World's Okayest Mom (and I'm Okay With It)

I've been wrestling with something that happened to us on Friday, and it hit me:  I was mom-shamed. More pointedly, my toddler was child-shamed.  The woman who intruded in our lives had no other purpose than to shame Ezra for her perception of his behavior, and her perception of my inaction about it.  She had no other purpose than to want to make me carry her own personal baggage.

And you know what?

I've been toting that heavy suitcase of hers for her ever since.

I let her get away with exactly what she wanted, and I bet she didn't even give us a second thought after leaving the store.  I have cried, sobbed, apologized to my children, lost sleep, screamed, shaken my fist at the unfairness of it, and written a novel's worth of unpublished blogs about it.

ME!  The mother who stands up for other moms!  The mom who would've commandeered the store's microphone to tell her exactly what she could do with her shaming if I caught her doing that to another mom instead of me!  More importantly, I would have helped that other mother protect her child.  "Hey, whoa, you can't just do that!  What in the world do you think you're doing, crazy lady?"

I know much of it comes from guilt in the way I handled it:  She accosted my child, while he sat in the cart right there next to me, instead of me.  I have a lot of guilt for not protecting my child, for not protecting the next child she will presumably approach because she got away with it this time, and not protecting the children she claimed to have experience working with.  A person who is so bold as to approach a three year old in this manner should not be working with children.  I was so stunned by her behavior that I didn't react the way I wanted to in hindsight.

I've written, re-written, and re-re-written my blog post since Friday night.  Much of it was just me needing to work through what happened.  I've talked with friends, cried with Shawn, listened to an amazing, heartfelt message from our pastor's wife, who also also happens to be our church's connections group pastor, on why being part of church family is so important (hey, that's a plug for my mom's group, if you're not paying attention!), and I heard an excerpt from Truth Bomb Mom on dealing with haters: Just don't do it.

So yeah, I'm only an okay mom.  My kids are only okay kids.  And you know what?  I'm okay with that.  We aren't everyone's cup of tea.  We don't have to be.  And I'm okay with that, too.

And you know what else?  That hater can take her baggage and pack off to Timbuktu.