Cup of Jo

Jello,
I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually getting good at taking care of a baby. I'm not a baby person if you havne't already guessed that. Nevertheless, now that I spend  at least 9 hours a week with a baby, I am learning a lot from said baby. I guess that's random, but it's been a somewhat big part of my life recently.
Now that I have the title of "Nanny", I think about and am around kids a lot. But, I've decided that being a nanay doesn't really get me a lot of positive attention. (Not that I want any type of attention, but I don't like  negative attention).
When I take the kids I care for out to the pool or the park or any other place that would qualify as "public", I get a lot of stares (glares). And I am good at reading people's minds, so I know that at least 50% of them are thinking something along the lines of, "She's so young, I can't believe she has kids", "Poor girl, must have made some bad decisions..." and, "I wonder who the dad is". Sometimes I wish I could wear a "nanny nametag" or a t shirt that explains why I am taking care of kids that AREN'T mine.
I think this type of judgeing based on appearance happens quite frequently. I am not immune to it either, I tend to judge without fully knowing the situation. But, I am a work in progress; and, now that I've felt judgement from other people that don't know me, I want to stop judging situations that I don't know.
This same type of judgement happened to another family I know of. The parents have two boys of their own, and two foster kids that were taken from a meth house. They are four and...infant (I don't know how old exactly). Moving on, both kids were addiceted to meth at birth and grew up around it. They went through major withdrawls when they were taken from their parents and it was a really tough time for them. So, the foster parents are the primary care takers for now, and the dad is in jail, the mom just got out of jail. The foster parents take the four year old girl to the chriopractor weekly because it helps her in a way that I used to know but now forgot. Anyways, she normally throws a fit and yells at the top of her lungs, "STOP HITTING ME!" and "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" and other nasty things that should never come out of the mouth of a four year old. The foster parents have been major troopers through this whole situation and I remember the foster mom telling me, "I just wish I could wear a button or a t shirt that says, 'these are my foster kids', but I can't". So one day at the chriopractor, there were old ladies watching this four year old have a melt down, and one of them said, "You shouldn't have that many kids if you can't take care of them!" She said this rude comment loud enough to be heard by the foster dad who promtply walked over and said, "These are my sweet foster kids who are suffering from the affects of the meth their parents got them addicted to and lack of discipline they grew up with. Please try to understand the situation". The elderly ladies were at a loss for words.
And I know that this situation is way worse than my situation of looking like a young mom. But judgement is judgement, no matter how unfair.

All that to say that God spoke to me the other night while I was reading John.

John 7:24 says, "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment."

I need to work on that.

Lets work together.

♥