I used to judge. Well, to tell you the truth, I still judge—but not as much as I used to. I used to judge people who dressed differently, who acted differently, who listened to different music, who liked different things, who had different ideas and beliefs… I think you get the point.
I’m not gonna try to defend myself or make up excuses. What I will say is that I grew up in a very judgy community. You’d listen to adults talking about the way a little girl was dressed, or how short or long her hair was—girls are supposed to wear their hair a certain length… not too short, because you don’t want to look like a boy; not too long, because you don’t want to look dirty. Of course, some of the parents’ behavior would rub off on their little girls. It definitely didn’t help that I went to an all-girls Catholic school since kindergarten. Girls are savage.
Then I started high school. For the first time I shared a classroom with boys (OMG, boys!!) and with lots of different people. Not everyone was Catholic, not everyone was straight, not everyone wore pearl earrings and perfectly straight hair. It was a big change. The more”extravagant” people were, the more material they gave me to judge them. By that time it came so naturally that it was hard for me to even realize I was doing it. I just thought that I was right and everyone else was wrong—don’t worry, now I know better, but it took me a while to get there.
In 2014, I became a mom. As clueless as any other first-time parent, I frequented forums full of just-as-anxious peers going through the exact same thing I was, and having no idea of what to do when the baby was crying for no apparent reason. By then my judgy self was no longer at the top of her game, but apparently, everyone else’s “judgy self” was on steroids. Wow! Parent shaming is real, guys. And it’s really bad.
Remember when you were a teenager and your “friends” would judge your outfit choices, or the guy/girl you were dating? Well, imagine that but with twenty-and-thirty-somethings judging everything you do. You had a c-section? Shame on you. Formula feeding? How dare you. Putting shoes on the baby? OMG woman, are you insane?! Don’t even get me started on the pierced ears and circumcision debacles. People have extremely strong opinions on those.
It’s not just people on the internet whom you’ve never met in your life doing the shaming and judging either. It’s literally everyone around you. Friends, coworkers, acquaintances. Everyone. They don’t even have to be parents, or to have ever been near a child. They still have an opinion on how something should be done, and poor you if you’re not doing it their way.
Even when you are a victim of shaming and judging, it’s hard to live and let live. It’s hard to mind your own business and not let that kid throwing a tantrum at the grocery store make you immediately think that their parents must suck.
And then it finally happened. I had a child throwing tantrums at the grocery store that made me want to hide between the clothing racks and never come out again. Was I being judged for being a bad parent? Was I actually a bad parent?
That same child was diagnosed with mild-moderate autism spectrum disorder a few months ago. That was the moment my life was changed forever. I read all I could about ASD. I wanted to be as informed as possible to be an advocate for my child and to parent them as good as I could, giving them the best chance in life to be happy.
As I read more and more about it, I realized we truly have no idea what other people go through on a regular basis. I don’t know that my neighbor—who I used to judge for looking like a homeless person while silently walking with her baby in a stroller around the block—wasn’t suffering from post-partum depression. I don’t know that the “annoying” girl from elementary school wasn’t going through a hard time at home.
The thought of someone judging my child for not saying “please” and “thank you,” or for talking loudly at places where you should be quiet, or for ignoring them, or for throwing a tantrum, or just for being different made me look at life in a whole new way. How wrong had I been for 32 years!
I know it makes no sense to apologize on this blog post to everyone I’ve ever judged, but I still want to do it. I am deeply sorry.
I am not perfect, and kicking an old habit has been hard. I still find myself judging here and there; but now I know. I try to correct myself and think happy thoughts instead. Because, honestly, isn’t happiness all we should ever aspire to find in life?