Feeling like you’re
being judged is about one of the worst in the world, and it’s one heck of a
demon I’ve fought my entire life. If I
have any monsters in my closet, it’s that I have a fear of being judged – both for
the bad and good. I don’t care for people making assumptions on
why I may be wrong or scrutinizing the ways on how I actually may have
succeeded….it would be nice of the world to just appreciate people based on
their effort and good intentions.
However, we all
know that’s not how it works and passing judgment and falling victim to it is
included in our walks of life as interactive, social beings. I got my first dose of it as young as I could
remember – I was one of two Asian kids in my elementary school and from my very
first day, that other boy and I were immediately “sittin’ in a tree.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.” Since then, and beyond the cruelness of young
kids just poking fun just to feel better of themselves, I took the old cliché statement
to heart: Don’t worry about what other people say, just worry about you.
That might have
helped me as a kid wearing sweatpants until junior high, it got me through some
nasty comments about never wearing a dress to church as a pastor’s kid, and it
sometimes still helps when I think I’m being judged for being the old lady of
my class of all 20-somethings who has never gone out drinking to celebrate the
end of a big exam. But where it really
stopped in its effectiveness is when I became a Mom.
Being Mom-judged
can be healthy, but it can also hurt and when given at the wrong times, can
pretty much knock you down to your knees.
It can make you feel proud when someone praises you for a job well done,
but it can bring you to tears when you are criticized in a passive-aggressive
way and can really make you question your abilities to parent. See, the problem with being judged as a Mom
is that as soon as you become one, everyone – including yourself – begins to
pass judgment.
Four weeks into
being new parents, my husband and I were criticized (albeit lightly) by our
parents for “playing” too much with our baby girl in response to photos we sent
them of her holding an X-box gaming console.
I can’t tell you how many stares I’ve received for nursing under a shawl
in public (in Germany, of all places – where people do public naked baths at
the community pool!), or how often strangers would ask me from the other side
of a bathroom stall “Are you seriously
pumping in this nasty bathroom”? Then
when I switched to formula as I began losing my milk supply, it turned into
feeling like I was less of a mother because I could not make it a full 12
months on pure breastmilk. “Ohh, well I
breastfed all SIX of my children until they were one and a half. You know they say breast milk is best for
your child.” I stared that lady down in
the pediatrician’s office and wanted to scream at her, “Yeah, you’re right,
lady! I want what’s WORSE for my kid.
You’re so much better of a mom than I could ever be because your boobs
have far more endurance than mine!!”
As time passed
on, the hits kept coming, and I got better at dodging them. It’s easy when you know that you’re trying,
and the outcome is just what it is. Like
when I do my girls’ hair all pretty and slick in the morning, only to drop them
off at school to see that they pulled one-half of their pigtails out on the way
there while rubbing that side of a head with a post-birthday party balloon
lazily left in the car by Yours Truly. I
know what it looked like before, and it was a damn good hair-do, so to hell
with it if you want to mess it all up and look weird all day at school.
The times that
it hurts is when you were completely unaware of your shortcomings, and when the
“judger” truly didn’t mean to judge. A
few years ago when Kaylee was 2, her teacher pulled me to the side one day as I
was picking her up and asked me if she was on a special diet. I said, “No, what are you talking about?” and
the teacher replied with, “Well, I am just asking because you pack her so
little for lunch everyday. And it’s the
same thing everyday. She’s always hungry
and is always picking at other kids’ food.”
It was at that
time that I drove all the way home sobbing to myself, feeling like the absolute
most horrible mother in the world, and worse than just me knowing it, all the
teachers at her school thought so too. Of
course they thought that. All she ever
got was some chicken nuggets or a ham sandwich everyday. All those other moms I later found out were
stuffing their kids’ lunch boxes with all kinds of goodies – gummy bears,
raisins, fruit cups. I was damned to
hell.
I eventually got
over it, and since 2009, I became slightly obsessive compulsive about how I
feed my children. I ordered a hugely
overpriced lunchbox set from Pottery Barn Kids (embroidered with their name),
and began menu planning. In my mind, I
had to set things right, and so I went to town planning all three meals and snacks
in advance to make sure there were no repeats in an eight-day period. It was insane, but I felt better. I felt like I was finally a good Mommy.
Lately, I got
onto this kick of packing my kids some more “fun” lunches, Bento Box
style. I found some cute inspirations
online and thought to myself how nice it would be for my girls to open their
lunch pails to find an Owl Sandwich or Monkey Pancake awaiting their
consumption. It wasn’t really driven by
any comments by any teachers – this time, the judging came from my own
kid. My oldest had confessed to me how
much she hated staying at school so long, and asked me why I couldn’t be like
the other Mommies who pick their kids up early.
“Why do I have to be there ALL day and go early, and everyone else gets
to eat breakfast at home? Why do I have
to stay there and all my friends’ Mommies pick them up early?”
So, again, I
drove all the way to school in tears, filled with 100x more guilt than ever
before. I questioned my choice to go
back to school, my decision to move the girls to a new school, and of course,
my qualities as a parent. Of course I knew
dropping out of school wasn’t really an option - I’d already paid for two years
of dental education which is equal to purchasing a nice house in the state of
Texas. So I set my mind on trying to
make my kids’ lives more fun, more enjoyable.
Give them something to look forward to.
The only things I could think of at the time were A) more fun meals, and
B) more activities outside of school.
And so started
my obsession with making animals out of lunch meat and punching Hello Kitty’s
out of cheese and seaweed. I began
making some really fun meals for them and went to town with my creative side to
see what new things I could conjure up.
I also spent countless hours at my county’s website researching sports
and arts activities, and enrolled my daughters in dance and soccer. They were already doing swimming and
gymnastics, but in my mind, I could more for them. I had
to do more for them. What I got back in
return from kid-feedback was immensely gratifying. My girls loved their meals and had so much to
look forward to every day at their “boring” school for whatever activity we
were going to do that day.
The funny thing
is, the judging doesn’t really stop, even when you think you’re doing
A-OK. Suddenly, I find myself paranoid
and wonder if people think I’m being over-ambitious, or that I’m packing way
too much in my kids’ days. I wonder if
my kids’ teachers think I’m just way too over-the-top with how many activities
I have planned for them and that I’m going to burn them out. I wonder if my friends think I’m too pushy
with my kids because I’m teaching them piano, or if I’m being way too
ridiculous with the amount of time I spend preparing their lunches. I stop and think about how hard I’m trying to
make this all work, and wonder how it can be possible that when you do so much
just because you love your kids, that you can also be “wrong” for trying so
hard?
I find myself
judging a lot less now than I used to, and maybe that’s a good thing from where
I used to be a few years ago when I was childless and utterly selfish. I don’t hate on Moms who wear their pajamas
to the grocery store, and definitely don’t criticize a tired Mom who tells her
kid to shut up. Sure, I can think of better
choice words than those, but I understand where that’s coming from. It’s hard, but I try not to judge a
misbehaving kids’ parents for being negligent, or a sloppy kids’ parents for
being uncaring. When I see a Mom who is made-up
well and super put together, I stop assuming she has six nannies and a
household staff. For every parent I see
with their kid, I see something new these days – something between a mix of
love and effort.
I’m just working on not caring
if others around me don’t necessarily see that in me, but I sure know that that’s
what I’m made of. I apologized to my
kids the other day for yelling at them, saying that “Sometimes Mommy just….” and
Kaylee finished for me: “I know you’re stressed, Momma. It’s okay to yell, I know you don’t mean to. Next time just try to talk about your
feelings instead of screaming, ok?”
And that was that. As long as my kids know I’m trying, I’ll be
alright.
