Different Days

“Your days must look much different than mine,” she said, as I caught the sparkling purple sand my toddler was dumping on the floor and scanned the children’s museum play area for my other two girls.

I’d never met her before.

Her boys, three of them, also played nearby.

She seemed well intentioned enough, plus our tired eyes, comfy pants and armful of kids’ winter jackets matched (and that is definitely mom code for potential friend).

She continued: “Boys are more work now but just wait until the teen years. I’ve heard that girls are harder.”

I think I laughed politely, probably to hide my flash of annoyance at her judgement.

I was not in the mood for a competition about whose kids were more challenging. She had made her mind up already about who would win. That it was based on the evidence from a few seconds of observing little else other than the fact that I had three girls and she had three boys didn’t feel fair.

As we made small talk about our kids’ ages and our hometowns, my toddler dumped more sand on the floor and it became clear to me that even though I hadn’t wanted a competition, she had set us up for one anyway.

I knew this because a familiar soundtrack played in my head.

She obviously has no idea how many hours I spend scrubbing muddy stains and breaking up fights, how my toddler scribbles all over the walls and no one likes the same food and I can never get out the door on time.

She’s definitely never seen the state of my floors or (shudder) the basement. I suspect she thinks my girls quietly read books or do each other’s hair while I scrub baseboards and plan lessons that everyone will love. Not so.

There’s no way she would have said that if she had to sit in the car with us for the next two hours, wondering who was going to be car sick and who would have a highway tantrum.

Despite not wanting a competition, I had taken the bait and continued a silent one.

After that flash of annoyance had extinguished itself (as all feelings tend to do if given the opportunity), I felt a little sad for her.

She must have been having a hard day if she thought a few second snapshot of my life gave her a thorough enough picture of it that she could accurately compare it to the one she lived for decades. 

***

Humans are excellent at the comparison game, not unlike our penchant for missing logs in our own eyes as we search for specks in others’. We learn the rules early and let them weigh us down into adulthood. We play it often, ironically enough, when we’re looking for connection.

I know this because the children’s museum is not the first place I have had or overheard this conversation.

The words that start it vary.

“You have it easy.”

“Your kids listen.”

“I guess this (insert your challenge of choice) hasn’t been difficult for you.”

And while my flashes of annoyance at these conversations try to convince me the words have everything to do with me, I suspect they’re not really about me at all.

A misguided plea for empathy. A bid for connection. One’s own insecurity and loneliness.

But the cost of this comparison is steep, both for those offering the comments and for those continuing a silent competition: no empathy, no connection and no validation.

***

I never got her name that day and neither of us found the connection we ultimately wanted. 

If we ever meet again, maybe I’ll ask how her day is going instead of laughing politely.