Judge Not, Lest Ye Be . . .the Mom with the Crying Child in Seat 17B

How well I remember my carefree 20’s. Well, they didn’t seem carefree then; I was trying to work through a failing marriage while making a start on my career. But, looking back from my vantage point of right now – with kids, a mortgage, aging parents, and a (different) husband with a cholesterol level of over 280 due to genetics – my memory is that they were relatively easy.

The other thing I remember being very easy in my 20’s was my ability to judge others. When you don’t know a whole lot about anything, judging is very easy to do.

In my childhood home, we have an old wooden plaque hanging in the kitchen that is engraved with this saying: “Before I judge a man, let me walk a mile in his moccasins.” The quote is attributed to an old Indian proverb. Given that we lived in Apache, Oklahoma and that the tenet of the saying makes sense, I never questioned it authenticity. In fact, I never really thought much about it.

Until I became a Mom.

And then, all sorts of judgments I’d made in the past – even subconscious ones that I’d never even articulated – would come rushing forth from time to time. Usually, these floodgates happened as I found myself in the exact situation I’d judged someone about years earlier.

Examples are:

• Why can’t my sister get my nephew to eat something other than chicken nuggets for the sixth night in a row?
• Why can’t that Mom get her baby to shush on this crowded plane?
• Why would anyone need a night nurse?
• Or – the worst one, that I still hate to admit I was capable of – why can’t that Mom stay late at work tonight to finish this report?

I’ll never forget a trip I made to Target when my first son was about 6 weeks old. I had left Jack at home sleeping with my husband on watch, while I made a short escape outside of our home, which at that point was feeling more like a prison. (More on what I now think was postpartum depression combined with misguided attachment parenting philosophy in later musings). As I walked through the store, I heard a ~2-3 yr old screaming at the top of his lungs about wanting some toy that his mom wouldn’t buy him.

Up to this point, I had always assumed that when kids acted this way in a store, it was due to a behavior of the parent. Maybe the parent had taken them out during naptime, or the kid needed a snack, or something. But as I listened to the tactics the Mom was using to try to get the kid to calm down, it struck me – every move she was making was something I would have tried. AND IT WASN’T WORKING! The kid just screamed harder until she ended up picking him up from the half-full shopping cart and taking him out of the store.

Witnessing that episode shook me to the core. I remember calling Jim from the parking lot, crying hysterically as I tried to describe the feeling of anxiety that had just come over me. I think it was the first time I really understood that when you have children, you give up the ability to control your own life. This was a hard lesson in reality for me, an ambitious control freak who had a grand design for my life that took me well into my nineties.

That was almost three years ago, and I’ve learned a lot since then. And as I’ve been walking in these “Motherhood Moccasins”, I’ve stopped a lot of my judgmental behaviors.

• The woman on the plane who’s trying to negotiate cramped aisles, diaper bags, and one (or – even worse – more than one) kid by herself? Here, please sit by me. I’ll be a sympathetic ear.
• The woman in the grocery store with a fussy pre-schooler? Here, let me try to redirect him through distraction. At the least, it will give you a chance to catch a breath.
• The woman who has to return to work after maternity leave whose husband travels for business during the week? Here, let me give you a great recommendation for a night nurse.
• The woman with a stroller trying to make her way onto an already over-full elevator? Here, let me help you get inside, giving up my own space if I need to.

That’s one of the beautiful things about being a Mom. You learn so much. You learn that raising kids takes more than two hands – even if those hands change a diaper or make a bottle differently than yours. You learn that children grow up to be smart/have allergies/be healthy by drinking breastmilk OR formula (and vice versa). You learn that well-adjusted, happy and secure kids can be the product of stay at home Moms, nannies, or day-care. You learn that it’s not nature OR nurture – it’s both.

And, as for the moments of criticism that still flare up, I have noticed something – they tend to happen when I’m watching something I haven’t had to deal with personally yet. They are for bridges I haven’t crossed yet: public vs. private school, select athletics, how early is too early for a cell phone. I just hope when I reach those stages with my own kids, I won’t judge myself (or anyone else) too harshly for any choice they’ve made.