Avoiding Judgment or Creating Your Dream? How to Live Boldly

Our firstborn babe was almost 2 full weeks overdue. I was in the grocery store sometime after my due date and a lady asked if I was having a girl or a boy. I smiled and said we didn’t know, it was going to be a surprise, we’d find out in the delivery room! She responded with, “Well, I’m sure it’s a girl. (Gesturing to my belly) You’re really OUT there. Wow!”

😐 Wow, indeed.

If you’ve been pregnant, I’m willing to bet you have a similar (or crazier) story. For some reason, pregnancy is a topic where it's generally socially acceptable for people to puke their opinions all over you. And it doesn’t stop at pregnancy. When, where, and how your kids sleep, eat, heal, play, learn, and spend their days are, for some reason, also topics that perfect strangers, and friends and family alike will observe your choices and then tell you what they think of them. They’ll tell you if they approve or disapprove, and if they disapprove, they’ll tell you how they did it. Better. That’s what they mean. How they did it better.

It's also super socially acceptable to choose a parenting “style” and cast judgement on everyone that doesn’t follow it via passive aggressive internet memes. You know the ones I’m talking about. “I’m not letting strangers raise MY baby.” Ahh, yes, I remember the day I gave up on my role as my children’s mother and gave them to wolves to raise. And by that, obviously I mean daycare. 🙄

You know where else people love to beat you about the head and shoulders with their (better-than-yours) opinions?  MONEY.

What’s a little, what’s a lot, what’s too much, what’s not enough, and what’s more than enough?

How should you spend, save, and invest?

What’s reasonable and unreasonable, for a home, car, clothes, vacation, lifestyle?

Should you have a career and earn money, or stay home and raise your kids for now, or forever?

Not sure? Ask someone at the grocery store. Or your mom. Or Facebook. And they’ll all have an opinion…for you.  

Money, just like parenting, is a decision best kept in-house. Don’t let the fact that it’s socially acceptable to cast so much public judgement in these areas form YOUR truth and values. Outsourcing your financial decisions is as wild as outsourcing your parenting decisions, but we let the outside influences creep in, like water intrusion. It seeps in, slowly at first, until eventually everything is fully saturated.  

The pressure is all around us to “do it like them,” to avoid the sting of shame and judgment. “Do they know something I don’t? What if I’m wrong? What if they’re right? What will they think? What will they say?” Too often we let fear, insecurity, and the desire to avoid ridicule take the wheel, driving our opinions, choices, and values. We design our lives to avoid the things we don’t want, instead of to create the things we DO want.  

Money, just like parenting, is an area where YOU get to decide what’s right or wrong; What’s good, better, and best. YOU decide what is enough, what is too much, and what is too little. YOU decide because YOU live with the results.

Own the fullness of whatever you feel called to create, and boldly SHOW UP to create it, without a single thought of the opinions from the cheap seats. Know that the desires on your heart are there for a reason. You’re not selfish or foolish for fully committing yourself to creating the life you feel made to live, the life you feel called to create for your family.

I’ll go first. I’ll own my truth first, and maybe it will help you own yours. Not so yours can be like mine, but so you can see the option to own whatever your truth is.

I’m called to raise babies and build a career. And I give myself permission to show up big both inside my home and out.

I decide what a good mom is. Not social media memes, not mom groups on the internet, not my parents, or my husband’s.

I decide – with my husband – what’s enough, what’s too much, and what’s too little, for our family. I’m called to create a big impact and a big income. It’s not about money. It’s never been about money. It’s about freedom, and we can use money to create freedom.

I don't believe my husband is better suited, or more qualified, or more capable, or more responsible to earn money, because he is a man. Nor do I believe I am any less of those things because I am a woman. In our family we don’t have gender roles, and we’re all responsible for all types of the work, because we all reap the benefits. 

In our family, we’ve decided it’s ok to talk about money, and it’s ok to desire the things money provides for us. It’s ok, at our house, to want a lot of money, or things that require a lot of money. We don’t make that mean we’re shallow or obsessed or ungrateful. That calling makes us big dreamers, and demands we be big thinkers and learn to serve others well, and we’re here for all of that.

Money offers freedom, so I’m a YES to money. Making it, spending it, and sharing it. Yes, yes, and yes. Money is simply a tool, a useful and effective one, so we’re willing to prioritize it, earn it, and use it whenever and however it serves.

The messy way me and mine are doing life is 100% THE best way – for me, and for us. You may not agree. I understand, and I respect that. And, I don’t give a damn.

What do you give yourself permission to own, for you and your household, if you don’t consider the critics? How do you show up differently – more or less – if you don’t factor in what anyone else thinks you “should” do? What life do you feel called to create, if you don’t look around at what anyone else is doing?

Tell me about it - drop me a DM on IG! @alirspicer