A Little Comparison Might Be a Good Thing

One of the best pieces of advice we got when our children were little was not to compare them with other children and not to compare ourselves to other parents. 

There are so many milestones ripe for comparison when you have babies. Is he crawling or standing yet? How tall is she? How much does he eat? How much does she weigh? Do you nurse or bottle feed? Do you leave him in day care? Do you read to her every night? Is he in a play group?

My husband remembers being grilled at the park like this by an absolute stranger (perhaps stranger than most). The woman sized up the child my husband was babysitting, then began comparing her to her own.

"When did your baby start walking? Speaking? Eating solid foods?" My husband guessed at answers he didn't know exactly, and she scoffed and gloated every time her baby won this pointless competition. "Nine months? Mine was seven." Each time Tom's baby "won," she said he must not be correct, because that would have put her baby too far behind. This was years before "Frozen," but, honey. . . LET IT GO.

We had to stop comparing and just raise our children the best way we could, leaning on God through all those emotional, exhilarating and exhausting ups and downs. It was hard sometimes, but we had to let the comparisons go. They didn't really matter.

Comparisons tend to be so very unhealthy. John Wooden warned not to get caught up in either praise or criticism from others. If you start thinking about how great your parenting skills are, it brings about arrogance, a critical spirit, and a disregard for the someone else's approach. On the other hand, if you compare and find yourself a little (or a lot) short, you may slip into defeatism, depression and exasperation. Either way, comparison outcomes can cause us to start thinking waaaaaaaaay too much about ourselves. Our motivation is no longer about raising a healthy, smart, loving child. It's about us and how our skill measures up to the neighbor's.

As life goes past the toddler stage, the comparisons can continue if we don't nip them in the bud.

Are you looking at me?

 
Grades. Clothes. Sports. Cars. Braces. The list goes on and on. And you know what? If we keep comparing, guess what our kids will do? If we get wrapped up in how snazzy our teenagers' lives will look to the rest of the world, we have the real potential to cause them to focus on. . . themselves. We transfer our problem to them. Then, they get sucked into the same vortex of praise and criticism, of being "good enough" or "better than" everyone else.

 

Don't do it. Don't fall for that.

Be your own person. Teach your kids to be content and not compare.

So, what's up with the title of this post? How could comparison actually help anything?

Well, if you remember back to those baby days, there were some important moments to compare. Like when the babies were ill and we were asking, "Is it normal for the baby to vomit this much? For his eyes to be that glassy? For his fever to spike that high?" Or when my oldest hit the infamous Terrible Twos and I was asking, "Mom, did I do that when I was a baby? How did you deal with it?"

Sometimes, comparison is helpful.

We were reminded of this the other day, when my husband was chatting with an old friend of ours we hadn't seen in a long time. She asked about our children and he mentioned a small challenge we were having with one of them that week. She reminded Tom that if that was the peak of our struggles, we really didn't have a problem.

Part of raising our children well is to deal with even small bits of bad behavior. Just as we are constantly fine-tuning and growing in our own character, our boys need to do that, too. However, our friend had a point. Sometimes comparison=perspective.

When my child forgets to turn in his homework for the fourth day in a row, it is helpful to remember his brother was in that place just a few years ago—and now has that task mastered.

When I am complaining about a still-messy bedroom and nagging for it to be cleaned, it's helpful to remember that mine isn't picture-perfect, either.

When I am cleaning sticky candy wrappers or an ink pen out of the laundry, I am grateful that those pockets of my kids' jeans aren't full of drugs.

When a child I am raising, feeding and sheltering attacks me with cross words, I can be glad that at least none of those words are ones that would be censored from family-friendly TV.

What I'm saying is that sometimes comparison helps us to step back, breathe, and discipline appropriately instead of emotionally.

Know what I mean?.

What do you think? What's your experience? Let me know in the comments.