Widgets from a Comparison Machine

I once read that families are comparison machines. In the story, it was argued that the close proximity of one sibling to another drives innumerable comparisons to the surface, often with life-long implications for those compared. For years, during the formidable childhood years, kids are told they are this one or that one: this sister is the smart one; this one the outgoing one. This brother is the funny one; this one is good at math. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter if both sisters are outgoing and smart in comparison to the rest of the human beings on the planet. It only matters that this one seems smarter than that one, that this one seems more outgoing than the other. In this way, brothers and sisters learn to carry these beliefs like widgets, widgets of judgement and self-limitation. Widgets that help define who they are and how they see themselves in the world.
So, of course, I compare my boys. Boy One was an articulate speaker almost  immediately upon arrival. By 18 months, he could string several words together and ask to nurse with most of a sentence. Boy Two, on the other hand, just says "Alk!" and pulls on my shirt, clear communication, unquestionably, but not likely to foreshadow grand success on his SAT. Obviously these things are fully predetermined at birth, the result of my consumption of non-organic spinach and coffee while pregnant. Now, he is destined to a life of mediocrity and decades of hitting his older brother up for cash. (Boy One must be the smart one.)
Untrue and unjust, this is the battle I fight: to allow each to be who he is in the tiny Venn Diagram which is our family. They can both be smart; they can both be kind; they can both be caring, generous, and thoughtful. They can both, God willing, even be good at math. May we overflow with widgets labeled “Good at Math.”

So, universe, please help me find what is good in each of my people and hold it up for praise without pushing anyone else down in the process. Help me to help them work together to be their best selves without endlessly competing against one another. Help me to build a cooperation machine, one that makes widgets of compassion to be handed out on every corner to everyone who passes by. And may those widgets be precisely engineered by my sons who are also good at math.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you very much for your comment! I look forward to approving it.

Popular posts from this blog

Haircuts Are More Than Just Shorter Hair

Image
I cut the baby's hair yesterday. It wasn't the first time, but it was the most significant. Previously, I had simply trimmed, shortened his baby curls in a formation that allowed for at least cursory containment. But now, I have done the irreversible. His baby curls are gone, likely to never return, and with this unique action, with the use of a simple machine to trim and cut and shape, he has irrevocably left the baby world for the world of an older sort. He has become, with no reservations, a toddler. In the conservative Jewish tradition, a boy's hair is not cut until he is three year's old. Once he has arrived at this ripe old age, there is a ceremony called an  upshernish , an event in which members of the religious community ceremoniously cut the child's hair, a symbolic cutting away of  infancy as the small human enters into childhood and the beginning of his formal education. It is at this point that the boy begins to wear the traditional symbols of m
Read more

Building Community with a Non-binding Vote

Image
As my little blog has now earned its first pennies, I thought it time to spend more than 3,000% of my earnings on business cards while simultaneously keeping my day job. However, here is where you, dear reader, can contribute and show your love for my continued reflections and rantings. Here, you can take a moment of your precious life to vote on which style of card from the "Elegent" list on Vistaprint best embodies the style, mood, and tone of my illustrious blog.  Yes, I know what you're thinking. How could one tiny rectangle of heavyweight cardstock possibly do justice to all that my blog contains? Well, obviously, or at least hopefully, it can't, but at least you can have some input as to which example does the least crappy job. I will take all votes into consideration, then do whatever I want to do anyway. Artists and writers are fickle and capricious like that. And with all seriousness, thank you for reading my blog. It brings me great joy to know that
Read more

Two Followers? Really?

Dearest Reader, Today, I bought a fancy new purse and wallet to celebrate my 4,000th page view on this very blog. 4,000 page views? I mean, come on! That means, on average, that more than 60 people read each of my posts. Now, there are (at least) two possible explanations for this documented phenomenon: either sixty random people show up to read each of my posts and never return, only to have 60 more random people show up for my next post and get board out of their minds, or, and I find this second option far more likely, around 50 people are reading my musings on a regular basis, with a small number of transitory visitors who stop by, then move along their merry way. For each and every one of these readers, I am thankful. I like to believe that I bring a small sprig of joy to people as I write myself a path to sanity. Thank you, everyone, who takes the time to read what I have to say. But now, I beg. According to Google, I have two subscribers. Two. One of those it probably my mom
Read more