how we use our voice

I have been thinking a lot the past few days about our voice, opinion, appropriateness of debate in certain circumstances. A few incidents have really brought this to the forefront of my mind.

My neighborhood has a weekly coffee get together on Monday mornings. Sometimes there are 4 women, sometimes 10, but it is a nice start to the week, and there are always a bunch of toddlers and preschool aged kids running around playing too, so it is really fun.

What I like about the group is that it is women of all ages, some with a bunch of kids at home, some with older kids, some empty-nesters. Some moms work outside the home, some don't. Some are conservative, some are liberal. It makes for interesting discussion, and is a pretty diverse group.

Well, this week one of the working moms (she is a teacher with a job share situation, so she teaches in the afternoon) was lamenting about how her sitter was not so reliable, or would ask to leave early a lot, etc. You could tell she was a bit stressed by this, and it was bothering her. Another mom who stays home started asking her why she didn't just use a child care center, or better yet, just stay home. she said "WHY do you put this stress on yourself? I don't understand that"

it became a bit tense as the 2 defended their positions, and then I glanced over and saw Ava heading outside to play so I got up from the table to follow her. I heard someone behind me and realized it was the mom who is a teacher. I know her pretty well, and I started to speak some words of support, when I looked up to see her crying.

We talked for awhile, and I just left that day thinking. WHY?

WHY do people have to say things to make someone else feel bad?

WHY do we as women tend to beat eachother up about our choices?

ISN'T it our "jobs" to support eachother? or SHOULDN'T it be?

EVEN IF all of us around that table were wondering why she is making the choices she is, should we berate her until she cries?

Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a voice. Should we use it when we know the way in which we are doing so will cause hurt feelings? What if someone doesn't realize it will hurt feelings? Does the ignorance of that excuse it?

SHOULDN'T we ALL think more about other people??????? Is that somehow silencing our opinion? Silencing or voice, or is it good manners?

The other incident happened at the elementary school. We have a small parking lot and sometimes parents don't get out of the car, they just wait for their child to come out of school, and they wait in their car in the parking lot, sometimes impeding a few parked cars in marked parking spaces. They shouldn't do that, absolutely, and there is even a sign that says not to. One parent has apparently had enough of this inconvenience. At pick-up on Thursday someone blocked him in slightly, although he was still able to get out. He drove up next to that car, rolled down the window and SCREAMED at the top of his lungs to the woman in the other car. He called her a dummy, and many other not so nice things. I was standing on the basketball court talking to another mom, and heard the whole thing. My mouth dropped open as did the 50 kids standing there.

What a way to use your voice, huh? Why should we all be subjected to that, and what can we do about it?

Obviously that guy has some anger management issues.

But......in the world in general, whatever happened to manners?