Reserving Judgment...or, sometimes my kid cries at Target

Last week, my son and I ran to the Dollar General to pick up a few necessities  - it was Saturday, and we had big plans to rent Monsters University that evening, and so snacks were needed, as well as toilet paper and face wash.  While shopping, Junior spied one of those foil helium balloons - this one bearing Mike and Sully on it.  He asked if he could have it, using his nice words, and I handed it to him.

Almost through with shopping, my son suddenly said "Something smells terrible, Mom."  I immediately lifted him into the back of the cart, brushed his hair back from his face, whispered to him that everything was going to be okay, that Mommy was right there, and, for the zillionth time, watched helplessly as my son seized in the store, because, you see, "Something smells terrible, Mom" often means he does, in fact, smell something terrible, and he smells the "something terrible" right before a seizure.

It lasted maybe 45 seconds...a long 45 seconds when it is your child's left arm jerking and his beautiful gray-green eyes twitching and rolling back into his head, but we are old pros at this. And, as he sometimes does after a seizure, he began to cry.  I rubbed his back, he told me his tummy felt "all wrong."  I lifted him up and held him tight, told him we would just go home and snuggle down, but he asked me, using his nice words, could we finish shopping, please?  He really wanted his balloon.  

We were pretty much done anyhow, and I try to follow his lead when it comes to his seizures, now that he is older.  And so I set him back down in the cart and went to the check-out lane.  He was still crying.  We paid for our items.  I lifted him out of the cart, knelt in front of him, wiped some of the tears from his face and began to tie the ribbon of his new balloon to his wrist.  I happened to look up, and caught the eye of an old lady, who was watching us.

Oh, please don't, I thought.  For your own sake, don't you say a word, lady.

Because I know what it looked like.  A red-faced preschool-aged child, bag of treats at his feet, bawling while his mother tied a balloon on his wrist, all the while touching his face, saying soft words, telling him everything was fine, take deep breaths, Mommy's going to make it better.

And I know how many people react when they see a child crying in a store.  Bad parenting. Spoiled kids.  My kids never do that.  When I was a kid, my parents would have put a stop to it.  Why doesn't she do this?  Why hasn't she done that?  This is why the world is the way it is, keep your children at home if they can't behave, the whole future of humanity rests upon this mother handling this situation in a manner that I approve of...

She opened her mouth.  I waited, several tart, dismissive replies at the ready.

"How old is he?" she asked.  "Four?"

"Yes," I said.

"I have a grandson that age.  I'm sorry he's having a bad day!" she said, and her voice wasn't sarcastic, it was a compassionate voice, and I looked down at the ribbon I was tying around my son's chubby, perfect little wrist and had to blink back my own tears.  Yes, he was having a bad day.  His brain randomly misfires, it makes him feel yucky afterwards, and this stupid balloon? It was the most I could do for him, and also the least.   

I have dragged my son, kicking and screaming over a can of Pringles, from a store, leaving without the gallon of milk that we really needed, before.  I have made a two-block walk of shame, through our small town, leaving a public event where we knew everyone, dragging his butt behind me, purple-faced and wailing because I wouldn't let him have all the paintbrushes from the kids' activity area, smiling apologetically and with humiliation in response to the many looks we received, nearly in tears myself before we got to the front door of our house, sweaty from the August heat and arms shaking with exhaustion from lugging a protesting toddler that far.  I have left full carts at stores, I have left stores before we even got a cart.  There was one horrible summer (the summer he was two), where it seemed we left more places than we went.  I did all of that, and, for the most part, it worked.    

But...sometimes he still cries at the store.

This crying is always brief.  He is four, he gets frustrated, and he tears up.  Sometimes I just say, "The answer is no," and ignore it, knowing that it will be over before we reach the next aisle.  Sometimes I have to tell him "Dry it up, or we're leaving," and because he likes to shop, and because he is now old enough to actually grasp the consequences of his behavior, that works, too.  

And when I hear or see another small child crying, or in the throes of a tantrum?  I don't glare.  I don't make comments under my breath.  Sometimes I make eye contact and smile. Sometimes I say "We've all been there."  Because we all have, you know, and it doesn't make me feel like a better parent to pretend that I haven't.  It doesn't make me a better parent just because, at that moment, my kid is behaving.  

I don't know why, after all, that kid is crying, or why his or her mother is reacting the way she is. Maybe she's waiting on a prescription that she can't leave without.  Maybe she's a single working mom, with no babysitter, and this is the only time she has this week to buy tampons and light bulbs.  Maybe her kid is special needs, maybe he isn't, maybe the mom has needs that aren't special but are needs nonetheless, maybe she has handled every tantrum perfectly so far but they've been in the house all damned week with the crud and she's dying to be out and would rather try to stop the tantrum than to go back home to a living room that is full of wadded up Kleenex and watch Sesame Street for the 285th time.  Maybe her kid just had a seizure, or her shots, or his dad has been deployed or her dog just died, and maybe he is just pitching a fit because he really does want that damned Hot Wheels - who knows?  The only thing I do know is that I don't know why - but I know how she feels. Embarrassed. Overwhelmed. Maybe even a little betrayed as the child who normally behaves beautifully suddenly and inexplicably comes apart at the seams.  And judged.  All the time.

Because it's fine to judge parenting.  Or it has become fine, anyhow.  And implicit in the judgmental reaction to other parents is the idea that you, as a parent, are better.  And we embrace this idea that the kid who is throwing a fit in the store is going to grow up to be a horrible person - that what may be a singular incident that we happen to witness is somehow going to shape the entire person that child is going to grow up to be, and we lay the blame at the foot of a parent whom we have seen once, and will probably never see again.  

Maybe that kid will grow up to be a bad person because of the one time his mom didn't handle the tantrum I saw exactly the same way that I would have handled it.  And you know, maybe that one brief interaction I see is actually representative of that person's parenting.  Maybe that child's tantrum isn't an unexpected outburst but a regular occurrence, and will continue to be a regular occurrence because the parent caves every time.  And maybe, because of that, that child will grow up to be an entitled, spoiled adult.  I have no idea.  And that's the point - I have no idea.

What I do know is that when my son hears another little one crying, his first reaction is sympathy.  "Awwww," he'll say.  "What's wrong?"  

"Sometimes little kids just cry," I say.  "Sometimes you do, too, right?"

"Right," he says.  Because he does, you know.

And although I have no idea how that child who is crying will turn out, I do know this: Even though I make conscientious choices in an effort to raise my child in a world where there are consequences for his actions, I also know that I don't want to raise him up to be a man who passes quick judgments on others.  I want to raise a man whose first reaction to a crying child is sympathy and concern, and not annoyance or disgust.

That's important, too.