I have never claimed to be a great parent. However, I had my
kids relatively young and figured when I was pregnant that I had all the
answers and if I didn’t there was never anything that I couldn’t Google or a
call to my mom to get the answer.
Anything short of that I didn’t want to hear it. Not from the lady next
door, or the mom at the park, and certainly not the elderly man at the grocery
store.
So on my way home from a play date I realized that I needed
a few things for dinner that night or my children would be eating cup o noodles
and popcorn (not that this hasn’t happened before). The problem started with
the fact that it was 11:30 when there nap time is usually at 12:00 mixed with
the fact that they had not yet eaten lunch. After spending the morning playing
both my “angels” were both cranky and hungry, But I’m super mom so I could
handle it and I really didn’t want to eat popcorn for dinner.
I had two melt downs before we got into the store about were
each child wanted to sit so with a quick stop at the cookie isle I had them
settle down with an open box of animal crackers. Now I can do my shopping in
peace, right? NO! Mr. Elderly man walked
up to me and started lecturing me on how to take care of my kids in the store.
Now I’m not the one to usually say anything rude in any circumstance but it had
already been a long day and I just wanted to get home to put my kids to sleep.
The next thing I know these words just slipped out of my mouth.
“I’m sorry I lost the instruction book on how to raise
children the day after I got it. Does it have a chapter on how to reset
children when they launch into a tantrum? Where can I get a replacement copy?”With
a quick “go fuck yourself”. I wanted to take back that last part the second I said
it.
I was seething and could tell that he wasn’t very happy
about my attitude. As I was walking away someone taped me on my shoulder when I
turned around it was an elderly woman. I was already worked up so I huffed and
went to open my mouth to apologize for my outburst when she stated very loudly
that “My husband is an ASS HOLE and he wouldn’t know the first thing about
raising children as he didn’t so much as change one diaper of our four children
nor did he ever go shopping with them”. This made my day.