The Parent Trap: Comparison

Comparison is the death of joy.

-Mark Twain

A few weeks ago, we enjoyed a lovely lunch at the home of some dear friends. The oldest son, 14, greeted us at the door with an offer of a beverage. I truly felt cared for with his warm gesture of hospitality.

Later I thought, “Where have I gone wrong?!?” Completely overlooked in our “how to be a human” lessons was this most basic lesson in hospitality. I was lucky if our kids didn’t greet our guests with demonstrations of their latest MMA move or long diatribes about the Minecraft nether.

I had fallen into the easy trap of comparison.

The parenting landscape is a virtual minefield of comparison traps. Every aspect of our child’s personhood is seemingly up for grabs:

• Academics
• Social development
• Physical health
• Emotional well being
• Spirituality

We admire the beautiful holiday photo card and think what a perfectly happy family. They obviously never have spaghetti sauce splattered across the dining room wall.

We visit the sunny, organized school room at a homeschool friend’s house and assume every single day is peaceful, joyful, creative, imaginative and packed with learning.

We see pictures of expensive vacations and think how nice it must be not to have any financial worry.

And then we look at ourselves and think how we have fallen short.

But what are we comparing ourselves to? A snapshot. An instant in time. We compare our worst moment to someone else’s best moment, forgetting that there is an entire story, a whole life behind that moment.

A life filled with its own share of challenges, disappointments, fears, anxiety and maybe even shame.

That holiday photo? Maybe mom deals with chronic illness and that was the first day she had the energy to leave the house in weeks.

That perfect schoolroom? What if mom is incredibly stretched – juggling vastly different learning styles, toddlers, and marriage challenges and this is the one small space she feels she has some control over?

That expensive vacation? Maybe it took years of saving and a choice was made to fight for joy amidst long security lines, jet lag, and sleep deprived kids.

We must remember there is always, always a backstory.

We all have areas of strength and areas of growth. We all have different priorities. Families of origin with vastly different cultures. What comes easy to us may be a huge area of challenge for our neighbor.

For instance, I love cooking and nutrition is a priority for me. Because of this, we eat mostly whole, homemade meals. At the same time, we also generally shoot for 80/20. I could compare myself to the 20% that eats organic kale at every meal and feel down on myself. I could also compare myself to the family that prioritizes competitive sports and ends up eating fast several times a week. Then maybe I would feel better about myself – for awhile. Until the next time we have lunch with uber nutritious family and the cycle starts again.

A few specific things help me get out of this cycle:

• Remember the snapshot. What I am seeing now is not the whole story.
• Don’t compare my worst day to someone else’s best day.
• Don’t compare my bad day to my own best day.
• Don’t compare my season of survival to my neighbor’s season of growth. And vice versa.
• Pay attention to whether it’s time to take a break from social media.
• Delight in the differences. My father in law says this and exemplifies it beautifully. Sometimes we know we shouldn’t compare so we kind of turn a blind eye to differences or try to ignore them. But in doing so, we are missing out on so much. There is such richness in our differences. We can learn from each other, build empathy, and enjoy a community that brings such varied skills, strengths and perspectives.
• Start and end with grace. Grace for myself. For my kids. For my husband. For my fellow human beings.

Sending so much love out to my fellow parents today. You all are doing the hard work of raising littles and in this Year of Our Lord 2020, it’s especially hard. You are amazing and you are enough.