Decency and Reason

I've written about this before in passing.

But I've had some interesting conversations lately. These have been with people who - on the surface - I don't seem to have a lot in common.

I've had chats with people I've known for 40-plus years from all the way back in Jr high, from online parenting or health groups in which I've been involved for over twenty years, some I know from proofreading one another's fanfic or attending University around 10-12 years ago, and those I've known for much shorter times. I know them online or in person or both, but the single thing we all have in common is that we're (now) between the ages of 30 and 60.

But today I was chatting online with another theater parent. On the face of it, we don't seem to have much in common, except kids who have performed in the same children's theater. She's religious; I am not. She homeschooled or private-schooled her kids; we're all public schools over here. She's a bit introverted, and I... am not, lol.

But we've known each other casually for years, and so when I sprained my knee (torn MCL, but not a total tear, thank goodness) she messaged me to offer a casserole or a grocery run.

Very kind, and I thanked her but said no, thanks, it's not necessary, but how kind, etc.

A chat ensued, centered on that one thing - the kids in performance - we have in common. And then she mentioned ADHD for one of her kids, which (at least) one of mine has too, and suddenly there was a whole new topic we can both talk about at length; neurodivergence in teen kids. And that morphed into educational systems and how Covid really messed with the kids (especially, in both our experience, the middle-school age group), and how hard kids of that age are on each other even before different brain wiring comes into it, and on and on.

And then we got to frustrations we have as parents, and that's where we really overlap. I'm frustrated with parenting groups that think every single thing (except their one pet topic, which is inviolate, and if you disagree even slightly you are evil incarnate) is on a spectrum. It's not the spectrum I disagree with, mind you; it's the One Pet Topic, as seen in one of the links above. She is frustrated with homeschooling groups; to her, the religious ones are frequently too closed-minded and the secular ones are often stridently anti-religion.

I said, "This is why you and I are friends. We have very little in common except children in theater (and, as I discovered today, children who are neurodivergent because self-diagnosis or parent diagnosis of ADHD is totally valid), but we get along because we’re both reasonable and decent people."

And she replied with, "It shouldn’t be so hard or unusual should it?! 😅"

No. It shouldn't. But it often is, at least in the US in our current political climate. People hear “liberal” and assume that we’re trying to get everybody to have an abortion or trying to get kids to “turn gay.” Or they hear “Christian” and assume we mean the kind of people who shoot up gay bars and ban books.

None is usually true.

As usual, both of those things are totally on the extreme ends of those beliefs. But they're just the really, really loud ones. Those of us (the much quieter majority) who’re just trying to do our best and be decent people never get heard because we are busy trying to be decent people instead of shouting about how other people are not.

And it shouldn't be so hard.

Most of the people I've spoken to on this topic (excluding online trolls because sometimes I get caught up in that) are reasonable, decent people.

And that's the important thing, isn't it? Because the other kind is exhausting.