What we Really need is....

This is officially my 100th post... I was thinking all weekend about what I should say and to whom.

Initially I was going to tell you about my weekend from Hell but this morning a conversation with a crazy lady changed my focus. Here's what's really on my mind...This morning as I dropped the kids off for school I mistakenly involved my self in a conversation with a woman who was clearly off her rocker... She looked me square in the eye and said "this damn school need more male teachers, some of these kids be actin' crazy and need to git knocked out."

My first instinct was to ignore the hell out of her but something stirred deep inside and I found myself saying "What we really need are male role models in our homes.”

Oh My God!!!

You would've thought that I said "Hey Ladeeee Meet me round back I wanna show you something sexy" by the look on her face.

She was like "What You say?”

Now mind you… I am not what you would call a confrontational person. I’ll defend myself, the people I love, and my values but I don't go around picking fights or arguments with crazies.... I was for the first time in my life "stuck" – as Kat Williams would put it.

I stated my case, telling her that I didn't think that the problems is that there are note enough male teachers, but that there are not enough MEN in our children’s lives.. Real Fathers, Uncles, Brothers, or whatever... She looked at my hand and said, well You Aint Married either – as if it had something to do with “children needing to get knocked out”. I calmly advised her that I was indeed Married and she went on a rampage asking me what I know about things being hard, and what I know about trying to raise kids… I was blown away.

I was blown away to see that this woman who appeared to be “okay” had so much hurt and anger, But I think that I was most shocked to see that she just assumed that married women don’t go through the same things (perhaps to a lesser degree) than their single counterparts do.
I said again to her in a very firm voice that as women we can only do what we can do, we have to make certain that our children have stable relationships – even if it means that you have to go out to the PAL center or the Big Brothers/Big Sisters place. I told her that the lack of male teachers in schools is a problem that goes right back to the way we raise our children... our boys in particular. I apologized, saying that I have never been a single mother so I don’t know what it feels like to do it on my own, but I do know what it is to struggle. I know how it feels to want more for my kids than I can give or to want more for myself… She walked away mumbling something under her breath and that was it.