Tantrums

As we are nearing the end of the 3's, also know as the worst year behaviorally yet in this house, I am hoping 4 will bring on a change. I mean, everyone says 4 is better right? No tantrums. No more fighting. No more yelling. No more freaking out because oh my god mommy I didn't want the mac and cheese shaped like a pumpkin I wanted the slippery mac and cheese and it is the end of the world aaaaahhhhhhh. Let me live in dreamland for a while, okay?


There have been many times lately when we have been out in public and I have had to, for lack of a better word, bribe Finn to leave. And it doesn't always end well. Sometimes I am that woman you see rushing out of a store/museum/restaurant with a screaming child dangling out of my arms because I don't want to be that mom who lets her kid scream in a store/museum/restaurant.

But, apparently, that isn't good enough. People judge you based on your child's tantrums. Other moms judge you based on your child's tantrums. This surprises me to no end. Don't we have enough to deal with as parents, as adults, as humans than to judge what is going on with someone else? Do you really think that a mom who is stressed out over having a crying child who won't listen needs someone to stop them and tell them all the things they are doing wrong?

I used to judge before I became a mom. I admit it. You have your 3 year old in a stroller? Um, too old. Your child is on a leash? They aren't an animal? They are screaming in a restaurant? Give them some food so they shut up.

But now, now I see the error of my ways. There is so much more behind all of these things than what you see from the surface. We took our 3 year old in a stroller in Belgium. He was almost 4. Did he look silly? Probably. Did it keep us from having to carry a 30 lb child around for hours on end when he got tired. Absolutely. We order his food as soon as we sit down at a restaurant, but if it doesn't come quick enough he gets antsy.

I have always heard you are the best mom until you become one. We think we know everything about parenting and discipline and rules until we have to actually, you know, parent. And then we are all the same, floating along trying to do the very best we can with what we have, and what we don't need is judgment from other parents about how we do it.

We were at the Aquarium once. Finn was 2 probably, and when we left through the gift store (thanks for that by the way museums, they should really be called tantrum stores since we have to leave through them and every child wants everything in them) and he flipped. He wanted something, he didn't want to leave, he was overstimulated, needed a nap, who knows. So I moved him to the side, and let him cry. He laid on the floor and cried and cried. People walked out past me, glancing at us, surely judging. Until one dad walked past, looked, laughed and said "Don't you worry, we have all been there, it does get better! Just let him have his time, you are doing a good job!'.

You are doing a good job.

What mom doesn't want to hear that every once in a while?