In his April 1997 general conference talk “Because She is a Mother”, (which is an exceptional talk that offers a lot of great encouragement to young mothers, and makes me cry every time I read it) Elder Holland tells of one young mother who wrote to him that “…she felt like the world expected her to teach her children reading, writing, interior design, Latin, calculus, and the Internet—all before the baby said something terribly ordinary, like “goo goo.”” This week I think I relate to this woman’s feelings.
The Great Comparison among mothers, seems to start the second a baby is born. Mothers get together and want to know who had the biggest baby, or the fastest labor, or the most life threatening experience. After that it’s all about baby milestones, whose baby is the best sleeper, whose baby nurses/rolls over/sits up/eats solids/crawls/walks/talks first, or best. And I’m starting to notice that there never seems to be an age at which the child grows out of these comparisons. It’s frustrating and exhausting. On one hand you want no part of it, but on the other, you feel this mother bear instinct to stick up for your child and make sure that his/her accomplishments are recognized, and “prove” so to speak that even if they still have a binky at the age of three, or aren’t chowing down on roast beef at 6 months, or have no desire to name 20 different species of animal, that they are still a smart, healthy, and happy child who is doing just fine.
Sometimes, it’s not even two mothers comparing their children, but a third party. I’ll mention in passing that I’m excited that one of my kids just started to do some new thing, and before I can even finish my sentence the third party is saying, “Well you know so-and-so’s baby/child has been doing that for 3 months now, and they do it ten times better. They are just the smartest, most wonderful child I’ve ever seen.” Okay, maybe not in those exact words, but you get the feeling that’s coming across. Frankly, I don’t care about so-and-so’s child. All I care about is that yesterday my child couldn’t do some certain thing, and today he/she can.
As bad as the comparing gets, I feel like that’s not even the worst of it. It seems like once the comparing gets to a certain point, then competing starts to sneak into to the background. And pretty soon its things like, “Well, my three year old can read Shakespeare backwards, while standing on his head for two hours straight. Can yours?” Or, “Hmm, your child always makes homemade birthday cards for your family members, I think my kids will do that from now on, but they’ll be bigger and better and the handwriting will be nicer, AND I’ll make sure I show them to you before I send them, just so you know that your kids’ aren’t as good.” Or, “Let’s get our toddlers together and sing songs, that’ll be fun for them, but secretly in the background I’m going to pay very close attention to how well your child knows the lyrics to a certain song that my child can sing perfectly, and then I’ll for sure make sure I tell you afterwards that your child is not as competent as mine in this area.” Am I exaggerating here? Maybe a little, but with the intent of getting my point across. Am I the only one who feels like this sometimes? Am I the only one who is sick to death of it?
The fact is that ALL kids develop and learn differently, and at their own pace. Kids have different interests, different strengths, different weaknesses, different learning styles, different challenges, different personalities, different parents, different schedules, different friends, different environments. They are exposed to different things/places/people/situations/ideas/information, etc. So it would be completely asinine to compare any one child with any other child, and it would be even worse to get a competitive mind set about what your kids are doing and learning.
And as annoyed with and tired of all of the above as I am, I still feel like it’s almost impossible to keep from getting sucked in to it. I'm tired of letting this ruin my day. I'm frustrated with myself that I let it get under my skin and irritate me so often. I'm disappointed that I sometimes find myself participating, despite my best intentions. But I do it because I get mad. And I'm mad that I get mad over it. The whole thing is stupid, and I'm wishing it would just go away and that we could all just be happy for the individual accomplishments of individual kids without having to put them side by side to see how they "measure up" to each other.
And so... I’m venting.
6 comments:
Ahhh I remember those days. I quit going to playgroups because of it. Every child is different. I think that I have gotten pass the comparing or maybe I just ignore it now. I do often get calls from young moms that want advice and sometimes it makes me feel good but I can only give advice on how I did it with my kids and it was different with each of them.
Krystal, I hate it as well. I stopped comparing myself and family with other people when I realized we would never measure up, or even want to. I don't do even half of the great things that you do with your kids, and, quite frankly, they probably wouldn't work with Jenni. Anyway, my point is, learn to be oblivious or stop caring. Hard, I know.
First: I apologize if I've ever made you feel bad.
Second: thanks for swapping ideas with me - we have different teaching styles, it's interesting to me to see which ones work well with which child... and I often get ideas of how to approach something differently or new things to teach my kids from you.
Third: this reminds me of the book called "Chester, I love you" - good book if you ever get a chance to read it. :)
AMEN!!!! Ditto to EVERYTHING you said. This post is great and says everything that I have been feeling. Every.last.word. Hadley doesn't crawl yet (10 months) and some people make me feel like I have failed as a parent, that Hadley is stupid, or not advanced and won't be athletic. It is something I have decided that I am going to master (ignoring it...not crawling).It is soooo hard with in-laws to do this though. I figure I need to learn to ignore it now because it will never end, they will go to school, have friends, and be apart of the world their whole life so the comparisions will never end. I also need to learn to ignore them now so I don't end up comparing my children against each other as well. And thank goodness that not every child is the same. Not every child has the same interest, the same learning style, and the way of life. Wouldn't that make for a boring adult generation?
Anyway....off my soapbox :) Great post.
I don't even have kids, and I have noticed it. Parents try to find every angle to prove that their children are superior to everyone else's, instead of just being satisfied with who their kids are. Some kids will be smaller, some will be bigger, some will be smarter, some will walk slower. Because everyone is DIFFERENT, even at a very young age. Sadly, it's not just with motherhood too. It's with all things. Clothes, kids, cars, houses, degrees...
GREAT post. There's a difference between being a proud parent and trying to be the "best" parent. Because really, how many parents can REALLY take credit for ALL of their kids accomplishments? Because if they can, poor kids!!!!
Although, I think the problem comes when parents (especially stay at home moms) view their "childrearing skills" as "accomplishments" of their own. Sure, they (we) work hard to teach our kids and to help them learn and grow, and like you said, we get excited when they learn a new skill, but that is definitely NO EXCUSE for comparing them with other children. On the flip side, just because a certain child takes "longer" (because that's still comparing!) to master a skill than others, that is no reason to assume that it's the parents "fault"!!
Ooooh, you got me all worked up here!!! Let me know if you figure out a way to get past this!
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