Pet Peeves
One of my biggest pet peeves is when other people foist their ideas about money or time well spent on another person. I have a pretty good sense of myself; of what I like and don’t like. I like indoor activities, flat land, bleak beaches. I dislike outdoor activities, mountains, and heavily populated events or cities. If the idea being offered up is not an indoor activity (with few other people joining along since I don’t like crowded spaces) on flat land or a bleak beach, it’s just not likely that I’m going to enjoy it as much as the speaker. I think it rocks that they like X, Y, or Z, and I’m excited to hear about X, Y, or Z, even if it isn’t my cup of tea. It only oversteps the line when the person tells me that I would love it too.
What set off this string of thoughts? A blog post where the writer admonished those who don’t travel with their kids. She actually starts out the post stating that she hates people judging her for spending a lot of money on travel, but then she continues by judging everyone for NOT spending money on travel.
If they have money to purchase a new flat screen television, then they’re selfishly spending their money on a box they all stare at instead of filling their children with memories. Don’t they realize that travel makes families bond together, and physically moving to a different location is the only way to make families bond together?
It annoyed me.
I like traveling. Mostly. (I’m sort of a reluctant traveler; someone who prefers to be home but is happy once Josh has pried my fingers from the door knob and the trip is underway.) I like traveling with my kids. Meaning, if my kids weren’t like my kids, I may not like traveling with the small alternate humans in this theoretical situation.
But it stops there.
I don’t know if you travel with your kids the same way I travel with my kids or if you travel with your partner the same way I travel with my partner, therefore I would never recommend that you travel with your kids or partner. Because I have zero clue if you enjoy it or if it’s just a big stressor.
My only life recommendation is that you do what matters to you. And not tell other people that what works for you should work for them.
That’s my pet peeve of the day. What is yours?
11 comments
Along similar lines – other people trying to force me to (significantly) disrupt the schedule we keep with our kids and taking it personally when I choose not to do so. If my family is invited to your party and it does not begin until 6pm, if we come it will be brief. My kids go to bed early. They are happier and function better when they go to bed early. They are also young so I don’t think it’s that unusual. I have never asked a host to adjust the time of a gathering – no expectation that anyone accommodates our schedule – so I find it obnoxious when people take it personally that we leave early and/or expect us to stay out hours past our kids’ bedtime because this is something they do.
It’s weird how in order to countering judgement, people result to judging. I think it stems from being insecure in one’s decisions. They start by defending their decisions (fine and fair), listing all the reasons for their choices (also fine) and then jump into the judgement for why everyone else is doing it wrong (full stop; not okay). I suspect this blogger has doubts about her decisions. Otherwise she wouldn’t need to go to this 3rd level.
You’re right, everyone has their preferences. People use to make fun of me when I first moved West because I craved finding flat spaces. It was what I was use to and being so close to the mountains felt confining. There are other things now, but it always reflects back on those who are passing judgement.
I also love bleak benches. Missy and cold and grey.
Ha! I love traveling, with my kid. But we rarely go anywhere except to Chicago to visit family. Because my husband’s anxieties prevent him from traveling (although we did get to Memphis this summer for a weekend) and make him too concerned for me to take the kid anywhere on my own, we stay close to home. My pet peeve is having to accommodate other people. Why can’t I just be a selfish a-hole all the time? 😂😂😂
I used to engage in “you should do xxx” with other people. I meant it as encouraging, but apparently other people take it as pressure. And it was never judgemental – just mentioning something I thought would be fun or beneficial. But I don’t do that any more. And it’s hard for me to make my cringes remain inward when I see or hear parents doing stuff to their kids of which I don’t approve but is not immediately harmful. No one wants to hear it, so I keep it to myself.
My other pet peeve is a coworker who constantly tells me that my child will end up like her ill-behaved one someday. Maybe because we both have only children, born later in our lives, she thinks they’ll be similar. But that’s never going to happen, because my parenting and my child are nothing like hers.
Yeah. Traveling with MY kids is a stressor. We bond by reading books together, playing outside in places within walking distance of our home, and making things (with Legos or pencils or flour and butter and sugar). I like to travel myself, and may enjoy it with my children when they are older, but I think there are other ways at this point to broaden our horizons without breaking our budget and stealing my sanity
Christy said it well – it’s fine to justify your choices but starts getting weird when you think that’s the right choice for everyone.
I’m probably the annoying one to others in some ways – it annoys me when someone complains about how X is hard/ruining their life and then refuses to even contemplate obvious solutions to X.
When our twin boys were 3 and under, you couldn’t have paid us to travel with them! They both did best when on a regular routine and in familiar environments, so a “vacation” with them was no vacation. Consequently, we only traveled to visit family, and then as little as possible. (They are better now, at almost 6.)
I have friends whose kid(s)’ temperament is different and they enjoy traveling with them. Great! So much of what works for people depends on individual personalities of everyone involved.
Travelling is one of those things everybody is supposed to like so I quite like the fact you admit you are not too keen on it haha! I’m sure I have pet peeves but none are coming to mind at the moment. Well other than toilets that don’t flush.
Ha! I wrote a post last week about someone judging me for enjoying travel. People are never satisfied unless they are judging! I get enormous rewards from travel, and I love exploring by car. I have friends who would find that enormously stressful, so I would never tell them they “should drive” when they go to country X or Y.
So I agree with you. It annoys me too. I have a friend who is always trying to foist her ideas on me. When I said I had an idea for a book, she immediately transformed it into a child’s book and told me that’s what I should write. (Yeah, it’s exactly what I should write because I have so much experience with children and knowing what books they read!) Etc etc. I have another friend who thinks I like doing something for her, and justifies saying “you should …” by adding “because you love it” when that’s not quite accurate, but I’ll do it as a favour to her.
So I try to be quite careful with my language, and if someone has told me what they like, and asked for suggestions, I’ll say, “maybe you’d like X, Y or Z.” So if you love bleak beaches, maybe you’d like Iceland? (I grew up on a bleak beach. I understand the appeal.)
Yeah that makes sense. It helps to know yourself, what you like and dislike. I think that’s part of getting older and being better at saying no to things! My pet peeve is people giving me unwanted advice. I don’t mind the odd suggestion but sometimes they can be really pushy about something and it annoys me. My BIL keeps saying we should get a cat for instance. I’ve told him we don’t want any pets right now and even listed various reasons but he keeps bringing it up whenever we meet.
Planning our next family trip right now… If I knew a way to show you a picture without losing copyright of it I would show you what we looked like on a autumn beach this Sunday! It was exhilarating. I loved it so much I even approached the only other people on the beach to ask them to make a picture of me and kid. (She was a little annoyed, he was happy to snap and even took time to make a nice snapshot)
So yes to beaches, flat and empty land. (And also yes to mountains, strange foods, strange people)
I guess I like variety most of all. (I like thinking of travel so much I forgot my pet peeves)
Geez what a blog post that person wrote. I agree, just do what you like.