Moreover, I believe that everyone has the right to live their life according to their choices.

I try very hard to extend this understanding both to people who are more conservative in their beliefs than I am, and to those who are more liberal.

Segue.

In today’s media-hyped world of extremist ideologies and uneducated world views, there seems to have arisen a concerted effort from the “other” side to “live and let live”.

And that is all well and good. Really good actually.

Until. 

Until your right to live your life according to your choices impinges upon my rights to do exactly the same. 

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Where is all this coming from you ask.

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My son is growing up. He is almost a tween.

I have been giving him more independence lately. Letting him go out to friends houses alone without calling up to make sure he has arrived (the first time, I had to hide the phone away from myself 😀). Letting him make more choices. Etc.

This brings me to the context of my rant. 

When my kids ask me why they can’t do something that their friends are allowed, my stock response has always been, “Every family has different rules that are perfect for that family. Our rules are perfect for us.”

But the “let everyone live their lives by their own rules” thing gets hard to live by when it starts affecting the way I want to raise my child.

Or when my child picks up facial expressions of other parents when he does something that runs contrary to their world view.

Here are some things that bother me:

1. That first parent whose child is old enough to play video games I really don’t want my child to play.

2. That parent who does a visible double take when I tell them that no, my boy is not in grade 1, he is in grade 4. People, my boy is not stupid. He knows what you are thinking and, despite the fact that I try to tell him it doesn’t matter, it hurts. I know because it hurt me when I was his age.

3. That parent who asks my child to not talk about his religion because she doesn’t want her child affected by his values, but who will chastise me for being unwilling to allow my child to learn the mechanics of same sex relations at his young age. 

Ones willingness to be open becomes secondary, I have discovered, when the protective “mom” instinct takes over.

I am going to have to analyze internally where and how my beliefs and willingness to be understanding can interact. 

I need to come to a place where I can live by my values. I want to let my child thrive in the environment and beliefs prescribed by those values.