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Today I saw someone tease someone else. And what they did was kind of mean. Although I don't think they meant it to be mean. I think they were just trying to be funny. It fell rather flat though and there was more then one person shocked by the behavior of the person doing the misbehaving.

I have noticed that people are often so much kinder to strangers then they are to their own family members. I know this to be true when it comes to siblings especially. But we tend to be nicer to someone we have never met before and rather mean to our brothers and sisters. I asked one of my kids why he was so mean to his brother. Now mind you this was a couple of years ago. But when I asked him this he said... "its my job and duty to be mean to my little brother." Now where he got this idea I will never know because I have been teaching them forever that it is wrong to be mean to anyone.

Lets face it though. The longer we live with someone the less we are polite to them. Even less of a chance of actually going out of our way to be kind to them. Now I know this doesn't apply to everyone. But most of us have to admit to not holding a door open for someone we live with when they really need it, or asking them if they need help, or getting them a can of coca cola just because we know they might want one. But if we are going to the store we might hold a door open for the next person or persons, we might actually ask someone if they need help reaching something and lets be honest... we might ask the guy selling us insurance if he wants a soda from the fridge. These are people we don't even know.

Now I am not saying we shouldn't be nice to others outside of our house. We should be nice to them. What I am saying is we should extend that courtisy to include the people we live with.

It seems though that the longer with someone the more we say things we probably shouldn't. We tend to think they will take it as we mean it. LIke we are just joking. But they might actually take it offensivly. We dont' take into concideration that some subjects for that person are off limits.

I take my kids jokes about my age with good grace simply because I know I can give it right back at them. Someday they will be parents too. And they will get it right back. I will sit there and smile and enjoy them getting picked on by their own rug rats. I will very much enjoy that. I don't know how many times I have heard my kids say I am so old I sat behind Jesus in the third grade. This is one very old joke to me. I hate to tell the main child that says this the truth. If it were true, what he says, that would make him almost 2000 years old because I was only 21 when I had him. rofl Joke is on him now isn't it.

There are subject that are off limits for me though. Like my white hairs. Yes I have them. Lots of them. But I hate to tell them this too. My father had them at the ripe old age of 16. But he also started loosing hair at that age too. And guess what??? Yup male pattern baldness is passed down through the mothers side of the family. Oh someone is screwed how! rofl I still don't want to talk about my white hairs that I try so hard to hide. crying Comments about my white hairs tend to make me really cranky. Sometimes down right witchy. My sons might even sub the w in witchy for a b. But I better not catch them at that either.

Anyway what I am getting at here, ladies and gents, is that we should try to be more sensitive, more kind and more polite to the peope right here at home just like we would be to some stranger. Better yet like we would be to someone we really respect. We should after all be respectful at all times even if someone doesn't really deserve it. Being respectful helps us to be respectable. Keep that in mind.

A more respectful attitude helps to make a happier home.