HeRe cOmEs ThE jUdGe !

I have made a horrible RE-discovery of myself.

First, let me give you a little bit of background.

For 7 years I have shared a challenging relationship with my daughter’s biological mother. I am not describing my daughter’s mother this way to signify anything about her relationship with her daughter. I am describing myself to signify MY relationship with her daughter. We both love her. But, we both have different experiences with SiSi. Because my experience with her seems to demonstrate more control over SiSi and SiSi tends to be attentive to me more-so than her own mother (we’ll call her “J”), I found myself in a place of judgment … again. Yes, this is a roller coaster ride that I’m on. I judge J and then I chide myself for this and try to work thru my issues with J’s lack of participation… then I would find myself judging her all over again.

It seemed to me that even when we were in the same company, SiSi, who is autistic and has behavioral challenges, can make anyone present a potential focus and victim to her tantrums, was left for me to govern. J would back off or just sit there and I was the one who would manage and control the activities that would quiet SiSi.

I found her guilty of being slack.
I judged her as trifling.
I sought maximum penalty for J not WANTING to take care of her own child. I once told her that I would gladly take custody of SiSi and she could be free! I judged her for having the nerve to be angry with my suggestion.

~yeah! al-righty, then...

I just judged her… again and again.

Judgment is a form of prejudice. It’s when you form an opinion of something or someone without having all of the pertinent information.

So, let me get to the meat of this blog. This IS NOT a "bash J" blog. It’s an eye-opener for me and it leads me to a place to improve and heal MYSELF.

This past Saturday, J busted her ass to provide a children’s type birthday party for SiSi. She had not had a party of this sort since she was a baby. Normally, her father and I would provide her with a meal including her favorite food… chicken. We’d have loads of balloons and we would invite her mother and brother over to share in the celebration. We’d cut the cake, open some presents, talk loud with much animation, and call it a night. But J wanted to throw her baby a party.

She had her apartment nicely decorated… with 2 bowls of snacks on the table. Children’s music (not grown up music) was blasting from her stereo. Streamers. She invited guests.

I was impressed and angry at the same time. Impressed with the effort and care with which she decorated and planned. Angry because the snacks on the table were not on the diet that I THOUGHT she agreed to support. Trust me, I am judging the hell out of her for that.

Then I saw the people coming in. I saw a child running in and out of the house. The mother of the child just sat back and talked on the cell phone. J didn’t say a word. I got up and stood by the door because SOMEBODY had to be a “po-lice”! There were very small children present and SiSi does NOT tolerate too many small children. Why are all of these people here? Why am I hearing that she’d invited other co-workers with small children… but FORTUNATELY were unable to make it. THIS is truly NOT SiSi’s scene! There are too many people. Too much noise. Too much activity. She is AUTISTIC! Duh!

Yeah. I went there. Only in my mind, but, I went there.

I “made nice” tempered SiSi through 3 tantrums and then snuck out of the apartment because she had been saying, “Car please. Shoe please. Car please,” for the past hour.

My husband and I get home. Sit in the van for 30 minutes (until it sounds like SiSi is STARTING to calm down - we'd been checking by phone). We go upstairs, lighten the load of our clothes, and get into bed to take a nap. The whole while we are discussing SiSi's obvious displeasure at being left behind. Does this say something about her mother? I don’t think so. No judgment there. But, it does speak to SiSi being spoiled and knowing that she can bully her mother into giving SiSi her way.

Sure enough. I pull the covers up and the fricken phone rings. It’s just what I thought, but then again “NOT”. J was saying that she needed us to pick up SiSi. There is a tirade of screaming going on in the background and it’s obvious that J has been crying for a while. She admits that she can’t do it. She can’t manage SiSi.

Obviously we go and pick up Si from her Mom’s house. There was so much pain in J’s eyes. She sat on the bed and just shook her head and cried… “I can’t do it”. I gave her a hug and a kiss on the forehead. I felt her in a way I never had before. Sure, there will be some times when J pisses me off again about something else… but THIS situation would be off limits to my need to express my “piss-ti-vi-ty”. Speaking with her closest friend later (she has become a friend of mine, too – I’ll call her Lena), Lena told me more of the conversation she’d had with J. J admitted to feeling guilty about SiSi’s autism. So guilty that she could not get tough with her, strongly discipline her, give her boundaries. She was in denial about having an autistic child…. One day SiSi wouldn’t be “like that” and everything would be OK. Hence, the invitation to loads of people who could in no way understand the severity of SiSi’s mood swings, because her Mom wasn’t making truthful admissions to herself or anyone else.

She could not face the fact that her daughter’s father had to be the custodial parent… had to be. Nor that a woman who came in to the scene later was able to do what she couldn’t do. There was no animosity spoken about me per se, but the comparison of ability would always be present.

Humility is a great healing power. That doesn’t mean feeling sorry for J for her hurt feelings. It means being humbled by the truth of what really made J seem uninterested in taking care of her daughter. She felt ill-equipped to do the job. She was afraid that being forceful with Si would make Si not love her. She really CAN’T do "it". And she really WANTS to do "it".

And I felt like an ass. Nope. I’m not gonna have a “beat-down-shYne-party”. That would draw attention to myself in a way that would make me seem like I needed pity and empathy and support in seeing myself as an OK person. I will pay attention to myself and address MY issue.

I did not have all of the facts when I judged J as trifling.

I am prejudiced.
I AM judgmental.

Ilk! (That admission put a nasty taste in my mouth.)

Part 1 of 3

Part 2 - The Scales of Justice. (coming soon)

Part 3 - Let the Healing Begin! (coming soon)