You read that title right. This past weekend, I was publicly shamed by a woman for my "dangerous" mothering skills.
Allow me to explain:
Hubs had been gone the entire previous week. Whenever he's gone for more than a day or two, we have a bit of a "transition" period with Henry, as he's old enough to know daddy is gone and he does
not like it. We had plans to go to the Rahr & Sons Brewery Oktoberfest/5k event. Hubs was going to run, and I was going to hang with H. Being seven months pregnant, I'm not running much! Well, that morning was the first time Henry had seen daddy in five days, and it was the dreaded "transition" time... Aka, toddler tantrum hell.
We got to the event and H was
out of control. He didn't want to be in the stroller and he didn't want to be out of it; he didn't want daddy to carry him and he didn't want me to carry him and he certainly didn't want to be on the ground and heck no was he walking anywhere. He didn't want a bottle of water but man oh man, he didn't want you to take it away from him either! It was, without a doubt, the worst tantrum I've ever seen my normally calm and well behaved child throw.
I told hubs to just head off to the start line; sometimes Henry calms down when it's just him and me again. I thought returning him to that familiar situation might help. So hubs left. I let Henry SCREAM at my feet for several minutes (we were outside and a band was playing so we weren't disturbing anyone who wasn't immediately near us. And trust me, people walked away! Quickly, too.) Henry was not calming down, despite my best efforts. Then he started to crawl away, banging his head into the cement purposely as he went. Just a complete hot mess of a toddler.

"Ok!" I thought. "Ignoring is doing nothing - I need to take away all his stimulus until he's under control again. This child is completely out of it and will hurt himself!" So I grabbed him to pick him up, and he lunged this 30 pound body nearly out of my arms. I squeezed him into me, and gave him a whop on his butt to get his attention. Then I looked him in the eyes and said, "No sir. That is ENOUGH. You need to calm down and get yourself under control!" I strapped him into his stroller, tightening his shoulder harness so he couldn't squirm out. I pulled the over-sized sunscreen down and faced the stroller into a wall so he couldn't see anything - you know, taking away all stimulus. I handed him a bottle so that he could self-soothe himself calm.
It worked within 30 seconds. He stopped kicking and screaming and crying and drank some water while he chilled out.
I had just taken a my first breath of non-tantrum, peace-filled-air when a woman came about 10 feet away from me. "You know, that is NOT how you handle a baby. You are a DANGEROUS mother," she spat at me, practically shaking with rage. Then she turned on her heels and
ran away. Literally, ran away.
My jaw dropped the nearly 6 feet to the ground. I was
flabbergasted. I was
aghast. Never am I rendered speechless, but this woman managed to take the wind right out of my sails. I could not believe that someone would watch me, then {poorly} deliver her unwanted, unwarranted opinion on my mothering skills!
Was this woman serious?!
Here's what, friends and readers: Toddlers are HARD. Parenting a toddler is even more hard. But parents know their own children. I know that, most times, ignoring H's fits gets him to calm down the second he realizes I'm not paying attention to him. In this instance, he was so out of control, I knew he had to be corrected and then have some alone time to settle himself. I knew this, I did what I saw fit, and it worked almost immediately.
This woman doesn't know me. She doesn't know Henry. I'm guessing by her rude, judgmental comments that she doesn't have children. Why? Because no mother, IN HER RIGHT MIND, would say something so disgraceful to another mother who had just managed her tantrum toddler. Not a single mother would do that, regardless of whether or not that woman felt the mother handled the situation well. Heck, I see mom's all the time do things I would never do with Henry. You know what I do? I move on. Because I'm not her and that's not my child. She doesn't need my stares and she certainly doesn't need my judgment.
What this woman did didn't make the situation any better. In fact,
she kicked another woman when she was down. I was clearly by myself with an out of control child, trying to manage him, a stroller, a diaper bag, an over-sized purse, a cup of coffee, and my husbands belongings all at 7 months pregnant in a huge crowd.
And she felt like her opinion was so important, she had to come and belittle me not but a few moments after I had regained control of the situation.
I'm going to go out on a limb and give some advice to everyone, but especially to those who don't have children: if a parent is correcting a behavioral issue with their child, it is NOT OK FOR YOU TO COMMENT. Your opinion simply doesn't matter. There's attachment parenting and there's free-reign parenting, there's spanking, there's co-sleeping, there's women who breastfeed in public and there's women who breastfeed 6 year olds, and there's parents who don't believe in saying "no" to their children. Your opinion on all of this simply doesn't matter if it's not the relationship between you and your own child. Yes, it really is that simple.
To the woman who publicly shamed my mothering skills, congratulations. You completely ruined not only the event for me, you ruined my day. You could have sent some positive energy my way with a "hang in there mama!" But no, you decided to stick it to a pregnant mom while she was struggling. You felt the need to make her feel more embarrassed than she already did with her terribly behaved toddler. You not only thought you were important and self righteous enough to correct my parenting style, you had the gall to shame me. Well,
shame on you! I saw you sitting at a table drinking a beer by yourself an hour after you yelled at me like I was your own child. I wasn't surprised you were alone. Who wants someone like you to be their friend? I also thought about confronting you. But I only needed my son to see one example of a poor excuse for a woman that day. There is something deeply wrong with those who thrive off making others feel less than, and I hope you get the therapy you need.