I am not upset by it or anything, I just wanted to share it. My daughter was at orchestra practice. There was a woman there who I had visited with before. The practice is at a church, even though it is not related to the church. It is a city orchestra and that is just where they hold practices. So I was visiting with this woman who I had known casually over the last couple years as our daughters are in this orchestra. I know her so casually that I did not know her name and I only remembered that she home schooled because I saw her daughter's doing their school work, so not really a relationship there. In the course of the conversation, I mentioned that I am returning to home schooling the next year. But I am a little worried about college admission and such. That is when she started to tell me that I should reconsider letting my daughter go to college. Basically, it seems that she feels a woman needs to live at home until she marries and then her husband can take care of her. She needs to learn how to run a household and not be exposed to the things that she will be exposed to at college. I wimped out on that and just said "my husband wants her to go to college." Anyway, I know this is how some people raise their children and that is fine. I respect other's rights to their religious beliefs but that is definitely not how I intend to raise mine.
Then the next bit of advice was, during all this, my 19 month old was running back and forth. Realize, the kids there practicing were on the stage but the parents and other kids were just milling around talking to each other and such. My 1 yr old would run to the bottom step, step on it, step back off it, and run back to me. But at one point, he went up 3 steps so I picked him up out of fear that he would keep going and run over to his sister in the orchestra. Like any other 1 yr old would do, he objected and tried to arch his back and let out complaints about it (but he cannot talk yet so it was babble) and I walked him to the back of the room..which was a huge room. We are not talking a small space, we are talking an auditorium for at least 1000 people. The same woman from above told me I need to spank him and if I don't, I will regret it when he is older because he will be out of control. Ok..he was not interrupting anyone. All the older people (adults and kids) were talking to each other. Why is it that my 1 yr old cannot say anything? He was not out of control, he was just complaining in baby babble. He was also arching his back trying to get back down, but I was not having any trouble holding him. He was not wailing or being disruptive or anything. I really do not like people who think children are meant to be seen but not heard, but seem to even in the seeing, want the small children to hold perfectly still. I almost said back "we don't hit our children, we have other ways to deal with our children" but knew it would be pointless.
Anyway, I just excused myself as the orchestra let out then and my daughter was walking toward me. So, just wanted to share what happened. No big deal, but I am sure I am not the only person to get such "helpful" advice from others.
