Or, how about the mommy judgments that affect quite a few women? Breastfeeding seems to especially be a hot button issue here. “Gosh, I can’t believe Beth isn’t breastfeeding, that’s so selfish of her. Doesn’t she know ‘breast is best?’” Although for all we know Beth doesn’t breastfeed because no matter how hard she tries, she can’t produce enough milk and it’s tearing her up inside to have to give her son formula instead. This particular situation has happened to several of my friends.
Then there’s the other category of judgment that happens every day too. The “your emotions and feelings don’t even matter because my situation is so much worse than yours so you can’t even compare”. This one is SO prevalent in the military world. Maybe one woman’s husband is gone 6 plus months every year and another woman’s husband is only gone every other week or is on shore duty but works 14 plus hours a day. Well, that second woman had better never make the mistake of saying it can be hard to the first woman because more times than not, the first woman will shut that woman down right away and essentially tell her that her feelings don’t deserve to be validated, that she’s not even a real military wife. And that’s a bit unfair don’t you think?
I think it’s all a bit unfair and a little ridiculous as well. How do you know what someone else is going through without having “walked in their shoes”? Isn’t every person’s life, decisions, and emotions uniquely relevant to their own experiences? What right do we all have to judge each other, pronounce verdicts upon each other, or invalidate other’s feelings or choices? Ultimately aren’t we really just hurting ourselves too by doing this? By perpetuating so much judgment and assumptions, we’re just inviting ourselves to be judged too and maybe even secretly judging ourselves with the same negative voice we’re using towards others. After all, when you have the negative voice on all the time, it’s hard to turn it off.
