Shame on the parents doing the parent shaming
Raising children is a tough gig. You're always on edge and worried about something. Being frazzled is a way of life. It never ends even when your children are grown. One of my daughters just drove from Los Angeles to Chicago in less than three days. I feel better now that she's arrived safely. The same daughter leaves next Friday for a few weeks in Israel. I won't be able to relax until she returns safely. As I said, this parenting stress and worry never ends.
There are no perfect parents. ZERO!!! Nobody has the answers for every situation. You may think that you do, but be honest with yourself, you don't.
I can think of dozens of times when I messed up...DOZENS!!! It ranges from putting a one year old on a swing and watching her fall off and land on her back to forgetting to pick up a kid at a friends because a football game went into overtime.
I'll never forget my kids fighting in a K-Mart. I lost it and threatened both of them...in front of twenty customers. I still have the image of those people staring me down. It's tough getting shamed at a K-Mart.
But I get this tough, frazzled parenting thing....especially when you have young children. Let's face it, life is tough. You're always busy. Work is stressful. In a lot of cases, both parents are working. You get home and you have to deal with each others and the young kids...who always need you. It seems like you never have any time to yourself. All you want is a chance to take a couple of breaths and relax....and it doesn't always happen. The next day is the same...and the next day, and the day after that. Hey...no one ever said it was going to be easy.
That brings us to the other day at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Everyone admits it's a horrible story. No one wants to see an animal hurt or killed. No one wants to see a child hurt or killed. The whole thing is just a sad and tragic accident.
What bothers me the most is the shaming the mother is going through. It ranges from how irresponsible she was to let this happen to her choice in partners because her son's father has a small criminal record. I've seen her called the nastiest names you can call any human being.
There's a lot of self-righteousness out there. Apparently none of these parents have ever lost track of a child. When it happens to you...and I say when because it will at some point...it's a moment or moments that you'll never forget. I've misplaced a kid or two at a mall, a park and ironically at a zoo. It was only for a moment but it's one of the scariest moments of your life. It takes your breath away.
It's only by the grace of whatever deity you believe in that those situations didn't turn into a tragedy like the one in Cincinnati...and if you're honest with yourself, you can say the same thing about one of your mishaps. And instead of showing support for a woman who is going through a nightmare, people are piling on and making it worse. Can it get more hypocritical?
It's times like these where we can show a little empathy. To quote one of the most overused but truest cliches, "Be Kind". That's what you would want and hope for if this would happen to you....and it can.
I don't write about parenting often but here's one from a few years ago.
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