No one knows what you know.
There are so many situations through parenthood where you will be worried about what others might say, or what they might think (and trust me, they're 'saying' things and they're 'thinking' things!)
wether it's going to the shops with your child looking like he's just spent a hard night on the streets, or maybe planning a holiday with your husband, god forbid, without your child or even just having a friend come over and your house looks like a petting zoo.
And here I am, trying to settle into my "new normal" 4 months after my 14-month-old son died in his sleep and I've found myself, constantly asking myself the question... "What will people think?" It seems that question comes no matter the circumstance.
I went out with my sister the night he passed away. Will people think I went out, leaving my baby in uncapable hands and that's why he died?
My house was an absaloute mess when the police and ambulance arrived. Will they see my house and think we are neglectful parents?
I distanced myself from my family, I drank way too much and was incredibly close to being admitted to a "mental health clinic" weeks after he died. Will people think that I'm some crazy woman who drinks too much and was an unfit mother?
Someone saw me smile today at school drop off. Will people think I'm "Over it" and don't care anymore?
In a few weeks, I'm going to get dressed up and go to my husbands work ball. Will people judge me and think "how could she possibly go out 4 months after losing her baby?"
Here's the thing. No one knows what you know.
No one knows that the night my son passed away, was the first night I had been out on my own for a girls night in FOREVER, that my son was at home safe with his daddy and that I came home, checked on my baby and kissed him goodnight before I went to sleep. No one knows that now, I will forever live with the guilt of not spending the last night at home with him.
No one knows that my house was a complete mess because instead of rushing around worrying about the laundry and dishes we chose to go out on a family picnic the day before. No one knows that now, I am forever grateful that I chose a day with my family, with my son, over housework, because It was the last day I got.
No one knows that I struggled with my mental health and drank way too much because I had stopped taking my antidepressants and it was so much easier to be wreckless and not feel anything, than to be lucid and have to deal with the pain that comes with losing a child. No one knows that now, I forever owe my husband for stepping up and putting his own grief to one side to care for our daughter while I was unable.
No one knows that the smile you saw, may have been the very first smile I had done since my little boy passed away and no one knows that I went home and cried and felt unbeleivable guilt for letting my mind wander somewhere else and allowing myself to smile.
No one knows what you know.
It is so incredibly easy to get caught up in the judgement of others.
So easy to make up some wild story in your head about that "unfit mother" who is snapping at her child, why that "undisciplined child" is yelling and screaming in the shopping centre and that "selfish" couple who are holidaying in Europe without their children.
So the next time you see a woman at the shops, bags under her eyes, hair a horrible mess, wearing tracky pants and a stained loose fitting Tshirt, bones protruding from her body because she is so horribly thin and think "pfft she must be some dead-beat junkie, look how disgusting and skinny she is" Maybe, just maybe that woman is so skinny because she hasn't eaten for 10 days, her eyes sunken and dark because she cries herself to sleep every night, she's wearing her worst clothes because she really couldn't care less about 'fashion' and just put on the first thing she found that was semi-clean. Maybe this was the first time that woman has stepped food outside and done a food shop since her little boy died.
Stop yourself - Because you don't know, what they know.
