People are competitive. Women are competitive. Moms are competitive.
Why do we compete? Because as humans, we feel the need to prove our worth – to ourselves if not the world. And the only way to feel good enough, it seems, is to be better than someone else.
So what happens when a mama takes out her accomplishments and attributes ruler and doesn’t measure up to the mama next door who seems to have it all together? Her mama-worth plummets until she can find a mama she feels superior to again.
Once she finds a “failing” mama, she feels better and can walk around with her head held high, knowing she’s a “good” mom compared to someone else she knows.
Then she has an afternoon chat with perfect-mama-next-door and the cycle starts over again.
What is wrong with this situation? So many things!
We Lack Empathy for Fellow Mamas
This fierce need to be better than another mom means we uncaringly brush aside the struggles she is going through, choosing instead to judge her for her imperfections so that we can feel a little less imperfect.
This is so sad and we end up hurting other moms around us in our quest to be the best.
Every mama needs to be able to vent to another mama who understands. Every mama needs a compassionate look – not a superior grimace – when dealing with a child’s tantrum in the baking isle at Wal-Mart.
Every mama needs to be able to make mistakes in front of other mamas and receive encouragement instead of judgement.
Every mama needs to be built up by other imperfect mamas instead of being torn down by mamas pretending they have their life and family in optimal condition.
Other moms can feel it when we judge them, even when we put on a sweet face. We know this because we have felt it from other moms, haven’t we? And it affects us, just as it affects another mama when you or I put her down – even if only in our minds – for whatever she is doing “wrong.”
It’s a No Win Game
When I am feeling down about my mothering skills – that is, when I am comparing myself to another mama who seems to be better at certain things – I feel more stressed because I’m criticizing everything I do with my daughter. I feel depressed because I can’t seem to be good enough (or in other words, as good as the other mom).
It’s pretty obvious why the comparison game is a bad thing when you are on the losing end.
But even when I’m the “winner,” I don’t like my attitude. I get prideful and feel like I’m above the other mom. Instead of humbly trying to uplift her, my mind is full of how great I feel as a mom and what an amazing job I’m doing with my child.
I think about all the ways my child will turn out better than her child because of how much better I’m doing than her.
Even reading those last few lines back to myself, that sounds like a nasty person I don’t want any relationship with. Who would?
So even when we win, we lose. We lose out on so many blessings we could be experiencing if, instead of judgement, we held respect for fellow mamas.
No mama is going to parent exactly how I do or you do. The parenting styles and preferences of various mamas are as diverse and unique as the children we are raising.
This could be an asset to all of us if we weren’t so busy competing. We could learn from each other and give and receive information with unique perspectives. We lose out on this when we are blinded by pride, thinking the mom who “lost” cannot possibly offer anything of value.
Our Children Will Pay the Price
What do you do when you come up short in the comparison game? You feel down on yourself and you might beat yourself up. You try to improve in the areas in which you “lost” so that you can be equal to or better than whoever you lost to so that you can feel like a decent mom again.
What do you do when you come out with better scores than the other mom? You talk to your spouse and friends about how you would never do it the way “she” is doing it and how she’s messing up her kids.
In all honesty, we’ve all done this, haven’t we? And who is watching and listening to all of this? Our children. The people we work so hard to teach right from wrong and set a good example for when we are aware of them watching us.
They see and hear about the comparison game easily enough. They pick up on our attitudes and behaviors. They repeat the things we say. They do the things we do.
Do we want our children to only feel good enough when they can find someone else who is failing compared to them? Do we want them to think badly of themselves when one of their pears does well? Do we want them to be self-righteous when they excel while someone else struggles?
I certainly don’t, and my guess would be that most mamas want better beliefs and behaviors than this for their children.
The Opposite of Competition is Honor
I attended a women’s Christmas event at my church while I was expecting my daughter that left a lasting impression on me when it comes to the catty comparison game we women play.
The speaker spoke on the story in the Bible where Mary, pregnant with Jesus, went to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was also expecting her first baby.
The speaker emphasized the age difference between the two women, noting that Mary was just a teenager barely engaged while Elizabeth had been married a long time and had tried unsuccessfully for many years to conceive.
She asked us rhetorically what this scenario would look like in a modern-day soap opera. Can you imagine the rivalry and jealousy this situation could cause between these two expectant mamas?
But as the speaker reviewed the story, there was not a trace of bitterness or competition to be found. Instead, when Mary arrived at Elizabeth’s home, Elizabeth rejoiced over the Messiah in her womb. She praised and honored her young cousin for the blessing she had been given.
As I listened to this story, it struck a chord with me deep inside, because I knew without a doubt that if I were in Elizabeth’s shoes, I would have looked down on Mary, wondering why God gave her, an inexperienced and naive girl, the ultimate blessing of carrying his Son while I went through the heartache of infertility for years.
And I knew that if I were Mary, I would have struggled with feeling prideful at being such an amazing person that God took special notice of me at such a young age to take on the greatest responsibility of all.
But instead of having self-centered attitudes, these women honored and respected each other. They celebrated their own and each other’s blessings with humility.
I want to be like that. Can you imagine what it would be like if all mothers honored and respected each other instead of competing and critiquing? I imagine that if we all had this attitude, we wouldn’t feel the need to compete to fuel our mama-worth. Because our mama-worth would be affirmed on a regular basis by other mamas.
Honoring each other is the antidote to competing with each other.
Leave a Reply