When I was younger and at school myself I had my fair share of taunts in the playground, but as an adult with two children of my own I did not expect tobe subjected to such hurt yet again.
i am (or try to be) a strong women, but yesterday when taking my daughter to school it took ever ounce of courage to stand in the playground an wait until she had gone into her classroom.
As a mum with two children to get up and dressed in the morning, a dog to feed and walk before the school run, I am lucky if I get to grab a quick shower and a coffee, so I am dressed, presentable and my children are ready for the day ahead.
I have never been one to wear makeup on a daily basis, a dab of Vaseline on my lips is as good as it gets. That is just part of who I am, it has nothing to do with my eye condition.
But apparently it has a much greater bearing on my life and my capabilities as a mum than I had ever imagined.
My inability to see the importance of wearing makeup lead to me being hurt and upset by two women who should only be described as playground bullies.
Because what I lack in sight I more than make up for in hearing.
Within my earshot they stood chatting about “my poor children” “the state my house must be in” ” no wonder my partner isn’t with me anymore” ” what must it be like to have sex, with someone like that” (me that is)
Even writing this post I find the tears welling up again. I am me, a person, sight loss or no sight loss I have feelings and comments like this hurt, the most painful is my ability to look after my children.
I’m not a perfect parent, I don’t think such a thing exists, but I am a bloody good one. This isn’t just my opinion, this is also the opinion of family, friends and teaching professionals that have all come into contact with me and my children.
My children are and always will be my first priority, now you see I am feeling that I need to justify myself, because of these comments.
i don’t is the simple answer.
Being a VIP means that I often do things in a different way to others and it is with this blog that I hope to explain this to others.
My reasoning for telling you about this incident is to make you aware that little off hand comments said like this can cause great upset and hurt, even questioning a persons abilities and it doesn’t stop when you finish school, it continues throughout life.
I walked home from the school grounds in tears, then spent hours questioning myself, none of which I needed to do, but I did.
“spent hours questioning myself, none of which I needed to do…”. That’s right, it’s not your attitudes that should be questioned. As a psychologist, I thought that an overwhelming concern with the necessity of makeup indicated some basic problem of self-acceptance (or maybe just being overwhelmed by the pervasive sexism of our culture), and I was always a bit concerned about students who turned up for a crit at 9.15 completely made up (though I realised that it was sometimes because it was last night’s makeup and they hadn’t been to bed yet).
…and – I can’t resist saying this, though it’s ABSOLUTELY not the real point: all those pictures you put up on Facebook – they’re of someone else then? Because if not, I don’t see what they were going on about. Maybe they need their eyes tested…