My husband and son got back from camping this weekend, only it wasn’t “real” camping according to Sandy. Next weekend when he and Eliot go backpacking for four days constitutes “real” camping.
The other morning, a guy I know admired my electric bucket bike. He also has an electric bike to commute to his house in the hills. He shook his head at the number of cyclists he’s met who have an attitude about cycling and dismiss riding an electric bike as not “real” cycling.
My stylist commented on someone who was not a “real” blond.
A show I watched talked about a child’s “real” parents as their genetic, not adoptive parents.
I wonder why we need to distinguish and discredit the authenticity of these things. I understand the value in monitoring counterfeit objective things, say gems or cash. I can even understand the slightly less objective, but still quantifiable things such as gasoline or organic produce. There is a defined standard for these.
But for subjective things like camping or bicycling and semi-subjective things like parentage or traits, I grow frustrated with the underlying judgment involved.
Is it useful to discredit someone else’s experience of camping? Wouldn’t it be a better place if more people spent a weekend outdoors, even if it involved a drive up camp-site? Wouldn’t it be a better place if people rode e-bicycles rather than driving? What benefit is there in demeaning people about their efforts because they don’t meet a certain standard. Would more people invest in an e-bike if they didn’t feel like they were “cheating?”
With born traits, why does it matter? If someone has dyed their hair blond their entire life, if they list themselves as blond on their driver’s license, if they have withstood the blond jokes, the stereo-typing at work, why should they be nervous about exposing the their non-dyed body hair? Aren’t they a real blond?
If someone has raised a child from birth, loved them, disciplined them, funded their education and extra-curricular pursuits, sat beside them and held their hand through their first cavity filling, stood with tears of pride streaming down their face at their child’s graduation, are they not the “real” parent?
When I was a smoker, there was a machismo attitude about how hardcore a smoker you were. If you smoked lights or infrequently you weren’t as cool as someone who smoked over a pack a day of regulars.
That worth is determined by some subjective definition of authenticity and anyone outside of that definition is worthy of ridicule makes as much sense to me as encouraging people to smoke more in order to be accepted.