Today Jung and I had a very unsettling discussion with another parent at our school. It seems that “she heard through the grapevine” some things which made her very upset and defensive. We tried to give her the straight story in contrast to the gossip that she had heard, but she was already too upset to hear what we had to say and the whole conversation ended when she said, “I’m done with you.” and stormed off, yelling over her shoulder, “Have a nice life!”

If you’re a regular reader, you know that we are very candid here about our opinions and feelings on many subjects. My brother-in-law was surprised how “brutally honest” (his words) I was in a public blog. We certainly do not think our opinion is the only one out there and one reason why we’re being public is to start discussion and debate on matters which are important to us.

This all falls apart when we find ourselves trying to help an angry person sort truth from fiction because of what someone else heard a friend say that we said.

We all played “telephone” when we were children. We know how the true message gets lost as it’s passed from person-to-person.

My request is this: if you read something that you think a friend of yours needs to see, please send them directly to our blog. If you or they then want to talk to us about what we wrote, we would welcome the discussion.

Talking about what someone heard someone else say that we said is a waste of everyone’s energy and emotion and can result in a severed relationship as happened this morning.

So please, be direct and honest with us just as we have been direct and honest about our experience. The question of how we want to raise our children is too important to get muddled by gossip, hearsay, and the resultant unnecessarily bruised egos and hurt feelings.

And to all of you who have stuck with our Soul Play Family 365 Experiment, regardless of whether you agree with everything we say or not, I give you my heartfelt thanks and gratitude. I appreciate the value of your time and attention and I am grateful that you have chosen to spend some of it on reading our blog.