Author Topic: What Happened???  (Read 48659 times)

Offline RouxB

  • BetterMost Welcome Wagon & Contributor
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,471
  • ...a love that will never grow old
Re: What Happened???
« Reply #130 on: February 19, 2012, 06:14:54 pm »
Therapists are people who go through years of special training. And they're people whose advice is explicitly requested. And who tend to reserve judgement until they've spent hours listening to various facets of the situation. And, as someone who has seen therapists for both myself and for my son, I can tell you that even then they often are not particularly helpful.

The point is not about the therapist or the training or the solicitation, it's about the iindividual. Sometimes an outside pair of eyes can see a clear path.
I agree with this. It's possible that I can hear something helpful from you, or a magazine article or TV show, or an advertisement on the subway, or an overheard snippet of conversation -- something that I can put into practice in my own life and will make a difference.

That is all I am saying

But it's difficult for an outsider to know for sure that piece of advice is workable and useful because, as you say, you may not understand all the factors that dictate my choices.

And maybe that outsider can see-and this isn't directed at you, I just am out of pronouns-that a person is so wrapped up in their own tangled mess of excuses and rationalizations and justifications and defensiveness and "I am so complicated that no one can possibly understand what I am going through" mentality that they are completely closed off to what could be useful. And I am speaking situationally, not globally.

I used to think that I was so "tortured" and difficult to understand and "different". I'm not. Sure, I am unique superficially but in the big, giant picture I am just another body. I think we tend to think that we are so unique that it takes some deep knowledge of us to "understand" us when in fact our behaviors speak volumes about who we are. That is just my opinion from my own experience. I think there is quite a bit of truth sometimes in "I know you better than you know yourself". It took me until this past year to really understand and accept there is something in that.

This may be straying a little OT, but it's a good illustration of why what appears to be an obvious and "simple" answer is not always so simple. There are numerous rational reasons why a person trying to lose 20 pounds would opt for full-fat dressing. Maybe she's following a low-carb diet, most of which caution against low-fat dressings because they contain added sugar. Maybe she can't abide low-fat salad dressing, and knows that if she gets it she won't enjoy her salad, so what's the point of eating out and getting a salad. Maybe she knows that the difference between low-fat and full-fat dressing is only about 75 calories (on WW, it's a couple of points), and has already factored that into her daily allowances. I myself pretty much always eat full-fat dressing, even when I'm dieting, because I hate low-fat dressing. (And no, that's not the reason I need to lose 20 pounds. I have managed to lose weight in the past while continuing to eat full-fat dressing -- maybe I'm more likely to succeed if I can enjoy my salads and am not trying to choke down food that I hate.) Heck, maybe your friend is just opting to go off her diet, for reasons you aren't privy to or couldn't fully understand because you don't occupy her body. In any case, your friend probably already knows damn well that full-fat dressing has more calories than low-fat, don't you think? That's not exactly arcane information in this culture.

Excuses.  It isn't about  full fat dressing vs. low or non-fat dressing! It's about making choices that aren't getting you where you want to be! A cup of full fat dressing has half a day's worth of calories which isn't in this situation getting me where I want to be. So I need to make different choices, fat free dressing is only one available option. I can use far less dressing, I can use lemon juice, I can use seasoned rice vinegar, I can order something else. You don't need to know my life story to know that my counterproductive food choices might  be the reason I am not losing the weight that I am trying to lose.

This so gels and illustrates what I think that I have been trying to get at that I won't even bother to reply to the rest of what I had planned. For me it all boils down to personal responsibility. We can make excuses and justifications and long drawn out rationalizations about why we do the things we do but the bottom line is we are responsible for the choices that we make. Sometimes the choices are relatively easy and straight forward, most times they are not. But I believe that there is a choice that will always get us closer to where we want to be-we just can't always see that path because it is sometimes so difficult to see outside of our own patterns of behavior. Sometimes someone who just has the benefit of seeing our repeated behavior without the baggage that comes along with it can give us some insight.

I think the biggest gift you can give yourself, and those that look to you for guidance, is the knowledge of self-responsibility, which includes "when you chose the behavior you choose the consequences. There will always be outside forces trying to influence you to make choices that are not in your best interest, and this is especially true for kids, but bottom line, the option to swim against that tide always exists.

With that, I am checking out of this discussion because it is becoming circuitous.  :-X
 


Heathen

Offline delalluvia

  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 8,289
  • "Truth is an iron bride"
Re: What Happened???
« Reply #131 on: February 19, 2012, 08:54:33 pm »
No, I'm going to have to disagree with most all of you.

Who considered me their mother?

The child.

Why are YOU guys saying that what the child thinks doesn't count?

SHE most certainly thought I did enough to be her parent.

And I don't recall that a single one of you addressed the fact that you are going to have to call parents who don't care for their children all the time - can we say "daycare"  - real parents.

I did MORE childcare than a current parent who puts their child in daycare for an 9 hour workday.

Would any of you like to address that?

You are going to have to claim then, that these parents aren't parents either.

What did you say Milo?  Oh, that they're just aunts/uncles.

Do you think THEY will agree with you?

You guys are SO way off target on this.

And really, do you want to claim that just because someone doesn't have their own children they can't speak to it?

Do you really want to go there?

OK, if you're not gay, you can't speak to gay issues, if you're not ethnic, you can't speak to ethnic issues, if you're not poor, you can't speak to poverty issues, etc., etc.

Yes, and some things ARE easier than others make it out to be or that they want it to be.  Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not.  Sometimes people are better at some things than others.  

It happens for every occupation and skill out there.  Some people find a particular job or skill difficult and hard and others don't.  Why should parenthood be any different?

Offline serious crayons

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
Re: What Happened???
« Reply #132 on: February 20, 2012, 01:27:48 am »
The point is not about the therapist or the training or the solicitation, it's about the iindividual. Sometimes an outside pair of eyes can see a clear path.
That is all I am saying

And maybe that outsider can see-and this isn't directed at you, I just am out of pronouns-that a person is so wrapped up in their own tangled mess of excuses and rationalizations and justifications and defensiveness and "I am so complicated that no one can possibly understand what I am going through" mentality that they are completely closed off to what could be useful. And I am speaking situationally, not globally.

I used to think that I was so "tortured" and difficult to understand and "different". I'm not. Sure, I am unique superficially but in the big, giant picture I am just another body. I think we tend to think that we are so unique that it takes some deep knowledge of us to "understand" us when in fact our behaviors speak volumes about who we are. That is just my opinion from my own experience. I think there is quite a bit of truth sometimes in "I know you better than you know yourself". It took me until this past year to really understand and accept there is something in that.

Excuses.  It isn't about  full fat dressing vs. low or non-fat dressing! It's about making choices that aren't getting you where you want to be! A cup of full fat dressing has half a day's worth of calories which isn't in this situation getting me where I want to be. So I need to make different choices, fat free dressing is only one available option. I can use far less dressing, I can use lemon juice, I can use seasoned rice vinegar, I can order something else. You don't need to know my life story to know that my counterproductive food choices might  be the reason I am not losing the weight that I am trying to lose.

This so gels and illustrates what I think that I have been trying to get at that I won't even bother to reply to the rest of what I had planned. For me it all boils down to personal responsibility. We can make excuses and justifications and long drawn out rationalizations about why we do the things we do but the bottom line is we are responsible for the choices that we make. Sometimes the choices are relatively easy and straight forward, most times they are not. But I believe that there is a choice that will always get us closer to where we want to be-we just can't always see that path because it is sometimes so difficult to see outside of our own patterns of behavior. Sometimes someone who just has the benefit of seeing our repeated behavior without the baggage that comes along with it can give us some insight.

I think the biggest gift you can give yourself, and those that look to you for guidance, is the knowledge of self-responsibility, which includes "when you chose the behavior you choose the consequences. There will always be outside forces trying to influence you to make choices that are not in your best interest, and this is especially true for kids, but bottom line, the option to swim against that tide always exists.

With that, I am checking out of this discussion because it is becoming circuitous.  :-X
 

OK!  :)  If what you're saying is that some other person may have an idea that might somehow be useful to me, or that I might not make all the perfect choices all of the time, I can't disagree with either of those.  :)



Offline serious crayons

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
Re: What Happened???
« Reply #133 on: February 20, 2012, 01:37:54 am »
OK, if you're not gay, you can't speak to gay issues, if you're not ethnic, you can't speak to ethnic issues, if you're not poor, you can't speak to poverty issues, etc., etc.



I have plenty to say about gay issues, believe me, but in six years on this board (and, of course, in my real life before and during that) I don't believe I've ever told a gay person that I know more about how to be gay than they do.

Same with ethnic issues, same with socioeconomic issues. As a sentient observer of people around me, it's inevitable that I'll have an opinion. Most people do, and in my mind they should feel free to express it. But if I ever tell someone that I know more about how to be them than they do -- huh, let alone that "it's just that easy" ... well, let's just hope that never happens.



Offline Kelda

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 14,703
  • Zorbing....
    • Keldas Facebook Page!
Re: What Happened???
« Reply #134 on: February 20, 2012, 05:27:11 am »
No, I'm going to have to disagree with most all of you.

Who considered me their mother?

The child.

Why are YOU guys saying that what the child thinks doesn't count?

SHE most certainly thought I did enough to be her parent.

And I don't recall that a single one of you addressed the fact that you are going to have to call parents who don't care for their children all the time - can we say "daycare"  - real parents.

I did MORE childcare than a current parent who puts their child in daycare for an 9 hour workday.

Would any of you like to address that?

You are going to have to claim then, that these parents aren't parents either.

What did you say Milo?  Oh, that they're just aunts/uncles.

Do you think THEY will agree with you?

You guys are SO way off target on this.

And really, do you want to claim that just because someone doesn't have their own children they can't speak to it?

Do you really want to go there?

OK, if you're not gay, you can't speak to gay issues, if you're not ethnic, you can't speak to ethnic issues, if you're not poor, you can't speak to poverty issues, etc., etc.

Yes, and some things ARE easier than others make it out to be or that they want it to be.  Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not.  Sometimes people are better at some things than others.  

It happens for every occupation and skill out there.  Some people find a particular job or skill difficult and hard and others don't.  Why should parenthood be any different?

No, I didn't say you couldn't speak about it. I said you weren't a parent.

You're niece would have had no knowledge of the other things involved in being a parent when she called you Mum.

As I said before, you cared for her but you didn't have overall responsibilty for her. I used the same sceanario you have, re daycare. People in daycare are also not parents.
http://www.idbrass.com

Please use the following links when shopping online -It will help us raise money without costing you a penny.

http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/idb

http://idb.easysearch.org.uk/

Offline milomorris

  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 6,428
  • No crybabies
Re: What Happened???
« Reply #135 on: February 20, 2012, 11:06:44 am »
What did you say Milo?  Oh, that they're just aunts/uncles.

That's correct. And my position has not changed. Many family members contribute to the upbringing of a child. They cannot all claim to be parents.
  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Offline Shakesthecoffecan

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 9,566
  • Those were the days, Alberta 2007.
Re: What Happened???
« Reply #136 on: February 20, 2012, 01:21:58 pm »
That's correct. And my position has not changed. Many family members contribute to the upbringing of a child. They cannot all claim to be parents.

Have a nice day!  ;D
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."

Offline serious crayons

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
Re: What Happened???
« Reply #137 on: February 20, 2012, 04:24:38 pm »
Excuses.  It isn't about  full fat dressing vs. low or non-fat dressing! It's about making choices that aren't getting you where you want to be! A cup of full fat dressing has half a day's worth of calories which isn't in this situation getting me where I want to be. So I need to make different choices, fat free dressing is only one available option. I can use far less dressing, I can use lemon juice, I can use seasoned rice vinegar, I can order something else. You don't need to know my life story to know that my counterproductive food choices might  be the reason I am not losing the weight that I am trying to lose.

And by the way, my reaction to your salad dressing illustration was not "excuses." (I'm sorry, but I hate having what I consider reasonable and carefully worded counterarguments dismissively waved off as "excuses.")  It was my attempt, which evidently didn't impress you, to show that watching someone eat one meal may not give you sufficient insight over her entire dietary habits to diagnose her weight-loss obstacles. Which, after all, is really what we're talking about here: does a casual observer see enough in a brief glimpse to successfully fix someone's life? Not "do they know enough to make a possibly helpful suggestion" -- of course they can do that. But do they know enough to get a few rough facts, tell the person they've immediately spotted the entire underlying problem, and present it with an added little "It's really that easy!"

I can assure you, full-fat dressing is not what stands between me and losing 20 pounds. That problem has much more to do with beer and cookies, but you haven't seen me consume those. If you had, and you pointed out that drinking too much beer and eating too many cookies might be detrimental to my weight-loss efforts, I would probably politely thank you. But my tone would be rather flat because, guess what, I already knew that.

If someone has genuinely little-known information to impart, it's helpful. If the tone is polite and not overbearing, it's usually welcome. But if someone points out the stunningly obvious as the solution to someone else's problem, or presents him/herself as an authority on an endeavor that s/he has never actually attempted, it's irritating. Most people know that salad dressing can be fattening when they're basically eating salad-dressing soup with specks of lettuce floating in it.

And this is an excellent analogy for the child-rearing issue.




« Last Edit: February 20, 2012, 06:26:15 pm by serious crayons »

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: What Happened???
« Reply #138 on: February 20, 2012, 04:55:48 pm »



  This whole issue to me is getting tiresome.  We are all going to have to agree, to disagree.  We are never going to convince some of the people here, that they are wrong.  They are never going to agree that we are correct.  I think that what must be done from here on out.  Is to just say to a person, that ~thinks~ that they know how to raise a child better than an actual parent.  As has been intimated to from some of the people in this discussion.  We will just have to say.  Think what you want to think.  You are going to do so anyway.  Just keep your opinions of those parents to yourself, unless you are asked for advice.  Otherwise you are just going to alienate people that don't care to hear your opinions.



     Beautiful mind