Judging Others

We all like to think that we don't judge people.  But we do it more often than we actually realise.

Today I have been reading all about the man who threw his child off a bridge and then killed himself in Queensland.  One of the headlines called him "evil dad". 

It was easy for me to judge this man. And it is easy to get caught up in the hype that the media portrays.  But I want to remind everyone that there are always two sides to every story.  What we don't read in this story is his side.  We read about the grieving mother, we read about the relationship break down that lead to it.  But do we read that maybe he had severe depression and couldn't see a way out? Perhaps he had even asked for help but hit walls? Or maybe the mother was abusive to the child and in his thoughts, this was better? or maybe he is as the media portrays simply evil.

We don't know.  We are only told what the newspapers report.  I know of a person whose relationship broke down after some time.  This person was angry that their spouse left them, they said what the spouse had done everything wrong.  But after a while of listening to them list their spouses issues, I soon began to realise what a manipulative person this person was, and the reason the spouse left was because there was always manipulation.  If the spouse wanted to go out, the person would carry on, and lay guilt trips, if the person wasn't getting their way they would threaten suicide.

But this isn't the story that was being told, the story that was being told was the spouse was awful and nasty and had just left with no warning. 

There were two sides to the story.  But often we only ever here one.  Another man that I know a long time ago, told me about his wife had just up and left.  I chose not to say anything nasty about the wife as I didn't want to add fuel to his already angry fire.  As it turned out they repaired their relationship, and it was later that I found out from the wife, that her husband had been having an affair and that was why she left.  I was very thankful I had not chosen to say anything nasty that day.

But how easilly would it have been for me to judge her, to see that she was a horrible person for just up and leaving her husband, who was completely innocent and so gutted that she had left. 

How often do we do this?  Recently in Bendigo, police and the fire brigade were called to a shopping centre because a child had been locked in the car.  I read on facebook many people saying awful things about the mother, how she doesn't deserve to be a mother etc.  But then I found out that the mother had a fuzzy brain moment, had got out of the car, to get baby out, forgot she left the keys in the ignition and locked the door as she got out.  Leaving baby in the car, it was her that called the police frantically.  So really she was a good mum who just had a moment.

And I must say I'm guilty of judging.  Another story that happened in Ballarat, a boy crawled up into a skill tester machine to get the lollies out, and got stuck in there.  I made the comment, "where was the mother that left her 3 year  old alone long enough to do this".  A friend of mine pointed out that the restaurant that the lolly machine is in, is in a play room, that is part of the restaurant.  I ate my words.  I had made an assumption that this mother had just left her kid in the restaurant to run around while she had a lazy lunch.

When I was doing my diploma of youth work, we were given a case study to read, it was about man who was on the train with his three children, the children were playing up and making a lot of noise, and the man didn't seem to be bothered in discipling them.  The people on the train were getting really annoyed by the childrens behaviour.  Eventually a man went to the father and asked him to control his children.  The father looked up with blood shot eyes, and explained to the man that he and the children had just been in the hospital with their mother, who had cancer, she had just died.  The children were forced to be silent in the hospital and they needed a little relief.

As you can see we only ever see the tip of the iceberg, that final behaviour.  We never see what is going on underneath.  And more often than not it is the tip of the iceberg on which we judge! As humans we have a right to look at what is going on underneath for people, so that we can understand why they behave a certain way.  Like for those children, had the people that were on the train known that their mother had just died, they would have not been so angry, and annoyed by them, they may have even interracted with the children.

So I urge not only myself but others to think, there are two sides to every story, and maybe the reason someone did something isn't always actually why the did it.  There are many things that are going on in everyones life.  After all we don't always tell everyone everthing.  We leave some of our lives a mystery.  As do others.  And the media is the prime example of only showing what will sell papers, and making assumptions to sensationalise the headlines.

Love you all

Sam
xxx