I Think I Will Stop
I think I need to stop talking about my kid who is worrying me. Some folks felt I was being callous about my kid’s challenges….. because I would talk about other things in my life ( like my running or about pipes).
Truth is….. I find it difficult to talk about my kid’s issue out of privacy for my kid. I unfortunately have it on my mind almost all the time. I would like to try to talk it through and analyze it here to try to make better progress in how I am trying to help my kid.
So, I think it is best to stop mentioning it. However….. that does not mean I am not thinking about it nor that I am not acting on it.
PipeTobacco
5 Comments:
I don't recall you giving any personal info, just that you are concerned, so don't feel too badly about it.
Yes, I was very careful to not give any personal information. But, that carefulness kept me from talking about it much on some days, and I focused instead on writing about my own thoughts about the other things I would think about. But, unfortunately, in doing so….. one commenter thought I was being callous and not focusing on my kid. This made me realize that I probably should not talk about my kid because the comment hurt my feelings because my actual actions concerning my kid are so much a part of my every day that the hurt I felt about the comment actually made it more difficult later in the day for me when I was trying to advise my kid.
I probably overshare a bit about my younger daughter, so I understand your hesitation to give out too much information. I don't tell everything or even close to that, but I also probably appear callous at times because although the issues are always on my mind, I can't blog about most (many?) of them. Sorry about the overreaction of your commenter. Personally, I think that person should have contacted you privately to find out a bit more about why you were reticent about the situation. Blasting you in the comment section with such limited knowledge of your life or you was (in my opinion) unconscionable.
Professor, I hope I am wrong, but I suggest that you examine the situation to determine whether you may be the victim of emotional manipulation. I won't rehearse the whole situation here, but it seems as though you have been put in a "no win" situation in which you are either ignoring or minimizing your kid's issue(s), no matter which course of action you take.
It's obvious that if you wrote too much about your kid, the kid and his/her enablers would be upset with you for airing in public some matters that deserve to be private.
So, given the alternatives, I agree that writing NOTHING about the kid be better than exposing yourself to the charge that you aren't giving the kid's situation enough importance in your writing. But if, having made your decision, you get fussed at for "neglecting" the kid's situation while daring to write about other matters, I hope you can recognize emotional manipulation if/when it happens and respond accordingly.
I've just started following your interesting blog so I'm doing some catch-up today. My ears/eyes/brain perked up when I read about the criticism you got about your child. On your behalf, I was outraged by someone hinting that you're not devoting enough attention to that problem, but instead are focusing on, for example, pipe smoking.
I too have a child, an adult child, who isn't following a traditional path in life. I worry about it all the time; it's the silent subtext to my life. So often I'm tempted to blog about it but I don't really know why. I know I won't get any useful advice, I know I can't change myself enough to stop worrying, but sharing a bit of the angst would feel good (just like typing this right now feels good).
So I think you should alter nothing about your blogging in response to the rude and insensitive commenter.
A fellow parent-with-worries.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home