Your Audience is Watching

I have recently been thinking about an unexpected phenomenon of modern life:  the fact that everything you do is being watched, scrutinized, digested and commented upon.  Clearly, parenthood is a veritable breeding ground (pun intended) for others' comments.  When did you have children?  With whom did you have children?  Are you going to have children?  What are you going to name your children?  Why didn't you choose "Isabella" as the name?  Are you going to feed him that?  I could go on and on, of course.

But I'm finding that this issue is steeped far deeper in our society--and every day lives--than I had previously thought.  For example, my immediate thought when it came to my child's first birthday party was "Big Chicago Funfest."  I was checking out pocketbook-breaking venues and bartenders and pony rides and so on.  What was the ultimate plan?  Homemade cupcakes and maybe a friend or two.  And I had come to terms that this was ok.  Until the other day when I was talking to a woman who works in my office.  Her daughter is a few months older than my son, and they were in the middle of celebrating.  They had just returned from Disneyland and were preparing for a banquet hall festival in the coming weeks.  For 150 people.  She asked what I was doing for his birthday and I gulped.  I even thought about lying.  But I confessed that we weren't doing much at all.  She gave me some half-assurances that mine was a good plan, and walked away to discuss the poor child of the single mom too lazy to plan a party.

By way of further example, I recently read the article at the following link, posted on one of our favorite blogs, Corporette.  http://corporette.com/2011/03/17/diamond-rings-and-the-working-girl/  The article focuses on an interesting question from one of Corporette's readers--what size engagement/ wedding ring is appropriate for a professional woman?  This seems like a silly question--who cares what size your ring is, except you and the people you are desperate to make jealous.  But the problem is that EVERYONE cares, and I really have seen it affect the workplace.  As the article notes, if your ring is too big, the assumption by your co-workers (and likely your bosses) is that you are on the "future soccer mom" path.  If it's too small, your fiance can't afford to support you.  And on and on and on.  The chatter is endless.

So I guess the question is, how much do you play into the everyday contests?  Some are insane--you're not going to change your child's name because your mother-in-law hates it.  But some are serious--are you putting your career at risk with a shiny flashlight on your hand?  Where do we draw the line when it comes to caring what the world thinks?