Dear Mom on the Zooline Railroad

Dear Mom on the Zooline Railroad,

You taught me a lot today at the zoo.  You taught me about parenting and myself, and more importantly you taught me about the mom I don’t want to be.

Trent was thrilled for the chance to ride on the train.  All four of us scrunched into one seat, which was preferred over being split up two by two.  For our first station-to-station trip, we went through a long tunnel and Trent was in heaven.  There couldn’t be a better place in the world at that exact moment.

At the next station, you joined us along with your kids.  You hurried two little boys into a seat, then started yelling angrily towards the back of the train at someone who was apparently not helping you as much as you had hoped.  I don’t know if she was a sister or a friend or a sister-in-law, but she scurried in an attempt to get the last two kids into a seat as fast as you were demanding.  She was holding your daughter, a young girl who was maybe 3, who was clearly upset.  The other little boy hopped into the seat right in front of us.  With a huff, you grabbed the little girl, still hollering for “everybody on the train!”.  It turned out that holding all the bags across your shoulder while also holding the little girl made it impossible for you to slide across the tiny seat next to the first two boys, so you snarled at the sister/friend that she needed to help you by taking the bags.  She reacted as fast as she could, and joined the boy in front of us.  Everyone sat silent and a little scared, waiting for those in your group to be seated and the “fun” to start again.

All aboard and away we went, chugging to the next station.  Your little girl could not calm herself down, reacting the way most kiddos her age do when they can’t catch a moment to recharge… she wailed and threw every appendage around that little seat, with you being the closest point of contact without a doubt.  Her meltdown was embarrassing for you, I’m sure.  But not as embarrassing as your reaction.

You screamed “Stop that right now” more times than anyone could accidentally keep track of.  You spanked her.  You slapped her leg, with the slaps coming more frequently in the darkness of a tunnel.  As her wailing continued, you turned her around into a hugging position but instead of a hug, you tried squeezing her so hard that she wouldn’t be able to flail.  Her head would fling back with a scream, and you would yank it back against you.  I can’t speak for the rest of the passengers on the train, but those of us in our car were speechless and scared for that little girl.

Your sister/friend tried handing you the little girl’s doll, mumbling about what else might help.  Your boy sitting between us and you put his head on the seat and declared that he hated the zoo.  When you threatened to take him home, he responded hopefully with “We can go home?”

The remainder of our trip on the Zooline Railroad was quiet.  I was actually relieved when we had made the round-trip and it was time to reclaim our strollers.

I don’t know you, and I don’t know how your day had been up to that point.  There may have been a decent excuse for your bad attitude.  Maybe you found out that morning that your husband lost his job, or your mom has cancer, or a best friend from college was in a car accident.  My point isn’t how terrible you acted, but rather what I took away from how you acted.

I don’t want to be the mom that yells at those who are trying to help.  I don’t want to be the mom who is so angry that hitting my child would be the first reaction.  I don’t want to expect my children to be perfect and quiet all the time.  I don’t want a trip to the zoo or museum or fair or train display to be so awful, my kids beg for us to leave.  I don’t want to have a parental meltdown that shadows the meltdown of a preschooler.  I don’t want my boys to be afraid of me.

I want them to look forward to trips as a family.  I want to learn how to let go of schedules and routes, and allow them to make their own experiences when we get to go to special places (even if that means not seeing it all, or doing it all!).  I want to give them the freedom to be their age, and be able to remind myself that a child having a meltdown just means they’re normal and not that I have done a poor job parenting.  I want to use the volume of voice when I speak to them that I hope they use with me.  I want to find that style of parenting that fits between being too disciplined and being too laid-back.  I want my kids to understand rules and expectations without forcing them to lose sight of freedom and new experiences.  I have a lot of figuring-out to do.

The rest of your story, as sympathetic as it may be, doesn’t make a difference to me.  What does make a difference is seeing a live example of how I don’t want to mother my children and I hope that example sticks with me the next time I come to the verge of my own parental meltdown.

I do hope your day got better.  I hope your kids cooperated and got to see something neat at the zoo, and I hope your sister/friend got a sincere thanks for her help with your gang.  And I hope that there comes a time when a quiet tone calms a screaming kid, making you think that maybe things don’t have to be this way.

Sincerely,

The Mom Stuck Behind You