Things I learned from Mom (and Mr. Rogers)...

There is a meme that I am seeing on Facebook and Instagram that says "Some of you didn't grow up watching Mr. Rogers and it shows." My first thought was to say this was true but the more I think about it I am seeing that people that did watch it have forgotten what he taught.

I have been struggling for the last few months about what I should write. I have read so many things that have said we should all be writing copious journal entries to document this time in history. We should be writing everything down so that we can share with our grandchildren (or children if you are younger) and they ask what it was like to live through the pandemic in 2020. It all sounds like a good idea but the more I think about it, the more I am not sure I want to share what I am seeing. Let me explain my thoughts a little. I am sure this will be a long post but please hear me out, I think it is something that we should stand back and think about.

Eleven years ago I was in therapy for post-partum depression. It was a hard time for me. I was in isolation for almost six months. You see, I had a premature child and because he was a preemie, his immune system was not where it should be. Compound that with many factors that made it so I had to make the heart breaking decision to stop attempting to breast feed him. (That is a LONG story but know that I tried and I cried when it was decided that I needed to stop.) Because of the lack of breast milk, he would not benefit from the immunity boost and antibodies that I would have been able to provide him. As such, we were instructed to protect him. He would be exposed to the bacteria and viruses in our home and build his immunity slowly over time but he should not be exposed to colds and viruses that were out there in the bigger world just yet and we should try to keep some of those out of the house if at all possible. It was a hard time. We pulled our daughter out of dance to keep "germs" from entering the home. We spoke with the doctor and put her back in but made sure we showered immediately when returning home. My husband didn't get to attend her recital that year because we could not take the baby with us. It was hard. It was isolating. I struggled. (I would like to note that come fall, my child was given antibodies to help him make it through the winter. I didn't even know that antibody shots were a thing. But you can indeed get antibody shots for preemies that meet certain criteria to help them through the flu season.  Thank God for good insurance!! Those shots are NOT cheap!!)

Anyway, it was a hard time and I felt very alone. Up until this point, my husband had said that he did not want us to have a presence on Facebook. But here we were in a very isolating situation for me. Being extroverted and suffering from post-partum depression during this time only multiplied the difficulty for me. It was hard. My therapist suggested that I get a Facebook account to be able to spend those six months of isolation conversing with my lady friends during certain points of the day. It was great -- too great and caused other issues for me but that is a topic for an entirely different post. I was built up by these women. I connected with people I had wondered about over the years but had lost touch with. It was wonderful for me. I was able to see other sides to stories that I might not have been able to hear otherwise.

Today, I would NEVER recommend Facebook as a place for anyone to go to communicate with people. I would not suggest it to a woman suffering from post-partum depression at all!  If it weren't for the fact that I am enjoying my WW group and conversations with some out of town family through Facebook, I would be gone. The Facebook of eleven years ago is gone, and in it's place is a dark community. A place filled with hate and echo chambers. I don't see people trying to learn to see a side to a story that they had not thought of. I see people beating people over the head with what they feel is the only way to see a subject. I don't see conversations of love. I see hatred and assumptions. I am sure there is some good out there but Facebook must be prioritizing my feed to hide some of that.

I am grieved. I feel as though I have lost friends over the course of the year. Some of them don't even know that I have been hurt by them. And from what I have seen them post, I don't think they would care. I have read so many things that state "If you believe X then <enter some comment that makes it clear they don't want to be your friend or be around you.>"  I have to ask myself if they would have said that to my face if I told them that I believe X? Would they have used the same tone? Would they have thrown out our friendship because I didn't agree on one point?  I have a few friends that I think are great at handling differences of opinion. They ask questions and try to understand my point of view and try to explain their point of view but do not require me to change my mind to be their friend. One of those friends passed away several years ago and I deeply miss her. I find myself thinking of her during this time. I am certain that she would have been kind enough to explain her thoughts to me without belittling me or throwing away our friendship.

My mom taught me "agree to disagree". I thank my mom so much for teaching me that. What happened to that? Why are we not teaching our children that it is okay to have different thoughts on a subject then your neighbor, then your brother or sister, then even your spouse and still live in harmony? Why do I have to "hate" someone if I don't agree with them? Mask wearers seem to "hate" those that don't wear masks and vice versa. Again, I know there are exceptions to this but if a person from the future were to use my feed on Facebook as a snapshot into what was going on at this time in history... OH MY!

As if the hatred and disagreement over COVID-19 weren't enough, enter the horrific events surrounding George Floyd. According to my Facebook feed, it appears if you love a police officer you must hate the black community and vice versa. Somehow I have managed to love both but according to what is put in my face each time I turn on the computer, I am being told by both sides that I don't love them somehow.

Years ago, I heard a sermon on evangelism. It was pretty profound in that I came away knowing that in order to talk to someone about your side of the story (in this case the gospel) you have to do two things first and if you don't do them, your effectiveness will go down. First, you need to LISTEN. You need to listen to what the other side says. Second, you need to LEARN.  You need to learn the beliefs of the other side. Using the gospel as an example, how can I effectively explain to a person why I love the Lord and how Christ will help them with their fears and struggles if I don't know first what their fears and struggles are? If I approach someone and say that they need to talk to Christ because He can break the chains of addiction and the person does not have a problem with addiction, will they see their need for Christ or will they think that is great for the person that needs that help?  What good does it do tell the wealthy bazillionaire that God will provide what they need when they currently seem to need nothing?  No, first you need to listen and learn.

We all need to apply that on Facebook. Instead of name calling and vehemence, we need to listen and learn. Then we can explain why we have a different view and teach the other side who is hopefully listening and learning. Does this guarantee that anyone will change their mind? NO. Should it? Not really. Some may be swayed to the other side. Some may at least with education and the hearing of the other view points have empathy and compassion for the other side. Some of the hateful comments might be softened and people may learn to "agree to disagree."

Something else that I wish I would see more of is another thing I learned in therapy over the years. I think the world could benefit from is using "I statements" instead of "You statements". "I feel...." instead of "You are..." "You statements" put a defensive wall up immediately for the other side. It shuts down the desire to listen. I would love it if I could see more people implement that simple change in the way they speak. I feel like it would help those around them to not feel as attacked. I see so many comments that start "You people that believe X..." If you believed X, wouldn't you feel defensive and less likely to listen to what the person was trying to say if that is how the conversation started?

I have said a lot about Facebook. Facebook is a cesspool these days and most would not deny it. But let's look at the news. If you only read ONE news source or only sources that lean one way, you will not ever learn what the other side thinks. Now, I will be honest here, due to anxiety issues, I don't really read the news at all -- from either side. But, God has blessed me with a husband that does. He reads the news and then he researches the sources to find out what side the lean to and what they believe so that when he reads he knows the frame of mind the article is coming from.

Recently he came across The Dispatch. They advertise themselves as, "Fact-based reporting and commentary on politics, policy and culture – informed by conservative principles." THIS is what fits a lot of our family's needs for news. It is a paid subscription but it is worth every penny. It is conservative leaning and we know that. But they have actually disagreed with conservative agendas when the facts support doing so. They reference liberal ideals that facts support. Nothing is based on conspiracy or who pays to get their side heard. It is good old research based, fact checked, news. They have even admitted when they don't have enough facts to make a decision one way or the other.  He sends me articles from them a lot. 

I honestly don't trust CNN, NBC, ABC, FOX, and the others. The agendas are clear and I don't see them admit that the other side could be right on anything. Enter the next thing my mom taught me, "Always leave room to admit when you are wrong." I have learned nothing heals a relationship faster than a sincere "I'm sorry." And nothing serves to divide the sides farther apart than "I told you so." When news sources make mistakes I don't see them admit the mistakes I see them point the fingers in other directions. Maybe it is time that we all start to refuse to listen to them if they won't admit when they are wrong.  Why do I mention this part at all? Well, because these same people that I see on Facebook being so hateful and mean also seem to always post links to one source or a couple sources that only ever seem to reinforce their echo chamber. 

And that, my friends that have stuck with me this far and this long in this rambling post, is what I have concluded Facebook is right now. It is the place to find your echo chamber. I can put my views out there and I can quickly find those who agree with me. I have posted things and watched as comments got heated from those disagreeing and it has sadly made me feel good to have some people agree with my points and defend my side. I say sadly because sometimes the comments that people who agreed with me were things I would probably not have said myself but I was glad someone was saying them. Why is this an issue? Enter MOM (I love the things my mom taught me...)... "If you would not say something to someone's face, you should not say it at all." Facebook allows us to say things to their screen that we still would most likely not say to their face or at least not with the same tonality that we type it. Or would we? It is hard to tell these days. The world is different. In some ways it is different for the better. In some ways, it is much, much worse...

This has been more of a brain dump of thoughts than a post. But when I saw the meme I mentioned above I thought I needed to say something. I needed to put some thoughts down that I could refer to later. Mr. Rogers stood for kindness and love. I believe that many of the things I mentioned here that my mom taught me, Mr. Rogers probably also said or would agree with. I feel like 2020 so far has not been a time of everyone coming together to show love and compassion for their neighbor but instead has been a time to further divide sides. Not that I am at all surprised. The Bible said this would happen. I just hoped to not see so much of it in such a short span of time.

What saddens me even more is that a large number of the comments I mention above are being made by those who profess the faith. We are supposed to be showing love and compassion towards others, but if you look at my Facebook feed, you would not see that playing out. The hateful comments are coming from both sides and in some cases they are worse from the ones that are supposed to be showing love in way that shows the love they have been shown.