Lurking, bullying and a bit about me...

Most of my posts have the label how I see it. Because I write about my opinions.
I woke up this morning thinking of a loving post I wanted to write to my girl. Things I would want her to know. I started writing on my ipad, but writing a blog post is so much easier sitting at the desk at the computer.
As I sat down, whatever feeling I had about what I wanted to write changed.
I have not been a loyal blogger. I have let days slip by without posting. It is a very random event if I comment on a post I read on other blogs.
Today on Facebook, a gal I used to read said "I'm starting to miss blogging."
And my first thought was: She stopped blogging?
She was one of the first blogs I started following when I started my blog and yet I didn't know she stopped?
Okay, before you judge me. We became Facebook friends, so it's not like I stopped hearing about her life! (and commenting)
Someone, and thankfully, wasn't me, asked her why she stopped.
Her reply was a bit stunning, but not surprising...
She said she had a few "creepers."
I do know a thing or two about this. When my family was going through some heavy stuff last year and I was posting about it...I had a couple people give me their take on my situation.
It was not in a nice way. Nothing encouraging about it. Nothing to build someone up. No, their intention was to tear me down; as if I wasn't low enough.
So I did what anyone would do, I blocked them and changed my blog address. I eventually came back, but they have since moved on. Thankfully.
Sometimes it's not that easy... I have noticed a shift in blogging. If you are "popular" or have a large following or are making money at blogging you also have an endless line of "haters" that like nothing more then to roast you over an open flame. They have no shame in how they come at you. Your kids will get mocked, your looks will get mocked, they will claim that you are reaping what you have sowed in regards to whatever trials you are facing.
When did it become okay to bash someone? There will always be gossip, I know this...but it's like walking up to a person and spitting right in their face, when you leave awful things in their comments.
These people think it's their right to give their opinions, and because you are writing publicly, you are in fact giving them permission.
Did you know there are blogs dedicated to discussions about hating so and so's blog?

It's sick, really.

Yes, some bloggers do drive me crazy with the things they "claim"real or true when in fact the reality of their actions tells the truth on those lies.
I just stop reading there.

When I think about the things I wanted to post for my daughter, I no longer think of them as precious words meant for my girl, but what would happen if a hater came on here...and said awful things, tainting what was meant for good?

I've had real life experience with being knocked down by bullying words. It is painful.
When someone tries to take your worth from you.
Insinuating that what you do is somehow less then...say because I don't bring in a paycheck I am less then a woman who works outside the home. Because she does "more" then I do, she is paid and she does mom things.
I AM NOT BASHING WORKING MOMS! YOU LADIES MAKE CHOICES AND SACRIFICES JUST LIKE STAY AT HOME MOMMIES DO.

Most of our(my husband and I's) sacrificing comes in forms of buying less, traveling less, going out less, kids doing less activities that cost money. (Gymnastics AND hockey AND dance AND instrument AND baseball, basketball, golf AND swimming AND...) Then there is the lack of adult contact/conversation for the first 5 years...This is when Barney the purple dinosaur and George the curious monkey were my personal besties!
There is no amount of money, NONE, that I would trade getting to spend these years at home raising my kids. Spending hours and hours watching them turn into little people, that will some day make their own mark on the world...
There is not a car, or a big house in a glossy neighborhood with Pottery Barn furniture and personal chef that I would trade for. There is NO career, NO salary, NO 401K...
My 401K investment is my children , I am banking on them, to be good and kind, self-reliant people.
When you have a career and children you are dividing your investments. Diversity can be a good thing, but it can also mean that things were too spread out and not enough to earn a good return investment.
I never wanted to go to college, nothing career-wise interested me. I wanted to be a mom, and until that happened for me, I took care of other people's kids.
I moved to Boston at 19 to be a live-in nanny.
I came back to MN and worked as a nanny for a family of 4 kids, then I went to broadcasting school at the wrangling of my parents, only to work at a school for kids with special needs and Downs syndrome. If ever there was something it would have been this, working with the Downs syndrome kids.(I did not want anymore school loan debt.)
My heart was forever changed from that.
School ended and so did that job.
I went on to work at a childcare center closer to home. I got tired and frustrated watching these kiddos long for their parents. I think it should be a requirement for all parents that want to put their kids in daycare to WORK at a daycare first! ESPECIALLY work at the place you want to send your child.
I couldn't do that anymore, I nannied for 2 families that "split" my salary. These 4 kiddos were my dream job. I loved working for these families. I got the summer off, and came back to instead of 4 kids under age 5, I had 5 kids under age 5. The newborn through a wrench in the whole thing. As fun as it was to have a newborn, it left little time and attention for the older ones and they let me know it! I asked one family to find other arrangements and worked 1 more year with the family of 3.
It was around this time I started thinking about grown up things like health insurance. I needed to find a job with benefits.
I did basic office work a few different places and realized I hated office politics. I would take blown-out diapers and screaming toddlers and demanding pre-schoolers over catty office women anyday!
I switched to an office full of guys, who built cell towers. I was the only girl. It had it's perks. It also had it's pitfalls. So to supplement my income I worked as a Clinque consultant, talk about night and day jobs! Working 2 jobs was not my ideal way to live my life. That is why I respect working mother's so much, because they are basically working 2 very different and very demanding jobs with little time for themselves.
I met my Husband and we made decisions based on our beliefs and visions for our family.I found a job that again was in office work, but that I would easily be able to walk away from. I was the copy girl. I literally sat around earning $11.50 an hour to wait until someone needed a copy made. Oh, and I faxed things. Once a month I put labels on the newsletter to send out, and drove to the post office to mail it. It was boring as hell, I felt like a mindless nobody...I could never have continued to do that knowing my child was at some daycare wanting me, while I waited to make a copy.
I do realize that isn't a career, and some people are meant to be things. But I also know that those desires come from where their passion is. My passion was for motherhood and all that meant in raising my child.

We had talked a few times about my doing daycare out of our home, the benefits and the disadvantages. Do we get licensed to be able to charge more? How would this effect the care I am giving my own children? How would this effect our home?
In the end we decided not to. I could only imagine giving care to someone else child whom I was already invested in; say a niece or nephew; to make it worth it.
Money does strange things to people, childcare is one of those things: working parents don't want to pay a ton of money,yet they want stellar care, from someone who'll love their child like they do. (Nobody will ever love your child like you do!)
Child care providers aren't paid nearly enough...I worked with a girl at the center, and she had a baby, she wanted to bring her child to the center, so she could at least visit him while she worked 9 hrs/day, employees, if there was space, got a discount, her salary didn't even make enough to cover her son's care...it was awful. There was always the threat of a full-paying family needing that spot that an employee's kid was taking...that was worse to see happen. She quit. I watched 5 girls quit in a year and a half because of money.


Which brings me to bullying...
A bully knows right where to hit you. They know because it's the same weakness they have inside them. They need to hurt something, someone, anyone; to get the hurt out of them even for a moment.
Because if they make someone else hurt, their pain is then validated. Usually in the form of: See Life's not fair!
Life hasn't been fair for them, so they are certainly not going to make things fair for anybody else. Only they are missing the point. Life was never suppose to be fair, life is about choosing how you live it. Sure you can go out and be Mean McMeanster or you can choose to show love. Sometimes showing love means not getting anger when Meanie tries to provoke you. Sometimes showing love means speaking softly when you really want to yell! And yes, sometimes showing love means you APOLOGIZE for hurting someone with your words even when you were just "giving your opinion."
You are not apologizing for having opinions, you are apologizing for sharing them in the callus, disrespectful, and mean way. You are apologizing for hurting that person, because that really wasn't what you intended to do, but sadly you did. Unless of course you did mean to hurt them...well, then McMeanster, you have pride issues and deeper hurts that require far more help then this un-colleged, stay at home mom can give.

My last nugget today: Lurk but don't smirk! Okay you're a lurker, you come you read...you choose not to comment, just don't go away smirking. We all have our "stuff". If you can't find anything encouraging to think when you read some one's blog or no joy comes from what you read, and I don't mean "Ha! serves her right!" kinda stuff, maybe you should stop looking there. Go out and find something that opens you back up to the GOODNESS in the world, not the pit of snark and hate that have lured you to spend your time away for doing what is right.

Be kind people.
Happy Thursday Y'all!