Bad Mothers

I think almost every single parent has experienced having someone judge their parenting and finding them lacking. It starts with the raised eyebrows and askance looks when you're in your third trimester and sipping the weekly glass of wine that your doctor prescribed. Or the little old ladies who scold you for walking too fast while holding your baby because you might "bounce her head off." The worst is, of course, when you actually aren't being that great a parent and someone catches you at it.

I had one of those experiences and I'm still boiling about it. I'm mad because the lady was in the right to say something, but at the same time so damn wrong. I was having a rough time with the kids, it was 5 pm, I didn't have the stroller for T, we were in Chinatown, I was carrying two bags, trying to drag two nudgy kids through one of those tight little revolving door turnstiles. Basically a horror scene. I finally burst through the entrance, the bags were falling everywhere, and for a second I got distracted trying to gather my wits along with all my crap. Suddenly, a woman behind me yelled--not sounding particularly concerned but in this nasty exasperated tone: "Lady, watch your kid." I turned around, and of course T was running for the platform. I managed to hook his collar while he was still a good 6 or 8 feet from the edge, but it was still scary and embarrassing. While I was wrangling him (and trying to keep an eye on L), the woman said something like,"You better do a better job watching those kids." I was so shaken and upset by then I just couldn't let this pass. I told her she didn't have to talk to me like that.

"I wouldn't need to say anything if you were a better mother," she snapped back.

I lost it. I told her to mind her own effing business (and yes, I think I actually used the term "effing" because I was trying so hard not to swear in front of the kids, not that I didn't slip in the next 5 sentences), and basically it went downhill from there. I couldn't believe it! I was literally having a screaming match with a strange woman in the Canal Street subway station in front of my two kids and dozens of strangers. It ended with me telling her, as I walked away, to raise her own fucking kids and her shouting at my back that she'd do a better job than I was doing.

The thing is, I wanted to be grateful to her for pointing out that T was in danger. I would have been grateful if she hadn't posed the whole thing as evidence of my bad mothering. I'm not a perfect mother. Hell, I'm not always even a good one. But I'm trying my best, which is all any of us can hope for. I was going to go on with some trite observation about making judgements, "walk a mile in someone else's shoes", blah blah, but you all know about that. We all know it, but there are times when it gets rubbed in your face. So stop pointing fingers at Britney, y'all. You never know when it's going to be you hiding in that bathroom waiting for the stormtroopers to break down the door.