When I was young, my activity of choice was dance. I took dance lessons each year from the time I was three until I graduated high school, and loved that I could exercise while using my creativity. I played softball for one or two seasons when I was around 10, but I wasn’t very good and didn’t have that competitive streak in me to make me want to get better and win.

As I’ve gotten older, though, I notice my competitiveness come out in certain situations: playing games with friends at a party, getting the best grade on a project in graduate school, and now that I’m a mother, my child’s milestones. I know it’s not a competition and I know every child develops at his or her own pace, but it is impossible for me to not think about what other kids are doing who are close in age to Liam, and to compare him to them. For example, when my friend’s baby girl, who is one month older than Liam, started rolling over, I was anxious for my son to reach the milestone at the same age. When he took a little longer to master the skill, part of me worried that he was behind and of course, that I wasn’t doing the best job as a parent to help him reach his milestones “on time,” whatever that means.

Liam with his friend Olivia, who is now 11 months old and walking independently!

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Liam started saying “mama” pretty early and I was so proud he had reached that milestone before some of my friends’ babies did. I know it means nothing, but I think some of us can admit that those feelings of “my baby is smart/fast/cute/cool” creep into the back of our minds sometimes, despite our best efforts to quash them with the logic that all kids develop at their own pace.

Now Liam is almost 14 months, and not yet walking independently. He took three steps at 11 months, but prefers to hold on to his walker, our hands, the wall, the table, a chair, etc while walking, and still crawls quite often because it’s faster. Every time I hear about a friend’s baby who is younger than Liam has started to walk, I feel like he is behind. I tell myself I’m grateful to have a cautious child who tends to know his boundaries because he probably won’t get hurt as frequently, and that I should be happy he isn’t walking yet because once he does, chasing him will be so much harder.

The root of parents comparing their kids to other kids the same age may be that the parents are comparing themselves to other parents. Our children are a reflection of us, and if our kids aren’t ahead of the pack, then maybe we aren’t. The same goes for the choices we make as parents: if I say I have chosen not to cosleep, then parents who do choose to may think I am judging them and think they are not parenting the right way. On the other hand, they might think I’m a bad parent for not cosleeping because I put my baby to sleep alone in his room instead of close to me. As parents, we all sometimes feel like we have no idea what we’re doing and maybe one way to build up our confidence is to look at other parents and judge them for their choices. I try really hard to keep all of my comparisons in my own brain or to only share these feelings with my husband because I know I’m being ridiculous. We are all just doing the best we can, so like Mrs. Owl, I try to keep my judgments in my head because while being judgmental may be unavoidable, vocalizing said judgments can be avoided.

I hope that this competitive feeling I have for my child will not get worse as he gets older. I’ll have to work hard to not let Liam become aware of this side of me, as I would hate to be that parent who gets in trouble at the soccer game for yelling at their kid (or other kids) too much. I know what is important is that Liam is happy and healthy, not whether or not he gets straight A’s or makes varsity baseball in his freshman year of high school. Of course I’ll always want him to do his best, but feeling like he always has to be the best is not the kind of pressure I want him to feel.

Do you ever struggle with comparing your child to other children?