The Perils of Jealousy
The playground was crowded that afternoon. Children raced around, climbing, swinging, and shouting with joy. Parents chatted in small groups, occasionally calling out to their little ones.
I sat on a bench, watching my son rock back and forth in the sand, completely absorbed in his own world. A boy about his age ran past, stopped to look at him curiously, then dashed off to join his friends.
My heart ached. A familiar knot formed in my stomach—one I’d come to recognize all too well. It wasn’t just sadness or worry. It was something darker, something that made me feel small and ashamed.
It was jealousy.
I was jealous toward parents with typical children.
Jealousy and Your Special Needs Child
When you’re the parent of a child with special needs, jealousy can become an unwelcome companion. I never expected to feel it so intensely. After all, I wasn’t a particularly jealous person before. But there I was, watching other children reach milestones my son couldn’t grasp, hearing parents casually complain about “problems” I would have given anything to have.
“Tommy just won’t stop talking! He asks ‘why’ about everything!”
“Madison is so stubborn about what she wears. She changes outfits three times every morning!”
I’d smile and nod, while inside I thought: I wish my son could speak a single word. I wish he cared about what he wore.
The first time I recognized this jealousy, I felt terrible. What kind of parent begrudges another child’s development? What kind of person resents a friend’s happiness? But the feeling was persistent, and I eventually realized I wasn’t alone in experiencing it.
When I first noticed my son was different—when I saw the growing gap between him and his peers—a simmering jealousy took root in my heart. I watched other parents at the playground, at school events, even at the grocery store, and I envied what they had: children who were developing normally. They possessed something I desperately wanted—a typical child.
But it wasn’t just about developmental milestones. Associated with that typical child were all the dreams, hopes, and aspirations I had built for the future. College graduation. Wedding day. Grandchildren. The more I watched these typical families, the more these dreams seemed to slip through my fingers, and the jealousy grew deeper.
I felt shame that my child was so far behind, which only intensified my jealousy. Every birthday party invitation became a potential minefield. Every school concert highlighted what my child couldn’t do.
If you’re prone to feeling jealousy, having a special needs child provides endless opportunities to indulge in that emotion.
I remember one Christmas gathering where my nephew, three months younger than my son, recited a poem he had learned. The family clapped and cheered. I smiled and praised him too—but inside, I felt that familiar twist of envy and heartache.
Later, I stood in the bathroom, fighting back tears, angry at myself for feeling this way during what should have been a joyful family moment.
The Many Faults of Jealousy
Jealousy, at its core, is displeasure with someone else’s good fortune. You can become jealous of another’s possessions, good qualities, skills, knowledge, reputation, fame, or popularity—basically anything another person has that you want. And when it comes to children, those wants run deep and raw.
There are plenty of strong reasons to purge jealousy from your heart and mind. First and foremost, jealousy is a source of anger, discontent, and mental disturbance. It creates a persistent ache that colors everything else in your life. When I was caught in its grip, even good days had a shadow hanging over them.
Jealousy can lead to obsession, a persistent mental disturbance that robs you of peace. I found myself scrolling through social media, looking at photos of my friends’ children and feeling worse with each swipe. I’d catch myself thinking about other children’s accomplishments while lying awake at night, unable to sleep.
Even more concerning, jealousy can lead to the desire to harm others—the opposite of compassion. I never wanted to hurt anyone, but I recognized the ugly thoughts that sometimes crossed my mind. Why should they have it so easy? Why don’t they appreciate what they have? These thoughts weren’t who I wanted to be.
Perhaps most practically, jealousy is a futile waste of time and energy. It doesn’t increase your good qualities or improve your situation. It doesn’t reduce the good qualities of others or change their circumstances. It only succeeds in disturbing your peace of mind, taking precious energy away from what truly matters—loving and supporting your child as they are.
Jealousy Poisons Everything it Touches
One of jealousy’s most insidious effects is how it damages your relationships. It robs you of the opportunity to feel joy for other people, including friends and family members. Birthday parties, graduations, holiday gatherings—all become exercises in endurance rather than celebration.
Jealousy prevents us from exchanging places with others, from experiencing true empathy. It isolates us and fosters selfishness, building walls between us and the people we care about. I noticed how I’d become quieter at family gatherings, how I’d withdraw from conversations about children and milestones.
The corrosion of relationships happens gradually. You can’t feel good about your friends’ and family’s good fortune. You tear down good people in your mind. Sometimes—and this is the ugliest part—people caught in jealousy’s grip work to harm others and remove their sources of happiness. It becomes a source of bad thoughts and deeds and can even be the cause of physical or emotional violence.
When you succumb to jealousy, you end up with friends and acquaintances who are unhappy and generally unpleasant—more miserable, less skilled, poorer, in every way less than you are.
This happens because jealousy pushes away anyone whose qualities made you feel jealous in the first place. They wouldn’t want to be around you any more than you would want to be around them. This leaves you with the worst kind of people as friends—those who tear others down to build themselves up.
I noticed this happening in my own life. I was gravitating toward other parents who complained and criticized, who focused on the negative. Our conversations often devolved into pointing out others’ perceived weaknesses and foibles. It wasn’t healthy, and it certainly wasn’t helping me be a better parent to my son.
Non-judgment Stops Jealousy
I came to understand that jealousy is rooted in comparison and expectation born of entitlement. I was jealous toward parents of typical children because I compared their circumstances to mine. Further, I felt entitled to what they had, so I was upset that I didn’t get what I believed I deserved. The combination of comparison and entitlement generated jealousy within me.
The mental discipline of non-judgment reduced the cause of my jealousy. If you don’t make the comparison—the judgment—jealousy doesn’t have the spark that ignites its flame. Like other spiritual practices, it requires mental discipline and a recognition of jealousy’s perils.
The challenge with non-judgment is that it’s most effective at stopping jealousy at inception. It’s also difficult for many to practice since judgments come so quickly and naturally. For me, it was almost automatic to see a child speaking in full sentences and immediately think of my son’s limited verbal abilities.
Once the judgment is made and jealousy arises, non-judgment isn’t the most useful technique for redirection or stopping the feelings from growing stronger. For that, I discovered a more powerful practice: rejoicing.
Rejoicing Overcomes Jealousy
I knew jealousy wasn’t an uplifting or productive emotion, so I needed to find a way to stop feeling it. In my younger years, I wasn’t particularly prone to jealousy. During high school, I felt it occasionally, but I didn’t have a family history that made jealousy a major issue (except perhaps around finances). I didn’t seek out drama, and whenever I found myself feeling jealous, I usually just removed myself from the circumstances that caused it.
Based on what I saw some of my friends go through with jealousy, I always thought that instinct served me well. But I wasn’t prepared for the causes of jealousy I faced with my special needs child. I didn’t have advanced strategies for dealing with it, and avoidance was no longer a realistic option if I wanted to be involved with my family—which I did.
I came across a Buddhist teaching on rejoicing that changed everything for me. This isn’t the Christian concept of worship; Buddhist rejoicing is the practice of exchanging yourself with another and feeling sympathetic joy through them. It’s as simple as putting yourself in their shoes and imagining their joy. The key aspect of the practice is to employ and sustain focus on the joyous feeling whenever jealousy arises. An undisciplined mind would use the sympathetic joy as a trigger for feeling more jealousy. A disciplined mind crowds out feelings of jealousy by appreciating the joy experienced by another.
Sympathetic Joy
I began to practice feeling joy through the parents of other children. I feared this would increase my jealousy, but the opposite was actually the case. I would imagine myself in their place and felt the joy they felt in their children’s development and accomplishments. I focused my mind on being happy for them, and through them, I found a measure of happiness for myself. The critical part was that I didn’t compare their child to mine—that would have led to jealousy and despair. I had to learn to cut off those thoughts of comparison the moment they would arise.
I learned this out of necessity. Later, I found this form of mental discipline was a spiritual practice called “applying opponents” in Buddhism. Comparisons were a train of thought leading to a destination full of suffering. It was a mental discipline not to board that train, and it was indeed a discipline because my mind habitually wanted to board that train to nowhere good.
I just felt some degree of the joy they felt, and I was happy for them. Their good fortune didn’t diminish me or my child—this isn’t a zero-sum game. In sharing their joy, and in not comparing my child to theirs, my jealousy diminished. A friend’s son made the honor roll, and instead of thinking about how my son struggled with basic academics, I focused on how proud she must feel. A neighbor’s daughter performed in a dance recital, and rather than dwelling on my son’s coordination difficulties, I immersed myself in their family’s excitement and pride.
I found that the more I honored the good fortune and good qualities of others, the more I was elevated. The mind thinks the opposite is true—it seeks to elevate the self by bringing others down. But rejoicing elevates the self by reveling in another’s goodness or good fortune. Rejoicing is a practice of a pure mind unhindered by selfish concerns. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t what the mind naturally wants to do, but the rewards are profound.
The Benefits of Rejoicing
I began intentionally honoring and respecting the achievements of my friend’s children. When I would see another’s child doing something extraordinary, I made a point to compliment them. Ordinarily, this would have been a trigger for jealousy. I took it as a reminder to feel sympathetic joy for their good fortune. This practice prevented the jealousy from arising and replaced it with a warm feeling of joy.
“Your daughter’s violin performance was beautiful,” I’d say to a parent after a school concert, focusing on their pride rather than my own pain.
“I love watching how gentle your son is with younger children,” I’d comment at a playground, genuinely appreciating that quality without the bitter aftertaste of comparison.
When I would see a family enjoying a good time with their child, I would express pleasure in that as well. This was also a trigger for jealousy that I learned to turn into its opposite. After starting to practice rejoicing, I found it attracts better friends. People naturally want to be around others who celebrate their accomplishments. People who rejoice with others are truly supportive friends who wish only the best for them. When you rejoice with others, they take pleasure in your company.
My social circle gradually shifted. I found myself connecting more with parents who could celebrate all children’s successes—their own, others’, and even my son’s small but meaningful achievements. Our conversations became more positive, more supportive, and ultimately more healing.
Rejoicing Diminishes Feelings of Lack
I didn’t set out to overcome a sense of lack—I didn’t even recognize it was a problem. Lack was a consistent feature of my life that brought me down, but I assumed that was just how life was. It seemed everyone was experiencing it. It wasn’t until later that I connected this feeling to the suffering described by the Buddha.
When I was focused on someone else’s enjoyments, I was not thinking about my own feelings of lack and insufficiency. I realized that rejoicing comes from a mind of abundance—a belief that I will not experience lack. As my sense of lack diminished, the root cause of jealousy was weakened, and my life felt more complete and fulfilled. I still had challenges—my son’s condition hadn’t changed—but my relationship to those challenges transformed.
One evening, I sat with my son as he methodically lined up his toy cars. He didn’t speak, but he hummed softly to himself, completely content in his activity. I watched his careful movements, the slight smile on his face when each car was perfectly positioned. In that moment, I felt no lack, no jealousy, no wish for something different. There was only love, acceptance, and a quiet joy in witnessing his happiness, exactly as he was.
The journey from jealousy to rejoicing isn’t a straight line. Even now, I have moments when I see what might have been and feel that old familiar ache. But those moments no longer define me or my relationship with my son. They’re just passing clouds in a sky that has become, against all odds, remarkably bright.
