Shopping with a toddler is a crapshoot. Sometimes they’re well-behaved, content to sit in the cart talking to you and singing along with the music over the intercom while you shop. Other times, they’re ripping and running through the aisles like the Tasmanian Devil, snatching things off the shelves, collapsing onto the floor, and screaming at the top of their lungs.
Full meltdown mode will likely ensue if things get really bad. One mom experienced the latter at the Dollar Tree. Thankfully, there was someone there to help her out.
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The Dollar Tree employee noticed the struggling mom and quickly stepped in.
Mary-Ann Byrnes had made it to the cashier at the Dollar Tree when her 2-year-old daughter, also named Mary-Ann, started having a tantrum, the Daily Mail reported. Thankfully, Byrnes walked into Fatimah Leftwich’s lane.
Leftwich immediately noticed that Byrnes was struggling and jumped into action. The cashier asked the younger Mary-Ann if she wanted to help her behind the register. Now with a job of her own, Mary-Ann calmed down enough to say yes.
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Leftwich let the toddler scan her mother's items.
Byrnes was at the Dollar Tree with her daughter and mother to pick up some things, but her mom “had a separate cart and was still shopping by the time we were in line and the store was pretty busy,” Byrnes said, according to the Daily Mail.
“My daughter is of that toddler age where she gets restless and wants to be picked up all the time. So she started to cry and have a little meltdown, which was hard to manage with all my stuff that I was trying to pay for and not keep people waiting behind me.”
That’s when Leftwich start letting the toddler scan the items her mother had placed in her cart. “I saw a woman who had the ability to calm my daughter down with such a wonderful, trusting energy. It was amazing,” Byrnes explained.
Byrnes said her daughter got to feel special and she got to experience an act of kindness.
Mary-Ann was comfortable in Leftwich’s arms and thoroughly enjoyed scanning the items. The employee encouraged the little girl, telling her that she was a "fast learner."
Byrnes said as a result of Leftwich’s nurturing and quick thinking, her daughter was able to feel special and to know what it's like to receive an act of kindness.
At the end of the video, the mother shared that that particular Dollar Tree store was closing and she was hoping that Leftwich got a good transfer because she deserves that and then some.
Leftwich was assigned to another store closer to her home.
Many agreed that Leftwich needs a raise.
Byrnes said she normally doesn’t post things like this but she wants Leftwich to have the world. The people in her comment section agreed.
“What a gem Ms. Fatimah is,” one TikToker commented.
Many petitioned Dollar Tree to give cashier a raise, and another user took a lesson from Leftwich’s actions. “Spreading love and not judgement is the secret in life,” the person wrote.
