Our friend Kristen took her kids into a local store, and noticed a woman near the entrance with several kids behaving like little hooligans, running around and knocking things over. We’ve all been there, so Kristen shot this other mom a sympathetic look when suddenly the other mom piped up, very loudly, to no one in particular that “Well, SOME people don’t even put SOCKS on their kids, in THIS weather!”, clearly trying to shift the public scrutiny off herself and on to Kristen. She continued ranting about cold and flu season and how “some people didn’t have a brain in their heads.”
Kristen explained that “It was cold out, but I’d driven, parked in the lot, and carried my baby into the store with a blanket or my jacket, I forget which now, wrapped around his feet. He wasn’t wearing socks or shoes because I hadn’t wanted to take the time to find the shoes just for a quick trip to the store, for a child whose feet were never going to get near any ground during the trip. I had enough difficulty getting the other three, and myself, into shoes and coats. For once they all had their hair nicely combed and coherent outfits and were happy and behaved well, all four of my kids, AT THE SAME TIME, and this woman got all huffy about my baby not wearing SOCKS. It’s always something!
It took Kristen a few days to get over the injustice of it, but now whenever she gets upset or feels tempted to judge “I just think, “SOCKS!!!!” in a ridiculously offended tone, and she was, for whatever reason, personally offended.
Have you ever felt inappropriately judged in public? Tell us what happened and how you handled it?
3 Comments
lol, well-done. =)
I’ve never encountered a sock freak (thankfully). But on one sunny spring afternoon some time ago, pulling my daughter home in her wagon, I had a man march up to me and say, “YOU are wearing a hat, why isn’t she?”
Maybe because she kept pulling her hat off and throwing it to the side, and I got tired of stopping and going after it for the twentieth time, and because we were only a couple of minutes away from home, that’s why.
But why bother saying all that? I just ignored him and kept going.
Busybodies involve themselves when it’s pretty apparent that there’s no actual danger involved. They don’t actually care about the welfare of the children, they just want the opportunity to bully and intimidate another person. So ignore them and keep doing what you’re doing.
@ Cynthia, your comment had me in stitches!
I learned my sock, shoe and coat lesson early on with my oldest child. Of course, now that my kids don’t leave the house without being properly bundled (because It’s easier for me, I WILL confront the loud stage whisperers, but I’d rather avoid it) I get busybodies telling me my kids must be too hot, or that they should be wearing sandals instead of sneakers.
It seems like you just can’t win.
I remember that bitter, winter afternoon when I encountered a ‘sock freak’ like it was yesterday. It all began when I woke up one morning and decided to spoil myself by taking my mother and toddler son with me to Cosco to buy toilet paper in bulk. Unfortunately, since my adorable, anti-sock, cherub continually pulled off his wee socks, despite my many attempts to staple them to his feet, I was forced to wait in Cosco’s heated vestibule for my mother to pulled the car up so I could make a frostbite, preventative mad dash to the car seat.
“Oh, my God! Do you see that?!” a shrill woman’s voice called from behind as I waited with child in arms. “That child does not have socks!” Though I could not see the woman, I had no doubt that the child to whom she referred belonged to me. Being that the vestibule was heated to no less that a thousand degrees, I could only assume the woman suffered from Post Traumatic Sock Syndrome, so I let her snide comment slide. And her second. And third. By the time the woman delivered her 13th asshole comment, her voice that reached octaves not heard since my husband got hit in the balls by an errant line drive. Ultimately, my refusal to acknowledge her ultimately drove her to whip herself into a frenzy until she screamed, in front of a now mesmerized crowd, “What kind of mother would let her son go without socks!!!”
Unable to resist further, I turned to her and casually explained, “The kind that wanted a girl.”
And that’s when the woman totally and utterly imploded and exploded, all at the same time. “CALL SECURITY! SOMEONE CALL SECURITY! THAT BOY IS BEING ABUSED!” And so help me God, if Security didn’t come charging after me! They didn’t catch me, of course. It’s amazing how fast a mother can bolt through a parking lot when she fears her son might be taken from her.
Looking back, when I recall my mother speeding out of the parking lot with my son insecurely strapped onto my lap in the front seat, I thought, “Oh yeah. That come back is a keeper.”