July 23, 2020
Failing to Compare
Do you know what I hope I fail in?
Seriously. I’m super competitive by nature. I had to teach myself that trying to “be my best” is a different thing than being better than someone else.
I had to fail at comparing.
What are we at, 8 billion people on the planet? Each one of us has a unique set of circumstances, challenges, goals, cultures, and opportunities. How can we possibly compare ourselves to each other?
Simplify: we do it in our own heads even if people don’t for us. So we have to learn not to compare in our own heads too!
Your child is acting out.
From people who may or may not know you comes the onslaught: “that’s because you work,” “that’s because you stay home all day,” “that’s because you are too busy,” “that’s because you never go on playdates,” “that’s because you have him around too many children,” “that’s because you have him in vpk,” “that’s because you home school,” “that’s because your mom ate Wendy’s Frosties with French fries while carrying you…”
And it goes on and on! They give you reasons to blame yourself or your situation for the child crying in the grocery cart.
You know, mentally, it’s been a long day or he just woke up and the bright lights hurt his eyes or he’s teething or maybe he flat out doesn’t want to be in the store today but you let the judging start in you. Now you blame yourself.
One child is independent at 6: he wakes up before the rooster crows, does schoolwork without prodding, makes healthy food if there isn’t a ready meal, dresses himself and three younger siblings and feeds the dog before you have your coffee. Another is 13 and you can’t trust him with the dog for three seconds, he never does anything without you doing it for him, you bought him sliders and gave up on shoelaces decades ago, and it scares you that the government thinks this kid can climb into a 2-ton vehicle in less than three years and turn himself into a human projectile at 70mph+. (Exaggerated, I know, but still!)
You find yourself blaming you and your circumstances for how your kids are.
Stop it!
Mommy, your kids are fine!
They have their own unique personalities and the unique way God set in them from when they were knit together in your womb! Your job is to help them find their way. It’s a really cool study to really research the Hebrew on that passage you know, “Train up a child…” the word way there means “the traits that are his” we might say his personality, likes, and dreams. Dig into that one more when you have time – awesome study.
ANYWAY! Back to your mind yelling at you and beating you up because your children are different. Different than you, different than your spouse, different than their siblings, friends, teammates, schoolmates – YES! They were all made different. Each a beautiful masterpiece God is still carefully crafting with His own hands.
That independent child? We lead and guide and pray they choose to ask for help when they face something that looks difficult – we’d rather them not make the same mistakes we did. (Waving my hand, I was that independent child and humility was/is a challenge for me!)
The 13 year old that seems lazy and unproductive? Watch what falling in love with a sport, subject, or animal will do for him. You turn around and that one is buying books on said subject, devoting hours, days, whole weeks lost in it, suddenly you blink and he’s that subject’s walking encyclopedia – then if you listen you’ll discover that was always there, he studies one thing at a time and shoelaces, school deadlines, and things that didn’t interest him just didn’t get any attention.
When you feel like your brain is beating you up because of your parenting, your situation, and your children not being “perfect,” remind your brain that no one is perfect. There are no perfect children. (Okay, be honest, you aren’t living in a Jewish village 2000 years ago watching Joseph and Mary parent Jesus – my brain wouldn’t have shut up watching a real perfect kid!)
You can’t say to yourself, “I did xyz” regarding a child’s personality unless you are using that as a tool to ask yourself, “how do I help him overcome this?” Because yes, I know, going through financial instability, parents going to work or coming home, changing schools, changing neighborhoods, losing family members, that all does contribute to the development of personality and psyche in a child (or in an adult, am I right?) so understanding is good to help more forward – but the best way to help is to LISTEN.
Sit with them when you can – vehicles are normally good because they are trapped and can’t go anywhere. And ditch the devices. Unless you are parenting long distance, look in their eyes and listen with your whole self. It doesn’t have to look like two adults over coffee at a Barnes & Noble, either. Think like them. You can be playing a video game with your kid and have deep conversation. You can be building duplo blocks and get the scoop on everything in his little heart.
Listen to them. Ask them prodding questions about their thoughts, their dreams, their goals, and what things have impacted them. You will learn a lot. Let them speak as much as you can. You lecturing the same stuff becomes listening to a broken record. You need to hear them as much as they need to talk to you. Learn their hearts. If you forget stuff sometimes like I do, WRITE DOWN important stuff and file it away somewhere. That way when you want to know your daughter’s favorite color you don’t have to text her sister.
Fail to compare. ALWAYS choose not to compare. If you hear them saying “at least I’m better than so-and-so…” ask why they feel that way and then tell them how each person is unique. If they want to be better at something, encourage it! But don’t compare with others. They don’t know “so-and-so’s” full heart story. (Side note on that is let them read “To Kill A Mockingbird” or watch the Gregory Peck film version.) Don’t compare. Especially don’t compare siblings!
Choose to change what you can (only yourself and the environment you create) and accept what you can’t (the personality of others and situations you have no control over).
Do your best in the environment you have. That is all we can do. Mothers for millennia have been doing just that – wars, famines, massive global flood, cultural and political changes, pestilences, and economic booms and busts notwithstanding, Mothers continue to do their best for their children.
Fail to compare.
Instead of tearing each other down, we should build each other up. We should provide safe environments for each other to come, talk deeply, and gather advice. We live helping each other because we know the power is not in comparing ourselves with another but with helping each other up. We need that type of love. We need to build each other up instead of compare and break down. Our children see how we treat others when they are near and when we are alone – character is what we say and do when no one is watching. Build up. Encourage. Instead of judging someone else, rejoice with them or encourage them.
This is for our own children too. Build them up, encourage them, rejoice with them, pray for them, and lead them in their own unique and special way.
If you catch yourself comparing yourself to another or your children to each other or another’s child… Stop. Instead, choose to encourage or rejoice. Your heart will smile more and that will show on your face and in your attitude – this causes joy in your heart!
Thank you for reading!
Type at you next time,
~Nancy Tart