I'm Sorry for Judging You (How Moms Can Support One Another)

Last week I did something I swore I’d never do.

I bought a box of Uncrustables.

I mean, really. What kind of lazy, nutrition-negligent mother can’t even be bothered to slap together a homemade PB&J for her kid’s lunch box, for crying out loud? Uncrustables are in the same category as Pop Tarts and Beefaroni.

Bad mom food.

Or so I thought.

Until a friend and I taped a goofy video for my YouTube channel recently in which we taste-tested food moms feed their kids. Squeezy yogurt, Jello cups, Ding Dongs, you know the deal. Those Uncrustables were supposed to be a joke.

But then we tried them.

And they weren’t half bad.

In fact I’m totally humiliated to admit they tasted fresher than my week-old-bread homemade variety. Yet knowing my opinion didn’t matter one bit if the kids didn’t like it, I took home a couple of the leftover packs. And my children devoured them.

Even the daughter who has never liked peanut butter and jelly!

So forgive me as I crawl back to you, my fellow moms, with my tail between my legs and my cheeks burning red with shame. If you’ve been an Uncrustable mom your whole maternal life, then I applaud you for sticking with your convictions. And if you’re holistically opposed to convenience food, then I applaud you for your convictions, too.

But what I wish we’d all stop applauding is judgment over another woman for the non-soul-threatening decisions she makes—especially the ones we know nothing about because we’ve never bothered to explore them ourselves.

It’s super easy to cast judgment when we’re ignorant.

And even easier when we think we know it all.

So for the love of Jesus and motherhood everywhere, can we all please let one another live in freedom?

Freedom from raised eyebrows over your decision to let your kid wear shorts in winter weather.

Freedom from slamming my decision to give my kids ice cream for breakfast. {In winter weather. Or spring or summer or fall. We’re ice cream people, ‘kay?}

And freedom from judgey attitudes from fellow believers over parenting decisions that are not a matter of spiritual life or death. If you invite my kid over for a séance, okay, then I’ll put my foot down and tell you what I think. But if you feed her an Uncrustable for dinner, no judgment here. Agreed?

The world is already stacked against us as Christians. Let’s band together to support one another, whether or not we share the same personal convictions on all things sandwiches or otherwise.

“Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?” (James 4:11–12, NLT)

So. I’m sorry for all the times I sized you up you for being different from me. And I forgive you for all the times you did the same. Funny, but not a single one of us is the perfect mother we pictured we’d be before we had children, are we? So let’s be imperfect together, agreeing on this one thing—to love like Jesus loves.

Blessings,
Becky
beckykopitzke.com