It’s not that they are smarter, better looking, more athletic, better behaved, kinder, sweeter, funnier, more (insert adjective of choice that parents tend to brag about) than your kids.
It’s simply that they’re MINE.
They are pretty darn cute, though. 😉
As my kids, they have my unconditional love.
But I can also discipline mine and they will listen to me (most of the time).
I know what they’ve been taught and have reasonable expectations of them. Someone else’s kids could have been taught something totally contrary to something that my family values.
When it comes to someone else’s kids- I don’t always feel like I can say anything to them when they’re doing something we do not tolerate in my house. Should I be in charge of your child or if they are at my house or are doing something that is endangering other kids- yes, I am that mom who will step in and say something. I’m the mom who made all the kids at the neighborhood block party sit down in the rented bounce house as I went over the rules of how they need to behave in it because someone was going to get badly injured if no one stepped in. I’m not the mom who just laughs as the kids shove each other and jump on top of kids smaller than they are.
But other times, it’s not my place to step in and those other kids don’t have to listen to me anyway.
I don’t think MY rules are necessarily better than YOUR rules (sometimes I think this, but usually, I think live and let live and I’m aware that different households have different issues they are dealing with as well as many other factors for why we do things differently- and also that others could very well question what we do here). I do think every family needs to have their own rules in order to make things run smoothly. And my house does tend to run smoothly (for us- it could look otherwise to an outsider). Because my boys know our rules and follow them (plus that whole unconditional love thing) I do think my kids are better than yours. That your kids make me appreciate my kids more.
And I’m well aware that MY kids make you appreciate YOURS better. It’s how this parenting thing works and why we don’t eat our own young, even if we sometimes want to ban other people’s young from ever setting foot in our yard again.