You're familiar with the expression "Keeping up with the Joneses." Well, I'm proud to say I'm caring less about it, but I do catch my mind wandering in that direction from time to time. And it's usually something I want for the kids, but can't have, that brings me to that bad place.
Recently, Anna Claire asked me why her friend had a bigger house than ours. I explained to her that we have the house that is right for us, that the bigger house we have, the more rooms we have to clean and the less we would see one another. But afterward, I found myself comparing what my kid's friends had that my child didn't.
Anna Claire will ask if she can have her own iPad like her friends, her own room like her friends, and go to Disney World like her friends. Then she'll follow it up with, I'm a good girl, right Mommy? Breaks my heart sometimes. Because she is a great girl, and she does deserve those things. And on some level I do wish we could afford them for her. But I just pray God will give me the right words in the moment, just like my parents must have for me when I asked those kinds of questions as a child.
Comparison is the thief of joy, and if I do say so myself, I'm doing a great job of keeping my mind from going there 99% of the time. I've learned to be grateful for what we have and are able to provide our girls.
I can compare and justify NOT having many things, and am actually finding that by not overindulging our girls, it's become a point of pride rather than shame. I do believe I'm growing up!
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