How I Stopped Measuring Myself Against the Mom in the Foyer

Comparing yourself to the other mothers at church is the quietest kind of tiredness, because nobody calls it that. For me it began with one remark from a woman I admired.

"I don't know how you do it. You always look so calm."

Janelle said it to me in the church foyer in the spring of 2016. Caleb was fourteen months old and I had spent most of sacrament meeting in the hall with him, bouncing and shushing against the smell of the carpet cleaner, and the part I spent inside, I spent watching her four children sit in a row in pressed shirts. I said thank you. I took it for politeness and went home and ate crackers over the sink. Three years later she sent a card from Idaho with a note at the bottom saying she'd gone home that Sunday and cried, because I'd laughed when Caleb shrieked in the middle of the closing hymn and she never could.

I laughed because I'd run out of anything else to do.

The foyer is a bad place to take measurements

Shoes are on in a church foyer, hair is done and the baby has a clean face for the first time since Thursday. You walk in carrying your whole week, the shouting about the car seat and the cereal on the carpet, and you set it next to somebody else's Sunday morning and call that a comparison.

Paul has a line about this in his second letter to the Corinthians, and it's funnier than I remembered, because he's poking at a group who had been giving each other grades.

"For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise."
2 Corinthians 10:12

Everybody scores everybody else on a scale they made up. He ends the chapter in verse 18 by saying the approved person is the one the Lord commends, and the other mothers don't get a vote.

A study published this year followed 493 mothers in China and found that the more they compared, the more burned out they were. The link ran two ways. Comparing made them more stressed, and it left them feeling less capable at the job. Feeling less capable is the part that gets into the house, since a mother who has decided she's bad at this gets short with the kids long after the reel has stopped playing.

What it does to a week

It follows you out to the car, and by the time you're home you've snapped at someone over a shoe. Monday you decide the pantry needs labeled bins, and by Thursday the bins hold what bins always hold. Wednesday night you're on your phone at nine, looking at a stranger's Sunday dresses, and by Friday you're tired in a way the children don't explain.

While it's happening it feels like being behind, and the thought that starts it is usually two seconds long and sounds like a fact.

What helped, for a while

I mean "for a while" literally, because it comes back with a new calling or a cousin's vacation photos, and you go through the list again. The list is short.

Mute the accounts rather than unfollowing. Nobody is offended, and you still have the choice to look. Use one test: how do you feel five minutes after, not during. Three accounts is usually plenty to start.
Keep the phone out of the first hour of the day and the last one. Buy an alarm clock if the phone has been the alarm clock. The scrolling that does the damage happens when you're already tired and nobody needs anything from you.
Say the sentence out loud to one person, something like "I feel like I'm failing this week," and pick somebody who won't try to fix it. You will almost always hear "me too," sometimes before you've finished.
In the foyer, trade scoring for one question. How's the baby sleeping, did your mother come, how was the move. It's hard to rank a person while you're asking about her mother.
Have one thing that belongs to you and has nothing to do with a child. A class, a garden bed, a book club that mostly eats.

Prayer and scripture belong on that list too, and they work best when they send you to somebody with a real sentence to say.

Do the mothers who seem fine have it figured out?

Some do, in an area or two. The trouble starts when you take the best thing you can see about someone and assume the rest matches, because then you're competing with a mother who doesn't exist.

The same guessing goes on in I Spent Years Misreading the Man Who Turned Around in Our Pew, only about glares.

If a child at your house is starting to measure himself against the group chat, Caleb Wants a Phone and Everyone Else Has One is about how that starts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it normal to compare myself to other moms?

Yes, and the study found that mothers who didn't compare reported less stress and more confidence, so it's worth cutting down even if you can't quit entirely.

How do I stop comparing myself to other moms on Instagram?

Mute first and see what's left. You can add accounts back if you miss them, and I never missed many. If an account calls itself relatable, I'd check that one first.

What do I say when another mom's kids are sitting perfectly and mine are on the floor?

If you want something to do with your face while you stand there, ask her how she's doing and mean it. Nothing else needs saying.

Is comparing myself to other mothers a sin?

Paul calls it unwise, and it costs more than it gives, but a mother who feels bad about feeling bad is worse off than before. Take the practical fixes first and whatever's left to the Lord.

Mute three accounts tonight, and on Sunday tell one person something that isn't going well.

with love, Melissa