September, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, I’m sure everyone heard about a man who slapped the 2 year old child of a complete stranger in Walmart. Aside | from | a few | harmless | tweets, I’ve maintained my silence on this issue for the most part – until today

I’ve seen people knock the crap out of their kids in WalMart… you know, the whole “PUT-THAT-DOWN!”-*smack!* kind of thing. But never… NEVER… have I ever seen anyone knock the crap out of someone ELSE’s kid in WalMart. Until now.

Ok, granted *I* didn’t personally see it, but just the mental visualization is enough in itself. I’ve pondered many a day over this situation and no matter how I look at it, I just keep coming back to the same question: HOW did this man get his hands on this woman’s kid with her standing there? The report says that the man WARNED the mother to quiet her 2 year old daughter or HE would. This would be immediately become a problem for me. Did you just THREATEN my toddler? {I would have been asking this question rhetorically as I was taking off my earrings and rolling back my sleeves.}

I think the thing that bothers me the most about this whole ordeal is that I keep being burdened by the question of WHO is going to protect our children if WE don’t? I mean, seriously – think this through from beginning to end:

You’re walking along through WalMart with your 2 year old kid in the buggy. You’ve been in there a while. The kid is bored… she’s just entered into the terrible-two world of autonomy, limitation stretching, and boundary breaking. She was ready to GO like 20 minutes ago, but you’re only got a fewwww things left to grab. So, what does she do? She starts whining… and it gradually gets increasingly louder as the minutes roll by. You’re stressed… you’re going as fast as you can. You’re doing the best you can. BREATHE. Up walks this old man and you’re thinking that – like everyone else – he’s going to say something about how cute your precious little girl is, but instead out pops this rude and shocking comment about shutting your kid up FOR you if you don’t do it yourself.

My reaction process would go a little like this:

1. BRAIN MELT DOWN
2. … must find keys
3. … must gouge eyes out
4. … MUST PROTECT OFFSPRING!

There just IS no other way to respond to this type of threat. I mean, this is your KID he’s talking about! Dude, I double … no, I TRIPLE-dog dare you to stick your hand over toward my cart. You don’t even have to touch it. Just ease it over this way. YOU WILL MOST DEFINITELY DRAW BACK A NUB! Yep, that’s right – one of those things without any digits on it… Anyway, back on topic – so let’s give the lady the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she ignored the comment thinking he was just being a mean old fart and not imagining in her wildest dreams he would actually DO anything. BUT, oh dear Lord…

The man reaches over and commences to slapping this child about the FACE. Re-peat-ed-ly…

All rationale and reason goes out the window at this point as far as I’m concerned. There is no right or wrong. There is no calm and collected. There is no understanding you’re an old fart. There is only THAT IS MY KID YOU’RE HITTING! But, this mother actually allows for enough time for her child to be struck at least 4 times.

I’m getting a headache just trying to wrap my mind around that.

FOUR … count with me … 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 … FOUR times this man struck this little girl. And the mom is SCREAMING at him. Really? He has enough time to extend and retract his arm FOUR times while popping the little apple-of-your-eye in the FACE and I have to assume that there is some type of genetic issue with your arms which prevented you from DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT!?

Look, people… I won’t drag this out to be a terribly long post. All of this is just my extremely lengthy and personally meaningful way of saying STOP letting people take advantage of you! I don’t know what on God’s green earth leads a person to believe it to be acceptable for them to put their hands on someone else’s child… There are some freakin crazies in the world – no doubt about it. That being said, I don’t care what type of fear or apprehension you would have on a normal day, but on a day where some stranger grabs your kid and starts trying to knock her ear wax out through her nostril, I would hope to HEAVEN that you do something to put at end to the abuse prior to lick number FOUR.

What do you think?

Did the mother handle this in a way the typical mother would respond? Am I just some psycho crazy mama, assuming that others would be willing to go to war for their children since, clearly, I would? I’d love to know your thoughts on this situation. I’ve even heard it suggested that the mother was neglectful in allowing this to happen to her child right in front of her. What do you say to that? Post a comment at the bottom of this page to join in the conversation!

Has your child been to the eye doctor? Even if you don’t notice anything wrong with their eyesight, you should still schedule an appointment and have their vision checked! Don’t wait until there is a problem. Be proactive! My daughter, Briyana, will have her glasses by the end of the week…