Thou shall not judge

I've been both a victim and a perpetrator of judging. I have expectations on how I should bring up my children and how, generally, children should be treated. It's not something new to say that reality is always different from theory, and how it is sometimes necessary to relax our views on child rearing so that both parents and children can enjoy themselves.

Yet I judge occasionally, despite having gone through the frustration of being judged myself. It's easy to see something during a frame of time and make statements about it. But such statements are often inappropriate, out of context, and unfair as these bystanders (myself included) really have no clue of what they are talking about.

We don't know if the parent has been going through days of sleep deprivation, handling a recalcitrant toddler who refuses to go to bed, and then handling a screaming baby till the wee hours in the morning. We don't know if the parent has postponed visiting the bathroom, or skipped breakfast just to get a pre-schooler to reach school on time. We don't know if the parent's patience has been worn thin after a whole day of managing a toddler's desire to exert his will, resisting diaper changes, lunch, snacks, baths, and insisting that it's more fun to play with food than to eat it. Most of the time when we judge, we're usually present at just that moment in time when parent is most deprived. Instead of empathizing and offering help, we judge.

What about the times when we see a family having fun together? What about the times when we see happy kids running free in parks? Would you go up to the parents and tell them, "hey, you've done an awesome job... look how happy your kids are". Most likely not. But we're more likely to go "TSK, TSK, TSK", LOUDLY when we see tantrums in shopping malls and on the MRT. And then we instinctively think inwardly, "what bad parents", or "this is never gonna happen to me".

Well, we always think we know better. Kara articulated it well, with her article titled "Apologies To The Parents I Judged Four Years Ago".