How to forgive friends and judge people

With Senator Kennedy’s death today, most media and friends on Facebook were talking about the loss of a great man. But then somebody piped up “He should be buried at the bottom of a lake. A murderer cannot be glorified”. I was reminded of similar comments when Michael Jackson died. I even blogged about it. My first reaction is to say that we should judge a person by their body of work, and not just one or two, what could be constituted, as mistakes. It is possible to like somebody's work without liking the person himself. But then again, just because somebody is glorified, we shouldn’t gloss over their negatives.

But it got me thinking. Who decides when the balance has tipped in one direction or another? Hitler must have done some good deeds in his life, but his death was as good a riddance as any, and I would be the last person asking him to be honored just because he is dead.

I often tell my kids that there are no good or bad people – only good and bad actions, and you judge people by weighing their good actions against their bad ones. All actions, however, don’t weigh the same. How do you teach them when to tip the scales? Did Ted Kennedy do enough good that his part in causing harm to some young women can be excused?

The size of a house

We start the search for a new house and hence these thoughts.

Smaller houses are easier to maintain, more energy efficient, easier to furnish and don't eat up all our money in mortgage. Should I really buy a bigger house just so that I can store all the "stuff" I have? Wouldn't it be better to just get rid of half the stuff, and get better organized with the rest of it. Who uses a formal living room anymore? Do I really need a separate guest bedroom when I have family visiting, maybe, twice a year. Couldn't I just install a Murphy Bed in the home office? I do work from home but what is my home office, but a desk with a computer. That could be easily fitted into an armoire in a corner of the family room. We live in a free country, where there is an amazing freedom of expression and choices, and people are not judged by the size of their house, usually. Of course small is a relative term - what I am calling small would be considered huge in Manhattan, but let's not digress.

It all makes practical sense. But what of the show-off value to my fellow countrymen from the old country? Tchk, thck...so shallow, you say. We are human after all, and so are all our friends and family who will judge us, and our success by the size of our houses & the price of our cars. And we will return the favor.

There are a a lot of people and not that much land in India, where I grew up. Growing up, my family of 5 lived in a two bedroom apartments. So did most of the people we knew. The fixtures and furnishings varied with the income level, of course. So having more space, in the old country, instantly shows that you have moved up in life. Consequently, most Indians who live in the US, buy the biggest house that they can afford, or maybe not afford.

Why - we don't do it for us, or even to show off to our friends here. We do it for the people back in India - the ones we love and who would like nothing more than to see that we are happy, and nothing more than to tell their friends how well their son or daughter is doing in America. "She has 5 bathrooms in her house". Wow. The little piece of information missing here is that she also has to clean all the 5 bathrooms herself! This show-off value, however, is not to be take lightly. All parents want their children to be successful in life and to have everyone else know that their children are indeed successful. They live so far away, the square footage of our house is an excellent gauge and something to brag about. So are swimming pools and German cars, but let us keep this discussion to houses for now.

There is no dearth of land here. In suburbia, sub-division after sub-division of huge houses are erected in no time at all. A large house isn't a big deal at all! And yet we try to buy the biggest house we can even to the point of inconveniencing ourselves. Those formal living rooms and dining rooms sit vacant, amassing toys, years after year. In our heart we know that we are running on the treadmill, and yet we can't get off. Such a tragedy.

And now back to the home listings.

To say or keep quiet?

You have been there, haven't you? Your friend's child seems completely out of control, doesn't respect boundaries and is obnoxiously behaved. Of course, the mom is to blame. After all, if she had paid more attention to the child instead of spending all her time buying "cute" things for the child, the child would be better behaved today. Do you say anything to your friend about how obnoxious her child is?

Jump up and pull her down! Yeah baby! Oh, how quick we mothers are to judge others!

Mothering is very hard work, and I doubt there are many mothers out there who don't want the best for their children. The congratulations and the blame for how a child turns out are placed squarely on the mother's shoulder and that is indeed a heavy burden to go through life with. When I had only one child, rather challenging one if I must add, I felt that my friends who had more easy-going children questioned my parenting style. Then we had our second babies and this time some of my friends had the challenging ones. So are we even? Does it really work like this?

As a parent we make tough choices and there is a need in all of us to justify our choices and to know in our minds that our choices are right. Sometimes we do that by looking at other's choices and the impact of those choices. It is also true, and very unfortunate aspect of human
nature that the closer the other person is to us the more we analyze them and consequently find more mistakes in them. My Sister-in-law thinks I am too lax a mom and not setting enough boundaries for my kids. I think my SIL is too strict with her kids and that is why her kids exert control by doing things such as running away in the mall. My SIL believes that it is
downright unacceptable that my 5yo still spends half the night in my bed and I think it is downright unacceptable that SIL expects all of us to have a nice, uninterrupted, sit-down dinner when I have a 8mo old crawling baby. Who is to say what is right?

The results of everything we do sometimes take years to show, and sometimes it is nothing that we do at all but the basic nature of the child. I have two kids. When we are about to cross the street and I ask them to hold my hand, one of them happily does but the other one argues about why she doesn't need to hold my hand and offers ideas of what she could hold, all the way to the other side of the street. They are both mine, and I raise them the same but I am sure a passing mom has already judged me for not keeping my child safe.

I hope you see that I am not really trying to slam anyone, but just musing on the difficulty of the position we mothers are in. Maybe you are indeed right about you friend's child, and intervention is needed, but do it carefully and with respect. Telling a mother that she is wrong and that her child needs therapy can never be easy. If you really have to do it, I wish you the best.