So...We again tried a night out to dinner as a family...My three year old just DOES NOT get it!! So, we are sitting in the restuarant, with my son going CRAZY, and I overhear the people at the next table talking:
Snotty lady with plug up bottom: "Dad...do you want to go to another room? Because we can move to another room..."
Father of Snotty lady with plug up bottom: Looks DIRECTLY at me as they pass.
I was talking to my husband in the car and told him how I should of gone up to them and said, "I'm sorry about my son...It's just with his TOURRETTES/AUTISM/BEING A THREE YR OLD! can be hard to manage...Sorry I wrecked your "perfect" world..." but I'm just a stay-at-home-mom, who had "a day," who wanted a nice dinner, with no dishes to do, and to sit at a table with the people who are most important to me..."
Then it got me thinking about how the world is so judgemental...how outside appearances are taken with NO grain of salt...What if my child DID have special needs? No one can know all that goes on behind the eyes of a person. I have a dear friend who is beyond beautiful...She models, seems to get skinnier with each child, has a beautiful home, and is so talented in so many ways that I cannot number them all. By a "glance," she looks like she has it all...and unfortunetaly, there have been many "sisters" in her ward who have resorted to their high-school mentalities, and have treated her VERY cruelly. She was recently put in as RS President (oh boy!), and besides this and the fifty million other things she does, she found out that she has to start chemotherapy (for the THIRD time) to help treat her lupus, which is affecting her heart...
Appearances can be many things...but if you live your life by them, judge by them, and condemn by them, no matter how wonderful your own appearance, the ugliness is still there.
So...Be nice to the mother with the screaming child...Be kind to the women in your ward who you think never has anything "bad" happen to her...Be the kind of person who doesn't judge based on appearances...Be that kind of person who truly tries to "see."
"Show me the goodness, the beauty, the kindness in everyone I meet. "
— Rebbe Nachman of Breslov in The Gentle Weapon
(I guess this means even "Snotty Lady with Plug up Bottom" might have "issues.." I guess I should call her "Snotty Lady wih Plug up Bottom Who Might be Pretty on the Inside.")
5 comments:
Aw---it's rough when kids give ya a run for your money. I say you should have stuck your tongue out, or made a monkey face, or something equally juvenile....
I agree... it is so sad how people are so judgemental.
Sadly---there are so many families that ruin it for those who are trying to do a good job...thus more people judge.
I remember going out once with my 5, when I just needed to NOT cook and NOT do dishes and have some time...the kids were just rowdy enough that I hissed through clinched teeth that if they didn't quit,I'd leave--I didn't care if we didn't have dinner yet... a nice lady told me to Hang In THere... eventually they will get it.
So I offer the same advice.
Ignore those jerks, and keep trying. It will GET BETTER, I SWEAR!!
Hugs...
You kill Me! I absolutely LOVE your humor! The plugged up lady doesn't remember what it is like for us mothers. Too funny.
It seems strange that I would want to go out to eat after I had spent 200 bucks at the grocery store! I would eat out every meal if I could! Clean kitchen and good food!
ugh. I can remember the very same thing happening when I took the 5 offspring out - even to someplace as fancy as McDonald's...give me a break.
Back then I related a similar event to my (10 yr older) best friend who gave me some good advise:
"Never take a *hungry* kid to dinner...anywhere."
Her idea was that a hungry kid will smell whatever is being cooked and, like at home, begin to ask what's for dinner and begin to salavate. Add in the wait time to get seated, the drink orders, watching other people eating away happily, yada yada, and you get the picture. So the solution was to build whatever snack the kid likes, pack it in your purse and feed it to the kid as you drive to the REST/rant (lol). The kid will have something in their tummy and the wait won't seem so unfair. They have to *learn* how to wait for food in a sometimes hectic/noisy/certainly different from home environment...that's going to take time and practise.
She also advised excusing yourself from your table and walking to the annoyed and whispering, "Please excuse Prudence, she was just diagnosed with (insert whatever horrid dreadful disease you want to inflict upon the annoyed). She is having a terrible day, and now you know why. And thank you for your example, she is learning how to treat others in an awkward situation." Just like you wanted to do.
Hang in there. There is such a thing as "bread on the water", "kharma", "what goes around comes around". etc. She will soon be put on the spot and,hopefully, recognize what she has done to your family.
Oh Yolanda.
I understand. *cheers* for what Smee has to say (one of the most wise that I know)
Odd thing is: SHE is the impaired one
Dumb dumb people.
Amen. I say that but I have a HORRIBLE time not judging people. But I can admit when I have been wrong and I am usually ALWAYS wrong about someone I have judged "unfairly".
Our beautiful friend has taught me so much about real beauty.
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