Judge-y Pants: One Size Fits All

I would like everyone reading the post to say the following out loud, even if in a public place (trust me, everyone is too absorbed reading their Facebook feed to listen):

I , own a pair of judge-y pants. I wear them frequently. And well, it is okay, I think.


I, Trish, own many pairs of judge-y pants in sizes, colors and styles for all seasons and bloat. I wear them all the time. In fact, I might only own judge-y pants. And well, it is okay.

I know it is okay.

Because we all make judgments of each other all the time. Motherhood is a hot bed of bad, un-Biblical behavior--from gossip to social exclusion to judgment.

"Did you see how chubby her kids are?" "I would never do that!" "Why does she yell so much?" "She gives her children non-organic milk!" "Did you see how messy her house is?" "Why does she buy her kids everything?" "They have it so easy. My kid has a million therapies." "Why are her kids in so many activities?" "Do her children just watch TV all day?" "How could her abandon her kid at daycare?" "How could she just sit at home all day with her kids?" "Why, why is she so JUDGMENTAL?"

The ultimate judgement is when we judge each other to be judgmental. It is a confusing twisted situation--one which we think we are remedying an untenable situation on behalf of the population being judged, but really we are just assuming the person is judging when maybe they are just observing. But wait, but wait, they absolutely are not just observing, because well:

We all wear our judge-y pants like a second set of underwear. We may say we love our friends because they don't judge us and accept us for who we are. But, really, they judge us, all the time and still love us in spite of their judgments.  We judge as a gauge to our parenting decisions--we decide when we give our kids a lollipop that while lollipops are not essential for growing bodies, it is okay for now and we will risk the cavity. We judge when we discipline and we re-align how we discipline based on how we see other parents do it.

Judgement gives us a window into the consequences of our actions--good and bad. We see the kids in lots of activities and maybe we see stressed out kids or maybe we see kids who learned how to dance or ride a horse or paint a masterpiece and we think: maybe my kid would like that.  Or we turn the judgement on ourselves and then turn it back: "I don't do it. My kid is absolutely not missing out. You are just ridiculous."

Which is fine. Who cares. They are probably judging you and thinking that you are lazy and your kids are addicted to video games. Whatever.


Judgment is essential: 

It is how we survive. It is how we thrive. It is how we refine.


When we see a parent lose their shit and scream at their kid; we see what not to do (even though we all do it!). Suddenly,  we would never do that (because we just saw what happens when you do that).  Our judge-y pants enable us to look into a mirror and take away a lesson. We might never admit it, but the very worse cases of parenting are the very best learning stories.

You are probably judging me by my words right now---"She thinks she knows it all" or the much preferable (and honest, right?!) "She is brilliant!"

And well that is okay.  I am busy organizing my judge-y pants by color and fabric, so I can't hear you.




Comments

  1. So very true! Rememer when we are judging and pointing a finger at someone else, 3 more fingers are pointing back at us!

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  2. I had a girl who recently found her "spiritual path" tell me being judgemental is wrong. She went on to site examples of how to put a positive spin on any situation and not judge. I simply replied "stop judging me" haha! I felt very zen after.

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    1. LOL!! We all judge. And yeah, being judgmental is not the most perfect behavior. But, whatever.

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  3. Hmmm, since I said the term yesterday in a group....I guess I'll respond.

    When I say I don't want to put my judgy pants on, I don't mean to come across as pious. I just wouldn't want anyone, to see a snapshot of me in time, on my worst day at one of my worst moments....and base their opinion of me on that. The overweight child's family may live in poverty and therefore not be able to afford healthy food. The screaming mom may have just lost her job, or another relative or something like that. So when I do see an unfortunate situation, I try to remind myself of those things.

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    1. Oh I love you Lisa and I was so glad you used that word. (It gave me something to write about! LOL!). And I agree completely: we need to let our judgments pass. . .and then move forward. Or understand where the person is coming from. Or realize that we all have terrible, horrible moments and while someone may judge--it should not be the final judgement. Moments are just moments. And we are human. We all suck during some moments.

      You are the least pious person I know. xoxo. That is my final judgement. ( :

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