A sense of humour is needed with a few relatives. After inviting themselves along on a work night, an aunt-in-law saw fit to loudly critique my housekeeping, er, lack thereof (pertinent to this story is that at that point in time, we had a nine week old infant and I’d gone back to work, and Christmas, which wasn’t spent at our home, had been two weeks prior) and very nastily wonder “just what her darling nephew had gotten himself into ::tsk:: with a woman who just can’t do it all like I can”. I just looked at her and declared “well, Aunt XXXXX, the cleaning $hit’s upstairs in the linen closet, have at it” and went on about my merry business over the laughter of the rest of my in-laws who had been aghast and speechless over her outburst at me. A couple of them then suggested to the Aunt that maybe, just maybe, she needed to control her alcohol intake…

Yeah, she might do it all…that’s why her children are either in jail or still living at home in their mid-thirties ;-).

P.S…I don’t see what male/female or gender has to do with it other than maybe that women tend to be the petty biddies out there and men are cool and don’t give a shit. If I am at home all day with my kid, I think its not beyond realistic for people to expect that I would keep some order in the house. It has to slide and scale with who’s around the house to do the work. And women are always bitching about housework. Is there *really* that much housework to do? I mean, my house is not immaculate. It’s a little dusty in places, but no infestation or major mold growth…basically its orderly, and it doesn’t take that much effort.

Ha ha…I thought Canadians were all mild-mannered!

Merebear– I can relate. While at a baseball game with my infant son on a warm spring evening, a woman told me, “That child needs a hat!” I responded that there was a souvenir shop nearby and that she could go buy him one if she felt that strongly. Of course she didn’t, which was disappointing as I’m a huge Phillies fan and would have loved for my son to have a Phillies cap from his first baseball game! My son gets hot pretty easily so I take that into account when I dress him. Despite my explaining this repeatedly, I have a neighbor who insists that I take my son inside because “he must be cold!”

I was thinking the same thing, ChiLaura. I try not to judge because in my pre-baby days, I was a judger and it has all come back to bite me in the butt. I just try to do what works for me and my family and to hell with everyone else.

I think judging and policing are two different things. One could argue that even this post is “judging” other people’s behavior (in this case, the behavior of those who judge other people). Commenting on a news story or parenting trend is different from walking up to a stranger on the street and telling them to dress their child in a warmer coat. (Which has happened to me more than once.)

My mother and Grandmother are always complaining about my house, even though, growing up, my Mother’s was always a mess and my Grandmother is just majorly obssessive about every little thing (think cleaning the baseboards with a toothbrush, or pulling out the refrigerator once a week), I have a VERY active and curious 1 year old who pulls everything out, so my house is always clean, but disorganized.

My best friend, who is childless, is always on my case about so many diffrent things. My son throws food in the floor when he eats and she thinks it’s bad parenting on my part? All babies do that, don’t they? Or he gets *gasp* dirty! when we go to the park and she acts like I’m a horrible mother if I let him play in the dirt.

Anyway, point is, hate to be judged. Try not to judge, but can’t help it sometimes (like when this lady called her son retarded, very loudly in the middle of the supermarket, or when I see parents hit their children. I definatly never chastise parents, but I’ve had people come up and tell me how cold my baby must be because he doesn’t have a hat and stuff like that, but I think it just makes an arse out of the speaker. When did people get so rude?