My youngest daughter is so cute, she loves singing and loves being festive. When I put up the tree, she loved saying, "It's Christmas, it's pretty...." Her babysitter, a witness from my wife's hall, lives next door to a neighbor who put up decorations in the yard like I did in front of our apartment. When we leave her house, she would run next door to look at the "christmas" as she would say, "Look, the christmas." She also sings Happy Birthday a lot but I guess I never pay it any thought. I mean, why should I, these stupid rules are their stupid rules, not mine.
Well, evidently she has been singing happy birthday a lot at the baby sitters house too. My wife told me tonight that the babysitter told her that she sings that song too much and that my wife needs to get her to stop. The more she sings it, the greater the chance that the other kids will begin singing it. At least that was the babysitter's reason according to my wife. Then my wife said, "Well, I guess it is considered bad." Then I replied, "To who? I don't subscribe to the belief that birthdays are bad. Those rules don't apply to me."
The first question I asked was that if we (my wife and I) were both non-witnesses and our child was doing this, would she have said something to us about it? I understood that she does keep non-witness kids so surely there was the possibility that this could have come from one of them and/or that child's parents would find it cute that he or she sings the happy birthday song at two. My wife just simply said that all the kids she keeps but one has witness parents. Frankly, I thought she kept two kids who had non-witness parents but I guess not.
A lot was said and we even brought up the fact that she said nothing to me about it and that she too has a non-witness husband. I told my wife that I was not upset but that I would ask her how she would've handled it in the case of a child who had non-witness parents. If out of respect for her beliefs or the beliefs of the witness kids' parents, I would at least understand. However, how would I convey this to a two year old? What can a two year old possibly understand about respecting others beliefs?
I told my wife that she was free to handle this herself but also pointed out that if my child was singing happy birthday, I would not point it out as wrong because I think it is cute. My wife said that it is simply a song and therefore sees nothing wrong with it herself. When I asked her again how she wants to handle it, she said, "I'm just going to let it ride until September when I plan to put her in a regular daycare."
And there you have it. I won't say anything to the babysitter in regards to this incident since I do not want to do anything that may strain the relationship my wife and she may have. However, I have been a lot less subtle about what we do in front of her than I use to. I'm just simply tired of walking on eggshells around them people and am tired of not being allowed to be myself around them for my wife's sake. Especially since my wife just recently took my oldest daughter to a birthday party last Saturday and is going to allow her to go to another birthday party / sleepover this Saturday.
I can respect my wife's delimma in regards to wanting to be a witness on the one hand but wanting to live a normal life on the other, but I am not the witness, why do I have to tip toe around them like this? I don't! Therefore, I won't. I don't plan to go all out advertising everything we do around the other witnesses, but I am not planning to always watch what I say around them anymore either.