‘Comparison is the thief of joy’ – Theodore Rosevelt
This quote may be a familiar one to you or perhaps it’s the first time you’ve heard it and it suddenly resonates with you.
Since entering the world of parenting I’ve had to remind myself of this quote numerous times.
Not only do we live in a world that is a constant comparison in person and across social media which is an ever growing epidemic especially amongst the younger generation. We begin to pick apart others to build ourselves back up and in reverse, our own mental image of ourselves plummets when we see something before us that appears to be better looking, more powerful or popular.
This world of comparison is very much evident within the world parenting and especially new parents.
In the build up to Darcey being born we must have been told 100 different ways to care for her, items to purchase for her and timings in her life that for example she must be sleeping through the night or have finished breast feeding by. Whilst I appreciate those who had gone before me giving me a heads up, it was quite exhausting and relentless at times and in all honesty this was the only thing that really built any anxiety about her arrival for myself. How would we get it all right so quickly?
Personally in my own life before becoming a parent I battled hugely with comparison of myself to others. From my appearance, school grades, friendship groups, sporting ability, love life, and the list continues. The constant comparison knocked my confidence in a lot of those areas for six.
The joy in my life began to disappear on so many occasions purely because I was so fixated on others and not understanding that what I already had was enough.
As a Christian my faith has shaped my understanding of who I believe I was made to be, helping me to come to a greater peace and choosing joy over comparison. However now finding myself in a brand new unknown world of being a parent it was so easy for those thoughts of comparison to creep back in.
There are times in parenting I’ve felt myself slip into wondering ‘are we doing it all right?!’. I am aware of the irony as I have a fathers Instagram page but we are now surrounded by perfect images and social media pages of parents that have the latest products, clothing and what appears to be the perfect environment for their child to grow up in.
There are very few images of the multiple times their baby has been sick in the day or the nappy that has ruined a whole outfit moments after being dressed or the days that they cry and are inconsolable due to teething. We have a responsibility as parents to show the honest picture to avoid others feeling inadequate.
With this accessible online world of parenting we are bombarded with information of how to bring up our child. You only have to type in a question to Goggle and there will be 100’s of variations on how to sleep train your baby, how to feed your baby, how to wash your baby and the list continues.
I’ve probably lost count of the times myself and Naomi have said ‘I was chatting to *other parent* today and they said they did it like this’. Now, I’m all for healthy dialogue but let us not become down beat when their way doesn’t work for ourselves.
We will trap ourselves in moments of comparison of ‘they seem to be doing it well, why isn’t it working for us’.
Let me give you an honest example from our journey over the last six months. When offering Darcey a bottle, whether breast milk or formula, she wasn’t having any of it. We have persisted for months but she simply would not take it.
Then you see parents whose babies are drinking from the bottle from the first few weeks with no problem. Which in turn allows so much more freedom for the mother to rest from the constant demand of feeds and allows flexibility with day to day tasks.
At times our joy of parenting was taken away wondering what we were doing wrong and what we could do to overcome this.
The truth is there was no magic formula, we weren’t doing anything wrong. Our babies journey was just different to others. There was SO much joy to be had with everything else she was doing but this one mole hill was such an easy distraction.
What I’m getting at is that we must focus on the joy that your child brings to your life and understand that all parents will be having equal frustrations in different areas but it doesn’t make any of us better experts than others.
Quit the competing and comparison game and enter the encouragement and empowering world of parenting. When we think we have the worlds best solution to something for another parent, let us be gentle in our approach rather than bombarding them with another product or article as what they are probably looking for is reassurance and encouragement they are doing a good job.
We have one of the best gifts this world can give us, if we as parents look to one-another and drop the comparison and start to ask more about how they are doing and keep dialogue healthy and realise we are all giving it our best shot then we will begin to reap the rewards of watching our little ones develop and grow at their own pace and in their own time.
There is something beautiful about this world and how we are all different and that is the same with our children. Embrace it, take joy from it and next time you see that child having a breakdown in the coffee shop when your baby is having s good day, give the parent a smile of encouragement as we all know it’ll probably be us next time.
Thanks for taking the time to read once again!
Big love,
Matthew
Fearless Fathers 