Yes, every kid is different, but most seem to have one thing in common: a talent for pushing Mom or Dad's buttons. It's one thing when these little ones start to drive their parents crazy in the privacy of their own homes, but it's a completely different situation to deal with when the little darlings drive Mom past the verge of frustration while out in public. Instead of smiling for the strangers, parents sometimes just want to be able to get their kid to stop acting up without also worrying about if others are judging them. Because let's be real: It's exhausting and there's already enough to be stressed about besides what Janice in aisle two thinks of your parenting style.
When Aussie blogger Krechelle Carter goes out with her six kiddos, it often feels like she's dealing with closer to 50 children when they start acting up. But it's the adults around them who actually make the situation even harder for her to deal with. "All I want to do is tell off my 42 children in peace! Without you bastards judging me; Susan, Gertrude, and Barry," she wrote on Instagram. "I'm so sick of being 'mom shamed' for telling my children off!"
Krechelle is tired of onlookers pretending like they wouldn't do the same thing if it was their kid or silently thinking she should have handled the situation. And she knows she isn't alone in feeling this way. "Every time I start to tell my children off (granted I sound a bit like a bulldog eating a tire) I'm met with an audience of other parents or relatives, sometimes random strangers judging the way that I'm handling things," she wrote. "10 points for the appropriate dose of timeout. 7 points for tone. -5 points for saying the word 'sh*t.'"
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It feels like when the judges' scores come in, Krechelle is always deemed a bad parent, and she's fed up with this additional pressure — instead of support — that moms have to deal with. "I try and be diplomatic and calm. But there is only so many times I can say, 'Sweetheart, can you please not hit your sister with a rock because when you do you're entering her personal space and it hurts and how do you think that makes her feel?'” she wrote. "By the third time it kinda comes out like: 'If you touch your sister one more damn time I'm putting your iPad in the rubbish bin.'"
The kicker is that by the end of it, Krechelle is already beating herself up for getting mad and doesn't need others making her feel even guiltier for not handling the situation as perfectly as Mary Poppins would. "God forbid you raise your voice over the hush of a whisper to your precious little angels. Then I've got old Aunt Gertrude asking me 'to give the poor boy a break,'" she wrote. "Ha! I'll give you a bloody break in a minute Aunt Gertrude!"
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Like many kids, Krechelle's brood seem to develop amnesia the moment they step out the door and completely forget that rules still apply to them. This means that she has to give them a stern reminder, and it's like they can smell when the worst time to go wild is.
"I don't know why but my children act up even worse during the dreaded school run! Seven times as much if we're running late," she wrote. "We'll be walking along a road and my children will start play fighting like they've just entered a WWE arena and I'll have to say, 'HEY; focus guys' in a loud stern enough voice so all six can hear me. And then it begins again. The judgmental stares, the head shakes…."
It's one thing to empathize with the child of a "cranky" stranger, but hold off on your judgments, because you have no idea what the kid has already put Mom through or how many times she already asked nicely. She may be the one in need of your sympathy instead of your sanctimonious look.
