Be nice to the mommies
I’ve thought a bit about Annika’s post recently. Basically I think she was frustrated that people treat children, and families with children, like second class citizens sometimes. She talked about how some restaurants don’t welcome the presence of children and how, in general, so many people treat children as if they aren’t significant. I simply agree. And I just have dealt with that by not spending my money in places that don’t welcome, even cater, to families with children. I also agree that there are places that perhaps babies and children don’t “belong” because they just aren’t “child friendly”, and sometimes I’ve learned where those places are the hard way.
When I was a single mother, lonely, and very much on my own, I recall waiting excitedly for The Scarlet Letter to be released in theaters. I knew no one, so I planned to go alone with my 3 month old Austin. When it finally released, I took Austin to the movie. Of course he had been to the movies before. He was always very pleasant and slept all the way through the movie. It was a true treat for me to see this movie (who knows why, it turned out to be an awful flick). This time, he didn’t sleep. He squirmed and grunted (but wasn’t loud) for all of maybe 2-3 minutes before someone complained and I was asked to leave. Within the first 15 minutes of the movie! No reimbursement. I left the theater with my jaw dragging the floor. I couldn’t believe some crotchity old person couldn’t even give me a moment to quiet Austin or that the theater couldn’t give a young mother her money back. I left in my car with an untouched $5 bag of popcorn, an infant who was sound asleep, and tears welling in my eyes. I totally understand others wanting a quiet theater, they paid for their tickets too. But it just seems like I could have been treated with more kindness and patience. Maybe they could have given me my money back, or even given me a moment to get Austin to sleep and then allow me to enter the theater again. I was young, but I wasn’t trying to be innapropriate or rude.
So one of the things that I got from Annika’s post is that people are sometimes unkind and judgemental of parents and children. They are impatient and even sometimes rude to parents trying to cope with their children. I’m guilty! I have seen mothers give in to their toddlers “to keep them quiet” and have judged her for it. Rolled my eyes. Thought her to be a push-over who didn’t discipline. But why? It was none of my business. It didn’t effect me one way or another. It simply wasn’t my place to judge her, much less let her know I was judging her. How ugly of me!
After I had Noah I immediately got smacked upside the head with depression. I didn’t talk about it to anyone but Jeremy. I cried a lot. I was tired and frustrated and wanted to give up. I couldn’t take antidepressants because I wanted to nurse Noah. I knew not nursing my last baby would only make my depression worse. So I talked to my doctor a lot and he suggested I get out with my family, get fresh air, get exercise. He knew Noah was on oxygen and was very, very tiny but he suggested we go for walks with him. So, one Saturday morning, I packed my toddler and my 4 pound baby with his oxygen tank into the stroller and went for a nice walk. Along the way I noticed my neighbors having yard sales. I LOVE yard sales. Yard Sales are my very favorite summertime activity! So I stopped and looked at some of the goodies. I bought a suitcase, a small dollhouse, and some beanie babies at my first 2 stops. My last stop had a dark skinned baby doll that Bella fell in love with. I went up to the lady to pay for the doll. She immediately threw in her two cents about how my baby was “OBVIOUSLY” premature and that “OBVIOUSLY” I shouldn’t have him outside the house. I felt the heat rise up on my neck. But I passively told her that the doctor told me it was OK and that my windows in my house are open letting him breath the same air that is outside anyways. “I’ve got him covered up too so that the sun doesn’t bother him.” I was DEFENDING myself to some Bitch who should have simply minded her own business. I went home feeling crappier than I already did.
The next day I heard her 12 year old son screaming curse words at her. A week later I saw her 9 year old screaming and hanging on to the bumper of her car as she yanked and pulled at him trying to get him to go into the house. I hear them yelling in their home all the time. And guess what? I JUDGE HER! And I feel OK about it too. Maybe she should have given her children fresh air and pleasant walks when they were babies. Maybe she should just mind her own business. Maybe I should too.
Now I don’t know why Annika’s post made me reflect on these things but I have decided that I need to work on not judging others. That surely will bring me the same respect from others in a karma type way.
Guess what!? I gave in to Bella in a grocery aisle once. She wanted m&m’s and threw a wild, crazy temper tantrum for them. But I was tired and I was doing the best I could in that moment and the best I had was to give her the darn candy. Yep, I caved in. I admit it. And? I got dirty looks for it.
I think I need to just remember to be nice to the mommies. Judging others doesn’t make me feel better. It makes me feel yucky. Almost as yucky as when others judge me…
Posted by: stepherz | 03-18-2007 | 09:03 PM
Posted in: Just Me | Momma
This post reminded me of another blogger’s quote when sniffing her baby’s diaper in public: “But the me of today would like to formally flip the me of yesterday the finger.”
And with that… I find myself thinking the same thing at times. Before I had a baby, I judged others a lot more and was a lost less sympathetic. Even now Ian and I will pay a sitter so we can go to a nice place to find screaming children there… “yippy, just what we were trying to get away from.” So, yes, sometimes, I just wish people would keep the kids at home.
Even at optimal times of the day, kids have their reasons for throwing fits. It’s not the kids’ fault, it’s the parents who don’t mind the extra struggle it takes to grocery shop or eat a nice dinner when the child can’t handle being out of their element. It’s at these times, I just say to myself, “Today was the exception… the child is usually an angel and even the mother didn’t expect this to happen.” OR “They don’t have the money or resources for a sitter… and they JUST needed to get out of the house too.”
We are all in this together… we just need to either help out or let it slide. Everyone has a story. Nobody is deliberately trying to be inconsiderate… at least I hope not.
In general I try to be nice to everyone - not just mums and kids, or any other specific demographic. That being said, I do have an opinion on the ‘kids disturbing others’ thing.
Many people - who may have their own kids at home or may not have any - go out for some peace and quiet. And be honest, a screaming kid would kind of ruin that!
Additionally, to make it worse, some parents let their kids run riot. The other day a woman approached me in a shop and angrily said “Did you just call my child a pain in the neck?” I said to her “Yes, after he stomped on my foot, knocked my shopping out of my arms, which ruined the potplant I had just bought, and then he pushed me.” She didn’t make her kid say sorry even after she knew what he had done. I knew he had done it DELIBERATELY since he had laughed at it happening, and when his mum approached me, stood behind her poking his tongue out at me. I thought he was lucky I’d only called him a pain in the neck. I watched the same family go about their shopping. The mum swore at the kids and pushed around adults. They learned their behaviours deom somewhere - GEE I wonder where!
So those parents - they ruin it for the others, and that’s what makes me doubt that I’d go to a restaurant that had kids in it. In case they belong to ‘those parents’. If you can take your kids out and they don’t ruin other people’s nights - great. Do it. If you know that doesn’t work well with your kids then personally if it were me, I would not go to places that aren’t obviously family places, until I was sure they would be able to control themselves. Yep, I know it sounds a tad heartless. (It’s obvious I don’t have kids perhaps?) But I don’t mean it in a nasty way.
I can’t believe you were not given an opportunity to soothe your baby and try again, and if it didn’t work, a refund on your movie ticket. That IS mean. (I’m not, promise!)
By the way in case I wasn’t clear, before anyone gets mad with me - I have NO prob with kids being places when they are behaving. Just have a problem with parents who let their kids cause havoc and don’t stop them. THEY are the ones that make people anti-kids.
TOB, I totally agree with everything you said! If you pay for a nice quiet meal, that is exactly what you should get. There are times (not often enough, I admit) that Jeremy and I would like to go out and spend time without children, and in those cases even I am a bit bummed out when we get seated next to a family with children. I automatically assume that their children may melt down and disturb our meal. We once paid big bucks for a nice crab leg dinner at a fine restaurant and got seated right next to a family with a baby and toddler. But their children were quiet and wonderful the entire time (my kids wouldn’t have been that way, thus we’d NEVER take them to a place like that), so we didn’t mind. I know that my children are inquisitive and energetic, and while I don’t think that they are lacking discipline, I do think it is wrong of me to take them to some places where they can’t be energetic and where others won’t want to experience that energy (like Chuck E. Cheese, where you can experience so much child energy that it’ll make you want to jump off the roof or run in front of traffic). It’s not fair for the kids or the grown ups to put them in a place the child can’t just be themselves.
So, I totally see your side too because there have been times when I am childless and need and want to be that way. Thanks for your post!
warning very long comment ahead. sorry!
now, i haven’t read annika’s post, so take this with a grain of salt - BUT, reading your post made me think of the other other side of this issue. not the childless with no respect for parents, but rather the parents (especially women) who don’t respect those without kids, or even other people who do have kids. this especially happens to women who are a little older and have careers but no family. sometimes these women are unmarried and sometimes men are judged this same way, but i’d say the married woman gets in worse in this case - they are often scrutinized and openly judged for their lack of kids.
in academia, where i still work though i am no longer a depressed, overworked graduate student, if you are a young professor and you don’t have kids many people wonder why you don’t have a family and then assume you chose work over your family and that you are cold and unloving - a robot. i have seen this happen a lot between woman scientists i know and their non-academic families (i assume that other working women get the same crap). and in at least two cases these women desperately wanted to have children but had infertility issues and so forth. they weren’t ready to talk about them with everyone, but everyone else was ready to judge them freely.
there’s no written rule that a woman (or a man) has to have children, so this judgment to me seems bizarre to begin with. isn’t that a personal choice? wouldn’t it be good for someone who is not into motherhood not to have children - since she might be not the best mother? why do these people care if someone has kids or not? i just don’t get it, really i don’t. yet this attitude is pervasive. people also assume the childless woman will eventually realize she is missing out on this amazing thing she could have done and she will wind up a sad lonely spinster. that might be true for some women, but it can just as easily not be true. women do not have to become mothers to lead fulfilling lives - it’s just that simple. and besides, as is the case with the two women i know, sometimes they don’t have children because they just can’t, not because they don’t want to. that makes this kind of judgement even more despicable.
all of this rambling comment is really meant to say that women often can’t win no matter what they do! if they have kids they are sacrificing their career and/or they are screwing up seriously in some area of childrearing. if they don’t have kids, they are unloving and evil women who are selfish. if they are angry about something, even something justified, they are bitches. if they are soft on a particular issue or if they give in, they are too emotional. it’s so frustrating!
finally: for the record and probably more to the point of this actual post: my philosophy on kids (i don’t have any myself) in public places is that most of the time if the baby screaming is bothering me it must surely be bothering the parent who is right next to it and so i assume they’d stop it if they could.
When I was younger and childless, I worked in basically what is the worst career ever… customer service.
I used to eat lunch at Mickey D’s and get the kids meal… 1) because its cheaper 2) because its a smaller more portion appropriate meal and 3) it came with a toy… how can you not like that? I’d collect the toys from my lunches in a small box below my counter so that when the “crying kid people” came to my desk I’d shove a cheap plastic toy at the little one. Usually the kid quieted down, and given a brief bubble of calm, the parents were usually nicer to me and I could quickly get done what I needed to.
I didn’t understand then, I do now, that sometimes you can’t get a sitter. Sometimes you have one day a week where you can get out and about to do all the running around you have to. Sometimes, no matter what you do, the kid will be in nuclear meltdown all day. We have bad days… so do kids.
I do agree that there are kid people who make others anti-kid people. Like parents allowing their 12 year old to play on baby gym stuff knocking the toddlers over. The parents who allow their children to run around the store knocking everything over, opening everything up, and not caring that stuff they don’t own is being ruined by their kid. The parents who for all the world never ever seem to say a clear and firm “No” to their kids.
I know grown up stuff bores my kids, just as some kid stuff bores me. This is why I have a “big purse” and before I leave my house a book for each kid, a small toy for each kid, and a small snack for each kid (including the 11 year old) get shoved inside and passed out as the moment dictates.
I’m pretty strict with my kids when we’re out and about. People always remark about how well behaved my kids are all the time (if they only knew the truth…
)- but I still get comments from people about how badly I am raising my kids. Like the little old lady who berates me for allowing my 4 year old to ride in the shopping cart… and how can I be so unsafe with my child’s welfare (nevermind they only have like 3 multi kid carts and they are all out being used by non kid people because of the “extra storage”). Then there was the lady who berated me for having a then 2 year old Sam on a harness in a busy parking lot when I was 8months pregnant with TJ (Sam would drop dead weight if I just held his hand so that he would slip out of my grip and then go running through the lot with me at my fastest waddle trying to catch him before he got run over)questioning how good my parenting must be if I have to resort to leashing my child like a dog.
Part of the problem is that if you discipline your kids while out, people assume you are a rotten child abusing parent. If you keep the discipline at a minimum so that people won’t comment, people will assume you are a rotten neglegent parent.
So you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t- which is a sucky situation all around.
(you may not get the most comments… but with this subject… I’m guessing you’ll get the longest
)
its hard not to judge i think especially when we feel judged all the time …
i wish we could all just be more accepting and give each other support rather than condemnation … i guess the best we can do is try
this was an awesome post sweetie and you are an awesome mommy and person!!
We’re all human. We all evaluate other people based on our own standards. Look at our role models - heads of state are criticising other countries, heads of religion are criticisng other students, teachers are criticising other modes of learning … of course we’re all going to be judgemental. It helps us to feel better about ourselves, particularly to offset areas where we think we’re not so great.
For eg, before I had a child, I used to think parents had it easy. I didn’t really believe a mother who worked from home was as effective as someone who worked in the office. I thought parents got tax benefits, they got flexible hours…they had it easy!
Of course, once I had a child, I soon came to my senses! I work from home myself now and can tell you I never worked this hard in the office. Yet I’m battling the same judgements I passed to others.
I still judge people - I don’t mean to, but it happens. For instance, my son doesn’t eat McDonalds. Until he was about two he ate home-made everything - including home-made chips. Now I’ve relaxed a little and he’s allowed to eat some chips etc here and there (though still not McDonalds or anything else like that). But my approach backfired on me - he’s obsessed about things like biscuits, chips etc. So there are people out there who no doubt look at me sideways if they see him eating stuff like that.
And I confess, I still look at people who give their kids copious amounts of junk food.
I’ve lost the point I was trying to make. Except - we’re all the same. It’s only a negative thing if you a. pass that on to your kids or b. let it influence you
You’re a great mum, Steph.
I use to see kids dressed in snowboots and shorts and think “Oh my gosh! Dress your kid lady!” But now, 5 kids later, I took Taj to the dentist in a fireman costume…