The Universal Language

No - not love. Or math.

On this blog site, you can see the countries where someone has read your blog. I happen to look tonight and saw that I had readers in United Arab Emirates, Russia, Germany, and Pakistan. I was surprised. I mean, it was just one or two people in each place, but still, they were reading it. Then it got me thinking about how crazy it is that there could be some nice Pakistani mom reading this and thinking...ooh, that crazy little Charlotte. Weird. That then led me to think about how parenting is pretty much the universal "language."

You can be at the park, someone's kid might fall down and you will immediately (at least I will!) go and help them. The parent won't (hopefully) give you dirty looks or think you're a perv, they'll just be thankful and go to their kid. They get it. They're a parent. You can be walking around in a store and go past a mom and her child, who is screaming his head off in the cart. You and that mom can just exchange a glance and she hears you saying "I feel your pain" although neither one of you has said any words. When I think of a parent in another country, who might not speak English (but obviously does if they're reading this!) reading this, I can just imagine their child throwing the equivalent to a bagel down their toilet and being able to sympathize with them with just a look.

Before I was a parent, I would be so incredibly nervous about every social situation. Meeting new people, going to a party, attending some event. I would stress about every new person I might meet and what we could talk about and get sweaty hands and get so uncomfortable worrying about just a conversation that might happen. Now, when I meet new people, a lot of times they're parents and we ALWAYS have something to talk to each other about. I'm pretty sure we could talk for hours and hours and never run out of things to talk about. (That might just be because we never get through a whole conversation because we're chasing after our kids.) I might not actually like or enjoy every parent I meet, but we can certainly understand each other. So I could probably meet a Pakistani mother and her kids and not worry at all that it might be awkward simply because we're parents.