Hiphop Grandmom had asked me to write about beliefs that I held when I was younger that have changed with time. Believe me HHG, I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to that. Well here are beliefs which have changed.

1. When you love somebody, you must share all their interests. Well, that is one notion that I know for sure is no go! I realise now that any 2 people in a relationship that grows, will have different interests (this applies for all relationships—life partners, children, friendships) and not sharing the other one’s interests is fine as long as each respects the other and his/her interests. [I should add that, in my view, mutual respect is the most essential feeling for any kind of relationship to prosper.]
2. When you are married, you must tell your spouse everything. That was one of those things that I thought too. But now I know that many a time, there is no need to share everything with your partner. Certainly there are secrets that other people might share with you and sometimes things that happen in your life, which don’t really need to be shared.
3. When you loved somebody, the relationship just grew with no effort on your part. Well, I’m sure all of you married people out there know that is just not true. No relationship can be sustained without effort. I’ve had a young person argue with me “ But how can that be true love, when you have to put in effort? Doesn’t it just mean you are trying to stay together just because of inertia without any love?” Well that same young person is now married and I’m sure realises the truth of this statement, mainly because we are never always ‘in love’ with the people we love.
4. If you were a good parent, your children should never question you. Well that for sure I know is not true. I don’t know how good a mother I may have been. But I now know that my children questioning me when they were growing, didn’t necessarily mean that I wasn’t being a firm mother, nor that I was a bad mother.
5. Being loyal to friends and family meant never admitting to their faults. Now I realise that is not necessarily so. Yes one can defend one’s family, but admitting they have faults to someone else who has their interests at heart too, isn’t being disloyal.

Most of my other beliefs I still hold to, like:

1. War never solves anything. I still feel that, stronger than ever. The only case where I couldn’t come up with, in my mind, a satisfactory alternative, was in the case of Adolf Hitler, unless something could have been done in Germany before he came to power.
2. Non-violence really does pay, when you are ethically in the right.
3. Money most certainly doesn’t give you happiness.
4. All people are equal, whatever race, religion or socio-economic background you come from.

I hope this is what you had expected HHG. I would like to hear what Eve at Eve’s Lungs has to say to this as well as Geets.