who is the fairest of them all?

  My husband and I took our little man to the zoo yesterday and we of course had a fabulous time! Our son is a a few months over two years old and he is finally to the point of being able to appreciate and notice all the different animals, so while he was watching and pointing at all the interesting new animals my husband and I found ourselves watching our favorite animals, humans. I find it very interesting to see how strangers interact with their friends, children, and of course other strangers, I'm pretty sure I missed a calling to be an anthropologist.

  While we were looking at the lions there were a couple of moms standing to the left of us with about five children between the two of them and one was wearing a baby in a really cool rainbow colored sling, my initial thought was "crunchy moms" then in the 5 seconds of standing there one of their children whined about wanting a snack and the other mom offered some of her childs cookies then the convo went something like this: "Oh, thank you, but I'm not sure they are dairy free." then the other mom started looking at the ingredients list and assured the first mom it was dairy free and organic. see.........how nosy am I? My second thought was "vegan" but just as I was thinking that my husband whispered as we were walking to the next exhibit "are those moms that we hate?" I swear he is just as nosy as I am, and clearly a drama queen. Then I had to explain there could be several reason for the dietary restrictions including lactose intolerance which he immediately understood because our son happens to be lactose sensitive and we have to be careful but not 100% dairy free, and I explained further that I don't hate any moms as long their kids are loved and cared for why should we care if its different from how we do it? He agreed and we walked on to find the food court because we also had a hungry boy on our hands. While in the food court we made a startling discovery our child was not the most well behaved one in the room (he wasn't the worst either) but lets just say we got a few evil eyes from our table neighbors, which irritated my husband because he felt like we were being judged for our parenting skills, and that can feel pretty hurtful because I feel every parent really does the best they can. Then my husband quietly asked me, "how do you decide who wins in parenting? Is is based on how they act now, or what kind of person they become later?" and I had a bit of a pretend stoner moment where I was like "woah man....thats, like, really deep!" but seriously how do you know? All I hear about on facebook is Mommy Wars and the War On Breastfeeding and for lack of a better term I find it...........really freaking dumb! So what if someone judges you or even you just perceive yourself being judged! Is it right? NO! But put on your Under-roos and don't worry about what other people are possibly thinking about you. You cannot control what other people think, you can only control your own actions and what you put into this world, and I want to put in empathy and comradery with the people I encounter. Its human nature to have first impressions and make judgments, I don't feel guilty for that, but its a whole other story what you choose to do with those judgments that make it wrong or right.