Do you ever feel as if someone -- friend, relative, co-worker -- is judging you as a parent?
Someone who doesn’t buy frozen food for their children when your freezer is stocked with chicken nuggets, french fries and pizza?
Someone whose child eats broccoli with gusto when the closest thing you can get to a fruit or vegetable inside your toddler is the peach flavoring in their yogurt?
Someone whose little angel is in bed by seven o'clock every night when you’re happy if your kid goes down before 10:00pm?
As you may have picked up, I recently felt judged. And what was more of an affront was not the action over which I was being judged, but the fact that this fellow mother would judge me.
Being a parent is hard enough without having to do it under a microscope.
I do my share of stressing over my kids’ nutrition, their tantrums (are they MY fault?), their ear infections (are they also my fault?)…but I know that I am the best mother I can be to the kids I have. NOONE is perfect in every way as a parent, just as not every 3-year-old will eat broccoli and salmon and go to bed at 7:00pm.
To those who sometimes feel judged: Don’t let it get to you. You know what’s right for your family and for your children. And if you’ve got faults, I’m sure you’re the first to acknowledge them.
To those who are tempted to judge: Parenting is not a perfect science and cannot always be done by the book. In the course of raising your kids, you’ll come across your own bumps in the road – and most likely, the mothers you were judging will be the ones who can offer you the best advice.
(Whew...I'm glad I got THAT out of my system!)
News Mom “V”
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1 comment:
I love this entry!
When my second child was three weeks old I decided it was time to venture out into the world with my two year old and the new baby. We went to the zoo. For the most part, it was a lovely day and I was feeling proud and in control. Toward the end of our outing, we entered the aquarium and my two year old decided to take off into what seemed like a sea of people. With my new baby strapped into the baby bjorn I ran after my two year old, grabbed her by the back of her pants and underpants and pulled her toward me, falling to the floor. She screemed, "Mommy you are hurting me -don't do that!" Every face turned toward me as if they had never seen a mom with two screeming kids, lying on the floor of the aquarium before. Impossible!
In retrospect, I think some of them may have been thinking back to the last time they were in the same position. But it was at that moment that I realized how horrible it is to judge other mothers. It was a moment, a very brief moment, of my life. Every child is different, every situations is different, every parent is different.
The reason there are so many books out there and so many methods is because one doesn't work for all. And by the way, kids change. Some start off hard and end up easy and some do the opposite. I have found that the parents I am most comfortable talking to and hanging out with - the ones who question, are flexible and seek advice from others - are often the parents with the greatest, most delicious kids!
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