Is It Weird to Admire Other People’s Children? A Parent’s Honest Reflection
Last October, I sat on the splintered top bleacher of my 8-year-old son’s soccer field, folding a mud-caked extra hoodie and waiting for practice to end. A group of 7 and 8-year-olds were running a scrimmage, and I kept my eye on my kid, as you do, until a new girl named Lila broke away from the play. A toddler had wandered onto the field, tripped over a cone, and his shoe had come untied. Lila knelt right down in the dewy grass, retied the laces into a double knot, gave the toddler a sparkly unicorn sticker from her wristband, and walked him back to his mom before jogging back to the scrimmage. No one asked her to do it. It was just something she did.
I found myself grinning so wide my cheeks hurt. Lila’s mom was sitting a few feet away from me, and she caught me looking. I panicked, mumbled something about the weather and looked down at my phone, suddenly convinced I’d come off as weird. Why was I so awkward about admiring another person’s kid?
That question stuck with me. Growing up, my mom often gushed about my cousin’s good grades, her neat room, her ability to strike up a conversation with anyone. I always left those family dinners feeling like I wasn’t enough, like my mom preferred my cousin’s qualities to mine. So I grew up assuming that admiring another person’s child was inherently rude, or a slight against my own. I thought if I said out loud that I thought another kid was amazing, that meant I loved my son less, or that I thought he was lacking.
A couple weeks after that soccer practice, I was at library story time with my son. He’d gotten overexcited, knocked over a 3-foot block tower another kid had built, and darted off to look at the dinosaur books before I could even apologize. A little boy named Milo, a year older than my son, knelt down instead of getting upset. He started picking up blocks, talked my son through rebuilding it, and even let my son put the top block on. I stood off to the side, watching, and when Milo’s grandma came over to get him, I decided to say something. I told her I’d watched him be so patient with my son, and it was really lovely to see.
She teared up a little, told me Milo has a hard time with big emotions, and he’s been working so hard this year to not get upset when things don’t go his way. She said most people only notice when he loses his cool, not when he gets it right. That comment I made? It made her whole week.
That’s when I started thinking that the weirdness we all feel about admiring other people’s kids is mostly made up. It’s not weird to notice goodness when you see it. Admiration isn’t a pie that runs out—loving the way one kid does something doesn’t take any love away from your own.
I’ve started testing small, concrete ways to do this without making anyone uncomfortable, and it’s been smoother than I expected. If I’m going to comment to another parent or caregiver, I stick to specific, small behaviors instead of big generic praise. Instead of saying “your kid is so perfect,” I say “I loved how he stopped to help my son pick up his crayons earlier” or “she made my shy kid laugh so hard at the party today, that was so sweet.” Generic praise can feel loaded, like you’re comparing, but specific observations feel genuine, and they give other parents a window into how their kid shows up when they’re not looking.
When I’m talking to my own son about another kid’s quality I admire, I avoid framing it as a comparison too. I used to accidentally slip up and say “why can’t you put your toys away like that?” but now I just say “I thought it was so cool how Mia helped everyone clean up without being asked, that was such a kind thing.” Then I’ll follow it up with, “what’s something nice you did for someone this week that made you proud?” It shifts the whole conversation from “you’re not good enough” to “good things are everywhere, and you do good things too.”
I still mess up, sometimes. Last week at the grocery store, I saw a teen boy hold the door for a group of little kids, then help an older woman carry her bag of potting soil out to her car. I saw his mom standing a few feet away, waiting for him, and I almost went over to say something, but I chickened out. I worried I’d come off as odd, or that she’d think I was weird for staring.
But I’m trying to get over that awkwardness. Most of the time, parents and caregivers are just muddling through, day after day. We don’t get a lot of outside feedback that our kids are kind, or patient, or brave. We only see the messy parts at home: the tantrums and the forgotten homework and the arguments over screen time. When someone notices the good our kid does out in the world, it’s not weird—it’s a gift.
It’s also a good lesson for our own kids, too. When we talk openly about admiring other people’s good qualities, we teach them that they don’t have to feel threatened by other people’s strengths. They can celebrate them, too. I still have moments where I worry I’m doing it wrong, where I feel that old twinge of awkwardness. But for the most part, I’d rather risk a little awkwardness than let a small, good moment go unsaid.
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