Recently I learned of another blog by the mother of not one, but two autistic children. I believe they are both in the Asperger’s realm. The particular entry I came upon addressed the problem of comparing our children with others.

My first reaction was, “Oh, no! This blog is better than mine!”

Ironic, no?

Once I got over the ideas that (1) it’s not surprising that I’m not the best blogger in the universe, (2) I might learn something from this woman, and (3) she is right, I began to percolate on the original premise: Comparing our kids is counterproductive.

And this doesn’t apply only to those of us with special needs kids. Nor does it apply only to our kids or our parenting. Comparing is a bumpy road fraught with dangerous pitfalls, but it sure is an easy path to embark upon for some reason. Human nature, I guess. And, I suppose, American culture, which puts the utmost emphasis on working and achieving.

“What do you do?” Isn’t that the question everybody asks when shaking the hand of a new acquaintance? I dumped that question a long time ago, preferring to get to that topic down the road a bit. But I have to admit, it IS still the first thing that crosses my mind. I just made a conscious choice to stifle it. But I practically have to stuff a sock in my mouth to suppress the urge.

I don’t know about you, but where I live (and, since many of you are my friends, where you live too), kids are always doing, doing, doing. They’re playing competitive soccer, taking voice lessons, learning Spanish on the side, going to a math tutor not to stay caught up, but to get ahead. It’s a constant state of go. Who you are is largely defined by what you do.

So when you have a kid who’s behind everyone else in many ways, who’d rather sit around and play Minecraft with her online friends, whose only sport developed in middle school in the form of lunchtime basketball (defense only! no shooting!), who is bright but doesn’t especially care about school, who isn’t likely headed to Cal or Stanford and maybe not college at all, how do you define your child? How do you rank your parenting?

It’s really quite simple. You don’t define or rank or compare. You appreciate your children for their unique attributes. You guide your children toward kindness and compassion above all else. You allow your kids to flourish in whatever way they wish, whether it’s on the field, in the classroom, or in a sea of specialty duct tape.

If I were to define Maddie, it would be by her kindhearted nature, her ability to approach anybody with full confidence and no fear, her intense interests, her compassion. What is Maddie? She’s not an athlete, a scholar, an artist. She’s a wonderful human being, that’s what she is. What she chooses to do in her spare time now, and whatever she chooses to do with herself in the future, she will still be a wonderful human being. She will be a wonderful human being who happens to garden, or teach, or write, or do research. She is a person who is, and happens to do.

I can say that now because even thought it’s simple to make this choice, simple doesn’t always mean easy.

It was especially challenging not to compare Maddie to the other kids when she was young. My mothers’ group got together weekly, beginning when Maddie was about six weeks old, and within a few months it became clear that other kids were following the anticipated milestone schedule and she just wasn’t. I wasn’t alarmed at all, but it wasn’t super fun to participate in the conversations about all the cute things the other babies were saying while Maddie was only screaming. The others were sitting up or crawling, and Maddie was toppling over, blank-faced. I would joke about it, as is my way, but it didn’t feel very good to be left out of that conversation in a meaningful way.

I still suffer from that feeling of isolation in a way, often because of the comparison trap. I’ve written about this before: When everybody is talking about what’s going on at our local high school, or the dating thing, or the sports teams their kids are on, and (soon, I’m sure) where everybody will be applying to college, I can’t help but think to myself, Maddie is different, and feel a little sad about it. Sad for myself, I guess, because I’m missing out on certain aspects of life with her, and sad about how disconnected I feel in that moment. When the conversation begins to veer into that territory, and all the women begin contributing enthusiastically, I envision myself shrinking away from them all. That’s how it feels. And it’s all because in my head, I’m comparing our experiences, comparing our children. My child is different. My experience is different. And for a moment that difference is painful.

But that’s my own problem.

And I know it’s my problem because I have another kid with whom my parenting experience is quite the opposite. He was exceedingly verbal at a young age, and he walked before he was 11 months old. He has played on a few sports teams and done fine, although he is not a committed athlete. He’d rather bike around with his friends and play pick-up games of soccer and basketball. He’s very organized, self-motivated, and bright. He once got a perfect math score on the annual achievement test, something I ended up being kind of bummed about because from then on he would always expect himself to live up to that achievement, and be disappointed in his performance even if he only missed a single question. And that has been his experience. He also was the last third-grader standing in the annual school spelling bee, just short of making the next round.

So even though he doesn’t play competitive sports and he only took drum lessons for a year, he’s an achiever. And sometimes I get caught up in that. When he quit playing soccer the first time around and gave up on drum lessons, I was disappointed and maybe even a little worried. Would he ever stick with anything? Why didn’t he want to play soccer and play an instrument, when all his friends are athletes and/or musicians? When he signed up for Little League for the first time at the age of 10, it felt like a lost cause because all the other boys had been playing since t-ball days. He was so far behind! How could he compete?

That first season had a rough beginning to be sure, but it reminded me of something very important, that who he is, is more important than what he does. He didn’t get a single hit until the last game of the season (mainly because he wasn’t swinging), but he kept on trying. He was a good sport. He made friends. He had grit. He had a good time and was willing to learn. The coaches liked his attitude. It wasn’t about his achievement–or lack thereof–but the kind of person he was and is becoming through all of these experiences.

And the same goes for me as a parent. There are so many occasions when I feel like a failure. I have met other parents along the way who chart like there’s no tomorrow, who work for hours each day with their young children doing the prescribed OT exercises that I was too tired to do, who religiously work new foods into their choosy kid’s repertoire, and whose kids are organized, well-behaved, and well-dressed because of those efforts. Do I do what they do? And do my kids measure up, and if not, is it my fault?

In the immortal words of Maddie, who cares?

My adult life, my parenting experience, is also a journey during which I am still becoming. I’m changing and evolving and learning and growing. I am figuring out what’s important to me. I’m discovering my own gifts, and dismissing, over time, an ideal that isn’t worth pursuing.

I, too, was an achiever as a child. What I accomplished was important to me.

But having any child, and most especially a special needs child, turns that idea upside down because you suddenly have so little control over anything quantifiable. How do you judge your achievement as a parent? How do you know if you’ve done well when you aren’t so focused on the doing, but rather on the being?

I guess that’s the good news: You really can’t measure that. So I stop. I stop worrying about what the other kids are doing, what the other parents are doing and how they’re doing it. Or at least I try. I am striving to be a better person, to focus on what matters, to be an example to my kids. I hope I am teaching them kindness and compassion, both for themselves and others. I hope I am showing them how to be a devoted and generous friend. I hope they are learning that who they are matters more than what they do. Actually, I think I’ve been learning that from Maddie all along.