I did something yesterday that I’ve never done before. I got into a yelling match in the public library parking lot with a complete stranger. To be fair, he yelled at me first.
If you read my Instagram post from a few days ago, you know that my 3 yo has some impulsivity issues when it comes to crossing the street.
We had just crossed the drive-thru book return lane of the parking lot, when my son randomly darted back out into the lane. I yelled his name and “No!” and some random stranger walking toward the library said “Ahhh come on Mom! There’s no cars!” To which I replied “That’s not the point” and I proceeded to continue to talk to my son about not running away from me in a parking lot. He then continued to come at me YELLING “Come on, I was a boy once! He’ll be fine!” At this point, I stopped, turned around and said “Are you seriously YELLING at me about MY son?” I turned and kept walking to my car with my son. He was STILL yelling at us “What’s your problem lady??? Geez you can’t even make comments or conversation with people anymore!!” and threw up his hands at me.
I debated sharing this experience here but I felt like I needed to. You see, a year ago, an interaction like this would have sent me hurrying to my car, fumbling for my keys and fighting back tears the whole way. Now, it just left me scratching my head as to why this complete stranger felt the need (so strongly) to interject his (unsafe) opinion into a situation that he literally knows nothing about and has absolutely nothing to do with him.
There is a part of me that is a little bit embarrassed about “sinking to his level” and having a public shouting match, but mostly I just feel empowered for sticking up for myself, my son, and for not letting this experience shake me.
So, no, random stranger who is telling me it’s okay that my son is impulsively darting into parking lots because “you were a boy once,” you can’t make comments like that to anyone anymore. Because this new generation of mamas are fierce and we will call it like we see it. We know our children best and we put our child’s needs above all else, including random strangers unwelcome comments.
