Who is Policing Your Life?

Our society is, sad to say, one filled with various life police who try to dictate every aspect of your life. You know the kind I mean: family members who tell you that you cannot major in a certain degree in college that will lead to your perfect dream job, or invest in something that requires time and money. After all, anything that requires the latter would take away valuable time from your family. Having experienced a lifetime of such police, below are a few definitions of who they are, and what they police:

Pregnancy police. The only reason this appears at the top of the list is because we live in a highly pro-natalist society. The pregnancy police are usually middle-aged women with children who prey upon much younger women who have yet to be in a solid relationship, and tell these young women they "need to have children." After asking this question on Yahoo! Answers myself with an overwhelming response of "No" by 100% of the recipients, I was not surprised by the answers (it was difficult to select just one out of the many responses). If you are married, and the pregnancy police person is someone you do not know well, you can respond using either "I'm unable to have children" or "Cancer did a job on me and left me unable to have children." The truth is, it is nobody's business if you do not want to have children or not. Just because the media tries to push pregnancy into every female face in America (the proof is at the grocery checkout lane with celebrity magazines announcing who is about to give birth, or who just gave birth, on their covers as you unload Brussels sprouts and lamb chops onto the conveyer belt). There is also a variation of this type of police I call the marriage police, who usually tell young women who are not yet married to get married. It does not matter if they guy they are marrying is not one they love. To the eyes of these police, you have to do it simply because they think you should do the same thing they do.

Buying/purchasing police. These are the men and women who are either standing behind you in line at the checkout counter in a store (it does not matter if it is the grocery store, drugstore, or in my case, the fabric store) and comment, "You should not be buying that." To share my story, it was at Joann Fabrics in the morning one day when I went in to buy a package of earring backings a week before Christmas, and having not eaten supper the night before, pick up a candy bar and place it on the counter, just to hear a tittering voice behind me say, "No willpower", in my direction. That was a rather long line, and when another employee opened up the next register and called me to ring up my order, the tittering voice physically followed me and the employee who addressed me said to her: "I will call you up, when I am ready, Ma'am." I glanced back and saw one very unhappy woman who was not only aggravated I ignored her comment to me earlier, but was very much in a way "put back in her place." One side note: the buying/purchasing police usually do get put back in their place, sooner or later.

Career/job police. These are usually parents and teachers but they can also sometimes turn out to be your supervisor at work. Say you want to become a fashion designer, but you make the mistake of telling these people about it. Do you really think they are going to help and support you? Guess again, because once you tell them, they will go out of their way to make sure you can never get into that field of work, even if you put money that you earned towards your goals. Apparently people in authority think it is cute to hold people with aspirations down. What these people do not know is this: The more they hold down the younger generation who have aspirations, the more they are going to require respiration as the proposed victim cuts off their air supply. People who tell you that you cannot have a certain job or career are only asking for trouble and deserve it, too.

Hobby/recreation police. These come in all shapes and sizes, ages, and genders. Say you want to join a local book group, start a millefiori paperweight collection, or take up pen-paling, but you can't, because doing so is a threat to the person telling you this. The best response: "You are completely insane and belong in a straitjacket if you think I am going to give this up for you." Actually, this response works well (with the appropriate variation) for the pregnancy police, buying/purchasing police, and career/job police, too. For those of you whose second language is "fluency in cussing," appropriate expletives may be inserted between the "completely" and "insane" words.

Religious police. This one hardly needs any introduction as we have all encountered them at one point or another in our lives. It is amusing to think that there are some people out there who think you should believe the same thing they do if only for your personal salvation. Of course, the real reason these police do what they do is to validate their own beliefs. Someone who is secure in their religious or spiritual beliefs is not going to be pounding on doors on Saturday or Sunday morning trying to coerce you to buy their religion, even though they have been well trained salespeople. Don't be afraid to draw the line there, or at least put out that handmade sign that says "Beware of the Flying Gargoyle" by your front door on these days.

Education police. "You should go to college," is what I used to hear a lot about when I was young and making good money after completing only one year of college. After hearing about how college graduates are deeply in debt and cannot pay back any of their student loans? Since most people I know who have Bachelor Degrees are busy working in retail or flipping burgers, do not be bamboozled into believing that a college education will automatically get you a position that pays a six-figure salary. Most of the time it doesn't. Bill Gates dropped out of college to start Microsoft. Many kids prefer technical or career schools such as Keiser University to get a degree that helps them get a better paying job. That liberal arts degree just does not cut it for many, including myself. Employers do not look at that piece of paper; rather, they look at experience. It is perfectly okay to respond to the education police, "I cannot afford it. If I went to college I would never be able to pay back the loans." Do not allow yourself to be pushed around to do something you know you cannot afford.

Is our society based on extreme conformism, or what? If we were not, we would not have the above described police in our lives. We make the former Soviet Union look like a land of real freedom with the amount of policing going on in our society. The important thing to remember is this: the one person in control of your life is you, not some relative or stranger who seeks to control you. Do not be afraid to stand up for your life, especially if you are a woman, as this gender is known to be the controlling type (if you think women are bad with controlling men, just think of how they control their own gender: mothers are not afraid to dictate to their daughters outmoded standards that the daughter's peers will laugh at, such as wearing corsets and never speaking up for herself. Females are indeed conditioned to be second class citizens in the United States via the various police mentioned above. Few men are policed like this but if the reader happens to be a male, then you also have the right to be on your guard when dealing with these society police.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7733624/why_you_are_better_off_not_sending.html?cat=3