When I got pregnant it got worse. I would notice parents yelling, grabbing, and children screaming in shopping carts and I would think these moms were the worst! Kids don't have to cry ever, I thought to myself, If you know what you are doing.
I became a nanny just before I got pregnant and thought of that time as my trial for having kids. Let me tell you, those kids that I watched had THE BEST nanny. I got down at their level, played, didnt need to discipline, they went to sleep easy! (of course I had the energy of a 23 year old!!)
So, now here we are at 33 weeks pregnant with a 2 year old boy and a 4 year old boy, both of who have energy coming out of the ying-yang. I can admit that perhaps I was a little quick to judge these past moms....
You see, I was THAT mom at the playground the other day. I had gotten maybe 4 hrs consecutive sleep the night before and my husband had been gone for 7 days. I was going just a little crazy with the continual need to separate my boys as they love to rough house. I decided that I would take a friends advice and take my kids to the playground. There is one rather close so I thought we could kill an hour or so before I had to start making dinner.
Once we got outside my kids bee-lined for "Summer Bucket"; which is full of all of our outdoor summer toys. K was ecstatic to find water guns and pistols. Of course he showed them to R and the two of them immediately started shooting eachother.
The kids BEGGED to take them to the park and I quickly looked over to see if there were any other kids or moms at the park. Noticing that there wasn't, I agreed.
They were in heaven and the best part was that I could sit my butt on the bench and just zone out.
We were there for less than 10 mins when the local school bus pulled up and children started appearing with their moms and siblings to the park.
My kids were super excited to now have real people to use for target practice. K and R started "piss-shoe-ing" every single mom and toddler. They were acting like crazed mad men!
K started saying how everyone was bad and he was going to kill them.
I felt so embarrassed. I tried, with little success to get them to just point at inanimate objects. When I tried to take the guns away I got massive temper tantrums...it was starting to go down-hill. I started to feel judged and watched by the other moms, and knew that when they went home that they were going to post about the frazzled mom with the 2 boys and the guns.
I became THAT mom in that moment, the one that people say, "I will never let my kids bring guns to the park and shoot people."
I do wish that perhaps they gave me some slack as you could tell that I was quite haggard, tired and 33 weeks pregnant.
Moral of the story. Don't judge moms, you have no idea what their day has been like.
2 comments:
Great post. I also used to be very judgey. I worked with kids, running daycamps and drama classes. I thought I knew everything that parents were doing wrong and what they should do differently.
When I was going to become a mom, I figured I'd be the perfect supermom. Nope, I'm certainly THAT mom my fair share of times.
Karma sucks.
I have definitely come to realize, that the only time I ever felt qualified to be a parent, was BEFORE I had children!
All I ever have to say to those out there who "will never do that with THEIR children" is just to walk a mile...whether it's a mile in my shoes, or just a mile away from me, either will do :)
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