I'm Thinking Happy

Don’t Yuck My Yum

This is an essay I wrote a few weeks back. I posted it on my Facebook so sorry to my friends who might be seeing this for a second time.

“Don’t yuck their yum.” This is something I’ve heard and said quite a lot while working with 3,4 & 5-year olds. The basic premise here is don’t make someone feel bad for liking something you don’t. Thinking about this along with my experience at GLW, (Girls Leadership Worldwide) on a larger scale had me thinking about America (stick with me here). And I think we are seeing a lot of adults, role models, “yucking each other’s yums”. I can’t log into any social media now-a-days without seeing someone post about how much they hate Hillary or Trump. I see how if anyone agrees with the opposing person they might as well click “unfriend” and move out of their life. So I ask you here, how does that help? If you speak of diversity but only when it suits you or your cause, what are you really saying? As a society we believe in diversity as a positive thing. No? We teach children to think and choose and be — for themselves. We tell them different cultures, faiths, colors, genders etc, are all valuable. Well I guess that’s what we teach our children but don’t follow as adults, huh? I see too many adults sit behind screens and blindly tell people they are wrong, stupid, disgusting and idiotic for simply having a different view. Following this example, should I “unfriend” all friends of different faiths because I simply don’t share the same views as them? That’s what people are doing regarding political opinions. Tell me, how this is different?

We teach our children if you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, don’t say it at all. Does that not apply to adults? Instead of preaching a party’s good points and educating those of a different view, I see too many people put down the view of others and saying some very not-nice things to be honest. And in doing that, how does it help? From the way I see it, it only causes people to feel ashamed and then angry, rebellious and secretive.

Why is it we don’t see someone with a different view as an opportunity to learn something new or to share your opinion with someone who hasn’t seen what you have? If we really accepted our differences couldn’t we use them to further ourselves rather then leave ourselves in a place of hate and anger? Put up your political party, don’t down the other. Anything bad your gonna say, we’ve all heard before. Besides, you’re not teaching me anything new, only that you know how to hate. There’s only so many times people can say Trump’s a racist and Hillary’s a liar. We get it. Move on.

This brings me to another point. A wise wise woman once said, “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” (Eleanor Roosevelt) Why are we talking about the way he talked and the way she looked? Why don’t we talk about the bill she wants to get passed and the jobs he wants to make? Let’s talk about these, not them. Let’s talk about what they plan to do and what we think they actually can. This isn’t middle school but gosh darn it, even in middle school when we elected a class president the candidates and voters behaved better. I’m just a 15-year old girl with an opinion, I ask you to read what I say and see if you can take anything from it, even if you don’t completely agree with me. But please, think before you post your next anti-post, or talk about your hate for a politician (which your child has never heard of but will go into school preaching your views about trust me I heard it all) and consider what I’ve written. Is what your saying really what you want to be saying? That’s all. Don’t yuck someone’s yum, especially if you’ve never tried their treat.

Thanks for reading!! I plan on posting again real soon about who knows what!?!

I’d would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this — whether you agree or disagree with anything I say. I always love a good debate 😉