“I think parenthood is humiliating like 50% of the time.”
“Yeah, I have learned a lot about humility since having kids.”
“I don’t think that being humiliated and gaining humility are the same thing. Are they?”

To me, humility is about modesty. A lack of arrogance about your place in this world.

But humiliation is about being embarrassed all the way from the roots of your hair to the bottom of your feet. Like, when your child says to another child’s mother “My Daddy says your daughter is mean to my sister.”

Sigh.

And so life goes on, two steps forward, three steps back it seems. I mean, I finally meet this really cool woman who is interesting and funny and we seem pretty compatible, and she invites me to hang out and do yoga with her, her mom, and a dear family friend and what she gets back in return is the thought that Trophy Husband and I sit around saying ugly things about her children. That, and the potential for her daughter to also learn a new word.

But really, I think my New Friend understands where I’m coming from. As often as our kids make us burst with pride, they also embarrass us. They amplify those things about us that we like to keep hidden away from view. And while the actual act of that amplification is humiliating, it really is necessary. Those moments are what keeps the arrogance at bay. What hopefully remains long after my cheeks have returned to their normal color and I have stopped with the flopsweat – is humility.

So, we’re both right.