Why Comparing Yourself to Other Parents Hurts, and Small Ways to Stop
I was leaning against the splintered wooden fence at my 7-year-old’s rec soccer game last month, holding a half-melted cherry popsicle that was dripping sticky juice down my wrist, when the mom standing next to me struck up a conversation. She asked how old my son was, I said first grade, and she nodded and told me her oldest had just qualified for the district’s gifted program, and her youngest, also in first grade, was already reading 100-page chapter books on his own.
I smiled and said that was amazing, and inside I was already checking off my list of failures. My son still mixes up b and d when he reads. We skip flashcards more nights than we do them because after homework and dinner and bath time, we’re all too tired to argue about it. Last week I caught him watching YouTube instead of practicing his reading because he said it was “boring.” By the time the first half ended, I was convinced I was messing up his whole future.
When we got in the car to leave, my son leaned over the center console, covered in grass and orange Gatorade, and yelled, “Did you see that kick I made? Coach said it was the best he’d seen all morning!” I mumbled “that’s great buddy” while I pulled out of the parking lot, and he didn’t notice I was half-distracted by the to-do list I was already making in my head: sign up for after-school reading tutoring, buy math flashcards, cut screen time by an hour a day.
I’ve been doing this since he was a toddler. Right after he turned one, I joined three different parenting Facebook groups to get advice, and pretty soon I was scrolling every night before bed, comparing our messy daily life to everyone else’s highlight reels. If one mom posted that her 18-month-old was potty trained, I’d panic that mine still wasn’t even interested. If another posted that their 4-year-old could count to 100, I’d stay up feeling guilty that mine could barely get past 15.
It wasn’t until our fall parent-teacher conference that I started to see how bad this habit was for both of us. I sat across from his first grade teacher, going through my usual list of all the things he couldn’t do that other kids in the class could, and she stopped me mid-sentence. She turned around and pulled his work sample off the bulletin board behind her desk: a crumpled drawing of our golden retriever, with three wobbly words scrawled under it that said “My doq is fnny.”
“Three months ago,” she said, “he refused to write anything at all besides his name. He said he was bad at it and he didn’t want to try. This? He did this all on his own, because he wanted to bring it home to you. That’s more progress than half the class made this semester. Stop comparing him to everyone else’s kids and look at where he started.”
That stuck with me. I started trying small things to pull myself out of the comparison cycle, nothing big or fancy. The first thing I did was mute all the parenting groups on Facebook. I didn’t leave them, just turned off notifications so they don’t pop up on my feed anymore. If I actually need advice, I can go look, but I don’t scroll mindlessly anymore at 10 pm when I’m tired and vulnerable.
The second thing I did is I made a tiny note in my phone called “Our Wins.” Once a week, on Sunday night when I’m waiting for the laundry to dry, I write down one thing my kid did that he couldn’t do a month ago. It doesn’t have to be big. It can be “Tied his own shoes for the first time” or “Read 6 whole pages of his book without stopping” or even “Ate two whole vegetables for dinner three nights in a row.” It’s just for me, I never share it, and it reminds me that progress is personal, not a competition.
The third thing I came up with is a go-to line to get out of those comparison-heavy conversations at school or soccer practice. When someone starts listing all their kid’s achievements and I feel that old twinge of guilt, I just say “That’s so exciting for them! I’m going to go grab a drink / check on my other kid before the game starts.” It’s polite, no hurt feelings, and it gets me out of the situation before I start spiraling over my own choices.
I ran into that same mom from the soccer game at the grocery store a week later. She pulled me aside and told me that actually, the reading and the gifted program stuff comes with a lot of meltdowns. Her kid cries every night doing homework, she’s constantly fighting with him about practicing, and she’s thinking of pulling back because he’s always so stressed. That’s when I remembered: we all only show the good parts. No one posts the 45-minute bedtime battles or the meltdowns over math homework or the days they order pizza three nights in a row because they don’t have energy to cook.
I still catch myself comparing sometimes. Last week I saw a mom on Instagram posting a video of her 6-year-old playing a full Beethoven sonata, and I felt that little twist in my chest for a minute, thinking my kid can barely remember the notes for “Twinkle Twinkle.” But now I know what to do. I close the app, open that note in my phone, and look at the last entry I wrote: “Built a whole Lego castle by himself, even asked for help when he got stuck instead of giving up.” Then I go find him, and he’s usually jumping on the couch or drawing on the back of my grocery list, and I remember that none of this is a race. Some kids read early, some kids build great castles, some kids learn to be kind and persistent first. And that’s enough, for me, for now.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why Comparing Yourself to Other Parents Hurts, and Small Ways to Stop