Changing for the Better; Write Every Day Challenge, Day #23

Wow.  It's been over a week since I've posted.  I can explain, I promise!  My last blog post (Day #20 of my Write Every Day Challenge) was on October 4th.  I wrote on the side for the next two days (Day #21 and Day #22).  Then I got sick.  So I'm counting that seven days as a sick week.  People get sick weeks, why can't I?  ;)  So today will be Day #23.  I've realized over the week that I just don't have that much to blog about, since I don't have any type of theme except for my (obviously failing) Write Every Day Challenge.  I know that I will be writing (hopefully) almost every day during November for NaNoWriMo, but as far as this blog goes, I don't have much to write about.  So I think I'm going to introduce some types of mini-themes that I've seen other bloggers use, like "Friday Five," etc.  (I just found out the word for this is "meme" - at least, that's the closest thing I'm finding to answer my Google question "What do you call things like Friday Five?")  But I will start that on another day.  

Today I had planned on writing a whole rant about the MTV show Teen Mom, the spin off of MTV's 16 and Pregnant.  I was initially drawn to 16 and Pregnant because at the time of the initial airing of it's first episode, I was almost 7 months pregnant myself.  I wasn't anywhere close to being a teen, but I thought that it would be interesting to see these girls' stories and how they compared to my own.  Around the same time, the show I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant was showing it's first episodes, and I watched a couple of those, but they ended up kind of freaking me out more than anything.  (As any pregnant woman will tell you, the impending labor and delivery is the most nerve-wracking part of being pregnant - or at least that was my experience.)  So 16 and Pregnant it was.  

I saw so many things in those shows that made me cringe, made me almost cry, made me laugh.  When the spin off, Teen Mom, aired, I was excited to see the continuation of the stories of Maci, Catelynn, Amber, and Farrah, but mostly, I was excited to watch as those adorable children grew!  When the first episode aired, my son was just 3 months old, and the children on the show were several months older, but I was still interested to see their milestones, triumphs, and cute little failures.  I knew that it was the drama surrounding the young moms and dads that drove the show, but I continued to watch.  Then I started getting angry at the people on the show.  I started judging them left and right, finding faults in their parenting styles, and using not-so-nice adjectives to describe them to my husband, who does not watch the show.

With the impending season 2 finale, I found myself thinking, "I finally have an idea for a blog post!  I can voice my opinions of these people!"  I was planning on talking about each mother in turn, and rant about the things that made me crazy about each one.  In all fairness, I was going to commend each of them on certain things as well, but the main gist of my post was going to be pretty negative.  

And then I realized, this is not the point of my blogs.  Many of my previous blog posts have been about love, about equality, and, most importantly to me, about kindness.  These are the things that I believe in more deeply than anything.  And for me to write a blog, pointing out the faults and errors of others, is simply wrong.  It's not this blog, and it's not me.  But I know I'm not perfect.  I've judged a lot of people.  I've said unkind things about a lot of people in the past.  And I also know that, in the future, I'm sure I will say more unkind things.  But I will definitely try not to.  I am constantly trying to better myself - trying to be a better person.  And I will continue to try to be kind to everyone.


It's funny, because I thought about writing the ranting post a couple of days ago, thinking that I would write it after the finale.  Then, before I had even watched the finale I realized my mistake.  Then, today, I was planning on writing this blog post.  This morning I watched yesterday's episode of Ellen.  Perez Hilton had asked to be able to come on her show (she was not a fan of his - she thinks of kindness as one of the highest virtues, too) so that he could let everyone know that he is in the process of changing his blog.  He realized, in the wake of all the teen suicides, that he is a bully, and that his blog was wrong.  He admitted his errors and pledged to change, not only himself, but his blog as well, for the better.  And it made me realize how right I was to not write a blog post full of rude comments and harsh criticisms.  And I wish Perez Hilton and his blog all the luck in the world.  Maybe more people will come to realize how hateful and harmful they are being, and try to change for the better.