Rain Posted February 4, 2023 Posted February 4, 2023 2 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said: @Calm ......... I would also like to apologize to the other sisters in this discussion for being short with you and not doing a better job of seeing things from your perspective. This last part for me is huge. I don't expect anyone to agree with me ever, but when I can tell people are trying to see things from my perspective it makes all the difference in the world. I get that they love me as one of Heavenly Father's children and are willing to try to see me as he does. I reccomend 7 Habits of Highly Effective People a lot for this reason. The other things in the book are good, but the way it talks about listening to others is one of the best things I have learned from a book. The scriptures talk about not judging, judging righteously etc and 7 Habits gives practical tips on how to do that. Please know that I am not saying that you, Grug, alone should read it (I happen to think everyone should). What you said in that last paragraph just reminded me of it. Seeing each other's perceptive moves mountains sometimes and definitely helps bring in the one. 3
Popular Post BlueDreams Posted February 4, 2023 Popular Post Posted February 4, 2023 5 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said: I took your advice and read back through the exchanges to see where the breakdown in the conversation happened and what my part was in causing or escalating this breakdown. Here is what I observed about what led to the breakdown in communication and my role in it: When I said that I was "absolutely certain" that the decay of the family was "absolutely catastrophic" to the lives of many teens I have worked with and that it was my opinion that women working outside of the home was a "major" contributing factor to this, I chose my words poorly. At least two posters jumped to conclusions about what I was saying and read things into my words that weren't there. My words were then mischaracterized and attacked with straw-man arguments by one poster. While I did my best to be civil in my response, I was regrettably a little bit short with him. Another poster then jumped in from left field and accused me of being sexist and making baseless claims. And couple other posters agreed with her and I came under fire from several directions. I then made the poor decision to point back to Calm's initial words in the discussion, in an attempt to try and get people to be more reasonable with me. In pointing back to Calm's words, I expressed an understanding of her words that she disagreed with. Calm responded and tried to set the record straight. In my response to her, I made a fatal error. Instead of accepting her explanation, I gave her some push back because I thought she was doing damage control and trying to distance herself from what she had originally said. This was wrong. In looking back over her words, I now realize that I didn't listen carefully enough to what she was saying. I had no right to make the assumption that she was trying to do damage control and should have accepted her explanation and let it go. It was wrong for me to challenge her explanation the way I did. Things snowballed from there when another poster came to Calm's defense and accused me of making misogynistic statements. While I again tried to be respectful, I was a little short in my response. Several posters jumped into the fray and also accused me of misogyny. I responded defending myself against this charge, which I consider to be false and offensive. The rest is history. @Calm please accept my sincere apology for how I treated you. What I did was wrong. I wish I could take what I did back. I take full responsibility for how I treated you. I'm truly sorry for any hurt my words and actions caused you. I would also like to apologize to the other sisters in this discussion for being short with you and not doing a better job of seeing things from your perspective. I appreciate this as well. I'm glad you were able to see some of your parts in this a little more Something to help a little bit, There were reasons that people were describing things as sexist/mysoginist as well. Since I was one, I'll try to help explain in a way that I hope is a little less confrontational. I knew that doing so often does not help conversations grow, but can shut them down into more defensive protective posturing. I've seen that happen more than once over the years on varying topics and still did it. For that I apologize. There are better ways to help encourage understanding on this, which I hope will come across in this post. It's important to note that the view your espousing, even when you tried to soften or make it less black and white, is not hypothetical or distant for most the people posting here. far from it. Think of it like when there's bad public news about an LDS family. Some people start talking about it and attributing the problems that went down in as connected to their religious affiliation. You've probably seen it happen, I certain have. And the response from us LDS folk who value our faith is instinctively to protect and defend and show that that's not a sure deal....because it's your people, your family, your values, not a hypothetical from a faith you have a vaguely negative bias towards. Around 72% of women with children under the age of 18 work to some degree outside the home. Which means just about everyone here will either be a working mom or be close to people that are ones. Most of us also really love our families and would define it as our highest priorities. I definitely do. My future children was the motivation for years of change, therapy, and healing I prioritized so that I could be prepared to be a good mom to them and not bring them the baggage that came from my family history. Speaking about this isn't hypothetical, it's not distant, it's deeply and profoundly personal....which means it can help to really be particularly careful when walking on people's sacred ground. My family and the balance I have here is sacred ground...the culmination of a journey I took with God for ~15 years to be able to get to this good space. Again, I'm not saying this to shame you and I'm grateful that you took the time to look back and introspect on what happened. I only want to help you understand that this is likely part of the reason people reacted as they did as well. With luv, BD 5
Grug the Neanderthal Posted February 4, 2023 Posted February 4, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, BlueDreams said: Around 72% of women with children under the age of 18 work to some degree outside the home. Which means just about everyone here will either be a working mom or be close to people that are ones. I appreciate you trying to explain your perspective. I actually completely understand why there are women (and a few men) who got really defensive over my viewpoint over the reason you mentioned here. Which is why I said that I believe that certain women felt threatened (maybe offended would be better word choice) by my views and got defensive. Like I said before, I don’t hold any malice over the fact that people got defensive and gave me push back. However, I consider the charge of misogyny to be false. Accusing a man of being a misogynist is highly offensive, especially when that man hasn’t actually said anything explicitly prejudiced towards women. So I hope that you and the other women who made this charge against me can understand why I was defensive about this. And I would appreciate it if the charge of misogyny is withdrawn. Edited February 4, 2023 by Grug the Neanderthal 1
Calm Posted February 4, 2023 Posted February 4, 2023 7 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said: please accept my sincere apology for how I treated you. What I did was wrong. I wish I could take what I did back. I take full responsibility for how I treated you. I'm truly sorry for any hurt my words and actions caused you. Apology is sufficient, no need to wish to take it back. You didn’t hurt me beyond some major frustration and then some minor anger towards the end. It wouldn’t be wise for me to post on the board if I was hurt by such things. All I ask is to believe me in the future that I don’t do damage control, as in try to make what I said into something else….too much work. I long ago learned it took less energy and had much better results to just admit if I messed up writing or reading something. Miscommunication is rampant on the internet and I have seen it happen constantly offline, so I start from the position I have misunderstood something or someone has misunderstood me and it pleases me when it appears I wrote a post that isn’t confusing. It is one reason why my posts are often long, in my head more detail means more understanding, but reality seems to often be more misunderstanding unfortunately. I am happy to clarify once, even twice, maybe more if it is just a conversation and not in an argument (debate type of argument, not fight type of argument), but anyone is going to get instant pushback if they insist they know what I meant better than I do, because that is just wrong. You aren’t the first, would be nice but unlikely for you to be the last. 3
MustardSeed Posted February 4, 2023 Posted February 4, 2023 For my end, my accusations using the word misogynistic are retracted. Thank you for being clear that the word itself is hurtful to you. I’m not married to the word. 2
Grug the Neanderthal Posted February 4, 2023 Posted February 4, 2023 4 hours ago, Rain said: Seeing each other's perceptive moves mountains sometimes and definitely helps bring in the one. I agree. Thanks for the thoughts.
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