If there is one sound I shudder just thinking about it’s definitely the sound of a chalk screeching on a chalkboard. Lately, people’s opinions when it comes to my son and or parenting skills are quickly becoming like that screeching sound and one of these fine days I will honestly snap and tell them where to get off.
Most people would label me as rude but I believe that I will be well within my rights in saying the certain statements to different people after they have felt the need to offer their “expertise” without me seeking it. For example, I was doing some grocery shopping 2 weeks ago and a certain lady came up to me to tell me that she thought my baby was cute, she went on to ask how old he was and when I told her she gasped and told me that he was too chubby for his and it wasn’t right, to which I simply responded to by telling her to give birth to her own child and then she could put them on a diet. I walked away and left her wide mouthed in that aisle.
I regretted not carrying my earphones a few days ago when we went to visit the Pediatrician. The waiting room talk will always lead to seasoned mothers thinking that they know best and they are now qualified to give you advice. One such lady told me that I should have given my son a teaspoon and a half of paracetamol an hour before coming to get his shots, I was also to buy vicks for rubbing the spots where he was injected to avoid swelling and and and…
When I was finally at my wits end I asked her what her daughter’s name was and when she said Eve, I then pointed out to her that my son was not Eve and therefore what applied to Eve did not apply to him. Imagine my surprise when my son finally got his injections and the nurse emphasized that he not be given more than 2.5ml of paracetamol after the 6 hour intervals as too much of it would damage his liver. The lady was also in the nurse’s room when we were being told this and the look I gave her led to her shyly look away from me.
In our day to day life, we encounter such people; people who think they know best about our lives or situation yet they are complete strangers. They will have opinions about where you should live, what car you should drive, when you should get married and even when you should have kids. Now imagine if I had listened to the lady at the doctor’s office and my son ended up with liver failure. She was going to go on living her life unbothered whilst I paid the price. How many things are you paying the price for simply because you chose to let someone’s opinion over your life be law unto you.
There are people who know better and they will still give you the wrong advice out of jealousy and spite. Take Eve’s mother f example, whilst she may not have been jealous or spiteful I k she knew better when it came to the dosage because there was even a huge chart in the room for emphasis and her child was 9 months old so she had obviously been given this warning more than twice. Not everyone’s opinion over your life comes from a place of love and kindness, the sooner you realize that the better. You will av so much drama and trauma and be able to enjoy life according to your own terms.
Obviously, there are people who will let other people’s opinion of you govern how they relate with you. The sad thing about that is that sometimes they sabotage themselves because whatever they would have heard is not true and in turn they lose the chance of benefiting from a relation with you. All the same, we should not allow people’s opinions to determine how we choose to live our lives because they are mainly based on assumption and rarely on facts.
In my opinion, opinions are like assholes; everyone is entitled to one but that does not mean the people around you want to see it and because they are based on assumption and in the likelihood of the truth coming to light and it being worlds apart from the assumption who ends up being the ASS-U/ME? Then again, that’s just my opinion.
Novelty Ink 