Judgment

Anyway, we were at the park, Papa, me, our boys, and Josh's friend, when Friend says, "Ugh! Do you smell that? Somebody is cigaretting!" accompanied with a disguste...d glare at the lady across the street who was smoking.

I won't even get into the fact that a 7 year old used the word 'cigaretting'. I want to focus on the judgment in his statement and glare.

I remember being told how disgusting smoking was as a kid, and probably reacting exactly like Friend up there. And then I started smoking when I was 16. And I quit around age 24.

The point I want to make is that all the 'smoking is disgusting, wrong, addictive, unhealthy, etc' speeches and propaganda didn't teach me not to smoke. They taught me to judge people who smoke. When my kids say something about someone making choices different than ours, I want to remind them everyone has the right to make choices for their own bodies. If they ask me why I don't smoke, I want to tell them I used to but I stopped because I didn't like how it made my clothes smell, my skin feel, my mouth taste, my head feel, etc.

I know I am guilty of making a snide comment or shooting a judgmental look at people's actions. Papa and I can have a pretty mean sense of humor sometimes. I didn't really realize until Friend's comment how much these subtle displays of parents' judgment can rub off on their kids. The world doesn't need more judgment, it needs more tolerance, understanding and love.

So here's to adding yet another thing to my parenting 'to-do' list. Keeping my prejudices and judgments in check and replacing that with modeling more tolerance and understanding. This is truly proving to be a never-ending journey. :)See More

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