Facebook has been inundating my page with all kinds of quizzes.  Which Soprano are you? Which Family Guy Character are you? Which Seinfeld character? And so on.  I admit, they’re fun to take, and really pretty accurate for something so…corny.  The latest one I took was “What type of dog are you?”  I assumed I would get some cute, lovable breed like golden retriever, based on my penchant for chasing balls, eating cookies and looking cute.  But no.  I got Pit Bull.  Those of you who know my opinion on the killing, maiming breed will see the hilarious irony of that.  The description wasn’t so bad…it said that I am sweet and lovable, but misunderstood.  Thankfully, it left out my violent tendencies toward innocent toddlers.  But I digress.

My daughters saw this quiz while annoyingly reading over my shoulder while I was on Facebook last night.  Being dog lovers, they wanted to take the quiz.  They went through the questions and answered them as well as they could.  I’m really glad that neither one of them picked “sex” as their favorite exercise.  But again, I digress.  One of them turned out to be a corgi and one of them, a chihuahua.  The descriptions were relatively accurate, but they are irrelevant to my point.  My favorite question on this quiz was “What’s your biggest pet peeve?”  Both of my girls answered with, “People who are judgmental.”  That happens to be the same pet peeve I picked in the quiz.

I sat here as they finished taking their quizzes and thought about their intolerance toward judgmental attitudes.  I knew they both had a disdain for that particular character trait, and we’ve discussed why people are the way they are in the past.  My oldest daughter is always quick to come to the defense of someone she feels is being unfairly judged, and she has frequently called people out when they’ve been judgmental.  She also looks at the people in her life without noticing color, culture or sexual orientation.  I am incredibly proud of her for that.  It’s one of my favorite things about her.  People are proud of their kids for all kinds of things, as they should be. I am proud of my kids’ accomplishments and talents as well, but the pride I can have for good character in my children is far more important to me than grades or sports scores.  They will take good character and loving hearts with them through life, even as they leave school, grades and sports behind.  So far, my corgi and my chihuahua are off to a good start.

The fact is that we are all judgmental sometimes.  It’s just part of being human.  We are constantly judging other people’s choices and situations, not necessarily in a negative way, but more in a comparison of how we would handle the same situation or make the same choice.  It’s hard to judge someone’s situation without judging the people involved.  However, I think the world would be a better place if we could look at other people as doing the best they can in the situation they’re in.  If we could all just look at people as human beings…not their color, sexual preference, culture, clothing, tattoos, piercings, attractiveness, weight or intelligence…we could all live a little happier.

The corgis and chihuahuas of this world make no judgments and love unconditionally.  I will keep my judgments to myself regarding the pitbull.  I would prefer to be a golden retriever.