This weekend we had the annual Secret Santa party at our house. It wasn't our weekend to have my stepson Jacob so on Sunday morning I went to go get him, so he could attend the party.
On the way home, he asked some of the strangest questions. First, he asked if his little brother could come. Of course he's coming, I responded! He lives with us. I then wondered why he asked, did he think that kids just get arbitrarily left out of half of all the things their families do?
Then when we got to the house, he asked if he could come in! Of course, I responded! It's our house, your house! Then I wondered, what did I do to make him feel not welcome?
So we're inside and I'm recounting all these strange questions to my mother-in-law, wondering what in the world I've done wrong as a parent, when Jacob spots the cooler full of sodas and beer and says "The party is here??"
You see, it had never occurred to me to tell him that the party I was taking him to was at our house. So here I am wondering about all these deep things like kids growing up with two homes, four parents, parenting styles, etc and the whole problem was a very basic lack of information!
So next time you're talking to someone and you're thinking "they just don't get it!", maybe it's time to stop and go over the basics. They just might not have that really basic and really vital piece of information that you are assuming.
Your posts are a most welcome and hearth warming diversion over all the “me this, me that” stuff on planet gnome.
I think that the subject you’re talking about is related to the “false consensus effect”. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consensus_effect
For more info, try:
http://www.psych.nyu.edu/oettingen/KAWADA2004PROJECTION.pdf
HTH, Jaime 🙂
Hi Stormy
I’ve stumbled across your blog and as part of my NYE resolution I am going to comment more and lurk less. I enjoyed your post about people having the basic information and I think that this is also true for me. I think I have so much stuff in my head that I sometimes forget that everyone else is not up with what I am thinking! It’s nice to read your posts and I will pop back in from time to time to see what is new.
Kind regards
Helen
Helen, Yep, we have so much in our head, it’s not only hard to remember that everyone doesn’t know what we’re thinking but it’s also hard to know what we know that they don’t. To use the popular expression, it’s hard to see the air you breath!
Hello. The picture that you used for this blog entry is a picture of my grandchild and it IS copywrited. Please take it off your blog. Thank you.
I’m sorry I used your picture in a way you didn’t wish. I’ve removed it.
However, you should change the license on Flickr. It is copyrighted by you (everything you create is) and you have licensed it under a Creative Commons license on Flickr, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en.
The license you picked allows others to use it in their blogs as long as they say it’s from you. Which is what I did.
To change the license, go to the photo page on Flickr, and under additional information, where it says “Some rights reserved”, click on edit and pick a license that works for you. It sounds like you want “All rights reserved”. You can also edit the license for all your pictures at once, I think, but I’m not sure how to do that.