that is inevitable.  It’s all part of the growth process.

For now, I’m going to snuggle in bed with him, and be grateful that I don’t encounter people like this on a daily basis, and that I was able to shrug it off in favor of focusing on the positive, supportive people I have in my life who I am immensely grateful for.

PS — Last week, due to the power outage, I was unable to blog.

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Strong Kids, Strong Mom by Liimu

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The Wrath from the Heavens – by Cara

I am typing this on my computer, by flashlight, with a battery-operated fan at my side to cool me off. Why? Because yesterday, my neighborhood was hit by a verified tornado.

I live in the suburbs of Long Island, right outside of New York City. This is not tornado country. Yes, an actual hurricane has actually passed us by a couple of times. And Nor’easters and blizzards are not uncommon. But tornado – never. And based on the devastation this tiny tornado has left, I am not very eager to move to REAL tornado country. We have no electricity and were told that it will take close to a week to get the power lines up and running again. I am not exaggerating when I say that there is a tree or tree limb on top of every neighbor’s house around me, including ours. Only a scant few streets are passable due to downed telephone poles and draping electric cables all over the streets and properties. Large trees have been uprooted by their bases and are lying either across streets, the owner’s property, or worse, on top of or inside of their homes. I have never witnessed anything like this before in my life. And, more amazingly, I summoned it.

As many of you are aware, my husband and I are not legally separated, but we are living in two separate areas of our house, along with our son. For our son’s sake, my husband and I have been getting along fairly amicably. I find this mind-boggling since I continually unearth reason to resent or dislike my spouse more and more as time goes by.

Both my husband and I want full custody of our son. And each of our lawyers advised us that if either one of us were to live outside of our present home, it would be legally considered “abandonment”, and the one who left would forfeit their “right” to be considered our son’s primary custodian. Thus, our absurd living situation.

Yesterday, about 15 minutes before the weather erupted, my husband came to me first to discuss how great we are as parents to our son, especially given the situation we are in. He then asked, again, for us to become officially, legally separated. The last time he asked was about 6 months ago, and when I asked him why, his response was, “I don’t know.” So this time, again I asked why, and I got the same response of “I don’t know. I just think it would be better for us.” It was at that moment that I felt like I summoned the wrath from the heavens.

I lashed out at my husband like I’ve never done to any other person in my lifetime! And as my anger mounted, the winds outside started howling. And as I cursed and screamed, torrential rains poured out of the sky. As my wrath grew, and I verbally lambasted my husband, large balls of hail fell from the sky. And as I ranted and raved, I heard trees splitting in half! I believe in God. And I personally felt as if God was physically relaying the extent of my fury towards my husband! I also felt as if God was physically giving me the power to tell my husband how I REALLY felt about what he is doing to our family and me. But once I heard our upstairs windows, which crank outward, start to rattle, I screamed that the sight of my husband was making me physically sick, and I raced upstairs to lock the windows so that the intense winds would not take the windows off of our house.

Once the tornado passed, I went outside to survey the damage. I was shocked and speechless to find that every house around ours had some type of damage, some of it severe. Our house had absolutely no damage whatsoever. All we had was a small bough from a tree on our roof. The neighbor’s backyard to our left had so many downed trees and debris; you could not see one blade of grass. Our neighbor to our right had a tree fall and split their beautiful, wooden deck right in half. My neighbor across the street had one of her trees literally rip her electric wires off her house, knock down a telephone pole, and fall, lengthwise, across the street, landing on a different neighbor’s car. Yet our home and property was virtually untouched.

This led me to believe that not only is there a higher power in this universe, this higher power is truly there for me. Yes, there was a tremendous amount of physical damage to our neighborhood, but there hasn’t been, amazingly, any reports of injuries or deaths from this storm. This storm, in my opinion, was meant to prove to my husband the extent of my wrath towards him. And it gave me the power to fight against him, and come out virtually unscathed, just like our house. I even texted him and said, “If you think this force of nature was bad, don’t even THINK of messing with me. My wrath will be far worse than what you physically see.”

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I have one of the gentlest dispositions of any other person they know. I will and have gone out of my way to assist others and help whoever is in need of anything. But purposely try to hurt me for no reason, or hurt my son, and I will become a tornado. And I can also summon the wrath from the heavens to prove it.

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Inner Bitch — by Laura Houston

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