Ass/u/me

I have a little experiment. To start, please answer the questions below.....

A. Who is this?

 B. Who is this?

 C. Who is this?

 D. Who is this?

 E. What do you think the story is behind this house?

 F. If you saw someone driving this? What would you be thinking?

G. Who's this? Would you befriend this guy?

 H. What is the story with this trailer?

 I. Who is this? 

The reason why I've randomly selected the pictures above while adding questions is because I was curious about your first impressions. (Not that I can see them) However you can share by commenting afterwords. So this little experiment is just for you - unless you're interested in sharing. Here are the answers for the above following pictures. A. This man is a hard working single father. He does everything for his five little children. B. This sweet Grandma went to jail for murdering her whole family. C. This man is homeless. However he's not drug addicted. He served our Country and has post traumatic stress disorder. D. Jeeze - that's me! I have sixteen children. I was a first aider, I can save your life. I home school. I write. I advocate. E. The owner of this house is bankrupt. It's seized by the bank. F. I would drive this truck as is. In fact, it's a work project. G. This guy is a heart surgeon. I hope you would befriend him. H. A millionaire lives in this trailer. He travels the world and supports several charities. I. This lady is indeed a defense lawyer. However she keeps nothing confidential. She's opinionated. Judgmental and arrogant. You can't trust her. 

Our society is so quick to assume. Every weekend lately my husband takes five of our sons skating. Something to do during the colder weather. Today he was told in front of our children that there is funds available for your foster family to skate. I can see why someone would propose this. My husband is dressed in his work clothes that are stained, they have holes (for extra air conditioning) he drives our old beater green 1995 ford van with 400,000 km and our children have different colored skin. Of course......we indeed fit that profile. I suppose it was thoughtful to mention we could get funding for the $15.00 dollar cost for our children to go skating. What bothers me is the lack of common sense. Five of our sons was standing there with their father excited to go skating. In front of our children someone has to comment....just automatically assuming we are poor, and we are a foster family. Some of us believe we are living in an accepting, non-judgmental world, that's definitely not the case. This world, "our society" is so judgmental. Guaranteed most people wouldn't want to befriend A, D or G but would letter B or I in the pictures above. If my husband was wearing a suit (note - that will never happen, he doesn't own one) but if he was wearing a suit "lol" - I bet the funding proposal wouldn't have happened. IF all our children were "white" I bet the "foster family" comment wouldn't have happened either. Can I change this? I can't change judgments BUT I can educate and I can advocate. That's why I decided to write this little experiment. I can't stress enough to not judge a book by its cover. Don't judge a family by its color, by their size or by their clothes, or what they're driving. Don't judge. Don't assume. You know what they say about assuming right? You make an ass out of you and me. Ass/u/me and this has happened to us more then once. Hence why I have stickers on my van, why I started blogging years ago - why I advocate for difference. So when assumptions like this happen in front of our children, we are prepared for a sensible, and a more educational rebuttal. Concluding my husband today clarified politely that he didn't need funding for his children, "Thank you anyway"