My most recent post, Responsible Cursing is my most viewed post to-date. And it has only been published for six days. Six days! I did not even post it on my regular day, so no one was looking for it or checking back expecting it. That means that everyone who read it found it organically and, based on the feed back, it was what they needed to hear.
Between the comments, emails, and the private messages on Facebook and Instagram, I am feeling the love! I even had a few mamas message me and say how much they loved the post but they could not comment, like, or share it because they did not want certain people in their life to know they have a similar feeling on the matter of cursing in front of their children.
Cursing in front of our children (not AT them, there is a difference) is something our society seems to judge harshly. It is looked on as inappropriate, like giving a baby an iPhone or a letting a toddler have a cookie before dinner. There is nothing wrong with these habits, and a lot of us do them in private, but for whatever reason, we have labeled them as bad habits and decided not to let any one know we do it.
I get it, having the way we parent scrutinized by strangers AND loved ones sucks. It happens to all of us and, we are all probably guilty of it. I know I look sideways at the three-year-old in the restaurant with an iPad while my own child selfies on my living floor. It is such an ugly habit, but so ingrained in us as humans.
I spent a lot of years hiding certain things about my life from certain people. I did not want my older sister to know I drank. I did not want my dad to hear me curse. I did not want my boyfriend’s mom to know I danced (how ever poorly) in the club. Whatever it was, I knew those people would look down on me because of that activity, so I hid it. It is not really being fake, it is more about being appropriate and trying not to offend.
Of course, then I started blogging.
Here is the thing, people are going to judge you. We always talk about judging as if it is negative, but it is not always! Santa judges and finds people to be nice! Belsnickle judges and finds people to be admirable or impish! Your friends judged you and found you to be worth investing in. Judgments are how decisions are made.
People are going to judge me before I even open my mouth. They are going to judge what I am wearing, how my hair is styled, my shoes, my purse, how I walk, the things that are in my hands! They are going to judge me by the people around me, my son, his hair cut, what his shirt says, the fact that he sucks his thumb, the freaking color of his shoes! All of this information is going into their brains and they are categorizing me off of it.
I have family members that hate the fact that son wears so much pink and that I have declared it to be his favorite color before he can express such superlatives himself. But I knew that would happen before I even bought him the pink shoes. I weighed that decision. Was I okay being the mom with the pink-loving son? Abso-freaking-lutely.
By the time I open my mouth to speak, people have already formed some type of decision about me.
That being said, we can not stop people from judging us. We just can’t. We can’t even change the opinion they form. But we can change us. If I am worried about being judged for carrying a knock off hand bag, I will never carry a knock off hand bag! So not the case, just an example. If I were worried that some one would judge me because my boy wears pink, trust me, I would not put him in pink.
Judgment is going to happen. Just make sure you are ready to be judged on what you are presenting and present only the things you want to be judged for. Things that you think will lead to your desired verdict. Again, this is not being fake. It is presenting yourself with purpose.
Just because you do not wear sweat pants to a job interview, does that mean you are pretending your do not wear sweats every weekend? No. You are just presenting yourself in a calculated way.
I curse. People judge me. I am okay with that. If I did not want to be judged based on my cuss words, I would not no use them. Simple as that.
But again, some judgments formulate positive responses!
For every person who hears me swear in front of my son and thinks I am a trashy, terrible mother, there is another person who hears me and says, “oh, she’s my people!”
Thank you, to all of my people, for showing me and Beka XO co. so much love!
XO Beka
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