It was Saturday afternoon and my husband was on the weekend shift. I had tried to plan a few playdates during the week but everyone was busy with their own family stuff – and we have no family closer than 3 hours by plane ride – so it was just going to be me and the kids for the day… after a long week solo parenting as well.
When I woke up, it was like I was already running behind… would I ever catch up? I had been up most of the night with a congested baby. We were low on groceries, and I had other errands to run too (post office, pharmacy). It was raining but the kids reeeeally needed to run around. My throat was sore (it had been for nearly a week) and I still hadn’t given any thought to it – so it was not getting better. The baby had just woken up from too short a nap. And I just had to get out of the house… or I knew things were going to continue to go down hill.
So I took the kids to our local fast food chain, mostly so we could use the playground. This is actually one of my survival tactics, so it was definitely not the first time.
While I was there, I caught myself thinking, “What if someone I know sees me here? I’d be so embarrassed!”
It turned out to be an awesome outing. My kids played for nearly 2 hours with three different sets of kids – kids that only stayed for 20 minutes before their parents called them to go because they had somewhere to be. But I wasn’t in a rush so we stayed until we were all ready to head out. By the time we left, we were all re-set and it wasn’t a bad day after all.
Later that night I started thinking… why did I care what other people thought? I came to the conclusion it was because I thought I would be judged.
Was I holding myself to my standard, or someone else’s?
I’ve been thinking a lot about judgement since that day and thought I’d share some articles I found. It’s not easy to open up my heart online and I do get comments sometimes that make me second guess my willingness to share… because people do judge me.
Please don’t get me wrong. I think it’s only natural to have opinions and disagree sometimes – but behind a computer screen people somehow feel it’s okay to be a bit less sensitive about expressing themselves (I actually read a comment directed at an article of mine the other day that said “Does this lady live in the real world?”). Because these words are read and not heard, I think the hurtful comments are a bit less confronting than in “real life” but it’s judgement just the same.
Why do we do this to each other? There are many different reasons, and I don’t necessarily think we should NOT express our opinions… because that’s how change happens (think about raising awareness about the harmfulness of a once acceptable practice – spanking – for example). We all need to grow, and not all decisions may even be in the best interest of everyone all the time (for instance, I know it’s not good for my kids to eat junk food). In any case, it has been helpful for me to think about and I hope you will gain some insights from these articles too:
It’s ok to make different choices – Picklebums
Who, me? Judgemental? – Twodaloo
Open Home – The Plumbette
Don’t Try and Be the Mum You’re Not – Be a Fun Mum
You are a Supermom and So Are You – Four Plus an Angel
We are all just doing our best. Let’s learn from each other and learn to respect each other, even with our different choices, too.
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My Reflection Series features resources to inspire intentional and compassionate parenting. Each instalment of the series shares a photo with a simple insight, plus five links I have found motivational during my current journey as a mother.
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Take care and I hope to “see” you again soon,
Chelsea
We were travelling home last night and stopped at a fast food chain for a quick road trip dinner… and as my big kids logged into the free wifi on their ipods and my small one ran around the play ground and I mainlined frozen coke I had a pang of guilt, then I stopped and thought… you know what, this is actually the least stressed we’d all been all afternoon… why should I feel guilty about that???
I think it’s human nature to judge… to hold up what we are doing against someone else so we can figure out how we feel about something… but it becomes a problem when we decide that judgment means we should tell someone else that they are ‘wrong’ or ‘less than’.
It’s great to hear your perspective Kate – those $1 frozen cokes are my treat as well 😉
We got rained out from the park with my sister and sister in law and 8 kids the other week… so we went to the big M and stayed for four hours!! The park, crappy food and coffee helped EVERYBODY to reset and we ALL thoroughly enjoyed it! I love that you did this as a survival tactic but that it taught you more that day.
Judgement is made far too quickly and I’ve definitely found myself less judgemental of others as I get more feathers (crazy days and experiences) in my parenting cap! Thanks for being open and honest! xx Love these posts!
So true – the more I experience in life, the less I think I know what people are going through!!! I’m glad I’m not the only one 🙂
Chelsea as a mother of a 13 and 10yo plus 3 step kids aged between 5 and 11 all I can say is give yourself a break. There is no such thing as the perfect parent. I can tell you that growing up I was never allowed to eat at a McDonalds or the like and we had no TV and I spent years in therapy talking about my deprived childhood (Ok some other stuff went on too, but the extremeness of my parents parenting style was unnecessary). I have many friends who grew up watching more than an hours TV a day and were allowed to eat on occasion (not every day, but maybe once a week or fortnight) some junk food and they too are perfectly great and healthy people who haven’t spent so much money on psychologists!
I know when my kids were young, and I too have no family who are close and so no support, that a trip to McDonalds particularly when it was raining could make the day bearable. Parenting is not all roses and rainbows, often it’s boring, and hard graft with little thanks. And as far as I’m concerned those who are judging are living in ivory towers and you should take no notice of them.
Most of us would never judge you on your choices as long as you love and care for your kids in a good enough manner. Parents aren’t perfect and your kids need to learn that nobody is perfect. In fact, as I always say “Perfection is the enemy of action and can stifle your creativity”.
hugs xx
Your comment has made me really reflect on my own childhood and it’s funny because my mother NEVER took us to fast food chains (only when we were on vacations and had 5+ hours to drive) but my father had a restaurant so we could always go down there and have dinner, and the waitresses would always like talking to us etc so she probably had a break! I know we went at least once a week, and she said he would often bring home dinner for her after he came home and we were in bed. Being married to a shift working doctor doesn’t have the same perks at all LOL. I really appreciate your perspective… I still feel like I’m navigating this whole parenting journey as a newbie as my kids are still quite young, so I love to hear from parents with slightly older kids 🙂 Having the five year old though, you know the energy it takes with young ones!! With my personality type, I tend to judge and hold myself to unreasonable standards… and compassion for myself doesn’t come naturally. I’ll easily find reasons for other people’s behaviour, but feel guilty about my own. Thanks for sharing, you’ve really given me a lot to think about x
You are right…people DO judge (but yes, we may often be judging ourselves too harshly as well)…which is why we may be self-conscious about parenting in front of others. Sometimes we may try to change the way we parent in front of others according to what we think they may find acceptable, but what I find especially hard is when I am confident and comfortable in the way I parent but people somehow feel the need to comment on my parenting or on my child…thinking that their way of thinking and doing is the best and only way. This is what makes parenting hard for me…that people hold on so strongly to their views…and don’t just allow a parent to decide what they want for their own child…and to allow them to make their own mistakes. It’s also just frustrating since these people often commenting do not know what it’s like to be in my shoes and to be this particular child’s parent, and they are not around her 24/7 like I am and just get a glimpse of our life…yet they feel like they have all the answers as an outsider. Anyway, sorry, I may be coming across as a bit defensive and judgmental in my comment (haha) but basically I am just reacting to the fact that I think people need to be allowed to live their own lives as it just makes my life harder when people don’t allow me to do so. 🙂
Sooo true Alycia. It reminds me of when I was dropping my son off at school yesterday… we were walking up the stairs and a teacher was at the top, and he coughed just when he passed. Then she looked at me and said, “Looks like he has a cough” (inferring that I shouldn’t be taking him to school) but this was the ONE TIME he had coughed ALL MORNING! I felt so judged. LOL It’s so hard when people just think they know the whole story. I agree only we know our children best and we’re all entitled to make our own choices anyway.