{"id":7155,"date":"2009-09-16T20:35:20","date_gmt":"2009-09-17T00:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/?p=7155"},"modified":"2009-09-16T20:35:20","modified_gmt":"2009-09-17T00:35:20","slug":"like-minded-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/like-minded-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Like Minded Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

Connie is a Christian homeschooling mom of seven noisy kidlets, wife of one hunky golf pro, maker of aprons, teller of stories, wiper of noses. It’s a wonderful life! You can find her at her blog Smockity Frocks.<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Several years ago, when we had moved for my husband’s new job and were expecting our fifth child, I found myself in a small town, away from friends and family.<\/p>\n

We didn’t know anyone in town who homeshooled or had a large family. None of our new friends or acquaintances understood why we chose to live the way we did.<\/p>\n

That’s about the time I discovered something called “blogs”. In a moment of loneliness, I had Googled “large family, homeschool” and stumbled upon Amy’s Humble Musings.<\/p>\n

I was thrilled that I could read about the daily happenings of a lady who seemed just like me!<\/p>\n

Christian? Check. Homeschooler? Check. Large family? Check. Republican? Check.<\/p>\n

Soon, using the checklist I had formed, I found more “like minded” blogs and I felt like I had a little online community of friends who were just like me in every way.<\/p>\n

What I didn’t realize, though, was my little community was making me a snob in my real life. Whenever I met someone new, I would go through the check list in my head, and they would undoubtedly fall short in one or more areas. I would mentally keep score and whine to my online community that “like minded friends” were SO hard to find.<\/p>\n

This snobbery of mine was so insidious that I didn’t even realize it was happening. I just kept wondering why the internet <\/span>was the only place I could find anyone to live up to my narrow standards.<\/p>\n

It never crossed my mind that I was searching the entire world<\/span> over and only coming up with a handful of people who could pass my checklist.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I kept holding real life friends at a distance. If they were Christians who had a large family, but didn’t homeschool, I didn’t think we had enough in common to really <\/span>be this thing called “like minded” that I had elevated to a position of utmost importance.<\/p>\n

If they were homeschooling Christians who only had two children, I would lament the fact that we were so… so… DIFFERENT.<\/p>\n

Then, one day and a couple of children later, I started thinking about the fact that my grandmother only had three children. And she thinks homeschooling is, well, kinda kooky. And she is a DEMOCRAT!<\/p>\n

And I still, like, LOVE HER a whole lot.<\/p>\n

And she still loves me even though I’m kinda kooky and Republican.<\/p>\n

That’s when I realized that I was missing out on a whole world of wonderful friendships because of my exclusive checklist.<\/p>\n

I suddenly saw so many people around me who were different, but not really so different after all. Most moms I know want the best for their children. They may take a different approach than I do in the daily details, but we have the same desire.<\/p>\n

Most people I know want the best for our country. Opinions vary, but mostly nobody wants us to destroy ourselves from within. Again, the same desire.<\/p>\n

I found that I don’t have to agree with someone on every point to be a friend. I can celebrate our likenesses and let the rest go.<\/p>\n

The world is a much friendlier place now that I use the internet, not as a way to exclude, but as a tool to gather information and communicate with others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Connie is a Christian homeschooling mom of seven noisy kidlets, wife of one hunky golf pro, maker of aprons, teller of stories, wiper of noses. It’s a wonderful life! You can find her at her blog Smockity Frocks. Several years ago, when we had moved for my husband’s new job and were expecting our fifth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[323,1604,1744],"class_list":{"0":"post-7155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-journal-journal","7":"tag-blogging","8":"tag-internet","9":"tag-like-minded-blogging","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}