Parenting Can Be A Minefield.

During our trip to Boston on Tuesday, we had an incident involving BabyGirl G. She wanted to go into a particular store; we said no; she pitched a fit. Now, ordinarily, we'd just bring her out to the car and wait until she was done; however the car was many miles away. Given that it was in the teens and quite chilly with the wind blowing, letting her thrash about on the cobblestones wasn't an option either.

So I picked her up, tossed her over my shoulder, and started walking.

She's yelling, screaming, hitting me, etc. All the while, I'm looking for a place that's a) indoors and b) outside of the normal foot traffic where I can set her down until she stops crying. I carried her a total of maybe 50 feet, when a woman commented "My God, can't you see she doesn't like that? She has tears dripping down her face."

Choking back the "fuck off, you meddling douchebag", I calmly replied that it was her choice to be carried, as she had refused to walk and could not be left out in the cold or in the middle of where people were walking - both places she had chosen to stop and pitch a fit. The woman walked off in a huff, muttering what was no doubt a condemnation of the uncouth, shaved-head biker American (she had an English accent) who was brutalizing his poor little girl.

And it struck me, the hell that we parents face when we dare bring our progeny out in public.

How many times has someone complained of a dinner ruined by a screaming child? How many times do you hear the horror story of a movie spoiled by a bratty kid, or a plane flight turned into the three hour voyage to hell because of some unruly toddler? It's become a stock stereotype; the screaming kid, the parent either oblivious to it, a sniveling craven begging their pint-sized demon spawn to stop, or the appeaser promising all that and a bag of chips if the child will stop?

And yes, stereotypes exist for a reason, I understand that.

But not all of us are like that. Some of us hear that woman's reproachful tone every time we think about disciplining our kids in public. Some of us remember the horror of having the police called because we dared to swat our three year old son on the butt for kicking his sister (yes, really). We're damned if we do, damned if we don't - reprimand your child and some do-gooder wants to turn you in for child abuse; try to ride it out and some thin-skinned jackanape will cluck their tongue and complain about parents who don't control their kids.

I'll be damned if I'm going to stay home until both kids are 18 years old. If they're acting up in public, give me the benefit of the doubt for a moment. If you're going to butt in, make sure you have all the facts; otherwise, keep your piehole shut - don't assume that, because I'm a large white male with a shaved head and a goatee, that I'm automatically the posterboy for child abuse. I hate spanking my kids; it puts a knot in my back and a pit in my stomach that lingers for hours. But you see me and your oh-so-superior, can't-we-all-just-get-along mindset automatically places me in a box based on how I look.

How utterly... unenlightened of you.

Look, I'll be the first to admit that there are plenty of bad parents out there. I've had to deal with spoiled little brats who could do no wrong; I've buffed scratches out of my truck put there by the troglodytic spawn of a mouthbreather who thought an afternoon's entertainment would be throwing rocks at the other vehicles in the campground; I've walked out of restaurants because of screaming kids. But I've also been that parent, the dad utterly exhausted at the end of a long day who would love to give his smart-assed kid a whack upside the head if not for the three or four do-gooders with CPS on speed-dial who would dime him out without a second thought.

Cut us some slack, wouldja? Don't automatically pigeonhole the parents ignoring the screaming little girl - it's quite possible this is her fourth tantrum this hour, and they've simply decided to ignore her and continue on with their dinner. Don't immediately jump to the conclusion that the burly man loudly telling his kid to keep his mouth closed is some inbred child abuser - it may be that talking loudly is the only way to break the kid out of the video game trance long enough to get through to him.

What's really funny, in an odd sort of way, is that the woman who made the comment that started all this rolling had to have garnered enough clues to know I wasn't really a threat. She was a slip of a thing, with a school-aged child of her own - had she really believed I was some uncaring brute who would willingly torture a six year old girl for fun, I doubt she'd have opened her mouth. Much like the do-gooders who called the cops on me for spanking my son - if they really thought I was beating him (they admitted to the cops that they saw me spank him on the behind with an open hand), calling the police would only escalate the situation. In other words, they're not really trying to help the children; rather, they're exerting power over someone else.

No wonder the Democrats are in power now.

That is all.