GREAT GREAT story
 

Thank you for sharing:wave:

If only ...
 

If only the world could be run by these "many beautiful people in the world" rather than by those consumed by religious and political ideologies and out-and-out greed....

As I have said before, there was a Mosque in our Cincinnati neighborhood and it gave us a big opportunity to learn and to know and to enjoy many of our Islamic neighbors.

In fact our neighborhood attracted a lot of international business and professional people and their families who worked as engineers and scientists for Proctor and Gamble and General Electric and researchers and physicians at University of Cincinnati Medical Center. We had a wonderfully diverse neighborhood and some eye opening experiences when it came to day to day living.

The influx of these cultures, many of whom promoted scholarship and dedicated work vastly raised the bar in our schools and many wonderful things happened as a result. There was much more emphasis on the sciences and math and the kids in the families of the new immigrants weren't allowed by their parents in many cases to participate in sports or other extra curricular activities. Almost always the valedictorians of the two high schools were kids whose parents were from China, India, and Africa. We had kids from all over but those countries were the ones to beat scholastically. We had engineers and researchers and scientists of every color and hue and it was amazing the similarities that we found in each other. I served on the curriculum committee of our school district and we charged forward in advance placement courses and enjoyed seeing the wonderful influence of our world neighbors making homegrown kids really have to compete.

Our own grandchildren who lived nearby in the same neighborhood and school district frequently brought their friends to our house and we were always feeding a bunch of interesting kids of international origin and learning from them as they sat around our table and debated with each other and with me. Our granddaughters two best friends were and still are a girl from China and a girl from India (Now young women on the road to successful careers in law and medicine) We always threw a Christmas party for our grandchildren's friends. I was so delighted with their social graces and their manners. (The homegrown ones too) I love learning things and I love kids.

There were some cultures that our grandchildren found hard to understand and some that held their daughters back in our grandchildren's eyes. But living on American soil is a wonderful experience and opportunity for these new immigrant families and we look forward to this new generation that now marry for "love" and do not have different gender potentials. Many of the children enjoyed our big Christmas celebrations and I hope we were good ambassadors for our traditions too.

I believe the world would be a better place for all mankind... If women ruled the world. Enjoyed hearing your experience Trish!

...........

The OP's story is wonderful and should be cherished and a good reminder that we should not pre-judge.

However the reality is that this is not reflective of world as a whole as the world is full of very manipulative and hateful people so one should never let there guard down. The ubiquitous trust and verify comes to mind. Trojan Horse, Pearl Harbor, Bernie Madoff......And on a smaller scale the flim flam people who knock on your door or call you on the phone with evil intent.

Also if you recall female leaders both past and present ruling in Europe, South America, etc have shown that they can be as cruel as men

Circumstances also result in neighbor going against neighbor as during Nazi Germany's occupations, Viet Cong, or even present day with the ethnic or religious cleansing in Europe, Asia Africa, Middle East.

I quote myself in response. Can "if only..." actually ever happen? Of course not, but sometimes we can enjoy thinking about a fantasy (while at the same time being conscious of reality). Notwithstanding, thanks to the OP for sharing her very real experience!

I had a similar experience as the OP last week. We took the Autotrain last Tuesday and are currently in Maryland. When you have dinner, they have you share your table in the dining car with other people. When we went to eat, my wife and I were seated with two Iranian looking people and the woman wore a scarf around her head and only showed her face. I thought, I would of never chose to sit with these people.

It turns out they were from Washington, DC and the girl has her Masters degree and is working on her PhD at UCF in Orlando and she was with her brother, who is in the 11th grade who had come down to visit her. She was traveling back to DC to see her parents. I thought her folks were probably from overseas and worked at an embassy, but she said no, they were an average American family and her father was a mechanic. I learned a lot from our hour or so of conversation and they were very pleasant people.

Though there are definitely exceptions, scary exceptions, I'd say most people just want to live their lives in peace and goodwill, whatever their background. I've worked with many diverse folks in my life from all over. We all got along just fine and usually had many things in common. Only rarely was there one of those "exceptions".

.............

Yea, we could use more like Imelda Marcos, Marie Antoinette, Mary, Queen of Scots and Margot Honecker.

We just need more reasonable people whether they are men or women.

As John Lennon so famously said, and I know you are familiar with his work, IMAGINE. In a thread filled with sunshine no need for a raincloud

I do like the OP's story but...
 

...Are women instinctively more nurturing? - Curiosity

I went to a law school with more than 50% female-- the University of Minnesota Law School (Class of 1989)-- and the women were often much more driven than the men. In fact, of the classes I remember (1987, 1988, 1989, 1990) at least half of them had a woman valedictorian. I also attended BYU Law School for about 10 days back in 1982 and there were only two women that I remember in the entire Class of 1985 student body. One was a librarian trying to become a Law Librarian. Believe the other one was married to another law student at BYU but I could be wrong about that. My point is that nurturing roles are often part of social conditioning and have little to do with innate features.

The librarians I studied with getting my Masters in Librarianship and Information Management at the University of Denver (Class of May 1984) were very supportive people and very nurturing of each other. Most of these people were teachers looking to get a MA on their resume.

I encountered some truly underhanded and just plain nasty law librarians while at the University of Minnesota Law Library. Most of these people playing very dirty tricks were women. One of the worst of these was attacking my mental health for simply wanting to be honest about a niche in services towards victims/survivors of crimes I had discovered from February 25, 1976 onward in libraries of all types. I had gone to the University of Denver Library School partly because of a man's work on trying to make the law more accessible to lay people. This was Al Coco. Did not find much of these accessibility spirit at the University of Minnesota Law Library and School. Another law librarian-- something of a populist for legal research-- Bob Berring of Boalt Hall Law Library (U of CA, Berkeley), had advised me to be honest about my interest in survivors' rights and their needs in libraries.

Women have the advantage of...if they fail, they can always get married and be provided for. Men don't have that option. Men only get what they can earn. It's a BIG difference.