Judging Other People Does Not Make You Exceptional: An Open Letter To Amy Glass

I recently read an article by Amy Glass that really got me thinking. Glass wrote an article entitled “I Look Down On Young Women With Husbands And Kids And I’m Not Sorry.” First of all, if you have not read it, please do so before continuing to read this. It will help you understand where I am coming from — and hopefully confuse the hell out of you, like it did me.

After reading this article, my mind flooded with so many things that I wanted to say to her. However, I am much better at writing than I am at just blurting out comments at the ends of articles, so I decided to reply to her article with one of my own.

I would like to begin, Amy, by describing my mother to you. My mother grew up with an abusive alcoholic father who ended up leaving my grandmother to take care of two girls on her own. They were insanely poor. From the time she was 7 years old, she had decided that her life’s ambition was to become a nurse. She made her own clothes, prom dress, wedding dress, and just about everything else. She was the first person in her family to get a car. She went to college and got a degree in nursing, and continued with her dream for 30 years.

During that 30 years — hold your breath, Amy — she got married and had kids! GASP!

She has worked in hospitals, nursing homes, private homes, and ended up at an insurance company and moved straight to the top of the corporate ladder. All with kids. During her career, she helped more people than you will probably ever be able to help over your entire lifetime. She has also saved countless lives.

While my sister and I were growing up, she maintained a full-time job and also made the time to be a part of ALL of our extra-curricular activities. Both of us have become very responsible and successful adults because of her example. And once we graduated high school, she went back to college to get her Master’s Degree in Leadership… when she was in her mid-50s. Now she plans on writing a book for nurses on how to interact with patients and be leaders in their own field. She also plans to teach. This ambition will lead to more lives changed for the better because of her.

She encouraged us to be kind, helpful, considerate and to never give up on our dreams. This is what a mother does, Amy. She created life so that she could teach two members of the future how to continue making a positive difference in the world, so that when she is gone she knows that she will have accomplished MUCH more than any one individual could, because she did it with a husband and two girls at her side.

Something you said, Amy, was,” You will never have the time, freedom or mobility to be exceptional if you have a husband and kids.”

You are so wrong, and here’s why: My mom, and everything she has accomplished and will accomplish in her life, are what make her exceptional.

Because my mother made the decision to get married and have children, I now have the opportunity to continue the tradition she started and make a difference in the world. I too, got married! GASP! But I didn’t get married because my mom got married, or because it was the social norm. I got married because I could not imagine living my life without my husband by my side. We had the most beautiful wedding, but not because we wanted attention, it was because we wanted to celebrate our love with family and friends.

Now, my husband and I are expecting a child of our own in a few months. Not because everyone else is doing it, but because we WANTED a child of our own. We wanted to get the opportunity to mold the future with our own child, so that when we are gone, we know that our exceptional impact on the world was through how we raised our children to be exceptional human beings as well.

One thing that I have learned throughout my life is that people are always entitled to make their own life choices. Whether they choose to be straight, gay, married or unmarried. It is all a choice that we are entitled to. Something that is not necessary is judging others by the choices they have made in their lives, ESPECIALLY when we have never walked a mile in their shoes.

When you talk about how women are weak because they want to stay home with their children, take care of a household and make their husbands happy, you are making the assumption that these women are not exceptional BECAUSE of their choice. It is blatantly clear that you have never been a wife or a mother, not only by the article I mentioned above, but by the other articles you have written as well. You are, of course, entitled to make the choice to not get married and have kids. However, you have absolutely NO right to judge a mother or wife for HER decision to do the opposite of what you want for yourself.

If everyone went by your theory that women are better off alone, you do realize that the world would not be a better place, right? Everyone wants to believe that they are here for a reason, and that they have made some sort major impact on the world before they die. I wonder, Amy, if your mother feels like a failure for having you? Could she have backpacked through Asia instead of making the decision to raise you? Stop judging others just because they live their lives different from you. It isn’t healthy to be so hateful. And the next time you see your mother, THANK her for not giving up on you, because you would not even be here if it weren’t for her.

I sincerely hope that one day you are able to stop being everyone else’s Life Choice Judge and make a real positive difference in this world. I hope that you one day meet a man that makes you realized that life is not always better alone. And I truly hope that one day you have children, so that you are able to experience the joy of being able to mold the future, and better learn how DIFFICULT raising a child, maintaining a household, having a career, and keeping your husband happy really is. And lastly, I sincerely hope you find happiness, because the bitterness that you have in your heart is loud and clear in every single article you have written.

If you continue to be so hateful towards others and their life decisions, you will have wasted your own life, and given away YOUR opportunity to have a positive impact on the world. If you keep this up, the only real impact you will have on the world when you die is the grass, if any, that chooses to grow on your grave. And instead of having “Loving Friend, Wife, and Mother” written on your gravestone, it will just be your name. And every person who passes by your grave will never remember your accomplishments, because you were too busy judging everyone else to make a real difference.