To Blog, or Not to Blog...that is the Question!

I haven't written on the blog for a while, but after someone in my ward did a wonderful post about her birth story with her baby, I felt like it had been awhile since I've really shared anything with anybody.

When I analyze, why that is, I have two reasons why maybe I don't share outside my family.

1) When I was 11, we lived in a small town and my mom homeschooled us, which marked us as weird and crazy for that reason alone.  Then she gave a Homemaking lesson about the Word of Wisdom and how she had been able to lesson the severity of illness through natural remedies.  Within 24 hours and on my 12th birthday, DCFS was on our doorstep with charges of neglect and child abuse.  Even after it was evident that we were in no way neglected or abused, they continued to harass us, until my mom told the caseworker that she knew that it was because someone was offended by her Homemaking lesson and had decided to sic them on us as a result.  Finally, after months of terrorizing our family, they stopped harassing us, but that extremely traumatic experience in my youth has led me to be more careful and less open about myself to the general public.  On the other hand, I am a very open person and it does make me happy to be able to share opinions and thoughts on a wide variety of subjects, so I should probably work on this.

2)  I don't want to offend people.  Too many people have the idea that "if you don't do things my way, you must think that I am wrong".  They get offended and don't want to be friends because they think that if I make different choices that I am judging their choices as being inferior, wrong, etc.  I had someone who visit taught me who definitely felt threatened by my choice to homeschool my children.  I tried to explain to her over and over that I did not feel that my choices were right for everyone, that everyone is different and is free to do what is best for themselves and their family, and that one choice that is right for one person is not necessarily right for someone else.  Aside from the moral choices of right and wrong, I really do feel this way!  I do not judge other people for doing things differently than I do them.  We are all different.  So, if I do something one way, it is not my statement that everyone else should be doing it too!

So, I think I am going to start blogging again......and hopefully, the real me will shine through.