Missing an opportunity to make a difference

[Vallium]

Today I was at work, 

I saw this woman looking at sunglasses with her little girl, she very loudly proclaimed "You cant have that! You're a girl! That's for boys!"

Suffice to say I was internally enraged! Part of me wanted to say loud enough to hear "GIRLS CAN STILL LIKE BOY THINGS AND BE GIRLS!"

 

That sort of attitude, restricting your children from loving something they enjoy, simply because it's not assigned to their gender, is toxic! It's so awful and it made me sick to hear. A girl wearing blue spiderman glasses isnt suddenly going to become a lesbian or something...

Ive noticed when I get flashbacks of abusive behavior I observe from others, my skin starts to shiver, I get really anxious, I feel a sense of pain just seeing what that parent said to their child.

 

This isnt the only time,

Another time a man came in with a girl, presumably his niece, it was on Valentine's day, she wanted to buy her love interest something special. She tried grabbing teddy bears or candy or something, he insisted that that was an awful gift to give her male crush. Luckily when he asked both me and my coworker, who are male, if we would enjoy receiving such gifts, we both said we would love that. That kind of made him change his mind. But the entire incidence came off as aggressive, he was vert loud and forceful in what the girl should do, the girl seemed as if she was on the verge of tears...I got the impression that the uncle was a very forceful person. Overall, the incident gave me the same chilling feeling...and I felt like I really wanted to ask her if everything was okay.

 

So many other times passed with my guilty inaction...the woman crying as I walk past her, or the man I couldnt give money to. Things I couldve said or done to make a different.

 

Events like this frustrate me! I spend much of my time as an SJW would, complaining of the nature of the world, and yet when confronted in the real world with a problem, I am frozen silent, watching before me as something terribly wrong happens.

 

I only hope those children and people are okay in the end out there...

 

 

[FenrirDarkWolf]

Bystander syndrome is a scary thing, and I feel the same way at times.

[WileyWarWeasel]

Drop a stone into a rushing river...

 

[Mandragoras]

Do every little thing you can when you feel like you can do it.

It's hard, but hey, better a lot of little things than a lot of nothing.

[Gator]

or you can be like me and just go deaf to it because you know that if you actually do say something, all it will do is piss the parent off and start an unnecessary argument that you can't win, and then the parent's residual anger will carry over onto their child later at home and they'll probably just ramp up their nasty behavior tenfold in defiance because that's what being challenged by some random nobody tends to do to those kinds of people.

i mean, sure, if it's something really serious like physical abuse, call the cops or something.  but tbh i'm of the mind that telling someone who didn't ask me how to parent their kid only turns out badly for the kid in the end.

[Conker]

It's pretty remarkable how ingrained gender norms are, but then maybe it isn't. I don't know fuckall. My male cowworkers were giving me shit for going to a salon to get my hair cut because "men go to barber shops!"

Fucker, there's like one of those in this whole state. I'll take the local salon.

Plus the lady that cuts my hair is super cool.

[DarkShark]

I remember when I was little I saw some lady in a Hobby Lobby slap her son in the face, kid was just standing there crying

Every part of me wanted to go and throw her face into the concrete

Sad, though. Regret not helping that kid

 

[Wolflich]

13 hours ago, DarkShark said:

I remember when I was little I saw some lady in a Hobby Lobby slap her son in the face, kid was just standing there crying

Every part of me wanted to go and throw her face into the concrete

Sad, though. Regret not helping that kid

 

er, to be fair that probably wouldn't have helped anyway.

[willow]

Ahh yes, I've had very similar reactions at work as well. It really sucks, but confronting people like that more than likely wouldn't have a positive outcome unfortunately.

I once had a woman come up to me asking me to help her pick out toys for a kid's birthday. I think I asked her something along the lines of "what kind of toys are you looking for?" and her response was just "well it's for a boy so..". Part of me wanted to tell her how dumb and unhelpful that information was, but instead I was just like "well what do they like?"

 

people are dumb

[DarkShark]

1 hour ago, Wolflich said:

er, to be fair that probably wouldn't have helped anyway.

Would've helped me.

[WileyWarWeasel]

3 hours ago, DarkShark said:

Would've helped me.

Sometimes you must look beyond just helping yourself and help others by not helping them while saving an extra helping for those that want it.

[Feelwell]

On 7/30/2017 at 11:41 PM, Vallium said:

A girl wearing blue spiderman glasses isnt suddenly going to become a lesbian or something...

I've never seen a straight girl with blue spiderman sunglasses.
Just saying.

I've never seen blue spiderman sunglasses in my life.

 

Yea honestly it's a pretty ingrained trait passed from caregiver to ward, and kinda sucks.
Especially stuff like the whole blue for boys/pink for girls thing, which iirc started literally just as a ploy to market certain things more effectively by designating one colour as male, and one colour as female.

[DarkShark]

6 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

Sometimes you must look beyond just helping yourself and help others by not helping them while saving an extra helping for those that want it.

 

[Vae]

On 8/10/2017 at 7:54 PM, DarkShark said:

I remember when I was little I saw some lady in a Hobby Lobby slap her son in the face, kid was just standing there crying

Every part of me wanted to go and throw her face into the concrete

Sad, though. Regret not helping that kid

If you see someone abusing their kid, please just contact someone. Store employees. The police. Someone in a position of authority to actually do something about it.

If you take matters into your own hands to play hero, more often than not, that kid's just going to get beaten in private instead,
making it take longer before they can be taken out of that situation.

Authorities can get ahold of CPS and a number of other measures to stop violence on kids.
And while you might interject that one time, you're still a random nobody that has no power otherwise to make sure that kid's safe once they're out of view. Better to make sure that impact and that help is longer-term.

[DarkShark]

8 hours ago, Vae said:

If you see someone abusing their kid, please just contact someone. Store employees. The police. Someone in a position of authority to actually do something about it.

If you take matters into your own hands to play hero, more often than not, that kid's just going to get beaten in private instead,
making it take longer before they can be taken out of that situation.

Authorities can get ahold of CPS and a number of other measures to stop violence on kids.
And while you might interject that one time, you're still a random nobody that has no power otherwise to make sure that kid's safe once they're out of view. Better to make sure that impact and that help is longer-term.

 

On 8/10/2017 at 9:54 PM, DarkShark said:

when I was little 

I know exactly what to do now. I was just making a joke with what I said.

Les jus calm dow

[Augmented Husky]

Yeaaaah I remember this super traditional private middle school I went to where a significant amount of dudes called me gay seemingly just on the grounds that I gave a sincere "I don't have nor am looking for a girlfriend right now".....ok there are insults and misunderstandings among kids sure.....but for years ? 

Like....take a chill pill.....please....god forbid a guy shouldn't be hell bent for a girl

I've seen and heard other peeps like me just fake having someone they like just to shut up such interactions