Dear People Without Kids: You Don’t Get To Judge Parents

Last summer I wrote an article explaining why there was one Disney Princess movie I wasn’t letting my daughter watch. To me, it was such a small detail in the scope of her life – we’re talking one hour and a half movie, you guys – but people decided to tear me apart as a parent and call me names.

They told me I obviously spend too much time at home, that I must drink a lot, that I’m cynical and crazy.

Celebrities are being bashed on a regular basis for having a date night too soon after having a baby, their kids appearing to be too skinny, feeding their children canned baby food and kissing them on the lips.

We’ve seen the internet lose their minds at parents in mourning over the loss of their child at Disney. Parents who were feeling the most hurt they will ever endure in their lives.

But mom shamers, you have no right.

Not even a little bit of a right, even though you think you do because you have a computer and the internet.

Let me tell you why… It comes down to two pretty basic principals. It’s really very uncomplicated.

1. You don’t even have kids.

Do you know the best way to be a perfect parent? Never have kids. It’s so easy. You can say exactly what you’d do in *that* situation or how you’d *never* do this and *always* do that. But doing it is so different. Living a life of perfection isn’t as easy as you apparently think it is.

If you have not had children of your own don’t think for a second you have any clue what you’re talking about. No amount of life experience, or schooling or interaction with other kids gives you any authority over other peoples parenting.

 

2. You’re not perfect.

If you have been a parent for longer than a day you’ve probably made a mistake. I know you’ve made a mistake. If you think you’re exempt from looking away for a second and your child slipping away into a gorilla cage, you’re wrong.

If you think you couldn’t have been standing at that lake on that day in that particular spot, you’re wrong.

All of it could happen to any of us.

Or maybe you’ve made a choice that you think is utterly flawless but someone else thinks is rubbish. See, the thing you are probably forgetting is that we’re all human. That we all have different brains and make different decisions.

I love Crocs and you think they’re hideous. I use canned baby food and you think I should make my own.

The difference though, in you hating on my Croc addiction and what I feed my child, is that the comments you make on my parenting hurt. Those harsh words you’re leaving on the internet that say things like, ‘You should have never had kids” burn deep.

Even though we’ve never met you have the ability to damage my soul with your words.

So what is the solution?

Well, it’s easy. I think we all know how simply we can end all of the “mommy wars” that are so completely ridiculous (guys, we have better things to do, don’t we?).

All we have to do, is stop putting our fingers to the keyboard and typing mean words.

It’s a genius plan, isn’t it?

Because I’m not telling you to stop how you’re feeling – you probably can’t help that – but you can control your actions. You can control how you treat people.

It’s like I tell my six-year-old all the time, you have every right to feel angry at your sister for taking your toy – that’s justified – but you’re not allowed to hit her because of it. Do you see what I mean?

Roll your eyes at me as you scroll through your news feed and see me feeding my kid sugar, but keep moving. Don’t stop to input your opinion.

Let’s stop putting so much hate out into the world over parenting our children, there is already so much of it.

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