After being in the workforce for thirty-six years, married twice, raising a daughter, and blogging for over six years, nothing people do surprises me all that much anymore. Life has definitely been a learning experience on human behavior.
A LOT has happened over the past six years not the least being I recovered from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). That’s a bigger accomplishment than most of you even realize.
PTSD is Hell. After a person has lived in Hell, everything in life is suddenly jolted into perspective.
I believe that there are a few important things that other people can learn from my life experience:
- The most important and rewarding job/experience anyone can ever have is being a PARENT.
- LOVE is the most important gift you can receive or give.
- Life is too short to allow GREEDY, SELFISH, INCOMPASSIONATE, MEAN PEOPLE destroy your peace and happiness.
During the last six years, I’ve developed a little bit more of a thicker skin and I voice my opinion more readily when someone pushes me too hard. My skin isn’t THAT thick and I’m not TOO blunt, but I’m just not so tolerant when people treat me mean or try to walk all over me.
Greedy, selfish, incompassionate, mean people have one thing in common – they are disrespectful AND I don’t want them in my life.
What Is Respect?
We often hear the word respect, so let’s make sure we all understand the meaning of the word.
Definition of RESPECT
: a feeling of admiring someone or something that is good, valuable, important, etc.
: a feeling or understanding that someone or something is important, serious, etc., and should be treated in an appropriate way
That definition seems rather straightforward. If someone is given respect, they are treated as though they are good, valuable and important.
I definitely believe that you and I deserve respect. Short of doing some horrible crime, I think that everyone is worthy of being respected.
Blogging
Blogging is a wonderful way to share our lives with one another. On a blog, the writer is able to express whatever they fancy. The people who visit the blog can either become a faithful reader because they like the writing and the writer or can click away and never visit again if they do not like the writing or the writer.
It’s just that cut and dry.
The problem arises when the reader doesn’t like the writing or the writer and doesn’t just click away.
For just a moment, let’s go back into time to May 2011. At that time I was desperately trying to find help to relieve the agony of my PTSD. On a trip to the store I overheard a mother talking on her cellphone and she referred to her four year old child as being a “boring four year old” while expressing her desire to “dump her in a daycare” if she could afford it.
It upset me so badly that I wrote a post about it and published the story on my blog. In that post I shared the wonderful experience I had staying home with my daughter when she was just a tiny child. I wrote about how that time home not only healed my body, but also my heart and mind. Then I shared some of the things I did while I stayed home and reiterated that I was never bored.
If someone is bored, it is their own fault. Life circumstances like staying home do not make you bored. You’re bored because you choose to do nothing interesting with your time.
Being able to stay home with your children is a huge blessing. Most women are not afforded that opportunity because of the financial demands of the family.
So if children are the greatest gift we can ever receive in life and teaching those children are our greatest responsibility, doing a great job in parenting is the most important work we can ever perform. When going to a job outside the home, you bust your butt to do well so that you can get a raise and keep your job. If raising children is even more important “work” than an outside job, shouldn’t you have the same attitude and be doing at least the same amount of effort as you would at an outside the home job?
The question I posed in my old May 2011 blog post pertained to my bafflement at how a stay-at-home-mother could be bored with the children that she decided to have grace her home. The children were not forced upon her. Whichever the case may be, no one MADE her have sex and get pregnant or to adopt. Children are an extension of our self and the person we love. Plus, don’t forget that you want to try just as hard as you would at an outside the home job to be creative, innovative and perform the best of your abilities to be a good parent (Home Manager, Chief Activities Coordinator, Administrator Of Development). So with those all those things being true, I wrote that I do not understand how a stay-at-home-mother can be bored.
As the years have passed, I STILL don’t understand the boredom women find in staying home with their most precious gifts. There are a million things a mother can teach her children and so many fun things to do. It does NOT take gobs of money to enjoy being home! There are ONLY a few years that children are young. It’s not like they remain under seven years old forever!
My blog post was very tactful and the question remained evident throughout my writing of a relatively short post. How can a stay-at-home-mother be bored with her children?
To say that the comments have been harsh is an understatement. At first I kept trying to make the angry commenters look again at the post because I did not accuse anyone of anything. What I did in the post was pose a question and express my bafflement at the bored mother’s attitude while showing that you can do other things when you stay home with your children.
It is now four years later.
I no longer have PTSD.
I no longer care if I am politically correct.
I’m less tolerant of selfish people.
If a reader is offended by my writing, it isn’t because I am pointing a finger accusationally at them. If anyone finds my writing offensive, it is because they feel shame or guilt at their own feelings or actions. Making people feel bad is not my goal in writing a blog!
Pointing my finger at people and accusing them is not what I do. I’m not a judgmental person. People have the right to choose because it is a God given right. I’m definitely not going to try and take freedom away from anyone. I respect the rights of people to do what they choose to do with their life.
With that being said, I want to share with you a comment that I received on my blog the other day.
“I stay at home… and while I am so busy that I can’t even sit, inside I am so so so bored. I hate cleaning the same mess over and over and over. I love it enough to stay at home. I would leave the kids. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t boring. The whining, the cleaning, breaking up the fighting. I don’t like repeating myself over and over. You are being judgemental in this old post. I can tell you are old and I think you are being an asshole. That mother in the grocery store was tired. You have a 20 year old. You FORGOT.
Typo: I meant to write .. I wouldn’t leave my children to go back to work.”
Respectful comment on my blog?
No.
So let me respond to this extremely disrespectful comment on MY blog. Where no respect was given, I do not feel inclined to give any respect back.
- You are a coward – Instead of signing your name with a link to your online activities, you simply signed your name as “Itsboring.” You’re not brave at all. You’re a coward to write such a disrespectful comment and not claim it by leaving your real name.
- Heard of spellcheck? – You misspelled the word “judgemental,” so maybe you should check your writing before you push send. Then again, if you are a stay-at-home-mother, take some time to enhance your spelling and grammar. There are books in the library that will help you with that task. You need to especially make sure that you are teaching your children the correct spelling and grammar too, so brush up on those skills. On your performance appraisal, this section of your motherhood is a “Needs Improvement.”
- Whining and fighting – If your children whine and cry all the time then you’re obviously failing as their Chief Activities Coordinator. It is important that you provide them fun things to do and pay more attention to them so they don’t act up just to get your attention. Sounds like boring, unimaginative parenting. Is this another “Needs Improvement” area?
- Repetition – Repeating yourself over and over is one of the basics of parenthood. Children can’t retain information for long periods of time, so it is necessary to keep reteaching principles to them in different ways. That would be under the “Creative Thinking” section of your job performance review. However, if you were referring to repeating yourself for the children to do chores like pick up their toys, then obviously you are definitely failing at this basic parenting skill. A good parent knows how to train their children to do chores because it teaches them responsibility. They learn that with actions come consequences. It definitely sounds like you are a “Needs Improvement” or even an “Unsatisfactory” in this area too.
- I’m old – Yes dear, I’m getting older every second that passes. Right now in 2015 I am 52 years old. That makes me young enough to still totally enjoy life and old enough to know that you are selfish and disrespectful.
- Profanity – The ugly, derogatory name you called me reiterates the fact that you obviously are not very educated. Is it because you were too busy doing things you shouldn’t while in school instead of learning? How can you teach your children if you are not very bright? I definitely think a visit to the library is called for and it appears that you are rating “Unsatisfactory” in this aspect of your parenting job.
- Being tired – Everyone gets tired. That’s why God created night. During the day you are awake and at night you sleep. Being tired is not a good enough excuse for anyone to emotionally abuse their children. Yes, the grocery store woman emotionally abused her child. If you are performing the same with your children, maybe you are warranting “Termination” from your job.
- Memory – My daughter is now 22 years old. I don’t have Alzheimer’s and I am not senile. Thankfully I haven’t forgotten the wonderful moments I was able to stay home with her. Each minute was precious to me then and even more precious now. I do not have a memory problem. It sounds like you are looking for for ways to excuse your own “Unsatisfactory” behavior.
Remember at the beginning of this post I said that I now speak more bluntly because I have learned the shortness of life and I don’t let people walk all over me anymore?
Well, dear commenter, you have problems. I don’t know what they include, but they must be doozies. You were offended by my post for the same reason other readers were offended…you’re selfish. You weren’t ignorant as to the demands of parenthood before you had children. If you chose to stay home, then you have every opportunity to pursue your own interests in your spare time.
No spare time? Then you also suck at organization. We have found yet another aspect of your job performance that is an “Unsatisfactory” rating. There is free time when you stay home if you are organized and don’t waste your time watching television soap operas all day.
You are also oblivious to proper etiquette and respect. Did your own parents fail you or are you just a rude adult? The answer is irrelevant to me. I find you deplorable and I’m thankful that you are not my mother.
There was no love or adoration for your children anywhere in your comment. I pity your children because they are deprived of all the wonderful things a good mother could give them. Obviously, you’re not a good mother. You’re a selfish, entitled, rude mother who doesn’t respect anyone – not me, not your children and not yourself.
Hopefully you won’t ever visit my blog again or at least not comment. I can guarantee that if you ever write another comment like the one you left me the other day, it won’t be acknowledged or published.
If you are unable to see the simple sharing of my motherhood in that previous post and my bafflement at how anyone can be bored with gifts sent from God, then maybe you should go look in the mirror and make an honest assessment of your shortcomings. I’m sure it won’t be hard to see them especially since I’ve already identified many areas that you either “Need Improvement” or are totally “Unsatisfactory.”
By the way, I wasn’t ever bored at home and my daughter. I ROCKED my motherhood and will forever be grateful that I was able to stay home with Alyssa before she started school!
Patti says
Sunshine, YOU ROCK!
LOVE YA BUNCHES!
PJ
Sherry Riter says
Thank you Patti! Love you too!
Michelle says
Hi Sherry, great blog post!! I haven’t read your blog in a while because my organisational skills need improvement at this point of time in my life, but I will read it more often now
I totally agree with everything you say, but I am starting to wonder if people really are “ignorant as to the demands of parenthood before [they] had children”. Over the past few years a number of people I know have had children and I have heard comments saying they didn’t realise it would be so hard. So I wonder how much thought went into deciding whether to have children. Do people even consider the alternatives? I am one person that has and don’t have children for a number of reasons. But as I get older I am starting to wonder if people have children because that is what is done. So I am wondering if people are also “ignorant as to the demands of parenthood”. Food for thought
Michelle
Sherry Riter says
Great point Michelle. Parenting is a lifelong commitment. With a decision that will have a lifelong effect, people should definitely think long and hard before they take on the responsibility of bringing children into the world. Thank you for the comment!
JKW says
Hi Sherry, I had to work (part time) most of my children’s growing up time. But we had fun after school. I got the tape recorder out (fun times); I took them to the bookmobile which happened to be parked at the cul-de-sac. . .introduced them to different kinds of books. Tried to keep them from the tv as often as I could but I worked nights. However, they turned out totally different. I don’t see one hardly at all. I think disrespect of teachers in the schools is mostly the problem in today’s world. Blessings, Janet PS my doc made me read Dr. Spock before I delivered.. ..I wish he had made me read To Kill A Mocking Bird. . .
Sherry Riter says
Oh my Janet! I love reading and we used to check out 36 books every 5 days from the library. I love the tape recorder idea. Those tapes are priceless! The world today is SO DIFFERENT than the world you and I grew up in and it is very scary to think about just how different it really has become. {{{hugssss}}}
Skip_D says
hmmmmmmm, Sherry… why don’t you tell us how you *really* feel?!?
Sherry Riter says
Ha! Very funny Skip!
Teresa Custor says
Well done child. Mother is proud of your motherhood and all you are as a person. Fabulous woman! I had to work after you were 10 and I hated leaving you and Audrey. I was never bored as a mother or a housewife. If you are being a good one, you do not have time to be bored. As far as the comments go, lol you are much kinder than me!!! I am even older than you and less tolerant. I can picture this woman. Hair a mess, no bath, no makeup, house for pigs to live in. More than likely she is ugly inside. I could tell you what the children look like, but we won’t go there. We can feel sorry for them. Have a good day sweetie. Well done.
Sherry Riter says
Thanks Mom.
Kenny Sellards says
Give em hell, Sherry! Thank you for sharing. <3
Sherry Riter says
LOL Thank you Kenny!!!
Beth says
Bravo! I am grateful to be blessed enough to be a stay-at-home Mom. My mother had to work long hours to keep food on our table, so I thank God often for allowing me to do this.
I don’t understand why people leave rude comments on blogs OR on a FB status. If you don’t agree — keep on moving.
That commenter showed her age and maturity level … Just chalk it up to immaturity for sure.
I’m so thankful you overcame PTSD! Hallelujah!
Beth
Sherry Riter says
My mother had to work three jobs to provide for us and I am forever grateful. Sometimes we have no choice!
I’m soooooooooooooooo thankful that PTSD is in my past. Thank you! {{{hugsss}}}
Afton says
Hi there!
I found your blog post after googling INCREDIBLY BORED STAY AT HOME MOM. I’m so glad I did because it gave me the kick in the booty I needed to take responsibility for my actions. I had never thought about boredom as an attitude before. Paradigm shift swiftly engaged. Your posts made me yearn for a close friend or mother figure with your mindset and attributes. I’m very inspired by you and I’m determined to make a change for my family happiness. Thank you.
Sherry Riter says
You’re very sweet Afton. Thank you for your comment. I’m glad it helped you!
Megan Premo says
First of all, I’m glad I discovered you. I enjoy learning from women who have survived parenting with mental illness. Second, I love that you are so genuinely responding to someone who was a total jerk to you on your blog. And third, I hope that “That’s why God created night. During the day you are awake and at night you sleep,” was meant to be sarcastic. I was blessed with being able to stay home with my daughter for her first two years, and at now that she’s almost 7, I still only work mostly part-time. I am happy for people whose babies were good sleepers…”Good,” to me would have been more than 2 hours at a time for the first two years of my daughter’s life. My daughter was diagnosed as a non-sleeper. Her father and I tried every “method” of sleep training in slow, consistent ways, beginning with what I thought never failed-her in bed with me. She rarely slept for more than 45 minutes for the first year of her life. By 3, she slept through the night half of the time, but was still up at 5:30 most mornings.
Was I happy to be blessed with the opportunity to be home with her? Absolutely. Was I bored? No. I cherished every moment I was able to, but I was too exhausted and mentally ill to be bored. I have PTSD, General Anxiety Disorder, ADD and Interstitial Cystitis. As I’m sure you know, these illnesses almost never respect our need to sleep. I didn’t have a diagnosis at the time, and when I would complain of how tired I was, other mothers would say “Sleep when the baby sleeps.” It wasn’t that simple for me; I couldn’t just close my eyes and fall asleep when wave after wave of panic was washing over me, day after day, after day. I asked myself, repeatedly “What is wrong with me? I’m so tired and my baby is asleep, but all I can do is cry.” It was isolating and terrifying, but I agree with you-being tired (or angry or anything else) is never an excuse to emotionally abuse children, who listen to everything mom says, whether it’s to them or someone at the grocery. My daughter had no idea how miserable I was; I made certain that she knew that she was a miracle to me then, and always.
I am the proud mother of a happy, healthy almost 7 year old daughter. But I can honestly say that, for me (not her…she had/has all the mother’s love a baby could want, and more) those days were my darkest. I’m jealous of women whose first years of parenting were mostly puppy dogs and rainbows, but it’s simply not reality for many of us. Most mothers (I hope) know that they are signing up for a long, hard job with a beautiful payoff. It’s just impossible to know exactly how long, and how hard, it will be for your particular family. I’m not perfect, but after my own parenting experience, I try not to throw stones from my glass castle.
Bonnie says
Hi Sherry:
Year’s ago, you commented on my blog when it was brand new. Somehow, we lost contact. Today, you popped up on FB and I remembered you. I was a stay-at-home mom with two boys. It was the most rewarding time of my life. Yes, I sent them to mother’s day out and preschool. I loved having a bit of free time (if a mother’s time is ever free). I couldn’t wait to pick them up and share their adventures.
Happy to have found you again. As I recall, you live/lived in my home state of Virginia??
Best,
Bonnie
Sherry Riter says
Happy to have you back Bonnie! Thank you so much for your lovely comment!
Katherines Corner says
All I want to do is climb through the internet and give you a hug and a high five.Your blog, Your words , Your feelings, Yours! I’ve been in your shoes and I had someone leave an ugly comment. my response..delete! .xoxoxox
Sherry Riter says
Thank you so much Katherine! {{{hugsss}}} If you ever figure out how to climb through the computer, please share the secret with me! LOL
Katherines Corner says
xo
Gail says
I am so sorry you had to go through this.
I was reviewing some old blogs and just wanted to thank you of “stalking” me years ago. It was a great experience. Here’s the link to the old post. Thank you again.
http://gailatthefarm.blogspot.com/2010/10/marcys-flower-and-this-n-that.html
Sherry Riter says
Thank you Gail.
I do remember “stalking” your blog! So glad we met.
Pam@over50feeling40 says
Your daughter is gorgeous and your words are inspiring…thank you for sharing all of your journey with the Thursday Blog Hop!
Sherry Riter says
Thank you so much Pam!
Kim at Life in a House of Testosterone says
I love it! Life is way too short to deal with the haters, Sherry, and I am cheering over here in Mechanicsville at the fact that you’ve finally recovered from the PTSD!!! Woo hoo!!!! That alone is something to shout from the rooftops about! I’ve had hateful comments on some of my posts … although mine usually take to Facebook to blast me out. I actually get a kick out of it – now. Toughened up my skin and realized that not everyone is going to like what I say or what I right but you know what? They don’t have to. I’m me. You’re you. We all have our own opinions and thoughts on things. So kudos to you for speaking your mind!!!
Sherry Riter says
Thank you so much Kim!!! Yes, I could shout from the rooftops daily that I have recovered from PTSD. There’s not a day that I am not filled with gratitude to have my life and mind back. {{{hugsss}}}
Thanks for the sharing about meanies. LOL
Dan says
Sherry,
I was drawn to your blog by the story of man having sex with the parrot. Very amusing.
I then browsed around and found a well organized website that I will visit again. I used to run a website for the elementary school where I taught, (I retired after 35 years), so I appreciate all of the work that goes into “The Redheaded Riter,” and wish you the best in your future endeavors.
I will be back
Dan
Tiphanie says
Thank you so much for this post and the one it was referencing. They both stung which you would think is a bad thing but it is not; it is a WONDERFUL BLESSING to hear the truth. I so needed to read this in this season of little ones. I appreciate your boldness, bluntness and seasoned wisdom. Thanks a lot.
Tiphanie
Elizabeth says
I wish I didn’t feel bored… I guess I am selfish… I sometimes wish I had never been a mom… I’m doing the best job I can, but I hate it… I know I’m selfish, but don’t know how to change it..