So, at some point during my life, I fell into reading a couple of blogs. By mothers. Of children.*
I am not quite ready for the idea of children yet (did I mention scary in the first footnote? because OH MY GOD, SCARY), so my readership is not some kind of exercise in wishful thinking; I simply stumbled onto their sites via a series of links and stayed for the writing. But through reading them I’ve learned a thing or two. And no, they do not involve proper treatment of diaper rash.**
Important fact alert: People will never, ever stop judging you.
This wedding? This is the first step. This is the first time many of us are experiencing blatant, uncensored criticism with regard to a life-affirming decision that is, in theory, a happy event. Your budget? Is too high, or too low. Your choice of dessert? Is terrible. Your venue? Is too cheap, or too ostentatious. Your dress?
Ha. I won’t even go there.
After we’re all married, it will just continue. Well, you shouldn’t have bought a new car, when you could have saved that money for a home remodel/down payment on a home.*** And why aren’t all of the appliances you bought for your new home energy star compliant? You must diversify your entire stock portfolio this very minute, or you will run out of your retirement funds by age 67! Well, you guys don’t make enough money at your jobs to manage a three-week trip to Greece, now do you???
And if you choose to have a kid (hi, I’m bringing the conversation back ’round to children, awesome!), the pile-on will build into a frenzied, feverish mass of assvice. People will have urgent, strident opinions on C-sections v. natural childbirth, breastfeeding, daycare v. staying at home, what school your child goes to, what programs/activities your child is enrolled in, your child’s diet, the number of hours your child watches television, your parenting strategies. Your everything.
In summary: you lose. Every time.
Also in summary: People can be assholes.
I’m not sure why I never noticed the frequency of the judging of others’ life choices until now, at the time we’re trying to plan a wedding. Perhaps it’s because singletons — especially singletons in their mid-20s, as was my experience — are afforded a certain level of leniency, because society seems to agree that all we’re capable of accomplishing at that point in life is holding down a middling job and getting drunk on Tuesdays. Perhaps it’s because the common experience of life events, big and small, leads some people believe that they are qualified to speak authoritatively on them.
So maybe the noise we’re hearing is a good thing. Not a fun one, no. But it’s a chance to learn to cope with the copious amounts of unwanted advice from self-professed experts.
And a chance to practice telling them where to put it.
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* Scary!
** I skim these parts quickly, for lo: The Scariness.
*** Why so many people are convinced the purchase of a home is absolutely imperative for a newly married couple is another matter entirely. My parents didn’t purchase a home until they were nearly 40! Of course, my dad was in the Air Force, so a home would not have worked out! But still! They were broke for a very, very long time! Also see: Enlisted military salary, birth of me.
First of all, preach it.
Second of all, my friends started an college organization dedicated to getting drunk on Tuesdays. We got faculty advisers and made it official and everything. We had shirts. We felt accomplished.
“feverish mass of assvice” – wonderfully put, and perfectly descriptive!
I’m seriously terrified of everything to do with children, and a decent chunk of this is the judgement. And I realize passing of judgement is not restricted to those with authority on the issue – because I do it too and barely have authority on anything (though I do have the sense to keep it as inner dialogue) – should your one year old really be drinking a can of coke? For the most part I really do try and stay open-minded, but the realization that these judgements are going on all around me (only the total assholes say it out loud) is going to drive me bonkers. So this wedding thing really is good practice. A little training run.
Like with the judgement of budgets, or anything else wedding/child/life related, I think a lot of it comes down to trying to validate our own choices. I know when I watch people e.g. go on three-week trips to Greece when I decided I better just save my money and go on a car trip to Oregon instead, I have a moment of judgyness, but I know it’s only because I’m trying to validate my own choice to be a cheapo and not see Greece. I imagine the need to validate your choices when it comes to raising children is infinitely greater.
@India – that is accomplished!
I haven’t felt too much judgement yet, perhaps because people think I have it together (which I don’t, I just put on good appearances) and they know not to push me.
I think a lot of the judgement starts when people enter college. Then they have a wedding and there’s more. From there on out it just collectively snowballs. But the thing about getting older, is you get wiser, and you learn how to tune out the bull sh*t.
i love that someone else reads mom blogs too. i dream of being a hip mom with super cute babies but i’m not hip now so thats unlikely but its nice to read other people’s lives 🙂
the way people judge each other is absurd! i can’t believe how many energy people put into being bitter,angry nasty commenting machines. but there are some really great people out there and i guess finding a couple awesome people (and/or reading a couple awesome blogs) makes it worth trudging through the awfulness
Ah, yes. The abundant assvice associated with pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing. It came as a total shock to me. Who knew so many women would go at each other like cougars fighting over their prey when it comes to how I raise MY children? I had my first taste of it while in the hospital. From a nurse. Who refused to let me talk to a doctor. I assume that is because the doctor might have contradicted her assvice and told me that I could just go home and rest and not take the nasty drugs the nurse wanted to pump into my veins (which is what happened when I finally reached my doctor). And holy cow how can it be so important to someone else that whether I carry my baby in a Bjorn versus a sling versus a stroller?
As someone who was never particularly fond of any children until I had my own — and still, really, only like my kids; the rest are gross booger eating germy nosey such-and-suches — I can honestly say that the children themselves are the least scary part about having children. The scary part is the cacophony of negative nellies who feel that it is imperative they tell you why every single thing you are doing is WRONG and, worse, WILL KILL, SPOIL or otherwise RUIN your child.
Like planning a wedding, having a child will teach you how to say, sweetly and with a smile on your face, “Thank you for that information, but we’re happy doing this our way.”
I guess I am a person with values, therefore I judge . Therefore I make judgments (a little quote stolen from Amy Alkon). But I try to be fair and recognize the line between being a bitch, and just disagreeing with other people’s choices. They can make those choices so long as no one else is infringed upon…but I can still say “yeahh. Not for me.” I don’t think that’s bad. I think we need to be sensitive to each other and be empathetic – but “judging” is natural.
I think spending way more money than you can handle is pretty dumb. But if someone wants to do that, I guess I can’t stop them and if I could, I would not. Yet I can still deem them as being fiscally irresponsible.
That’s different than the article in Jezebel: those journalists were saying “that’s a down payment on a house!” Yes, it probably is. But if they have the money and aren’t being reckless with their future, they have the right, and the luxury, to determine what is more important. I think those women have a tough time believing anyone would value a large, expensive wedding more than buying a house. THAT is where the bitchiness comes in, and that is why they are annoying. Not because they have values and want to express them, but because they think that there is only one choice and everyone needs to make that same choice.
It’s okay to think someone is being dumb. I think harem pants are dumb; I told my best friend as much when she said she was going to buy a pair. For serious. But no one is getting hurt, including her, so I told her to go for it but that it would do nothing for her figure. And a wedding instead of a house might not do anything for your financial future, but if those are your values it’s cool (that’s still “judgment”!). If you max out your credit cards and decide to file for bankruptcy in order to do that – I will judge.
Gretchen, I agree — I will always reserve the right to think people are acting stupidly. I too think it’s pretty idiotic to throw way more money than what you can afford at anything — weddings, cars, houses alike.
But here’s the thing: I don’t ever KNOW the people in these tangential stories about how weddings are so crazy. They may toss out a statement about a couple who dropped $125k on flowers — and we’re all supposed to gasp and clutch our hearts in horror. We’re all supposed to say: those people are irresponsible! And for me? Yeah, that would be irresponsible as hell. I don’t have that kind of money, and I can’t ever imagine spending that on flowers alone. But the people who spent it? I don’t know their financial situation. They may not need money for a down payment on a house, because they may already have one. I simply DON’T KNOW what’s right for those people — only that it’s not the right amount of money to spend on flowers for ME.
You’re right in saying that the problem with these articles is that they tend to believe there is only one choice and that everybody needs to make the same choice. Their belief is that, well, weddings should only cost XXX amount — but the problem is the “normal” and “right” amount of money to spend for a wedding varies wildly depending where you live, how many people you invite, whether you are feeding them, how much you have saved, and so on. In other words, XXX a highly individual, highly variable number. And that’s where the judging becomes a dangerous game. Because when everybody tries to take their own version of XXX and apply it to everyone in one fell swooop, well, we ALL lose.
We will always form opinions about others based on our own values, whether we like to or not. But there are times when we need to keep those opinions to ourselves. Wedding budget talk, in particular, could benefit from more of those times.
Oh – here is one more “I know what’s best for you!” to add:
http://www.parentdish.com/2010/03/15/opinion-i-had-a-c-section-does-that-make-me-less-of-a-mother/?icid=main|main|dl3|link5|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.parentdish.com%2F2010%2F03%2F15%2Fopinion-i-had-a-c-section-does-that-make-me-less-of-a-mother%2F
I agree with this post, the part that especially motivated me to comment was the bit about “you’re supposed to save money to buy a house.” So, I have a problem with that. I don’t know where I’m going to settle down, I don’t need a big huge wasteful house where I have to spend all this money to maintain and aircondition/heat it. I try to prepare myself for stuff financially, and it’s like everything [you read] culminates in Owning A House. F*** that!