Stop the cycle

A friend and I were chatting (and by chatting, I mean texting) about life and I mentioned I felt guilty about Liam not being on a sports team, despite the fact that he hasn’t expressed interest in joining a team and it’s not something I want to add to our calendar of life at this point in time. She said that she had admired how I just let my kids be and don’t go chasing after other family’s activities. She (wisely) told me to shoo away that mommy guilt and “realize that while you’re beating yourself up over something, someone else is watching your family and doing the same thing.” That’s “mommy” guilt for you – we all have it – we all fall victim to it and really it’s just a vicious, ugly circle. It’s just another form of comparison that we put on ourselves; feeling bad because we do things in a different way from another family.

And didn’t I already post something about comparison on not letting it steal our joy? Why yes, I did. And yet again, I needed a reminder to be happy with myself, who we are as a family and trust that we are making the right decisions for US, for where we are in life, despite what others do.

Life is just a constant stream of lessons to be learned… thank goodness for friends who speak (or type) truth to us when we need to hear it. May we always hear the voices telling us not to be stupid.