Whose Model of the World are you deploying?

I remember the first day I posted a picture of my seven-year-old son. Someone crept into my inbox to ask the following questions.

Human: I didn’t know you had a son outside wedlock.

Me: oh really?

Human: What. When? What happened?

Me: What happened that what?

Human: That you got pregnant?

Me: What part of the post mentioned pregnancy and delivery?

Human: But you called him a son?

Me: Yes. Does son mean only biological? Does it mean I experienced pregnancy? What if I adopted? Or inherited him?

Human: Silence. Well if he isn’t your son, then why call him a son? What if interested single men see it and get discouraged?

Me: I can’t remember discussing my relationship status with you so how did you arrive at me being single? Or single and available? BTW, any man who can’t date a woman with a child should move on.

Human: Silence

Me: Any more questions, please?

Human: Long silence

Lesson it for me is, we are all swimming in a massive sea of human beliefs, ideas, and practices. Some are beautiful and bring joy; others are unnecessary, limiting, and sometimes even crippling. These mass of human thoughts—what I call the culture scape—completely saturates and influences our lives (Lakhiani, 2019).

The culture scape sets up rules on how to love, how to eat, how to marry, how to get a job. It establishes benchmarks to measure your self-worth. If you are good enough without a college degree, marriage or kids?

The soul in question was ready to make me feel not good enough for having a child outside wedlock. She presented the morality report card immediately she saw his picture.

The next time you feel tempted to extinguish someone’s joy, check your culture scape. What are you measuring humans against or comparing them to? Whose model of the world are you deploying?