Whether it is at the park, dropping kids, off at school, or in aby public setting, we all have felt like we are like other parents feeling judging us and maybe we've been we've been the one judging too. Today Jen and Hilary will be talking about why we judge, share stories and lessons learned.
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Jen: Welcome to the Parents Place podcast with Hillary and Jen.
Hilary: Welcome to our podcast today, so we have an article that we want to share with you and discuss with you. And there's a lot of meat to this one, honestly. And so, Jen and I, you know, are strategically going to pick certain points that really stood out to us. But I would encourage you, when you have a free minute, to take a look at this article and read through it. I've read through it a few times, and it's one of those articles that I'm like, OK, I got to read and then think and process and then maybe even reread so I can get everything. So, we will put the link in our show notes so that you guys can refer to it. But the article is called “Why Parents Judge Other Parents and How to Stop.” It's by Jessica Gammel Bennett. And I remember reading that title and thinking, man. Like, yes. Right? Yes, we do that don’t we, unfortunately. And it's crazy that we do. And so, I love that in this article, she's bringing this to light. Right? We're not hiding. We're not sweeping it under the rug anymore. We recognize that we as parents do this and it's not healthy and that there are things that we can do to avoid this in ourself and in others. And so, it's a good piece of advice, I think, for everyone. And so, I'm going to attempt to summarize the story that she starts with because she kind of sets the stage by sharing this story of an experience that she had. So, her mom has a timeshare in Orlando, which by the way, where do I sign up for that? Because I need that right now. As we're sitting here in Cash Valley, and it is cold and dreary, I'm like, a timeshare in Orlando, I think that sounds fantastic.
Jen: I can do that.
Hilary: So every February, they head down there to spend a week. Disney World, beach, pool, all the things. And she said she's started this tradition when she was five months pregnant. Which was great. So, for her first year going, this was the year where she was like, OK, I'm just going to sit and I'm going to watch everybody and I'm going to take it all in. I'm going to formulate my like, what to do and what not to do type list, right? And the thing is, is that we've all done that right. We've all watched other parents and been like, I will not do that. Never will I ever have that experience, right? I mean, so she went through Disney World and just kind of made this mental list to herself. Of all the things. I will wear my baby next year, you know, so sthat my neck and my back won't hurt as much. I'll have plenty of diapers and formula. I'll do all the things. So fast forward a year and she comes back. At this point, she's got a little one. She did do some of the things that she mentioned. But she forgot to pack extra diapers and formula, so she mentions, I spent the entire time searching for diapers, I ended up nursing my son while I was chasing my friends, you know, trying to hunt them down. Doing the things that I vowed that I would never do.
Jen: And so, I know where she found the diapers.
Hilary: Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine being in Disney World and searching for diapers, like with a child with a poopy diaper. Oh, never will I ever go back. That's what my never would be. So, here's the thing. Having this awful, horrible experience, she then goes into the bathroom and sees a mom who's changing her toddler on one of those toddler changing tables. And this mom proceeds to hand her toddler her phone to watch as she's changing him. And this author, she says, I shook my head in disgust and thought to myself, no wonder this generation is addicted to their phones. So here she is, having an incredibly rough day. No diapers. No formula. Exhausted, stressed, kind of eating the words that she had thought of last year when she was like pre-planning for this experience. But then she sees this mom and automatically that judgment pops into her head. Without us even thinking, there it happens. So, she continues her story. She says, fast forward one year. My son is 18 months. He's incredibly strong. He doesn't like to lie still. She says changing him is like wrestling a greased wildebeest. I will always remember that because I'm like, yes, that is a perfect representation of a toddler. So, she says, once again, I find myself at Disney again, perhaps even in the same bathroom. And I had my son, my phone while he's on the changing table, and at that moment, I silently whisper an apology to the mother who had stood there a year before. Because here we are full circle, right?
Jen: She's given her kid the phone, that she swore she'd never give.
Hilary: I think that that is so intriguing because I think as parents, I mean, we make a lot of the same mistakes, right? And I don't even know if we should, we would necessarily phrase that as mistakes, it’s survival. You know, there's sometimes things that we have to do as parents where it's like, I need to survive these next five minutes. And so, I'm going to do.... And you would think that as parents who have gone through those similar situations, we would be like, Yes, soul sister. I hear you. I feel you. I've been there. What can I do? I'll hold those legs down while you wipe. And so, she brings that up. She says, you know, what made me shake my head in judgment? What made me do that thought instead of coming to her assistance, you know, instead of offering her that collective fist bump that we should have given, right? The solidarity sister. And so, she kind of asked that question, why is that the case? And she brings up one word, and that is the word ego. Yeah. It's something I've never really thought of before. I mean, have you?
Jen: No, but we do it. I'll never be that parent. I'll be a better parent than that parent. I'm too ashamed to ask for help. I mean, it's a lot of, I mean, she's right. That is what it all is about. That ego. Just as apparently right in front of our face and we can't see all of our options beyond our ego.
Hilary: Yeah, so a little bit later in the article, it talks about a different book and this particular author, she explains that she was trying to explain to her 12 year old the concept of ego. Which when she said that I thought, Oh, how? Yeah, right? How would explain it? Like, what is ego right? How do I explain that to a young child? But she told her 12-year-old, when we get upset or afraid that we won't be understood, we turn into a ferocious tiger to protect ourselves. And, you know, I had to think about that for a while, but then the more I thought about it and stewed on that concept, the more I thought, that is exactly right. Because honestly, for me, I think a lot, I think judgment. And I think you mentioned this already, and I think a lot of our judgment comes from fear comes out of fear. Yep. You know, fear of not being included, fear of not being understood. Fear of being seen differently than what we want to be seen. And when that fear creeps in, I don't know about you, but that's when I become defensive. That's my response. Right? It's defensive. Yeah. And so you know, this mom is probably sitting in this bathroom, changing her toddler, handing him her phone. Fearful of what other people say or what other people are going to think and say, and so what's her natural reaction? It's to become defensive and that looks like lashing out at other people. Fear is a tricky thing as it makes us do and say things that otherwise we wouldn't ever think to do. I actually, as I was thinking about this last night, I had this experience with my daughter. So, it's, they were preparing for their Veterans Day assembly. So the school encourage them to wear red, white and blue attire. So she had picked out a blue shirt, and I said to her sweetie that, you know, that blue shirt, you should wear the blue shirt, but you've got a pair of red pants that you should wear with that too. And she very quickly proceeded to tell me that she couldn't wear the red pants because she had already warned them a few days earlier. And I said to her, it's not that big of a deal, you can wear them again right? Just pull them out of the hamper will make sure that they're OK. I can even wash them if they're not clean. And my daughter was like, no, I wore those a few days ago. I can't wear those again. What are people going to say? And I was getting a little bit frustrated with her. I was like, Sweetie, no one cares. You are in fourth grade. You could probably wear your pajamas and kids aren't going to notice. They just put the pants on. And it was funny because later on that night as she explained to me that she had worn the same, I think it was the same pair of shorts a few months ago and someone in her class had commented on it. And my daughter, she's very shy, she's very introverted. She doesn't like to be put on the spot. So, for somebody to identify her in that way, it made her really self-conscious. And so later at night, she told me that. She's like, I don't want to wear the red pants because so-and-so said something to me when I wore the same pair of shorts in the same week. But it was funny because without knowing that, without understanding that, my daughter was reacting based on fear and the unknown. And so, her reaction to that fear was to lash out at me, which is what she did as I was trying to convince her to wear those red pants. She started throwing a major meltdown, she was throwing a tantrum, she was yelling at me. And finally, it was one of those situations where I was like, Fine, just do whatever you want, right? And she went downstairs. But that was her ferocious tiger that came out because I didn't have a clear understanding. And so that was her that was her defense mode. And so I think, yeah, we do that. We do that as adults when we feel that sense of fear. Yeah, it's an intriguing thing. So then I guess the question that we want to brainstorm here is because it happens and because I think it happens to all of us, how do we avoid doing this right? I don't think any of us really want to be judgmental people and in the article, it even mentioned that that these people that tend to judge, it doesn't mean it's not necessarily people that feel superior. It's actually people that feel inferior. Yeah, I think that that's interesting, right? But that tends to be the case. And that's something that I've tried to teach my kids. You know, a lot of times when kids are like making comments that may seem rude or inappropriate. A lot of times it's because they're nervous of their surroundings and they’re, you know, scared of people putting them on the spot. I mean, we do it right? It's like you said, it's a protection for us, but how do we avoid doing that and how do we avoid the judgment? That's the magical question that we want to attempt to answer.
Jen: I don’t know if there is an answer because I think that it is our knee-jerk reaction to judge, which is sad. But I think it's just taking a conscious effort of, hey I know that not all of us or none of us have all of our stuff together and yeah, we're going to do something. That someone may look at and think that's not the right way to parent. And then that ego is going to get out there and you're going to get defensive and say, I'm trying my best, I'm doing all I can with what I have and blah blah blah. Just what just came to mind was something someone told me years ago, was you got to be a duck. When rain falls on a duck, it rolls off its back. And yes, that's having to take the higher road instead of the person doing the judgment, but you know, I feel like we all have crap in our lives. Some of us hide it better than others, and that is something that I've tried to work on for years of just OK, be patient, slow down. They got their crap behind their door, too. And I can be kind and polite and, you know, maybe even offer help, although I'm sure that parent won’t take that help because they're embarrassed, which they shouldn't be. But yeah, I just think we all have to remember, we don't know what's going on.
Hilary: Oh, that's very true. That is one of those like life lessons that I have learned as I've gotten older is I'm like, wow, I thought everybody had it together, and that I was the only one struggling. Well, the reality is, is that we're all struggling in different degrees, at different stages of our life, from time to time. And you're right, rather than us standing and stepping back and observing and saying, oh gosh, you get it together, right? We should be stepping in and, you know, helping out and supporting, if possible. But it's true, just kind of remembering that everybody fights that fight. And we don't know necessarily what that is. And sometimes we are given a glimmer, and maybe we are told to a degree what's happening, but other times we have no idea. So, I remember being a kid and seeing other people and thinking this family like they're perfect, right? And how come they are struggling with all sorts of things? But this family doesn't seem to have anything hard that's happening to them. I remember as a kid sitting in, you know, my religious courses and kind of like pointing out families and thinking those thoughts and thinking, man, they have everything. They have the fancy house, they have the nice clothes, they throw all the good parties right, they have all the friends. And then here we are, dealing with all this crap. It doesn't seem fair, does it? And yeah, I think, would be eye-opening to realize that they probably have just as much stuff that we just don't know. Yeah. And so, in this article, and we won't go over all these, but maybe just pull out a few of them that stood out to us, but they talked about eight different basically eight ways that the ego manifests itself. And then essentially how to overcome it. So, if this is something that you want to look further into, take a look at this article. But the first one that it talked about that stood out to me, is this idea of materialism. And it talked about oftentimes, you know, when we see other parents, when we see what other parents can offer to their kids material possession wise. That hurts our ego, right? Especially if it's not something that we feel that we can offer to our own kids. And so our reaction is to defend ourself, and that tends to be in the form of judgment. Right? Yeah. And so, you see so and so down the street and they've just bought their kids the brand new playground set. And we look at that and maybe that's not something that financially we can offer to our kids right now. And so that fear catches us, and that ego sets in. And that's when we start to say, well, we may not be giving our kids a playground, but we take our kids to a restaurant every Friday night to eat. And that's much better because we're spending time as a family and they're not even doing that right. And so, we find ways to compare ourself when it comes to materialism, you know, always it's the idea of like keeping up with the Joneses, right? And one upping each other, they just bought the car. But then that means we need to go on a fancy trip. And then they just went on an even better trip. So now we need to buy our kids brand new bikes and so. And that's the slippery slope. They're going to turn into hurtful feelings and a lot of debt.
Jen: Yeah, my cute little niece told my poor parents, you know, who are trying their darndest and have, I mean, they live a pretty good life, and the youngest one, she's six, seven years old now. And she says, grandma, you have a really small house. We have a really big house. And they're probably not too far off of being about the same size. The layout kind of a thing. But she says that about lots of things, even their truck. Your truck doesn't have all the buttons that our van has. That's just like, oh my goodness, child. But we put that in them young to start judging and looking at material things. And so, we do start thinking we have to one up people.
Hilary: Yeah, well, and it's you know, I think often our little ones, obviously they haven't necessarily learned, you know, tact and the things that should and shouldn't be said out loud. You know, we can't blame them for that. But you know, even if you have a little one that's saying something like that to you as an adult, like you said, we have the option of brushing that off of our shoulder and being like, Yeah, you know, your parents really do have a bigger house than us , and that's great for them. Or we allow their ego to set in and we allow that fear to ruminate. And that's when we start to say, well, you guys might have a bigger house, but I guess what? I have more money in my savings account. So, you know, that's just what we tend to do is we tend to compare because it's this sense of I feel like we need to one up the other person. Yeah, unfortunately.
Jen: Just came to mind was Brian Regan. The comedian who they are sitting there trying to one up each other. And then he says, then Armstrong is there and says, well, I walked on the moon.
Hilary: Boom
Jen: Boom, mic drop. You cannot one up me anymore. That's not what we should be doing.
Hilary: Well, you know, so kind of going along with that idea. So, the advice that they offered with this particular manifestation is that rather than focusing on the material possessions and what we can offer our children when it comes to things, focusing more on what we can give to our children in regards to relationship. So being present with them, you know, your encouragement to them and expressing gratitude to them. So, focusing on some of those non-material things it's going to help strengthen our connection. Yeah. And not that, you know, some of those material things can’t do that. But I think that if we can refocus our attention on, you know guess what? We may not be able to take you on that big, fancy, fancy trip that your friends just went on, but you know, here's what we can do for our family. You know, we can continue to hold our family movie night because we love that and we love spending time with each other. And we can continue to have our daily conversations after dinner, and we can continue to have our individual parent child date nights that we hold once a month. And focusing on some of those things, because I feel like if we get caught up on that materialism it, it becomes a lose lose battle, right?
Jen: And it doesn’t make anyone feel good.
Hilary: No. So yeah, that one stood out to me as I thought about that and another one that it mentioned, and I thought that this was interesting as it talked about kind of your ego getting trapped almost in your past mistakes. So, it mentions that the ego tries to keep us in the past because it's known, right? It's safe. It's comfortable. It becomes complacent there. And so, when we have a situation that may be our past mistakes are brought up or brought to light. It's easy for us to judge others when that happens, because it maybe makes us feel a little bit better about ourselves. It helps to make amends for the mistake. And so, she shares the example of this author did share the example of how she was nursing her young child, and she was having a really hard time with it struggling and her mom kept making the comments. Well, I'm glad I didn't nurse you because you're crazy to be putting yourself through that. And, you know, as this author thought about it, she came to that conclusion for herself that, you know, mom's not saying these things to make me feel bad. She's doing this because I think she feels some regret and some guilt over the fact that that was something that she couldn't do for me. Yeah. And so, these past mistakes just continue to, you know, ruminate inside of us and it makes us feel a little bit better if we can almost like pass the blame on to someone else, if you will.
Jen: Yeah. Yeah.
Hilary: And you know, when the reality is, instead of making these comments about, oh well, I didn't do that, but you're doing that, doesn't look great at all. Something as simple as being able to say, you know what, I never experienced that, but let me see if I can do some research to help you figure it out. Because man, yeah, this is a tough thing for a lot of moms. And so, you know, rather than passing that judgment, finding ways to offer that support. And that support is going to look different if that's something that we obviously didn't experience. But finding ways to support that, that mom or that parent and whatever they're going through. Yeah. I mean, we're all going to make mistakes, right? And at some point, I think we need to say those, you know, the past is in the past and we need to do our best to move forward and essentially just help as much as you can.
Jen: Yeah, I think that’s what it comes down to, I mean, to all of her eight different things of just coming to the realization that we are better off if we are helping and encouraging one another. And stopping that, I mean, we all have a choice of, oh yes, I had that thought, but that's not correct. I'm going to throw that thought away. Yeah, but it does come down to really being willing to give help and accept help.
Hilary: Yeah. And then to add to that, I think we just need to just need to find ways to stop comparing ourselves to other people. And I feel like anything we've talked about this before, but just one of the biggest culprits of that is just everything to do with social media. And what we see, you know, in the post and the pictures and the videos and it's hard because it just causes us to say, here's where I am, here's where they are. And right now, their life looks much more appealing than mine. Yeah. And I think we just need to remind ourselves that we're only seeing a small portion.
Jen: And you never know what that parent is thinking back, of boy, I really wish I had that of yours. You know, it's the whole your grass is greener on the other side. But really, it’s not? No, it's not. Yeah, some people just spray paint their brown spots in their grass.
Hilary: Well, I love, you know, it's funny because I think that. I think we're getting, I mean, I still think we still have a long ways to go, but we're getting better at this. I feel like or at least there are different groups and different pushes in social media towards recognizing both the good and the bad. But I know a few different parenting groups that I follow that they make it a goal to post the good stuff, but also the bad stuff, right? Like and I love when you see these two different like picture comparisons where it's like the expectation versus the reality, you know, or the social media versus the real life. And you can see these perfectly posed pictures. But then you like take a look at the rest of the room and everything is in utter chaos. And you're like, well yeah, if you focus on that one corner of the bedroom, yeah, that does look really clean. But guess what? Ninety five percent of the rest of that room is in shambles, but we don't see that. We don't share that. And I think there is a push out there of parents realizing that it's only hurting to do that. And that we need to focus on everything, we need to focus on the good and the bad so that we can be there and support and offer feedback what needs be. But it's hard. It's hard to see what other people are doing, especially if it's something that may not be an option for you. I remember I was following a few different local influencers in my area, individuals that I knew of, but I didn't necessarily personally know. And they would post these different vacations they were going on as groups, as families, as friends. And I remember in my head thinking, oh man, they just came back from Disneyland and now they're going to the Bahamas. And then after that, they're going on a cruise. And I've only taken my kids to St George this year, like, am I failing as a parent? And I remember I finally had to get to the point where I told myself, this isn't healthy for you to be following. And I decided at that point to, you know, unfollow these particular people, not because they were bad people by any means, but for me and my mental health, it wasn't doing me any good at that point. It continued to compare myself to what they were doing versus what I was doing. So, I mean, I think for some people, as drastic as that may be, I think, you know, to avoid that comparison, that may mean completely eliminating that portion of your life, that social media aspect. I know many people that have done that and have said that was the best thing I could do for myself. Was to stop the Facebook and Instagram and the TikTok and all the things that I'm seeing and just focus on my family and myself and what's most important. Yeah.
Jen: Well my friend. I feel like you've given a lot of good points out there, and hopefully we have encouraged everybody to be more like ducks and hopefully also be able to put aside that need to compare or judge or whatever the case may be. It's not doing anything good for the other. It's not doing any good for us. And hopefully we can all make a little personal goal to treat ourselves a little bit better and treat each other a little bit better, especially with the holiday seasons coming up and things like that, because that just brings on a whole different kind of stress for families. So, let's be kind to one another, and hopefully we will meet you back here next week for our next wonderful podcast. We hope you have a great week.
Thank you for listening to the Parents' Place podcast, if you would like to reach us, you can at parents@thefamilyplaceutah.org or you can reach Jen on Facebook, Jen Daly-The Family Place. Please check out our show notes for any additional information. Our website is thefamilyplaceutah.org if you're interested in any of our upcoming virtual classes. We'd love to see you there.
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