Thank you so much for enlightening me and for now making me consciously think about things like this

Just keep a open mind and watch first impressions...that child that is loud and having a meltdown in the store might not be just a selfish brat..but a child with autism..a child that is deaf...or any other number of things...the older man or middle aged man looking at your child..<not the leer..every mom knows the leer> might not be the creep you think he is but a child in a mans body..the teen walking thru the store with headphones on might not be all ghetto but blocking out sounds he can not stand..
As a mother with a autistic son I have to use the womens bathroom..slowly I am phasing hiim into the mens, but there is way too many dangers in there...please don't give me dirty looks or pull your little girls to the side and make snide remarks..we DO hear people..womens rooms have stalls, he is not crawling under them or opening up doors on people..you are *safe*...
If this Holiday season if everyone was a little nicer..if everyone had a little more tolerance..a little more understanding..IF you started it now and kept it up thru the year..what a gift that would KEEP giving...for years to come because your children will learn it from you, and they will teach their children...
Give to the shelters near your home..they are full of the mentally ill with no family or place to go..unable to take care of themselves to our societys standards, yet with little to no safety net..
It is so much more peaceful to be nice all year long...a longer wiser life we will all have..it is the practice that we must do to follow that path that is the hardest..

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"Cast upon this globe without physical strength or innate ideas, incapable in himself of obeying fundamental laws of this nature which call him to the supreme place in the universe, it is only in the heart of society that man can attain the pre-eminent position which is his natural destiny. Without the aide of civilization he would be one of the feeblest and least intelligent of animals.."
Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard