Being Nagged At, Is A Sign of Being Accepted.

Some people have funny ways of showing that they have accepted you into their own little group don’t they? Some of these ways are good and some not so good.

When we were working with the Xhosa people in Transkei, at first we were treated with great respect, even reverence, (which was actually quite unnerving, and we were very glad when it finished) but after a while we started getting treated just like them and left to fend for ourselves just like them. And it was only then that the penny dropped and I realised that they had stopped seeing us a guests and were now seeing us as family and just treating us as they would each other normally.

Yet that is only one way of being accepted into a family. Lynne Johnson revealed a slightly different form of this acceptance into the family in a recent Comic strip.

There the bride to be is in the supermarket with Her Fiancé’s little girl who is begging for every thing she sees: from Sugar cereal, candy and toys. All to no avail and she is shown as pleading, “PLEASE, please, PLEASE, please, PLEASE, please, please?!!!” To which the lady says to her fiancé, “I’ve been accepted by your daughter, Anthony… She’s started to NAG me!”

So being treated like everyone else and even being nagged at are both clear signs of being accepted by others. Sometimes, like being nagged at, we might prefer their acceptance to be shown in a nicer way, but at least we are being accepted and not kept at a distance, as not belonging.

How about with you now? What are some of the ways you have been shown acceptance into other’s lives and you in turn, have welcomed others into your own little world, to otherwise outsiders, thrust into it? Your views please?