scott’s spot

I’m in Target today, walking in with Olivia, Nay carrying Maggie behind me. We’re getting two carts, one for stuff, one for kids. In walks a mother with a cell phone crooked in her shoulder, trying to talk on the phone, holding a little boy, maybe two and a half or three, and he crying.

So what? Kids cry all the time. You get used to it kick as a parent.

Or so I would have thought, at least from my own experience.

But then I hear the mother say in a biting way to the boy as she’s trying to get him into a cart “You know I hate it when you cry.”

What?? Did I hear her right. I finish getting my own cart. Get Maggie up into the seat, and lean over to Nay.

“Did you hear that? Did she say what I think she said?”

Nay nods.

Made my blood boil.

Now, I know I’m not the most patient father. I struggle with patience and my moods. I’m a fairly moody bastard sometimes and when I’m up I’m Father of the Year, and when I’m down, I have to keep myself from snapping at the girls over every little thing. Saturday I was in a shit mood. I woke up with the girls and didn’t wake up very well, and despite trying to pull out of it, I never turned it around. I was short and snapping, at the girls, at Nay, at every little thing that I dropped (I’m clumsy when I’m grumpy), at the dishes, the toys in the living room—like everything. Sunday was better. I woke up early, real early, and had some time to myself before everyone got up. That seems to be the key. Get up before everyone else and have enough time to sip a mug of tea without worrying whether the girls are killing each other.

But to say something like that. It’s just hurtful. It made me think of Saturday, and how short my fuse was. I ran through the day to see if I could come up with anything that sounded as shitty as that. I came up with nothing, which is pretty good. I struggle with wording a lot of the time. I have to learn how to speak to the girls without wrecking them or their self-esteem. Things like saying “what happened” when the girls are playing rough and Maggie’s bursts into tears, rather than saying “what did you do”? It’s tough and a lot of work and I don’t always succeed. But I’m so conscious of their sense of self, that I could never imagine saying something like “I hate it when you cry.”

This is why they say parents should have to be licensed to have kids.