Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Hope

There’s been a lot of discussion about morality, modesty, role-models, and the like since the VMA’s. It’s been overwhelming, at times, to see the backlash coming from almost every community you can imagine. Everyone seems to be screaming from the rooftops their outrage about her actions, others calmly appealing to the masses to offer forgiveness in light of her troubles, and still others have chosen to quietly express themselves to the private circles that know them best.


Morality has never been an easy subject. It never will be. Morality is a mixed bag of fact, fiction, feelings, circumstances, and life stories. It’s this mixed bag that allows the world to feel and react differently to everything around them. The person who witnesses a drive by shooting has a different view than the person who committed it, than the person who knew the victim, than the police officer who reports it. There are far too many variables to really judge who was right and who was wrong, right? Now I realize that extremes do produce different reactions than ones that are not as severe, but it’s those reactions that make us individuals who are capable of making our own interpretations of the world around us.

I wish things like this in our world didn’t exist. As a woman, who does eventually want a family, events like this horrify me. I don’t want my children to see things like that when they’re too young to realize that sometimes what looks cool isn’t good for them. I also don’t want my future children to be sheltered little weirdo’s who aren’t allowed to make their own decisions and go off of the deep end when they’re adults. I want to find a balance. I want to use those confusing and impressionable times as learning moments and as times to allow them to be their own person and to decide through facts what they believe. I want my children to be objective thinkers like my husband. I want them to empathize with people like I do. I don’t want them to disregard individual circumstances. I want them to see them and let them appropriately color how they view the world around them. I want them to know that there are, indeed, two sides to every story, but they need to know that there is fact and fiction on each and every side. They need to know how to discern truth and ignore lies.

I hope and pray for my future children in this way. I pray that my husband and I will have them when we’re old enough to care for them and teach them, but young enough to not tire of their energy and questions. I pray for my patience of them, even now! (And I am the furthest thing from ‘ready for kids’ that you’re likely to see). I know I can’t change the world that will constantly be around them, but I hope that the home that my husband and I provide for them is safe enough for comfort but open enough for discovery.

It’s important to talk about cultural events that want to make mothers and fathers everywhere pull their hair out in frustration. It’s vital because we need to see the unfortunate to realize all of the hope that is in our lives. For every VMA night there’s a strong woman around me that I can trust to be someone that any future daughter of mine can look to, admire, and learn from. For all of the injustices in this world there are beautiful events that remind us that the world does have so much goodness left to offer. There will always be bad in the world, but my future sons will have men around them to show them how to be a man and to respect the women that they chose to love. When discussions about morality arise I do have my opinions, my ideas, and my truths; above all I have hope that goodness has always been, even in just one person. This may sound crazy to a lot of people, but hope is essential to our survival and our mental health. I am positively convinced of it.

Ps. For a real mom's persepctive read this. via: The Shine Project.

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