Walking In Their Shoes

When My Wife was pregnant with our oldest son, we were living in Chicago. From time to time, I would hear on the news or read in the paper stories of people who had shaken their infants to death. And I would judge them. How could you do that to a defenseless child? That is something that I would never do...

Our oldest son Patrick turned out to be a very colicky baby - and while never quite fit the medical definition of colic, he was incredibly close. One afternoon while he was still an infant, I was unable to get him to stop crying and it went on for what seemed like hours. As my frustration grew, his crying seemed to grow worse. I was holding him close to my body, trying desperately to get him to stop crying and at one point, I held him away from me at arms length. And in that moment I knew...

I put him down in his crib and walked away. In that moment, I knew how it could happen to anyone. I knew how anyone could shake an infant baby in frustration, in anger, in the desire to have the baby stop crying. I knew how anyone could do it because I was moments from doing it myself.

As I was preparing to become teacher, I promised myself that I was going to be the kind of teacher that loved his students and would not make them cry. I'd seen and heard of teachers that were too hard on their students and in some cases, brought them to tears. And I judged those teachers. Not me, I told myself. That won't be me.

In my second year teaching on the Near Westside of Chicago, I had a student who we'll call Chris. He consistently failed to complete his homework - consistently. My patience was wearing thin when on this particular day, I chose to ask him in front of the class, where his homework was. Predictably he did not have it.

In that moment, I launched into a long, public explanation of how important homework was, how he was not doing his best, and how effort mattered in my classroom. Finally at the end, I asked him why he didn't have his homework and in a timid voice he told me, "My brother ran away from home last night and we were out looking for him." And then, as if that wasn't enough, the tears began to silently run down his face. I made him cry...

It is very easy to sit in judgement of others, especially if we have not been there yet ourselves. The real challenge is in trying to better understand the actions of others. The real challenge is to find a way to connect with someone, to empathize with their situation, to show compassion. The real challenge is to see the humanity in each and every person, including ourselves.

Photo courtesy of Medium.com