Fear of being judged

Fear of being judged is a real fear among individuals. We fear being judged based on various parameters, some examples are being judged based on our gender, age, religion, nationality, education, job, sexual orientation, political views, marital or familial status. Getting judged based on our parenting or the way our kids perform is one of them. 

A survey of parents revealed that about 90% of mothers and 85% of fathers feel judged, and almost half of them feel judged all the time by people they know and even by complete strangers. This fear makes them try various things so that they can overcome feelings of their own insecurities and avoid being labeled as irresponsible parenting. Tiger parenting, free-range parenting, liberal parenting, conservative parenting, and whatnot, parents look in every direction and source to find some tips to raise successful kids. They all intend that their kids will become successful and be happy. However, in this process, parents don't realize that they are engineering the life of their child as per their own wishes and inclinations, they are shaping their child's thinking, even dictating choices based on their own prejudices, and for a considerable time, that child has no say in his or her own life. Parenting is complex, and these aspects make it more complex and confusing, this is one of the reasons why most parents choose the prescribed or most popular format, at least that format guarantees a certain outcome in most cases, a so-called successful child, who is going to have standard education and a well-paying job. 

So, how to deal with the fear of being judged? Well, you can't stop people from judging you, but you can stop your actions from being influenced by the fear of that judgment. It's not easy and in practice, no one accepts that their actions are influenced by what others will say, but in reality, they are. When in any society most people follow a certain pattern, it establishes certain norms. One can sense that these norms are based on the way certain behavior, let's call it a confirmative behavior, is rewarded and praised, and other behaviors not fitting in the set pattern, a non-confirmative behavior, is criticized or called a risky behavior. It is really up to individual parents how they want to parent their children. Every child is different, even between two siblings one cannot expect the same behavior even after being raised in the same household with the same parents, it is that uncertain, but as parents, we want to bring certainty as it comforts us. However, parents' desire to play safe, or have a certain outcome has resulted in homes becoming factories for raising standardized kids, who conform to their parent's desires and choices. Legally child labor is banned, but now school work and extracurricular activities have become a legal form of child labor, kids are forced to do these things to an extent their parents want them to do, it really doesn't matter whether the kids want or not. Therefore, it's really up to parents to notice what they are doing as kids have very little say in all this, there are risks associated with every parenting style as nothing guarantees the desired outcome, but at least parents can choose not to be a dictator but be a facilitator. Let's be a facilitator as much as we can because no matter how good, dictatorship is after all a dictatorship with no freedom for a non-dictating party and our kids do deserve the freedom to be themselves, not our own shadows or not what we can't become but wanted to become.

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic.