Judgement day...

is every day! At least on Facebook. Let me be the first to admit that I am probably about to judge a whole mess of people in what follows.

Judgement has come up in a number of places this week - from The Mother Dance (a great little read about stories of motherhood from a woman therapist whose other books I've been through), to a new group I just joined on Facebook - the Grumpy Expat. What took me so long?! That group is my tribe. A place where you are supposed to complain about expat life instead of being eternally grateful and in awe of this wonderful place. All places suck at some level (and excel at other levels), so go ahead and bitch about it.

What is odd (but not really, because this happens in specialty groups all the time, right?) is that there are people who judge the grumping on that group because refugees from Syria and because it's not a problem of racism, it's an opportunity to open your own store! Really? First of all, it is a group called Grumpy Expat. Don't join if you love it here and have no bad days you want to share. Second, it's called Grumpy Expat stop judging people who are being grumpy and start stepping up with those stories of little things that make you swear under your breath. There was even a healthy dose of "white not grumpy expat man giving someone grief for interpreting her not white grumpy woman's experiences differently than his." Dude, you're behind even the old, white, astronomy dudes in how clueless you are about your privilege. That's embarrassing.

Back to the book. And another book that is on our parental reading list (I read, mark where I stop, transfer to M, he reads, marks where he stops....), Scream-Free Parenting. Both have been mentioning how heavily judged parents (especially mothers) are. And how damaging it is to feel responsible for your kids' behavior - they are individuals. You can't force them to do anything, if you're not willing to kill their spirit, so stop using their behavior as something that says anything about you. They throw a tantrum - that's them, not some embarrassment to your parenting. And anyone who says otherwise can just get over themselves. Guilt, says the Mother Dance book, is a great way for society to get you to spend all your emotional energy worrying about making mistakes and trying harder to be a good mother (or a good father), instead of having the waking moment available to question societal norms about what a "good" mother is anyway.

We had our annual daycare parent teacher conference this afternoon. I arrived 30 minutes late because 14.00h is not the same as 4:00pm. It is two hours earlier. Oops. My husband had been there for the first 30 min, and we tag team switched when I arrived. And now that this is kid number two, who is also doing great at daycare, and behaving much better (less throwing of food, dish, anything on the table items; less whining; less baby bottle using) than at home, I'm ready to learn from our first child. He is able to do all sorts of stuff at daycare, but not at home? Great. He's learning that somewhere and hopefully that translates to behavior in public. At home, I'm just going to have to get over the baby bottle thing and remember that A took a long time to give away her pacifier and is still a great kid. Who can eat without food falling out between her upper and lower teeth because THE PACIFIER DIDN'T LEAVE HER MOUTH HELPLESSLY DISFIGURED after all. Go figure.