Labels - Who Needs Them??

I think we all have a tendency to label people in our lives.  We all have the funny Uncle, the cranky neighbor, the flighty friend, the difficult child, etc.  Most of the time, those labels are harmless, but 2 incidents this week have reminded me to be careful not to define people based on the labels we (often erroneously) give them.

The first incident happened with my son.  Many years ago we struggled with giving him the big "A" label.  We were afraid he would be ostracized by people who didn't understand what autism was all about.  However, we quickly saw the benefit of the Autism label for him in preschool, as more and more helpful services were offered to him.  As he continued to grow and mature, the label was helpful in other ways.  His karate sensei always has a little extra patience for Jayson and, as a result, he is flourishing in that class.  In fact, he has far surpassed what I ever thought he would do in karate.  So labels have rarely hurt him - until this year.  Erik and I made the decision to split his classroom time in 2nd grade between the mainstream class and the special education class, believing he would get all the benefits of social time in his mainstream class for lunch, recess, specials, and some academics, but also more small group instruction in math and writing with a special education teacher who understands how some autistic kids tend to learn.  So far, this has been a great set up for Jayson.  He is doing well academically and seems to be the happiest I've ever seen him socially.  But I notice his "special education" label has some treating him differently this year.  In his mainstream class he was automatically put in the lowest spelling group without a solid evaluation, while in his special ed class he is regularly scoring 100% on spelling words that are right on a "normal" second grade level.  Assignments given to the rest of the mainstream class are made "optional" for Jayson.  This is unacceptable.  My son is not incapable, he just learns much differently from the mainstream.  With a little extra time and perhaps a few different teaching methods, he can actually do quite well or better than some of the kids in his regular class! Now I know classroom teachers are totally overwhelmed so I'm giving his teacher the benefit of the doubt, but I can't shake that nagging feeling that my son was automatically labeled as slow and incapable.  I think a few email exchanges with the teacher have changed that, though, and she's been more inclined to send things home and ask for parent back up and reteaching (which we are more than glad to do).  And on a side note, I support all teachers and understand how hard it is to handle a large class of kids with many different needs.  I have to admit that I was probably guilty of putting the same labels on kids when I was a teacher.  I have obviously since learned my lesson.

The second incident is just plain old my fault.  I know a woman that I instantly labeled in a negative way.  I decided that everything she did was wrong and silently (and not so silently) judged her.  Well the past few months have afforded me the opportunity to get to know her a little bit better and I have to say I was totally wrong about her and I feel completely ashamed of myself.  Sure I might not agree with some of her decisions, but I have come to know her as a really nice and caring person.  If I would have hung onto those labels for too long, I would have surely missed out on having her in my life.

The truth is, labels are stupid because people are too complex to fit into them.  Your crazy Uncle might also be completely brilliant.  Your cranky neighbor might be lonely and looking for friendship, your flighty friend might also be the most generous hearted person you know.  And your difficult child might also be the source of your greatest joys (I speak from experience for sure!).  Perhaps instead of pasting labels on everyone around us, we should offer up some grace and some understanding.  I know I've learned my lessons, and I hope for my son's sake, other people learn that lesson as well.

Facebook Ain't Your Friend...

I am a total Facebook addict - I totally admit it.  I check the site many times throughout the day and use it to keep in touch with friends near and far.  I love getting the latest pictures and videos of my baby niece who lives far away, and love hearing about the day to day lives of my friends.  Okay, okay, and I also play A LOT of Bejeweled and Zuma Blitz.  It's been great to get back in touch with some old high school friends, and a neat way to reconnect with some of my old students from my teaching days.  All in all, I think Facebook has some wonderful uses.

Lately, however, I have been contemplating the negatives of Facebook.  Besides the obvious time suck, I don't like how it messes with my head and turns me into a 15 year old idiot at times.  You see, I'm one of those lame people who gets their feelings hurt on Facebook.  Go ahead and make fun of me.  I'm a little sad when I see my friends merrily facebooking with each other and not with me.  I'm hurt when I post something personal and some of my good friends don't respond.  And it's hard to see pics of events you weren't invited to. 

After feeling this way for the past few months, I have finally decided that it's time to give myself a cyber slap in the face and "Snap out of it!!!!".  For goodness sake, a 39 year old woman needs to grow up sometime.  Letting my feeling get hurt because of Facebook is the ultimate in stupidity and lets technology have way too much of a hold on me.  I love Facebook, but it's a bad thing when we try to infer too much emotion from what we type on our walls.  I admit, too, that Facebook feeds our narcissism and makes us believe everything we have to say is of the utmost importance (ironic from a girl writing a blog, eh?  Trust me, I see the irony.) 

So I think it's high time to put Facebook in it's place.  It's a great way to keep in contact with those far way, and a fun place to banter with friends nearby.  But it's NOT a replacement for real friendship, and putting that kind of pressure on a web site is just plain dumb.  Deeper friendships take place off the computer screen.  So I'm going to keep Facebook in it's place, keep posting my daily minutia, and of course keep working on my Blitz scores.  I'm just not going to take my cyber friends so personally anymore. My deeper connections occur at knitting nights, on my weekly runs with friends, on my phone conversations, and in other get togethers I have every single day.  And I'll definitely keep blogging. I have found it a great way to work through issues that cloud my head on a day to day basis.  Plus, who isn't a little bit narcissistic???  See you all on Facebook (or better yet, in person!). 

Let It Go...

I had a pretty bizarre encounter last week while on a run with 2 of my friends.  To make a long story short, an elderly couple was not too thrilled to have to share the road with us.  Rather than beep their horn, perhaps give a stern glance, or even call out to us to be more careful and use the sidewalks, they decided to purposefully run us off the road, roll down their window, and literally scream curse words at us and call us a pretty awful name.  These folks had a look of absolute fury on their faces, even though we were in no way endangering them, nor them us (well, until they tried to run us off the road, but I digress...)   I was fairly shocked at the time, but managed to laugh about it afterwards because it was just so darn crazy.  Just a few days later I witnessed another person treating someone else with a complete lack of compassion and a hate filled heart.  This incident did not make me laugh because it involved people I knew and not some random strangers on the road.  What on earth causes some folks to harbor so much hatred in their lives?   

The truth is, those are the extreme cases and in my gut I think some people's hearts have just hardened beyond belief.  But I think many of us are guilty of lashing out,  treating others unkindly, or just acting like an idiot quite often  - even though in our hearts, we are good people who are just trying to do our best.  Upon doing my own reflections I think so much of it has to do with our ability to let things go -  forgive and forget.  We've all heard it before and dispense this advice to others and try to do it ourselves - but it's not quite so easy.  I think it's human nature to keep a record of all the wrongs done to us.  I don't know if it's how we justify our own bad behavior, or if we use other people's transgressions to make ourselves feel superior.  But in the heat of an argument, it's the most commonly used form of defense - "Oh yeah? You're mad at me for that?? Well how about the time you did (fill in the blank)?"  It never works, of course, and just manages to deflect the real issue and dig up all kinds of awful feelings and emotions all around. 

But even worse, constantly keeping a tally of wrongs weakens our relationships with the people we care about. It causes a permanent wedge between folks.  And as the years go by, our inability to let some things go might prevent us from having some truly spectacular connections with those around us.  The longer we hang on to the garbage, the longer it has to become a part of our emotional fabric, and the harder it is to let it go, thus perpetuating a nasty cycle.  Now I wish I had the magical answer to how to truly forgive and forget.  I think a great first step is to be able to admit that you are guilty of doing it.  The older I become the more I'm trying to own my part in my relationship problems.  You can bet in my first years of marriage I would dig in my heels and try to win every argument. I wasn't going to be the first one to say sorry, no sirree.  But 15 years later, I've noticed that both Erik and I have learned how to fight productively.  We get mad at each other for sure, but usually in a very short amount of time, when the height of the emotion has passed, we are able to truly say we are sorry, acknowledge our fault (and we are BOTH always at fault somehow), and move on.  Erik is truly the one person I can say I forgive and forget wrongs with on a regular basis.  I don't keep a running record in my head to throw back in his face later.  I shouldn't be surprised, then, that my marriage is also the strongest and healthiest relationship I have.

I know, however, that I have a lot of work to do in other areas of my life, with other people in my life.  It  takes a lot of emotional maturity to truly forgive and forget, and I may never totally get there.  But it's certainly worth it to keep working on it.  And just because we are mature in age, doesn't mean we automatically mature in other areas.  It's taken years (39 of them for me to be exact) to make us who we are, good and bad.  We hang on to bad relationship habits for many reasons - the largest, I suspect, is the armor it provides our hearts.  But if we surround our hearts with too much defensive protection, it won't just keep out the bad guys, it will keep out the good guys as well.  I've seen it happen and I've seen it bring isolation and loneliness to people in the later years of their lives.  I've seen it render them unable to form meaningful relationships.  And that's no way to live. 

So I'm hoping that I find continual success working at this in my own life, and I hope all of you think about the role it plays in your life as well.  I don't think any of us want to be that old person someday, rolling down our windows, and screaming viscous curses at the world.  Truly we can all find a way to somehow let it go...