Gladney Blog

Parenting these days comes with a free side of comparison. We can’t help it. Maybe in our parent’s time they compared us with the other kids in our class, or in our neighborhood. But in the age of social media, we are comparing with every other person we see on the internet. Looking at all those highlight reels, its easy to think we aren’t doing well. That other people have their lives together while ours is falling apart. And if you’re parenting a kiddo with a history of trauma, the trap of comparison can hit extra hard.

In 2013 my family completed the paperwork that would allow us to open our hearts and home to a child in the state foster care system who needed a loving and caring family. With eyes and arms wide open, we eagerly did all the things … the trainings, the reading, the home study, and book making. We were already rocking parenthood with our two little girls, so this was sure to be a cake walk, right?!  Um, no.

I’m a natural born hypochondriac. I know the CDC’s flu recommendations, knew all the signs and symptoms of Ebola and was obsessed with tracking the cities that Zika had impacted. Even if you aren’t a hypochondriac like me you know that public health crises like these flood the news, our social media feed and plague our minds. But why aren’t we talking about the public health crisis that is trauma?!