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Saturday 7 June 2014

Expectations and prejudices

I thought of it recently a little bit more than usual. I guess expectations are like a curse to me. They seem to overwhelm my instincts, not always - that would be dreadful - but sometimes.
Like today, when I was trying to convince my daughter she should think over her behaviour: her stamping feet as a reaction to what I wanted her to do. I completely neglected the fact she is not even 6 years old, and may sometimes feel tired, or bored, with something else, and my words are just too much in that very minute. I am far from admiring stubborness. I just think I should not be so ambitious with her. And sometimes let her go. It might work much better.
Prejudices, on the other hand, are quite useful to me. They are an easy shortcut for my mind, which is great when you have minutious tasks to do, and are expected to show attention to both your children at the very same minute. They can hurt, too (prejudices, not children, at least I feel that way). Not directly, but they might lead to unfavourable misjudgment of someone's behaviour.
Like the other day, when I laughed when another mum told me, she was just having her hair done, and there was this lashing rain, so she said no to a blow-dry. It sounded a little bit funny, but it was right before we were picking our kids from school, we were both completely soaked, and me laughing was simply showing her support and understandable. Ok, so maybe it is not that simple, my empathy obviously did suffer in that lashing rain that day, I didn't think it could make her feel bad. Result is she is ignoring my hello now, as she probably finds me shallow, stupid, and completely self-centered. There. I just made another assumption.

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