My 6 year old son is trailing me as we walk down the hall. The iPad making his steps slow. I barely register the older couple passing us as I round the corner until I hear the gentleman yell at my son: You need to put down those computers and pick up some books, boy!
I turn and yell: EXCUSE ME.
But I can't see them because I was four steps ahead of him. Within a second, my son, still occupied by the iPad, turns the corner. I’m angry but unsure what to do. Chase down an elderly couple? To what end? I still have to pick up my daughter from class. I still need to check in with my son. I still want to calm down.
Days later, I am not calm. In my head, I tell and retell the incident with spectacular comebacks and important diatribes, which enlighten this man. I settle on saying: Maybe you should go back to judging your own family, we’re all stocked up here.
Tired on my own thoughts, I am forced to ask myself why it bothers me so much. I dismiss the idea that I feel judged for my son’s screen time. Some children need iPads to communicate so at baseline his comment is ignorant. I know that my particular child reads plenty of books and has limited screen time, and he saw my son for 15 seconds of his life. I can attests without a shadow of a doubt that in a survey of doctors, educators, therapist and parents, letting my son use the iPad at the particular moment would be sanctioned if I explained the reasoning behind it. I also know that I don’t owe anyone any explanation.
I tell myself it’s because he confronted a 6 year old boy in an angry, judgmental and ignorant way. He tried to make my son feel bad. Feel wrong. But that's true because I asked my son within minutes of the incident: Did you hear what that man said?
He replied: No, what did he say?
Me: It doesn’t matter then.
At best I'm hanging on to some self-righteous notion of justice because my son didn’t feel bad. My inability to let it go must be more than that. And then I see it. I see what happened that day.
I am afraid he is right about me and he's finally letting the world know what a bad parent I truly am. What I really want to yell at an old man is YOU’RE WRONG THIS TIME because I am afraid he could see through this moment into all the moments I have failed. I don’t encourage my son to read daily. I do too much screen time some days. It wasn’t this particular time, but there are other days. Days when my kids want to play and I settle them in front of the TV because they have been up since 4am and I’m dying of exhaustion.
He exposed my fear of being a bad mom because even with all my evidence of the contrary, it still sits on my heart, and when I want to cry or yell or fight an old man or a childless college kid who gives my daughter a dirty look or another mom who blogs about her choices being the only way, it is that fear, which is rearing its ugly head.
When I think further, I wonder if the elderly man is afraid, too. Afraid he is being left behind. Afraid his children and grandchildren do not love him or need him. Afraid he is not a very good guy either. Why else would someone yell at a child?
In the end, I’m glad I didn’t say more than excuse me although I wish the man had directed his ire at me. I have also decided that even though I will speak up if someone confronts my children, I won’t if they judge me. They are afraid, and I won’t be made to fear my choices with them. I am not a perfect, but I am a good mom. I don’t need to prove it to anyone.
