Motherhood Mantra: I Don't Judge

See the lady dragging her screaming child by the arm, the mother's face flushed with rage?  I don't judge.  I don't know what her day was like.  I don't know what that child just did, or to whom, or how many times, or how many other methods she already tried to calm the kid down, or what kind of hurry they're in.

Hear a mom call her 10 year old an asshole?  I don't judge.  I don't know how that kid has been acting all day, or week, or what the mom has had to eat today, if anything, or how much sleep she's on, or if they've all been having a hard time lately.


Watch a mom park her stroller outside an ATM vestibule, in clear view of the ATM, because the stroller doesn't fit through the door, while she goes inside?  I don't judge.  She knows her life and her baby and her stroller and her running speed and it is not my job to tell her she's doing it wrong.

Observe a mother who pushes her 2 year old in a stroller in the pouring rain, with the rain cover pulled back?  I don't judge.  I don't know what the interaction between them was in the past few minutes.  I don't know that 2 year old, and I don't know the calculations that mother did in her head to make that decision, but I know for sure she was doing plenty of calculating.

And yet, in every one of those instances (that I have actually witnessed) there has been someone else standing there, judging, scowling, sometimes even butting in.  It's almost irresistible to do it.  In that list I just wrote, how many did you instantly judge as bad moms?  Every time, the kids were fine.  And every time there was a mother who felt attacked and deflated and piled upon in what was clearly already a stressful moment.

As a society, we do need to be sure that children are not being hurt by the people who are supposed to care for them.  But in the vast majority of cases, parents are doing their very best with a difficult situation, and we're all acting like it's our job, in these ugliest moments, to tell mothers just how ugly they look.

We judge each other because we feel judged ourselves.  And it's satisfying somehow to take all this out on each other.  But let's stop.  No more.  Next time you feel yourself judging another mom, imagine your lowest parenting moment, and imagine someone watching you in it.  Then move on.  Or go hug that lady.  She needs it.