In most cases, someone laughing at your discomfort is a horrible crime. There are a few instances where it’s not however. For example, your grocery shopping because, hey - you’re a mom and your family likes to eat food, when suddenly you spot a mom that has a child (or children) the same age as yours - that age - I’m talking about that 3-4yr age range where independence starts beautifully blossoming in your wonderful child. The result is that suddenly they’re using the potty on their own, they’re playing on their own and in their minds they’d like to live on their own so they could poke holes in the plastic wrapped watermelon halves, eat all the candy in the store and kick mean kids in the shins without the aggravation of moms watchful eye. So, you walk by this fellow mom and you can’t help but laugh because you hear something like this:
Mom: Honey, no. You can’t have those giant chocolate bars and we’re not discussing this any further.
Kid: (screaming and/or whining) MooOooOoommm I neeeEeeEeeed them right now! You’re the worst mom ever!
Mom: Ok, I’m the worst.
These days I can’t help but laugh at that moms pain. Not out of cruelty of any sort but out of sheer commiseration, and you know what? I think they appreciate it. Mind you I laugh because I’m a member of the club and that’s specifically what makes it ok. Were I some single lady laughing at that scene I would easily be thrown a dirty look by the exhausted mom if not worse. But when it’s parent-to-parent she knows, ‘Ok that mom knows what I’m going through and she’s likely laughing because she’s gone thru it too.’ -Yes, mom, I’ve been there too.

I was actually conflicted the other day when my daughter and I were grocery shopping and such a tantrum began. It was ridiculous, she was checking out a purple (because purple is her god) water squirter bottle (empty) she really wanted me to remove the tags which I would not do because I had informed her that we were not buying the bottle, it would stay in the store, we already had a water bottle at home, etc. etc. etc. I gave her a final warning as she attempted to pull the tags off, “That is for you to check out in the store only, you may not pull the tags off and if you don’t stop trying to, I’m going to put the bottle back on the shelf.” She looked at me. I looked at her. It was the showdown - we shopped for two more seconds then her fast little fingers went for it, pulling with all their might. I took it, tags still in place, put it back where we found it and the tantrum bell rang.

My daughter let out her squeals of displeasure, “I waaaaant it baack!!!!!!!” her tantrum hadn’t lasted very long when a rather undesirable grocery store customer rounded the corner, winced at her display of normal 3yr old behavior and remarked, “SHHH!” to her in a quite aggressive manner. This immediately shut her up. He was a dirty, possibly drunk, older looking man, all things that my daughter avoids when she chooses a person to come into contact with. So at last our battle was over.

Now, as I said, I was conflicted, very, very conflicted. I’m very, very pregnant, very exhausted of these little showdowns we have and I was so happy that she was done. Yet… I really didn’t like this guy, who showed no signs of parental identity (he didn’t look like he was in the club) telling my daughter to Shh, who does he think he is?

At the time, I now regret, I did nothing. I wish I would have snapped back at him, “Hey, go parent your own kid.” or something to come to my daughter’s defense, even a simple, “SHHH yourself!” I was just too beat down. Next time I’ll be ready and if some human thinks they have the right to tell my child how to behave they’ll have another thing coming. Fellow moms & dads can feel free to laugh because misery does love company but should anyone think they can just go around parenting someone else’s kid, they’ve got another thing coming.