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Kids/Parenting

Dear Other Mothers

As I spent almost an hour waiting for my son’s doctor to see him, I noticed your children playing in the waiting room. Some of you went to great lengths to keep your children entertained and keep them from disturbing other waiting families. And, sadly, some of you seemed to think that a large open space meant that you could let your children do whatever they wanted.

I understand that you have several children to tend to at once, and I know it is very hard to keep tabs on one child while tending to another’s needs. Or staring off into space. Perhaps you thought that I was also letting my son wander unsupervised.

However, I was watching him very carefully (I’ve already seen The Jungle Book, anyway). And I was watching your children. I watched when your 3-year-old yelled at my 2-year-old for approaching him. Hayden was not going to steal his chair, actually; he just wanted to see the fish (and try to put my car keys in the lock on the fish cabinet). I heard your child yelling at mine over the noise in the already-crowded waiting room and I was a good 20 feet away, while you were maybe five feet away.

I watched when your 5-year-old lectured my 2-year-old about not touching the television, when it was two feet above his head. I also watched while she told me in a similarly condescending manner that she was telling her brother not to touch it, though she had her back to her brother while she was speaking, and proceeded to encourage him to jump in the air and catch on the edge of the television’s wall-mounted shelf. (I hope it’s okay that I told them to stop because they could tear it off the wall; it looked heavy and no one wants to get hurt here.)

I watched as your child climbed onto the table. I saw you stare off into space, look at your son sitting on the table, and go back to staring off into space. My son, thinking that this had to be some sort of game, actually had the gall to touch the table. Thankfully, your son smacked my son’s hand. That showed him. Showed him real good. Too bad you didn’t notice.

Going to the doctor is far from fun. Going with several children can be extremely stressful. But, please, can we try to at least monitor our children? My son is far from shy, but he has never been so bullied as he was by children whose mothers were standing right there as we waited in the doctor’s office waiting room. Please, just because it might be safe to let the kids run wild there doesn’t mean you should.

(After the waiting room, Hayden’s appointment went well. I got the answers to questions that I needed (and the answers that I wanted to hear, even!). Hayden was not shy for the doctor, even wanting to sit on his lap. He only had to get one shot, which he was very brave for!)

14 replies on “Dear Other Mothers”

Glad your son is doing well! I have several children but mine do not act like that and if they did…it would not be let go and would never happen again. Some people just do not want to put forth the effort to discipline their children. Discipline is the key though! I always say, I would rather have a dozen well disciplined children than two unruly ones!

I shudder to think how these children will grow up. No matter how many kids we have, we need to learn to teach them respect.

Very well written post. I like how you kindly, but firmly, got your point across.

I completely agree! I had to take one of my twins to the doctor on Monday and went through a similar situation. I was blown away at how these parents could sit there and not do anything. I mean I’ve seen it before, but this time they were sitting on a couch with their mother and she did nothing! I have 3 kids and mine know how to behave in public, and they know there will be consequences if they act up.

I completely agree with you. It amazes me some of the things that parents do! Doctor’s offices, birthday parties, any public space, really.

I have 2 boys, and work every day on teaching them how to behave. But the best way, of course, is to model appropriate behaviour. These parents are showing their children how to be, plain and simple!

I wish I could echo each of your statments…that my boys would never do something like that to another child. That I have modeled approprite behavior for them. That they always know how to be polite in a public place.

I think my kids are getting there, though. And what I mean to say is, I think *I’m* getting there. But I have to say I was the zoning mom for the first few years of my parenting. I was the parent who smiled benignly at my ill-behaved children while other moms glared and had to handle the situation for me.

Why?

A couple of reasons. First, no one taught me the rules of parenting. No one taught me the rules of toddler social skills or how to impart them. No one explained to me what’s okay and what’s not okay.

Secondly, I was just plain embarrassed. I thought I couldn’t handle my children. My children handled me. And I was ashamed of that. I dealt with my shame by hiding, by avoiding, by doing nothing. And I was constantly aware of moms around me judging my (lack of) parenting and scorning my (actually innocent) children, who weren’t deliberately vindictive. Just ignorant.

Then a dear friend of mine who had been a long-time daycare worker came for a four-day visit. Oh, how she clenched her jaw. Her tongue was as raw as hamburger because she bit it so hard. She didn’t feel it was her place to interfere, and she wanted to encourage and honor my efforts.

But behind my shame, behind my doing nothing, behind my lack of toddler skill, I wanted so badly to change. I wanted my kids to stop embarrassing me in the pediatric waiting room. I wanted more than anything for them to grow up well-liked in society. I wanted the more savvy moms with better-behaved kids to see me as an equal rather than as an opponent. I longed desperately for that. I just didn’t know how to get there.

So I asked my friend for help. After two days of observing my floundering efforts, she gladly agreed. Then, with all the angelic presence of the Super Nanny, she swooped in and changed everything. Most importantly, she changed my mind.

She explained to me that I was the boss of my children, and that it was okay for me to boss them. She showed me how my kids wer manipulating me and gave me tools to put a stop to it. She dragged us all to the zoo so we’d have a public place to practice, where for the first time, despite my great trepidation, I was firm with my son in public. And then she showed me how to respond when he, not appreciating my efforts at all, hit me.

Most importantly, she helped me to understand that leaving my children to their own devices not only made life difficult for everyone else, but it was a diservice to my children, who needed to learn what I knew was right, and what was my responsibility to teach them.

After my friend’s visit, everything changed. It took a while, but I am now much more comfortable in my Mommy Skin, whether in public or private.

But when I see rude children with inattentive moms, or when I see neglected children with zoning moms, I don’t feel angry toward them. My eyes fill with tears because I’ve been where they are. I want to hug them. I want to cry with them. I want to give them the glorious good news that there’s a better way. I want to help.

Yes, their parenting skills are deplorable. Yes, their inaction is inexcusible. But I bet underneath all of that, their hearts are breaking, just like mine was.

@Becky—Thank you for your honesty and your comments (and thank you for being patient with my impatience). I worry about the same thing because I do give my son a long “leash” usually (and if he does misbehave, I feel as though I often overreact). But I also worry that many of us parents don’t even realize how oblivious we are. Honestly, I hope that these women are like you and that they are able to find help as you did.

Thank you again!

Wow, I’m glad the actual visit went well. However, I have to agree waiting rooms are always such a trial. It’s so hard to keep toddlers entertained for the always too long wait for their name to be called. I totally feel your rant.

it drives me crazy when i’m in a position like that. And i have been there. I’m sorry you had to go through that.

It drives me nuts when other kids try to boss mine around for things they weren’t going to do wrong in the first place.

Just have to play the devil’s advocate here. When I had one child, I felt the same way you did. Then I had my second and suffered a deep depression. I WAS that mom in the waiting room, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t. Honestly, you just never know the other side of the story. Maybe she was experiencing post-partum depression that went unnoticed for years (because I did, and because I showed up in the doctor’s office with all my make-up on, they never picked up on it and assumed that I needed to take vitamins. Yeah, right). I finally went to another doctor (a female) who spent 45 minutes with me. She dug deep and through a series of blood tests found that I was deeply depressed and had some undiaganosed health issues to boot! (Low progesterone, low B-12, etc.).

Anyways, I just wanted to mention this. I know how easy it is to judge other people’s lack of parenting. However the more Christ-like way would be to offer to help the mother by saying something like, “I’m noticing that your little one is doing x, would you like me to help him?” Just a thought.

It’s an awfully big coincidence that three other mothers in the waiting room could have been suffering from PPD. Some of them did only have one child with them and still couldn’t manage to watch him. This isn’t targeted at a single mother; that’s forgivable. We all have off days, even without psychosis.

And for most of these situations, I would have had to cross the room to point out their children’s abuse of my son, when they were considerably closer. Is that Christ-like or is it publicly humiliating?

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