Saturday, Belén and I went to the mall to use our 30% off coupon at The Childrens Place. Since we go to the mall so infrequently, I took the opportunity to hit the Bobbi Brown make-up counter to get a replacement for my gel eyeliner whose glass case had been dropped on the ground and cracked as well as new moisturizer with sun protection and some lotion. It took a little longer than I was expecting which ended up leaving Belén in a very hungry state which resulted in her very clearly signing to me that she wanted to eat.
Consequently, we b-lined it to the pretzel store and soon found ourselves sharing a pretzel at a table next to a woman and who I gathered were her four kids, one of whom was a baby less than a year old.
As Belén and I blissfully began to fill our bellies (I was hungry too), it was really impossible not to overhear the conversation at the next table. It went something like this:
Baby crying.
Mom to Baby: “Shut up. STOP. Stop, STOP. BE QUI-ET!”
Mom to Other Kids: “He gets this from you guys. You make him cry. This is ALL because of you.”
Kids talking a little bit and addressing their mother.
Mom to Other Kids: “SHUT your mouths. Shut them. BE QUIET. Shut UP!”
——
Even three days later, the encounter almost brings tears to my eyes. Now I don’t mean to be judgmental and I don’t know what that woman was going through and to be fair, I don’t even know if she was their mom or what the situation was, but oh my goodness it broke my heart. Here Belén and I were merrily sharing our pretzel and these five other individuals were in what from an outsiders perspective seemed like misery.
I can never imagine a situation where I would talk to my child or any other child in that manner. It was seriously SO sad.
My dilemma was what to do. I will cut to the outcome and just tell you that I did nothing except for saying, upon getting up to leave, “Come on Belén, let’s get away from this negativity.” HELLO PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE ALECIA! But I was really torn about if I should say or do anything. It was none of my business but seriously those POOR kids.
What would you have done in this situation?
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{ 5 comments }
So sad! I hate that feeling of helplessness. I don’t think there’s anything you CAN do, unless you observe something so horrible that police would be able to take those kids away… and that takes an awful lot. Those situations always make me fantasize about being a brilliant psychologist who could come up with the perfect one-liner to make mom realize the error of her ways and start treating her children humanely, but the truth is that that sort of change would probably take years of counseling and a lot of motivation on mom’s part. And, probably, she was treated the same way as a child, so she has no other tools in her parenting toolbox. And unless her kids are lucky enough to stumble upon a miraculously good mentor in their lives, they’re likely to treat their kids the same way.
So, what can you do in that situation? Probably zilch. Give the kids a friendly smile if they look your way. What else can you do? Support organizations that provide mentors for disadvantaged kids, I suppose. Doesn’t seem like enough in the moment, does it?
@Laura L., I think you are right, unfortunately! So sad though.
My only comment is that I hate the word “shut up” and don’t like ever using it.
I would of probably gotten up and removed myself from hearing distance because it would of bothered me too much. Sadly the chain will probably not be broken and those kids will grow up to act the same way.
I used to think as you do. But now that my kids are older…I find myself having a ‘white trash mom’ moment every now and again in a Walmart or Fred Meyer. It’s probably not on the level of what you saw but it’s not what I hoped for myself as a mother.
The older I get the more I find myself surprised when I do things I thought I would NEVER do and at the time there’s a perfectly good explanation for doing it.
Good to know. I definitely think there are times when I surprise myself by doing things I never thought I would do, but I hope to minimize those things when they are negative…
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