"The older I get, the less judgmental I become."

So in my last post, I discussed that very often, how we parent our children is not a matter of finding the "one true way" to do something. Rather, the Lord expects us to exercise righteous judgment and that there are certainly many ways to accomplish the eternally important work of raising a child.

Following that post, I read a book called "Bottled Up: How the Way We Feed Babies Has Come to Define Motherhood, and Why It Shouldn't." It was such an eye-opening read about the world of breast feeding vs. bottle feeding. My take away from the book, and something that the author seems to plead: we could all stand to be a little less judgmental of other people's parenting choices.

Since becoming a mom, I've been rather dismayed at times to see the overbearing way mothers will pass judgement on other mothers. And I think something that really feeds this problem is the anonymity of the internet. It's rare that I see mom's bash each other in person. Quite the contrary. But take away that face-to-face interaction, and all of a sudden, it becomes fine to not only judge another person's parenting choices, but to often do so in a rather venomous way.

One of my favorite addresses on judging comes from Elder Dallin H. Oaks (a former judge himself). In it he says:

In one of the monthly General Authority fast and testimony meetings, I heard President James E. Faust say, "The older I get, the less judgmental I become." That wise observation gives us a standard to live by in the matter of judgments. We should refrain from anything that seems to be a final judgment of any person—manifesting our determination to leave final judgments to the Lord, who alone has the capacity to judge. 

In the intermediate judgments we must make, we should take care to judge righteously. We should seek the guidance of the Spirit in our decisions. We should limit our judgments to our own stewardships. Whenever possible we should refrain from judging people until we have an adequate knowledge of the facts. So far as possible, we should judge circumstances rather than people. In all our judgments we should apply righteous standards. And, in all of this, we must remember the command to forgive.

So today, I'm asking that we all take a step back, remember that we're all children of the same Father in Heaven, and refrain from unrighteous judgment. We could all stand to be just a little more understanding, a little more loving of each other. Mothering is hard enough, and with loving encouragement, we can all lift each other just a little higher.