for crying out loud.

who's crying now?

I just don’t understand our society. I mean, really, I know that’s a given – the majority of people make it hard for me not to think they are just mostly stupid. But when it comes to our children, I feel like we either completely don’t care at all or we’ve become total helicopter parents. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of middle ground. Prime example? This fantastic Tumblr a mother* has started called “Reasons my Son is Crying”.  It’s hysterical – and something I’m upset I didn’t think of myself.  Are you kidding me? How many times has your kid been crying about something so amazingly ridiculous that you’ve had to laugh about it? It happens daily in my house and my children are way older than the kiddo featured on the Tumblr.

Enter the group of sanctimonious mothers who are apparently such fabulous parents that they are bold enough to comment about another mother’s parenting: “Wow. I only looked at the first few pics when I came across a link yesterday. Yes, seems the parents are out of touch with... parenting.”  And, “Reason your son is crying: possibly because you are making fun of him and snapping pictures instead of connecting and empathizing?”  Or how about this stellar suggestion: “There are other ways to share the humor of being a parent that aren't directly humiliating to the child. Like, you could recreate the situation and snap a picture of yourself holding a broken cookie with a pleading look on your face with the caption "Who do you think I am, the dog? I don't want this broken cookie, milk lady." You could include yourself in the mocking and try to show it from the child's perspective, instead of just making fun of him.”  Here. Let me say it for you: what the FUCK?

Please don’t get me wrong. I am a mother. I’m also a teacher. I’m also about six credit hours away from a master’s degree in early childhood education, for the love. I am certainly concerned about valid, obvious forms of child abuse – and even those forms that aren’t so obvious. I get it. In fact, I’m a mandated reporter – which means I will call the authorities on your ass if you’re mistreating a child in my presence. But this? The reaction to this Tumblr is insanity. The first thing that I have learned as a mother is to NEVER. EVER judge another mother. I mean sure, if you’re dumb enough to be on the news because your kid is found wandering around alone on the street? I’m probably going to judge. If your kid consistently treats my kid like garbage or teaches my kid words I’m certain they didn’t get from me? I’m probably going to judge. But the run of the mill mom I see at the store or at my girls’ school struggling with their kids? Why would I ever judge that? I sure as hell don’t want you judging me for my parenting. If you want me to go into what is happening in the child's brain to trigger the frustration that is making him cry, I will detail that for you. I'm all about child development, but also? What happened to the simple fact that parenting is terribly hard work? Why is it so wrong to laugh at how ridiculous our children can be? 

I also understand that this mom chose to put her kid out there for the world to see…another way judgment may be forthcoming. But, what happened to having a sense of humor? I mean, really – the suggestion of recreating the situation for a photo? What planet do these people live on? I think the suggestion that you don’t make any parenting mistakes is absurd. I just don’t understand at all. I wish the people creating such a stink about this would funnel some of that crazy into other, more important things – like helping children who are REALLY being abused or neglected. What has parenting come to when we are either completely ignoring our children by sitting them in front of a screen, or when we are so far up their butts that we can’t even joke about how annoying they can be? OR that we can't admit how hard parenting really is and we'd rather just judge others for doing things differently instead of banding together and supporting each other? I am baffled by this.

But for now, if you’ll please excuse me, it’s time for me to let my kids go play in traffic. Where's my camera?

*correction - this Tumblr was actually started by a dad! hmmmm. interesting. (thanks to my smarty smart cousin Sara for pointing this out to me...d'oh!)