Yesterday I read a comment somewhere on the the internet and it left me feeling a little off. It took me a while to figure out what this feeling was, but after a moment, I had it.

I felt offended.

For some this feeling comes easily. But for me, a girl with a small emotional spectrum, offense is one of the extremes I rarely experience.

In the world of parenting especially, you see it all the time. One person does something a certain way, and others chime in with their opinions. I think this is all fine and good because it is good to hear from other experienced people, but when you start having these interactions in text rather than in speech, some of the intention and tone gets lost and feelings get hurt. For those of you who have strangers express their opinions to you in person, I am sorry that I cannot empathize with you on that. I have never had this happen to me. Or maybe I have, but it doesn’t get under my skin, so I forget about it.

I feel blessed to have the natural ability to let things like this roll off my shoulders, and have not once, in my 1.5 years of parenting have I been made to feel like I was an inferior parent for doing things my way. Until yesterday. And it caught me off guard. I didn’t know what to do with this new feeling. I talked things through with Tim and he made me feel better. It made me wish that I could teach others how to not take offense to things because it sucks to feel that way. But how do you teach a natural ability? I find it hard to give advice in any kind of situation for the mere fact that I just do things that make sense. You won’t find any parenting literature on my shelves (except “Bringing Up Boys” because I thought I might need help with that and I have only heard wonderful things about it), and the only reason I read articles online about parenting is to read the comments and see the opinions, because I really enjoy hearing what others have to say and sometimes they make me laugh. I can’t think of a single time where I have implemented a strategy I learned about in literature into my parenting repertoire. You can’t teach common sense, and for that I am sad.

I have discovered a downside to not being easily offended. It’s often hard for me to know what might offend somebody else. Often times I have to reread comments I make in different voices and perspectives to see how others would see it coming off. Many times I rewrite it, and sometimes I just delete it all together. Sometimes I leave it because it is somebody I know and I think they can take it.

Parenting is just one example of where this is applicable in my life.

But anyways. I think I have rambled enough. I don’t know where I wanted this to go, but I just knew that I had these thoughts I wanted to share, even though it is is hard to get my feelings into text.

In other news, Calvin can now say “no”, so depending on the question I ask, his response sometimes offends me.

Just kidding.