Judge Not.

Warning: The contents of this post are in danger of going against the title and the very act that I'm about to complain about.

Earlier this week, I babysat a ward member's two year old while his parent finished up moving from their old apartment to their new house. In fear that our measly selection of toddler friendly toys would grow boring for the little guy (a fear I later learned was completely unwarranted) I decided to take a walk to the park that's in my neighborhood.

Now, as we strolled down the sidewalk, the thought did cross my mind that people would see me with a young child and possibly assume he was my son, but I wasn't prepared for the treatment I received by a fellow park goer's mother. Shortly after we arrived at the park, a mother with a child about the same age as my babysittee arrived. The mother eyed me a bit suspiciously and even seemed to corral her child to the opposite side of the playground, as if playing near a "teenager's son" would somehow taint her child's image as the respectable daughter of two loving, stable, married parents. It was a small playground, however, and soon enough our paths crossed. We stood a few feet away from each other as we supervised playtime, at the distance where it's awkward to just stand there without making any sort of small talk. Eventually the awkwardness won over her desire not to talk to the "teen mom" and she addressed me with that sterile, close-lipped-smile mask of politeness that people wear when they disapprove, but are desperately trying to hide that fact from the other party. I responded to her vapid comments about the weather and the amount of rain we had the night before with amiability, intentionally letting her believe what she wanted to believe for a short while longer.

After a few moments, I tired of my social experiment and casually worked into the conversation that his parents were moving and I had offered my services to watch the little tyke so that they could be a bit more productive. Almost immediately the social stigma of irresponsible teen mom was lifted off of me and she was much more genuine and even encouraged her daughter to play with my charge. Now that he was the child of two loving, stable, married parents like her daughter was, he was a worthy playmate.

Maybe it's just as judgmental for me to write this post as it was for her to apply a label to me without knowing a detail about my life, but it just bothers me that within the twenty minutes of our acquaintance, absolutely nothing changed about myself or the little boy except her perception of us and that changed everything about the way she treated us.

I'm sure that I've been guilty of the crime of silently judging someone in a situation I disapprove of without knowing a detail of their life. And I'm sure I'll do it again sometime. But it's definitely something I'm going to be more conscious of now that I've been on the other side of the judgement. Things aren't always what they seem and it's best for everybody to remember that when deciding who is a "good" person and who isn't.