I Compare Him In My Head

It runs on its own now and that is the part that frightens you.

Somebody mentions their son at the school gate, or at church, or in a message about something else entirely, and before you have decided anything the comparison is already complete. Where he is. Where yours is. The gap, expressed in some unit you could not name.

It takes about a second. It happens whether or not you want it to.

And then, immediately afterward, the other thing arrives, which is the self loathing, and that lasts considerably longer than the second.

Because you love your son. Enormously, and specifically, and you would not swap him for any of the young people on that scoreboard and you know it with complete certainty.

And you have never told a living soul that the scoreboard exists.

Here is what I want to say before anything else, and it is the reason this article is worth reading to the end: what you are describing is not a character flaw and it is not something rare. It is a machine that runs in almost everybody, and the only unusual thing about your situation is that you have noticed it.

Comparing themselves among themselves

There is a sentence in Second Corinthians about comparison that is more clinical than most people expect.

For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. (2 Corinthians 10:12, King James Version)

Are not wise.

Not: are wicked. Not: are unloving. Not wise, which is a verdict about the usefulness of an activity rather than about the character of the person doing it.

Paul is describing a practice and saying it does not work. He is not describing a sin and calling for repentance.

You are running an unwise machine and not committing a betrayal, and a comparison that arrives in a second has never once been evidence about how much a mother loves her son. Second Corinthians 10:12 calls it unwise rather than wicked, and the Holy Spirit is the one in a kitchen with somebody who has never told anybody.

Now the mechanism he names, which is the useful part: measuring themselves by themselves.

The instrument is the problem. When people measure by each other, every reading is relative, which means it changes every time the other person moves, which means no reading is ever stable and no number ever settles.

That is exactly why the scoreboard never resolves. It cannot. There is no possible reading that would end it, because the scale itself is made of other people and other people keep moving.

You are able to put down an instrument that was never going to give an answer, and two years of readings have never once brought a single number any closer to settling. Second Corinthians 10:12 puts the fault in the measuring rather than in the one measuring, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a broken instrument out of a mother's hands.

You have an instrument that can never produce a final number, and a scoreboard made of other people has never once been able to settle. The Spirit of God is the one who names why a thing has run for two years without resolving, and the written word locates the fault in the measuring instrument rather than in the person holding it.

The self loathing is the heavier half

Now the practical part, and it is about the second thing rather than the first. The comparison takes a second. The self loathing takes the rest of the evening.

And the self loathing rests on a belief that is worth examining: that a mother who compares her son to other people must, somewhere underneath, wish he were different.

That does not follow, and here is why. The comparison is running on a machine you did not build and did not switch on. It uses whatever material is in front of it. It would run identically about a car, a house, or a garden, and it runs about your son because he is the thing you care most about and the machine reaches for whatever is nearest the heart.

What it reveals is where your attention lives. Not what you want.

You are looking at where your attention lives and not at what you wish for, and a machine that reaches for what somebody loves most has never once been a report on their loyalty. Second Corinthians 10:12 examines the practice and never once examines the affections of the person doing it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who separates a reflex from a wish.

And here is the reason to do something rather than simply understand it.

Two years of a private thing plus self loathing is not stable.

It comes out eventually, and it comes out in the worst possible form, which is a remark. Something slightly sharp, at the wrong moment, about somebody else's son, said in front of yours, that neither of you can quite account for afterward.

That is what an unsaid thing does after a couple of years. It does not stay put.

Comparing is not a verdict on a mother.

You are able to say a thing before it comes out sideways, and two years of a private machine have never once stayed private in the end. 2 Corinthians 10:12 names the practice out loud rather than leaving anybody to work it out alone, and the Spirit of God is the one who gets a thing said before it leaks.

Say it to one person, and do not explain

So here is the thing to do, and the second half is the difficult one.

Tell one person that you compare him and that you hate it, in one sentence. And do not explain why you do it.

One sentence. I compare him to other people's children and I hate that I do it.

You are able to say a private machine out loud, and one honest sentence has never once made a woman into somebody who loves her son less. The Holy Spirit is the one in a kitchen where a two year old secret finally gets said, and it is written in Second Corinthians 10:12 that the measuring by one another is unwise.

And do not explain. That is where it lives or dies.

The pull will be to build the context: that you do not mean it, that you would not change him, that it is only because you worry, that it is because of what her aunt said in March. All of that is defense, and a defense turns a confession into a case, and the other person then has to acquit you rather than simply receive it.

One sentence. Then let them respond however they respond.

And here is what you will almost certainly get, because this machine runs in nearly everybody: they will say they do it too. Very likely with a specific example. Very likely one they have never said out loud either.

You are able to find out how ordinary it is by saying it once, and a thing kept private for two years has never once been as rare as the person keeping it believed. Scripture names the practice as a common one among people who thought well of themselves, and the same Spirit who put it plainly is in the kitchen when you say your sentence.