A great friend of mine said something interesting to me recently. We were having a pretty deep conversation about our lives when she confessed something. She told me deep inside she feels she cares too much about what other people think of her. She claimed the thoughts around the notion consume her at times.

I gave a lot of thought to what she was saying and suddenly realized I had changed drastically in the last ten years of my life in this area. I’d never thought about it before, but was able to put my finger on a huge shift in my life back about the time my children were very young. In fact most of my real worry about what other people think¦.is close to gone. And it was solely due to my survival instinct during that small child phase of my life.

There were so many different opportunities for judgment in my new world of bearing and raising kids; it just became overwhelmingly ridiculous to keep up with it. I simply couldn’t spend my time second-guessing and worrying what other people were thinking about how and what I was doing with the children. At a certain point I looked around and realized.what was working for me and my kids was what really mattered, and what other people thought about it really didn’t matter. Ultimately, I got to a place where I genuinely thought, okay I don’t care what you think, I can’t care. I don’t have the time or the energy. And BOOM, the burden was gone.

Similar to the rest of life, it’s important to stand behind the choices you make, believe in yourself, and forge ahead. People tend to question a confident person far less. When in doubt, go ahead and ask for advice, god knows you’ll get it. And when someone offers you advice and you haven’t asked, feel free to nod and think Whatever Remember, the line between right and wrong when raising kids is very gray, and laced with interpretation.

And in the end here’s the true irony of it all; every mother, like every person, is her own unique nurturing self. It is from this position that we all work so differently to land in the same place. We want the best for our kids.

So the next time you feel judgment in the area of nursing, pacifiers, bottles, diapers, naps, sleeping, baby classes, bedtime, potty training, crawling, bla bla bla. Remember, they’re your choices. Make them with pride, stand behind them. And keep your eye on the ball that matters, your children.