Email of the Day:
It’s our first year homeschooling. How long did it take you to brush off remarks about your choice to do this? It always catches me by surprise, because I personally cannot imagine being so forward and blunt about my opinion about other’s business. Just this evening a woman who wasn’t part of the conversation chimes in how do I deal with guilt of not sending our child to school. Her face looked so angry too. After my response of no guilt, she went on and on for a while how she would feel. It was bizarre, I’m sort of glad it happened, might as well learn how to deal with it now. But how did you deal with this?
Answer:
These questions are not — are never — about you.
They’re about the person asking, trying to wrap their head around a foreign concept.
They’re NEVER about you.
Sometimes, they’re because the person asking thinks that your choice being different from their choice is a commentary on their choice. And the guilt bit on this one? That’s her saying, “Please tell me that I shouldn’t feel guilty for sending my kids to school.”
~Jen GS