I'll never...

When you're not a parent yet, you will find yourself beginning sentences this way. When you observe another parent in public, when you read a story about something happening to a kid, when your friends/relatives become parents before you, you will do it. Maybe you don't say it aloud... but I promise you, you say it in your head. I'll never spank my kids. I'll never have a screaming kid in a store. I'll never bribe my kids with food. I'll never count to 3. I'll never let them sleep with me. I'll never feed them junk. I'll never use the TV as a babysitter. I'll never let my child throw a tantrum in a public place. I'll never let my kids stay up late. I'll never lose sight of my kid in public. I'll never fall asleep while watching my kids. I'll never find myself unprepared. I'll never say that, do that, let my kid blah, blah, blah.

Folks, I have a very unkind piece of advice for you. Shut up. YOU DON'T KNOW. You don't. You THINK you do, you think you can imagine, you think you can prepare. You are the armchair quarterback with the advantage of replay. You are the backseat driver. You are the one I envision now when I read "judge not, lest ye be judged" in my Bible. You are, in the eyes of us parents, the blathering idiot who goes on and on like your least favorite judgemental radio or TV pundit. I don't mean this as an insult. I don't mean you are stupid. I just mean you are inexperienced. You are the equivalent of a civilian offering a soldier advice when you've never even served. You are the little kid telling their mommy and daddy what YOU will do when you are a mommy or daddy. Shut up. You are merely embarrassing yourself.

I laugh now at my former know-it-all self for even thinking the thoughts I thought and I blush at the moments I had the gall to say it out loud. I used to think that I knew just based on what my mom did with me, what I would do. I didn't. Each situation is different, society is different, each child is different. I was you once folks, so I don't mean to insult you when I say again... shut up. Try the exercise I try daily now if I find myself even THINKING about judging someone else (especially a parent, but really anyone)... I stop and I remind myself that I have not walked in their shoes. That I am seeing that person in one small moment of their life and have no idea of what their history is.

I once promised myself, "I will never drive a mom car." I was the person with the ridiculously tidy car that was always vacuumed, always spotless, always ready to receive an unexpected passenger. I never understood how people could have clothes, food, unidentified lying objects, etc. strewn about their car. Now, I know. Long overdue cleanings of my car during the past four years have been known to produce the following: petrified cheerios, a plastic toy utensil, a lego clone-trooper helmet, a pair of Spiderman sunglasses I told William we lost, 6 month old receipts, sand, mud, goldfish crackers, a piece of petrified mac & cheese (what? they've never eaten that in the car dammit!), clone trooper action figures, Starbucks cups and/or lids (never still attached to the other piece), juice-box straws, yogurt (eeeeewwww), hair ties, hair clips, stuffed toys, wiffle balls, shovels, blankets, pacifiers, baby bottle caps, teethers, rice (again, never actually eaten in the car!), molding milk in a bottle or sipper (blech!), a diaper (yes, used... don't judge), a baby monitor (what? how did that get there?), clothing the kids have grown out of, gift cards with money still on them (yay!), petrified pieces of playdough (huh?), dvd's/cd's (no, never in the jewel case), books, toy cars, baby dolls, my sunglasses, an important phone number that it would have been nice to find WEEKS ago, pieces of my hands-free headsets, fossilized donut, every super-hero toy known to man, that toy I told William was not to leave the house, etc.

How does that happen, you ask? Why don't you clean your car out when you get home and you're coming inside? HA HA HA! Let me tell you why, kids. Shit happens. You're exhausted, your kid super-pooped on the way home, the other one fell asleep during a freakin' 10 minute car ride, you had to make an unplanned stop for supplies, the doctor ran late, the baby-sitter got sick, you had to throw kids and toys and food and supplies into the car in a haphazard fashion to make it to a last-minute doctor appointment because someone is puking, your even-more-tired friend asked you to watch her kids and in sympathy and solidarity you agreed, you had to work late, you had to leave a public place early because your usually wonderful kid is having a meltdown, YOU puked, you didn't plan dinner and have to now pick up something last-minute, you realize you don't have any infant Tylenol in the house and your kid spiked a fever, your spouse is out of town, your f@#!ing smoke alarms are beeping and you don't have the batteries needed to replace the ones that just died, etc. Shit happens. It will happen to you. Don't judge, try not to laugh and don't bother trying to prepare ahead. This isn't a test you can study for. Your test will be different... no copying from the neighbor folks. God in his infinite wisdom will make sure each test is individual so that you can't develop an answer key. You can't break into the office and steal last-year's test. Shit happens.

So the next time you try to tell your friend that counting to 3 is ineffective, the next time you tsk tsk a parent letting their kid open a box of cookies in the store before checkout, the next time you shake your head at the parent with the screaming child lying on the floor in Target, throwing juice at the pancake house, skipping a nap or watching too much TV... quiet yourself. You don't know. You don't know what happened to them yesterday, this morning, 5 minutes ago, at the doctor's, at school, etc. You haven't walked in their shoes. So quiet yourself and concentrate on walking in your own shoes.

So many things can affect your parenting decision... your marriage, your job, your economic situation, your support system, the past 24 hours of your life, whatever. So the next time you want to dish out some advice to your friends, family, neighbors, strangers and you are not a parent remember (these are taken from my own life and the lives of my parent friends) you don't know if:
The kid just had vaccinations and is reacting poorly, the a-hole working the list at the pancake house forgot you and you ate an hour later than scheduled, the kid is teething and not sleeping, the parent is working on a new skill or lesson with that child, the doctor ran an hour behind and right into nap/eating time, the kid suddenly had an onset of "poopiness" and managed to eat through the entire stash of diapers in your diaper bag, a power outtage means the alarm didn't go off and now the whole day is shot to hell, the kid got bullied at school and does not yet have the maturity to express it well, the parents are in the middle of a divorce and the kids are suffering, the parents SHOULD be getting a divorce and the kids are suffering, the parent is on 2 hours of sleep because kids are puking, teething, having night terrors, spiking ridiculously high fevers, transitioning from a crib, etc., the kid and parent are going through hell at an allergist because they're freakin' allergic to everything and you're running out of things to feed them, the kid heard something in a story that freaked them out, the parent just lost their own parent and thus the kid lost their grandparent and everyone is an emotional wreck, the parent just heard bad news at work or got laid off, the parent is driving a rental car because they just got into a horrific accident, the 2nd child is SO different from the first that the parents are trying every new trick in the book and seeking the help of other parents for new ideas, the weather took an unpredicted turn, you left the house in a hurry because you're a new parent short on sleep and forgot to pack an extra outfit for the baby who is then sure to either spit-up or crap out of their diaper, you just spent the entire night in the emergency room, an appliance broke, a freakin' loud jet flew overhead and woke the baby, the dog just ran away and you spent 2 hours hunting it down, you have to buy a gift for someone and are doing it at the last minute with kids in tow because every other catastrophe has also happened this week, your sitter called in sick, the parent is sick for a week and now the house is a mess and there are no groceries, EVERYONE in the house is sick for a week (which turns into 3 because of the incubation period) and the house is REALLY a mess and they've all been living on Pedialyte & Gatorade, a parent is recovering from a c-section, gall-bladder or some other surgery, out-of-town visitors came back-to-back and kids are thrown off very easily by disruption in daily routine, the daily routine is changing due to lessons/school/work changes, the kid is giving up their morning nap, the kid is dropping nap time entirely, the mom is going through some hormonal crap in an effort to get pregnant again, to avoid getting pregnant again or just age, an accident/last-minute issue means no one has eaten in a few hours and you HAVE to stop somewhere to eat because you're not going to make it home, the coffee machine broke, the parent's cell phone just broke or ran out of juice precisely when they needed to make an emergency call to home/sitter/job/school, a relative "passing through town" stayed way longer than expected...etc. In other words, shit happened.

As for fellow parents (and I need to remind myself of this!!!)... remember my favorite phrase from the Bible "How can you say to your brother 'let me take the speck out of your eye' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye. You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." Even if you don't believe in God, that phrase works. Basically folks, until you're perfect keep your trap shut and work on yourself before you judge others.

And remember... God, fate, the universe, Karma, whatever just LOVES to put you in a situation that you've seen someone else in and said, "Well I'LL NEVER..." Famous last words, folks, famous last words.