Nobody blogs about their failures. I have never in all my blog hopping, come across a post where you could just tell that the poster completely messed something up. Not something like "I accidentally made biscuits with baking soda instead of powder." or humorous stuff like that for entertainment value, but I mean stuff they are genuinely ashamed of. Such as "I ignored my child today and wasted all my time on _________."
It seems like people do like to occasionally share slight mishaps such as "Look at this horrible painting job I did on this craft" But it seems like there are unspoken guidelines and rules that go along with the post. A) It has to have a happy ending eventually where they were able to get it right or sometimes B) The mishap has to be superficial and mostly for entertainment value. That is how it is with pretty much everyone, including me, and that is how it always will be.
This is why blogs suck.
You read about everyone's amazing adventures or their child's many accomplishments, but have you ever read a post about someone's super boring weekend where they just sat around watching TV serving their kids cold cereal for dinner and living off of an open bag of chips you found in the cupboard? Most likely not. Not unless they have first convinced you that the day of loafing was much deserved because (Insert reason here).
We have heard it so many times about how we seem to compare our weaknesses to other people's strengths, and it is so true!! We read a blog where the mom does homeschooling, and she has the most amazing recipes, cooks everything from scratch, has never set foot in a Costco, but prefers to shop at the health food store, every party she throws is a HUGE hit and featured in some sort of magazine, her children look and behave like they just got out of finishing school and her house is always spotless. We want to be viewed this way, and when we look around and realize that there is absolutely no way we could possibly pull that off, we go for the "I'm imperfect and I'm proud of it! See? I accidentally dropped a carton off eggs on my kitchen floor! Be proud of your flaws!" The movie Mean Girls has the perfect example of "fake conffesion". The 3 girls are standing in front of the mirror picking themselves apart such as "My pores are so huge" and other superficial flaws, and nobody is judging them, but with the 4th girl says "I have really bad breath in the mornings" they give her a disgusted look and say "eew", when I'm sure that those girls knew perfectly well that their morning breath probably didn't smell any better.
When we do find out about a real and genuine flaw, we like to pretend we are shocked. Such as the "I ignored my child today" comment above. And while everyone knows they have done it on occasion, they still pass judgement on whomever they know that was caught doing it, or confided in them with what they had done. Or we pass judgement in areas that we know NOTHING about! Childless couples, judge people with children who don't handle things the way they picture themselves handling things when they have their kids for example. It is so easy to fix everyone's lives for them. The hard part is taking your own advice. We love to hear about other people's genuine mistakes and compare their situation with our lives and find the reasons, why when they do it, it's worse.
I am appallingly guilty of this. I had a friend once who's son was a crazy toddler. He was borderline out of control.. while my kids behaved themselves fairly well. So OF COURSE it's because I'm SUCH a great parent and just know how to raise my kids, and everyone else's too! Soon I started becoming overly critical of her. Not to her face of course.. And I noticed quite a few other people doing the same thing. I know this, because they would make comments to me when our friend wasn't around about how THEY would do it. While maybe sometimes one of us may have had some good suggestions, what we weren't talking about, were our own faults and shortcomings that needed urgent attention. It made us feel so good to just "know" that if we were that kid's parents we'd do it different. Super! .. Meanwhile, everything we needed to improve was being covered up. I think that's why we do it. It's a coping mechanism. But of course when we cover up our own problems, they just seem to build.
Today I was in the bathroom doing my thing, when Riley knocked on the door and asked if he could have some pizza. I told him "Yes, I will come get it for you as soon as I'm done." I had my phone with me and was playing sudoku while I was "occupied", and I lost track of time. The next thing I knew, I smelled something burning. I went running to the kitchen to see smoke filling the kitchen, and the microwave running with 91 minutes left on the timer. I opened the microwave and smoke came billowing out adding to the smoke that was already in the room. When it cleared, I could see a charred piece of pizza sitting on some paper plates. Riley had tried to cook it himself, and I didn't hear the microwave starting because of the air conditioners. It was an honest, STUPID mistake on my part, and I still feel horrible.
It brought back a memory of one of the times I noticed something about my friend. I had on this occasion passed extremely harsh judgement on her parenting skills after weeks and weeks of stories on facebook about the things her son had done or his injuries while she was "busy". I actually went as far to worry for the kid's safety. That was before I had Riley and realized that some kids are just different than others. What takes a kid a while to figure out hands on, some kids can calculate and figure out by watching, until one day they do it effortlessly in a split second. I thought about how bad I would feel if someone passed the sort of judgement on me like I had passed on my friend. And someday, I hope I get a chance to apologize to her.
It made me realize that I need to stop. It reminds me that we're all here doing the same thing, which is doing our best. Nobody is perfect. Our imperfections differ on where we are in life. People always have weak points, and it is unfair to ourselves to compare our weak points with people's strengths, just as it is unfair to compare other people's weaknesses with our strengths. We are here to figure out which strengths are more important to us. Instead of comparing myself to others, I need to compare myself with the person I want to become. I look back on how much time I have wasted figuring out how I would fix everyone else's lives and it saddens me to think that had I been trying to improve my own, I would be so much closer to my goals than I am.
So, I'm going to make humble pie a daily treat. You can never eat too much of it! The more you eat, the better person you become! I am going to make conscious effort to point out one of my own flaws to myself if I think something negative about someone else, or I will admit one of my flaws to someone else if I find myself talking negative about someone. I need to focus that energy where it will actually make a difference.
Humble pie is so bitter while you're eating it but the aftertaste is AMAZING!
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