We have all been there before; thrusted into a situation with a family member who makes some comments about your children or family. Most common “well your cousins son does that and he’s fine”, “it’s just a phase”, and “they will out grow it”. I feel like I need to carry around my children’s medical diagnosis to shut some people up. When visiting family I constantly feel defensive about my kids diagnosises. I get tired, hurt and annoyed with the constant snide comments and family playing doctor with their own diagnosis.
So what do you do? You can argue and pull out the paperwork and explain in great detail how their constant farting nosies they make is “not a boy thing” it’s called a stem. You can educate people until you are blue in the face, but after six years I have learned to save face and my breath.
It’s hard. It’s more than hard; it is almost damn near impossible for me to keep my mouth shut. Not to mention you can read me like a book. I was very good in theater. I have a tendency to get very defensive about topics I know a lot about. So I have to press my lips together and bite the inside of my mouth to keep from being the next breaking news story.
My momma taught me that if I have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all. At my age I still heed that warning. Sometimes it’s better to just say nothing to the people you love. Take what they say with a grain of salt and all those other euphuism we have all acquired over time.
So next time your faced with a family member who just keeps digging at you, slap a smile on your face and put a song in your heart and remember that they are just family.
maybe ‘cousin’s son’ isn’t just fine and ‘cousin’ needs to wake up?