It all depends on how you look at things...

I tend to tell the same stories over and over again. Often when I'm in the middle of a conversation I'll realize that I have already told this to the person I am talking to. Most of the time people are so polite that they just let me keep blabbing. For some reason I on the other hand often say to people, "Yes you told me that already". Why do I do that? Is it better to pretend the person didn't already tell you? I'm not sure. That is really not even what this post is about, actually it is about a story that I often tell. (you've probably heard me say it...it may even be on my blog somewhere) I once read an article about identical twins who were separated at birth and years later found each other. The adoptive parents of both girls were asked to answer different questions about the girls, one of them being about their eating habits. One set of parents responded that their daughter was a wonderful eater, and would willingly eat most things as long as there was ketchup on it. The other parents replied that their daughter was a terrible eater and in fact would eat almost nothing that didn't have ketchup on it. Now for the sake of the story I think we are supposed to assume that these girls actually had the same tastes and it was the way the parents perceived it that made all the difference. I think of this story often. I was reminded of it this morning when I was driving to CVS at 7:30am to get my 11 year old daughter hairspray and blue eyeshadow. What kind of a mother would go out first thing in the morning to get her pre-teen daughter hairspray and make up? It doesn't sound very good does it? In reality it was for Theatre of course, and it was my idea. Madi's hair is supposed to be in a curly ponytail for the upcoming show and I knew her hair wouldn't stay curly without hairspray (actually it didn't stay curly with hairspray either...but her makeup still looks nice). The thing is we don't even have hairspray in the house, I haven't been a hairspray user since high school. An added bonus is now we'll have hairspray to spray Madi's chalk pastel drawings, if it wasn't for the multi-use of the product, I probably wouldn't have bought it at all. The moral of this story is not everything is what it seems. Here's another example... Both of my older kids have a phone right now. A year or two ago we got a "MIGO" as part of our cell phone plan. It can call 4 pre-programed numbers. I like for the kids to have it, it is handy to be able to call them to let them know I am running late. A few months ago the company Mike works for got him a blackberry. They used to give him a "cell phone allowance" which paid for our phones. Now they just get the blackberry bill, but we have to pay for our own phones. We reduced our "minutes" but have yet to get rid of Mike's old phone. This means that right now Jonathan often carries Mike's old phone to Theatre, golf etc... and Madi has the MIGO. I feel good knowing they have a phone. They couldn't care less about it. They forget to bring them places half the time, have never called friends with them, and they don't know the first thing about texting (you can't on the MIGO anyway). They would prefer to leave them turned off at all times, but I've convinced them to at least leave them on vibrate. I like knowing I can get in touch with my kids at anytime if I need to. So yes, my pre-teen, eyeshadowed, hairsprayed girl carried her cell phone with her today, but again, it is not what it seems. Sometimes homeschoolers are prejudged for many reasons lack of socialization often on the top of the list. Clearly these judgements are unfounded. What about the reverse though? As homeschoolers (or parents in general) do we sometimes look at the 11 year old girl with a cell phone, hairspray and make up and prejudge them? Think about that for a while...