people watching wednesday

I received a comment on my blog last week on my People Watching post. This post was about how you can perceive a person by how they shop for their food and what they buy to fuel themselves. (The comment has not been published).

The comment instantly made me feel awful, guilty and misunderstood. It led me into thinking how we can misinterpret people. We can believe they are something they are not.... by looks, by body language and in my case through the written word.

I know coming from a family with an overweight sister, a brother that was a bit slow, but not disabled in anyway, that people were quick to judge, to comment on us and to see us how they wanted to. Just because a person is overweight or they are less attractive then the person sitting next to them does not make them less a person. They have a heart, feelings and you will find they are the most beautiful people you will ever meet.

I worded something last week that was taken the wrong way. I was seen as judging others and not watching them. For this I apologise as this was not my intentions or is not part of me as a person.

We all like to believe someone else has the "perfect" life. Because someone walks around in the latest designer clothes, or a Mercedes key ring they are classed as well off; they have the money so they have the happy life. And the person who walks around in a comfy pair of trackies and an oversize tee shirt, (that is me today), they are classed as poor or average.

We were, and still are a family that was average, we struggled at times, but we never missed out on things. I do look at some of the things my mum did for us and I wonder how she did it. How did we go to every school camp, wear the surf jumpers and have nice shoes on? (Don't ask me why, but when I grew up, nice shoes were the thing)! We were always renting, never owned a property, until my mum was in her 50's, the last 5 years of her life. But people always perceived us as owning every property we lived in. I am not sure why, maybe it was because every house we lived in mum made our home.

They say every family has a dark child, and ours was my brother. He dropped out of school young, he mixed with the wrong people and got in trouble with the law. My mum did so much for him, took him under her wing and helped him build his life up. He has lived off welfare pretty much all of his adult life. Being a close family we would help him with his shopping as he would always buy for convenience. He would buy the ready made dinners. We taught him that there are meals he can make that are not only easy, but have plenty of veges and meat in them. He could eat well on a limited budget. Mum was English so she had some great ideas for dinners!

People judge people every day. They perceive us to be bad parents, good parents, people with the perfect life and the list goes on. No matter how we live, how we dress, how much money we all have, we are all people. We all have hearts, feelings and we are all trying to live the best life possible. We just have to have the confidence in our choices and believe in ourselves and know throughout life we will all be judged on our decisions we make and perceived as people we are not. I am far from being perfect, like most of you, even all of you, I am doing the best I can to be a loving mother to my children and to live the next chapter of my life.

My life has taken a huge change, one I am sure will shock some readers as I have been perceived as a person with the "perfect" life at times. I have made a choice that will change my life forever. One that I am sure I will be judged on; we are all entitled to our own opinions and perceptions.

To the lady who left the comment, thank you for opening my eyes to others' perceptions. It has been an interesting week to see how people watch others, even how they watch me. I have enjoyed having your comment in the back of my head, a comment that at first was perceived as negative is really a positive comment.

Taj was playing near a road this week. He plays there everyday. He hangs around the water tap down the beach and it is a couple of meters from the road. Two ladies walked past me, kept looking back at me and then pointed at him as to say that he is too close to the road. I was not afraid to tell them that I am a good mother and he plays here every day. "Don't worry I am not going to let him play on the road with the cars!"