Living in a developed country has a billion perks and maybe a thousand downsides. I don't care to go into details of pros and cons. Just want to talk about the way we walk on eggshells here. I appreciate a lot of the courtesies, and I have learnt to speak more conservatively and respectfully.
In my home country, people call people fat. They use words like retard and imbecile to refer to people with autism. Mental illness is more often than not summed up as madness. Depression and anxiety are laughed at. In fact, in the face of this blatant ignorance, the people living with mental health problems begin to question the reality of their illness.
People don't say "hard of hearing" or "visually impaired". People don't use words like "attachment parenting", "baby-led weaning" (baby led? Parents see themselves as the potters and the babies as the clay. Ain't no baby leading nothing!). People don't go to their kids games to cheer both teams. They keep scores and they cheer for their kids (not necessarily the team! ). The list is endless!
Coming from that background, I must say I have done a good job, learning, unlearning and relearning. However, on some days like today, I just want the freedom to tell this lady next to me to grow some balls! I just want to scream that it's rather immature to tell a bunch of people to stop discussing their parenting methods because said methods make you feel bad.
In her opinion, only evil parents let their children cry it out and soothe themselves to sleep. This thinking in itself is completely valid. To each his own, right? However, it's incredibly silly and even bratty to tell a group of adults to stop their conversation because it bothers you. I want to scream, "There's a door. Use it". Instead, in keeping with western world courtesies, I will smile, confirm that irreparable damage hasn't been done to her sensitivities and use the door myself.
Being polite is exhausting. I'm tired. Bloated from all the swallowed words.
