I yelled at my kid today. Really let her have it. I was walking her to school and I just lost my shit, unloading to the point of feeling the vein in my neck swell up like a bright red garden hose. I was unaware of how loud or unsettling that moment was, but the nosey woman looking on with her judgmental eyes and mouth agape did her best to make sure I registered her disapproval. I stared right back channeling as much “mind your own damn business” energy my eyes could deliver. Apparently it worked as she was soon on her way (presumably to go and shake her head disapprovingly at others she’s never met before.) Here’s the thing; meddling busybodies like that probably don’t have kids. If they did, they’d likely acknowledge that what they were witnessing wasn’t an unprovoked meltdown. It was the final chapter in a story that began a few hours earlier when my five-year-old daughter refused to eat her breakfast, and then refused to get out of her pajamas, and then refused to brush her teeth and then refused to let me use the bathroom alone and then...well, you get the point. Why? No reason. Just woke up on the bratty side of the bed I guess. “But we have to leave now because Daddy has to be at work in 15 minutes for a very important meeting” I pleaded. I don’t know why I bothered to try and reason with her. She clearly couldn’t give a Brabie doll-sized shit where I needed to be or that my job was the reason she even attended a fancy private school in the first place. Had a fellow parent witnessed that same scene, I’m sure their response would have been quite different. I imagine he or she would have approached me and asked “Can I offer you a taser?” Then we’d bond over how much our kids irritate us before going our separate ways. So to all the non-parents out there locked and loaded with self-richeous vitriolic diatribes and ready to pounce at the first sight of “negligent” parenting: Keep walking.
