Judging people without even knowing them is very often rude and annoying. Even if we know the people with all their bad and good sides, we do not have the right to tell them how to live their live and what thing to do.
Giving advice is the thing we can do instead of judging their actions, no matter we agree with them or not. However, in order to give a piece of advice you have to know, or experience, the problems they are facing with.
Nevertheless, people do the opposite thing. They judge and give advice even when they don’t know the actual problem. This is happening to Kelly Dirkes on regular basis.
Kelly and her husband decided to adopt two kids with Down’s Syndrome. They try to provide to these two kids as much comfortable life as they can. However, people often put them in strange situations.
One situation like this was when Kelly was shopping in the store while carrying the kids in baby carrier. While she was looking for the products she needed, a woman stopped her and tried to give her a ‘free piece of advice’.
The woman told her that she should stop carrying them around in baby carrier because that will not make the kids independent. This shocked Kelly and left her speechless. With no words and frustrated, Kelly took her time and decided not to respond to the woman immediately.
Kelly answered the woman, and all other people who judge her, by writing a letter. Kelly wrote the letter when she got home. This powerful letter is fantastic.
“Dear Woman in Target-“it starts.
“I’ve heard it before, you know. That I “spoil that baby”. You were convinced that she’d never learn to be “independent”. I smiled at you, kissed her head, and continued my shopping.
If you only knew what I know.
If you only knew how she spent the first ten months of her life utterly alone inside a sterile metal crib, with nothing to comfort her other than sucking her fingers.
If you only knew what her face looked like the moment her orphanage caregiver handed her to me to cradle for the very first time–fleeting moments of serenity commingled with sheer terror. No one had ever held her that way before, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do.
If you only knew that she would lay in her crib after waking and never cry–because up until now, no one would respond.
If you only knew that anxiety was a standard part of her day, along with banging her head on her crib rails and rocking herself for sensory input and comfort.
If you only knew that that baby in the carrier is heartbreakingly “independent” –and how we will spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years trying to override the part of her brain that screams “trauma” and “not safe”.
If you only knew what I know.
If you only knew that that baby now whimpers when she’s put down instead of when she is picked up.
If you only knew that that baby “sings” at the top of her lungs in the mornings and after her nap, because she knows that her chatter will bring someone to lift her out of her crib and change her diaper.
If you only knew that that baby rocks to sleep in her Mama’s or her Papa’s arms instead of rocking herself.
If you only knew that that baby made everyone cry the day she reached out for comfort, totally unprompted.
If you only knew what I know.
“Spoiling that baby” is the most important job I will ever have, and it is a privilege. I will carry her for a little while longer–or as long as she’ll let me–because she is learning that she is safe. That she belongs. That she is loved.
If you only knew…”
You cannot judge people and tell them what to do if you have no idea what’s going on in their lives. You have to feel or experience the problems they are facing with, and even then, a simple piece of advice would be more than enough.
Judging people hurts, it makes them less self-confident. We do not want to do that, since everyone deserves to make decisions according to their believes of what’re the best actions to be taken.
What’s you opinion on this? Would you do the same thing?