Minding your own damn business.

Have you ever been in a situation where you are caught in the middle? And everyone around you is expecting you to pick a side?

There comes a time in your life where you begin to think for yourself. As a child, much of your thinking comes from your parents as you are still learning how to think and to reason for yourself. By the time I was a teenager I was pretty ready to make decisions for myself, however misguided and uninformed those decisions may have been. I made my own decisions, formed my own opinions, and began learning how to deal with those consequences.

By now I am pretty confident in myself to make decent decisions and make informed opinions about people and situations. HOWEVER, I do not feel like I EVER have the right to step into somebody else's life and tell them what to do, think, act, say or any other form of telling them what they are doing is wrong and that I have the correct way of handling their situation.

My parents have been divorced for almost two years now. They were separated for a year prior that that. The divorce was the right thing for them. They were both miserable, and are now happier now that they are no longer married.

The thing about the situation that infuriated me the most was how many time I, or my sisters, were approached by other people and told how horrible our mother was for divorcing my father. Or how my mother and all us girls were horrible people for the way we were treating our father, and that we should be better than that, and our mother was brainwashing us against our father.

These people had absolutely no right to say anything to us. They didn't live in our home. They didn't know what was going on between my parents. They weren't married to my mother or my father. They had absolutely no right to be saying anything about the situation! They weren't the children caught in the middle of an unhappy situation.

One completely misguided person had the nerve to tell my little sister that divorce was evil and if they had a choice they would make it illegal to get divorced so that my parents would have to stay together. So if both persons are completely miserable they should just stick it out? Even if it is having a hugely negative affect on their children? Um...No.

I am completely confident in the fact that my parents should have gotten divorced. It was the right decision for them. Now, I'm not blaming either parent for this situation. It was nobody's FAULT, it was just something that happened. I don't look at one parent as the instigator, we all know it takes two to tango. They both had their issues, and in the end everyone is happier the way things are.

I do NOT take kindly to people sticking their big ugly noses in our business. I don't care if you're my parent's cousin...don't sit there and rag on my mother or sisters about what they should or should not be doing differently. Don't tell my little sisters that we are horrible daughters for treating my dad the way you think we did. I don't care if you're my aunt or uncle...don't tell my sister that my mother or father is a horrible person for what they have done.

You have no right to say any of this. You have a right to your own opinion. You have a right to listen to one side of the story and think that's all their is to it. There are two sides to every story. In our family (2 parents and 7 children) there are 9 sides to the story. You cannot expect to now every facet of the situation.

I have my own opinions about my family situation. I have my own opinions about my mother and my father. I have my own opinions about their divorce, and I will voice those opinions when I feel necessary because I have a RIGHT to say what I think about our life. People outside of my parents and sisters, please,

MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS.