{"id":2659,"date":"2016-04-06T17:00:52","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T21:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/?p=2659"},"modified":"2016-04-06T17:04:06","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T21:04:06","slug":"what-would-you-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/what-would-you-do\/","title":{"rendered":"What Would You Do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other week Zara and I were shopping at Marshalls after my prenatal appointment. \u00a0It was pretty busy like it usually is in the afternoons. \u00a0Normally, I don’t pay much attention to other shoppers unless I’m standing in line people watching; but this time I ran into the same mom twice. \u00a0I still probably wouldn’t have even noticed except that she had two boys just younger than\u00a0the ages of ours. \u00a0And there was a lot<\/em> of yelling. \u00a0Neither one of the boys was staying with her and the youngest, who was maybe six, was in under clothes racks, tunneling through clothes like a rabbit creating a new burrow. \u00a0Did I mention yelling? Oh, yeah? That was the mom. \u00a0The boys didn’t seem to hear her.<\/p>\n

She had clearly had it.<\/p>\n

I finished looking and got into the checkout line.<\/p>\n

Unknown to me (until the yelling started again), she was in line behind me.<\/p>\n

The yelling got worse. \u00a0The littlest kid whined and she snapped that he’d just lost his privilege of stopping at Toys R Us. \u00a0He whined some more and she said<\/del> yelled, “No, I mean it.”<\/p>\n

He spit at her.<\/p>\n

I’m not even kidding. \u00a0It was kind of a spluttery, lots of air included spit, but clearly intended to be a spit.<\/p>\n

About that time, Zara peers around my shoulder at their little family, makes eye contact with the mom, and breaks into one of her biggest smiles.<\/p>\n

I didn’t even turn around; but her words pierced the entire area. \u00a0“Yes, I see you being all cute. \u00a0But I’m sure you have your moments, too.”<\/p>\n

That’s not the question. \u00a0Zara definitely has her moments. \u00a0But in my head, I wondered how overwhelmed a mom has to be to get snarky with a two year old who smiles at her?<\/p>\n

We checked out while her son walked over in front of the door and picked at the floral display while his mom tried to ignore him and then said, “Do you want to get picked up by someone? Get back over here.” \u00a0I had Zara buckled and\u00a0crawled into my own seat just in time to see her forcibly dragging a very reluctant boy across the parking lot. \u00a0The doors were closed but her facial expression and mouth movement when they crawled into their own car was telling.<\/p>\n

And all the while, I watched helplessly.<\/p>\n

What is there to do? \u00a0We all know moments of frustration. \u00a0But there was something in the level of their interaction that spoke of living this way a lot. \u00a0He was six for crying out loud. \u00a0Not two and missing his nap. \u00a0Not thirteen and belligerent. \u00a0Just six. \u00a0There was a side of me that wished for a business card for Allegany Boys Camp<\/a> so I could have scrawled, “Hang onto\u00a0this for three years. \u00a0I suspect you’re going to want\u00a0it.” and quietly given it to her. \u00a0There was a side of me that wished I could think of something encouraging to say ….. anything. \u00a0A “hang in there, you’re going to make it,” kind of message. \u00a0After the way Zara’s smile antagonized her, I’m not convinced anything could have felt encouraging. \u00a0There was a lot of me that ached inside for that kid and his mama and the life they’re living.<\/p>\n

I really don’t like seeing pain happening.<\/p>\n

\"Oct<\/a><\/p>\n

Have you ever run into a really upset family in public and have you ever had the courage to speak into it? Have you ever been that mama? What would have spoken hope to your heart?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other week Zara and I were shopping at Marshalls after my prenatal appointment. \u00a0It was pretty busy like it usually is in the afternoons. \u00a0Normally, I don’t pay much… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boys-camp","category-thinking-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39ynQ-GT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2659"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2663,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659\/revisions\/2663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}