Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

I was on Facebook the other day...  Who am I kidding, I'm on Facebook all the time.  It's seriously my only form of communication with the outside world nowadays.  Which, in all honesty, is pretty sad.  But it is what it is, so back off!  Anywho, I was on Facebook the other day and I was reading through the feed and I came across one that was written by a mom that I don't know but for whatever reason Facebook says we're friends.  And who am I to argue with Facebook?  The post went something along the lines of  this, "At target, watching a mom tell her four year old daughter who has a pacifier in her mouth that the toys she wants are for babies.  Wtf?"

I didn't really think anything of it until I saw that there was like a bajillion comments after it.  Obviously, I missed the real meaning of this post.  The comments underneath it were things like, "some people should not procreate" or "what a moron"  or "that's just terrible".  Really?  What did I miss?

Apparently I missed the sarcasm that was peppered into this post.  Apparently, the mother was such an idiot for 1) taking her daughter down the toy aisle and not expecting her to want something.  2)  telling her that those toys where just for babies because obviously, she thought her daughter was a baby since she still allowed her to have a pacifier and 3)  the daughter was obviously to old for a pacifier to begin with.

...

I have a problem with this on so many levels I don't even know where to start.  Let me start by saying that this "friend" of mine that wrote this post apparently has perfect children who have never done anything wrong.  She must also be the mother of the year for never making any mistakes with the up bringing of her precious angels.  She is apparently the only mother in the world that has never had a self doubt or has ever done anything that involves being embarrassed by her children.

There she is! oh wait, her kid would never have a paci

Being a mom that had a child with a pacifier until she was three and a women who is embarrassed daily by her imperfect children I am completely offended that people think this way.  No, I take it back.  Not people, but other mom's.  Jesus!  This is hard enough without added friendly fire!

Maybe that mom at target had to go down the toy aisle because she's got to get a gift for a niece or nephew that has a party in BFE and she doesn't even want to go but figures it's one of the few things she can do to make her family happy.  Maybe her daughter asks for things no matter where they go.  Maybe if they went down the shoe aisle the daughter would insist on buying shoes (my kind of kid).  Maybe the daughter just asks out of habit and doesn't actually expect to get anything.  Maybe that daughter has some crazy pediatric cancer that this family is trying to over come.  Maybe they just recently went through a chemo treatment and the only thing that keeps her poor daughter from crying through the whole process is her pacifier.

Or maybe, just maybe, I know it may be hard to believe, that this mother that you saw in target was at her wits end for a bunch of normal reasons and she just wanted to get out of the house because her precocious 4 year old daughter was driving her crazy and she doesn't want to spend any money so target was the logical choice and they are just walking the aisles aimlessly because that mom can not handle another second of being alone in the house entertaining a 4 year old!

or target

I think I stopped judging people immediately after I had a baby.  Everything you think you know about children completely goes out the door once you have your own.  It doesn't matter if you were a nanny, a teacher, a therapist, as soon as the nurse hands you your very own bundle of joy, all the rules change.  You realize that parents let their kids sleep in their bed because they are so overcome with exhaustion that they just want to sleep for 2 hours straight.  You discover that chocolate is a perfectly logical bribing tool and above all things you realize that a pacifier can keep your sobbing toddler quite for hours at a time.

Besides!  We need each other!  We mom's have a hard enough time getting crap from every side.  Our pediatricians, our mothers, our friends without kids.  Seriously?  Why can't we be a safe haven for each other.  Whether we know each other or not.  How about the next time we just give that other mom that looks like she's losing her mind the benefit of the doubt.  How about next time we imagine that she is a good mom, that she loves her kids and she's doing the best with what she's got.  Because honestly, aren't we all?


Antenella