Poisonous Judgement

I know we have all been subject to it at one time or another. The judgement of others. It really is a poisonous thing, judgement. What really gives people the right to judge others? Judge Judy excluded of course – she is great!

But really, what makes people think they have the right to cast their judgemental eye onto others? Do they see themselves as perfect and anyone different to them as ‘wrong’? Possibly – at least I know a few people who seem to think this way.

I’m not so sure this type of entry was ever my intention on Milk ‘n’ Cookies but someone made my blood boil and in true bloggy fashion I need to vent and endeavor to educate. Not that I plan on getting on my ‘high horse’ or anything like that *cough splutter* yeah right!

Anyway.

This week I conducted my grocery shopping, grumpy baby in tow. He calmed down after I grabbed a box of mueslie bar type things off the shelf and tossed one in his direction gave it to him. Righto, it was on to complete my groceries. As I was getting around the supermarket and now without DS yelling up a storm I could hear another Mum coping with a tantruming child. Actually, scratch that, I could hear the child and felt a bit sorry for the Mum, knowing all too well how hard it is to do the grocery shopping with a grumpy child.

I didn’t spot the woman and child until I was in the checkout chatting to the lady behind me (no! really! I am this talkative to strangers in real life too! ). When the (and I use this term lightly) lady clamped eyes on the poor woman with the screaming, writhing, arm flailing, kicking child she looked me dead in the eye and said:

“Some parents just don’t know how to raise children. That boy needs a good smack. He is only doing that because she lets him get away with it. You would never have seen MY children do anything like that because they knew I would have stopped shopping immediately, gone home and they would have been in all sorts of trouble”

Oh Goodness i thought to myself. How and why do I manage to attract all the most interesting people???

“Well”, I responded as politely as I could muster. ”I think she’s doing fine. I always find it best to ignore tantrums rather than giving them a great deal of attention and quite frankly when you need to get the groceries I can’t think of anything worse than having to do it twice because you gave in and went home.”

The woman with the attitude looked quite shocked that I had the audacity to disagree with her, a complete stranger, who was just quite nasty to another complete stranger, “well I guess things have changed but I never had problems like that!” And she once again shot the mother a most un-approving look.

Yipes, I did have a fleeting feeling of sympathy for her children… But then that was me being judgemental.

Anyway

As I was heading out to the car with my groceries and DS covered in mushed mueslie bar I noticed the Mum and still flailing child unloading into the car next to mine. I walked over to her, smiled and said. “Oh Dear” one of ‘those’ days? Not really winning?” The lady looked up and smiled and said Oh, he does this all the time. I responded with a gentle smile and said, “well, you’re doing a great job”. I was about to turn around and start loading my car when she stopped what she was doing and said “thank you. He has Autism. you wouldn’t believe the amount of people who come up to me to tell me to discipline him. They don’t realise that he is not just throwing a tantrum, he is Autistic.” We then went on to have a little chat about how people really need to consider what they are saying before they say it.

This really struck me, not only because I have friends with children with Autism but because so many people are judged harshly and unfairly by people whose only view of the world is guided purely by their own very narrow experiences. If they haven’t personally experienced it then it is either ‘stupid’ ‘wrong’ ‘weird’ or ‘doesn’t exist’.

Only this week I have experienced many many forms of judgement based on a persons inexperience and lack of education and understanding. From the notorious ‘Depressionisn’t an illness’ – Don’t even let me get started on that one! to “Facebook is useless and has caused nothing but trouble, no good has ever come from it” – Ummmm having a little trouble adapting to technology???? I think it is so unfortunate that so many people lack the ability to see further than themselves. They seem to lack understanding, empathy and the ability to comprehend a world of experiences other than those personally experienced themselves.

Most of all I feel for those who are judged unfairly, unjustly and incorrectly by uneducated, uncaring strangers who cannot comprehend and most likely dont care about the hurt and anguish they cause. If you know someone who could use a little education and be a little less judgemental then by all means, hit the ‘like’ button and ‘share’ this in the hope they read it and take a good look at themselves.

Then again, in judging people who judge others, really, I am being judgemental myself.

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