Kathleen's Blog

A post by a friend of mine the other day got me thinking… being the mother of a beautiful, little girl in a wheelchair, she asked parents to teach their kids to not stare and better yet, to walk up and say hello.  What a great lesson for the nightly dinners parents have with their kids.  Different doesn’t mean wrong and different doesn’t mean scary.  Having been “different” most of my life, I kinda’ think different is good.

After covering that with your children, I thought I might suggest another dinner table topic via this blog.  However, let me be the first to admit, I don’t know anything about raising kids. Ask me to analyze a Balance Sheet, prepare a Business Plan, arrange an international trip – I am your woman. But kid stuff – no, thank you! I’ll leave that stuff to the experts….

So this weekend… I was the recipient of a few stares while eating alone in a restaurant.  Alone!  Heaven forbid.  O M G!

But I think the most surprising and irritating reaction was from a family sitting at a table behind me. Apparently my actions were offensive.  I dared. To go to breakfast. In a restaurant. By myself.

When the little girl asked her mother why I was sitting alone, her mother’s response was… Pause For Effect…  “That poor lady doesn’t have any friends.”

Hey! Facebook says I have 455 friends!  Now I’d guess the girl was 8-10 years old.  Certainly old enough to feel sorry for me judging by the pitying glance she and her brother cast my way.  But what did that mother just teach her daughter? That sitting alone at a restaurant was a bad thing?   That people who are alone are lonely?  That in order to be happy she had to have people around her?   Honey, life doesn’t work that way.

Maybe I am being overly dramatic.  That little girl went back to picking at her Cheerios and promptly forgot about poor, little, ‘ole me sitting alone.  But what are we teaching young girls about being independent? And what are we teaching young boys about independent girls?

I don’t really cook, wasn’t in the mood for cereal and I wanted Eggs Benedict! But yup, it is just me (for now).  Is that soooo bad?

Now people may say I only have that view because I am independent. Or worse, maybe I am independent because I have that view? Who knows. But I certainly don’t think I am a horrible role model for sitting in a restaurant, eating my Eggs Benedict… alone.

love, me