When I was a kid, I remember watching TV and movies and thinking that adults were overly sensitive about stupid comments.

Anytime there was a scene – probably some afterschool special about smoking or drinking or smoking the reefer – that involved two arguing adults and one of them growling, “Don’t tell me how to raise my kid,” I remember thinking what’s the big deal?  Someone gives you advice on what you should do with your kid?  What’s to get so touchy about?

Well, not that I AM a parent, I see what the big deal is all about.

Giving unsolicited advice – about anything, really – is like shooting a canon across the ocean without certainty of when and where it’s going to land.  The more I understand how much goes into parenting – how a thousand decisions are made before noon – the more I begin to get it: parenting isn’t just about how you raise your child, it’s about who YOU are as a person.  What your values reveal.  What you choose to risk and not risk.

Parenting choices reveal who we are on the inside.  And when someone offers you their opinion or advice on how you should treat your own child, it feels very much like a cautionary note stapled onto your forehead that reads: I’M DOING A MEDIOCRE JOB.  I SHOULD TRY HARDER.

Yes, mistakes are made and some decisions turn into regrets that we’d like to take back, but for the most part, we invest our authentic, unapologizing selves into raising our kids.  While each child is an individual person, yes, while they are young, they are like huge empty fishbowls and we, the parents, fill them with all of our stuff – good and bad – with transparent glass so everyone can see, judge, and speculate what we are made of.

I think I’ve grown much more empathetic to the world all around me since I’ve become a mother.  I think that’s because raising Isaiah has been the most difficult and joyous adventure of my life and its softened any parts of me that were previously impatient or judgmental.  When you try your absolute best at something, and you see the mistakes you’re making along the way, your heart begins to cave in a bit for others.  I’ve begun looking at unsmiling strangers or rude encounters with random folks and instead of my normal thought process of wondering if there was a traffic cone stuck up their butts, I now approach it with much more humility.  Now instead of traffic cones, I wonder if they have an ill child at home and that’s why they’re rushing out of the parking lot and cut me off at the intersection.  I wonder if, for the most part, people ARE trying their best in life and instead of silently breaking them down in my head, I can send them good thoughts, pray for them even, since I know now a critical truth about growing up: sometimes your best isn’t seen as very much.

Parenting has been the most humbling experience of my life.

That, and when Nick beats me at a board game.