By Rogue Tantrums
Last week, my daughter asked me, “Mom, do you think you’ll ever get married?”
I said, “Maybe one day.”
Then she said, “I doubt you will. Men are idiots.”
I turned and looked at her as she sat on the floor in front of me. “Honey, don’t say that.” I said, “All men are not idiots.”
Without looking at me, she said, “Yes they are.”
“No. They are not. I dated Patrick and he’s not an idiot!” I said.
She asked me, “Then why did you guys break up?”
I told her, “Well…he just wasn’t a strong enough person for me. But that doesn’t make him an idiot.”
She then said, “Well if you’re a man and you can’t be strong, then you’re an idiot.”
I countered, “That’s not true. I also dated Cedric and he’s not an idiot.”
She asked me, “Well then why did you break up with him?”
I told her, “He just had anger management problems.”
Then she said, “If a man can’t control his anger, then he’s an idiot.”
I disagreed. I said, “No, that doesn’t make him an idiot. I dated Eric and he’s not an idiot.”
She, of course, asked, “Why did you break up with him?”
I told her, “He just wasn’t as understanding of my situation as I needed him to be.”
She said, “If a man can’t be understanding, then he’s an idiot.”
I stopped there. I was having a hard time arguing with her because the truth of the matter was that, I felt she made some valid points, but her mind was already made up, she wasn’t open to hearing that a person’s flaw doesn’t necessarily make them idiots.
I was also feeling a little sad, because I wasn’t able to sustain a happy relationship long enough for her to see things differently. Mostly, my pre-teen daughter has known her mother to be out of a relationship more often than she was in one. And here she was, jaded by men through second hand experiences with them.
I’m not a male basher, nor do I condone my daughter being one, but when I look at the history of men and women, it’s the funniest thing…it appears that there is no level of love that prevents people from either trashing or stepping out on their relationships. In my Black Family class I took in college, my professor had a theory that it’s not love that binds a marriage, but respect. The idea is that people fall in and out of love with each other all the time, and that being in constant love is not very realistic, but that if two people have a mutual and genuine respect for each other, their relationship can endure the inevitable strains of marriage.
How many of us actually respect the people we are with? I’m not talking about that three-month good behavior at the beginning of every relationship. I’m talking about pure respect for another human being who has entrusted you with their heart? Some of us who demand to be respected have to take a hard and painful look at ourselves and decide if we have even earned it. Do we respect ourselves? Do we respect other people?
When a person only takes, inventory runs low.
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