The checkout line at a supermarket always seems to turn up some kind of small talk, especially around the holiday season as it is now. At the Key Food store, I walked up to the checkout with a few small baking items. The little guy was in his stroller, bundled up in his snowsuit and adult-sized scarf.
The cashier - a woman in her mid-40s, I'd say - looked at me, said hi, then looked down at my year-old son. She made googley-eyes at him, and then, here it came.
"Oh, he's cute," she said. "That's the best age. It's downhill after that."
It occurred to me right there, that there is a reason mothers go gaga over babies of this age: THEY HATE THEIR OWN CHILDREN.
"My kid is 12 now, and all he does is talk back," she proceeded to inform me. That's nice, I thought, but having nothing else to say, I said, "so I have about 10 years?" To which she replied, "not even."
This is not a tirade against bitter mothers. But she was not the first to blurt out this pretty strong condemnation of her kid to a complete stranger.
The first time, Bad Mommy and I were standing in front of our local bodega. A woman walking with three children walked up to our baby - he was probably about six months old at the time - and began to ooh and aah, bending down to the stroller to get a closer look.
"He's so adorable," she said. "Enjoy him while they can. Cuz they turn into this - " at which point she turned and pointed at her teenage daughter. "They're angels at this age. Then they get an attitude," she informed me, who didn't particularly care.
Not exactly America's #1 Mom, this one. We just kind of ignored her and let her fawn for a minute, and then moved on.
But really: right in front of her daughter? This kind of comment is probably the exact reason the daughter is the way she is. Not to say I'm/we're going to be the perfect parents - we'll do the best we can. But I'd like to think that once the little guy starts to form opinions and starts to challenge me, this will be an exciting time. Perhaps I am naive; maybe I am stupid. But it was a harsh reality that these two women offered: after years of parenting, all these two had to show were strong, bitter remarks to strangers about their children.
I know this much: the day you catch me saying "and then they turn into this" as I point to my teenage son is the day that I need to have my Daddy License revoked.
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1 comment:
Yeah, it sounds harsh. But I think you're also being a little harsh. Aren't there things you SWORE you'd never do/say/think before you had your little guy? Have you done more than half of them now?
As a high school teacher, perhaps I sympathize more with the parents you mention. I often tell my husband that we have to enjoy these ages (even though an almost two year old can be an awful lot like a belligerent teen) because by they time they hit ten or eleven, it's all over.
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