A lazy toddler?! (what I said)
continued from here…
“I’m so sorry, but…”
The mom-maybe-nanny looked up at me, oddly…smiling?! She was legit smiling at me. Was it a challenge? Feels like a challenge. I (instinctively?) squared my stance while catching the red, tear-stained, exhausted face of the boy, who had his eyes locked on her, seemingly afraid to look away.
“I couldn’t help but overhear the way you’re speaking to him. And, I don’t know if you’re aware, but it sounds really awful.”
“Well, he has to learn. How else can he learn” she snapped at me, then she smiled again, and it was honestly unnerving, like the poster for that horror movie The Smile. I’m not kidding. Look it up.
I bit my tongue, stopping myself from sharply rattling off a million different ways he could learn other than being name-called and ridiculed, not to mention possibly slapped. But, I was definitely not bringing that up.
“OK…except you’re calling him ‘lazy’ over and over again. He’s not even 3 yet. He’s not lazy.”
“This isn’t your business.”
She’s not wrong. It wasn’t my business.
“You’re right, it’s not. But, I’m a mom, so hearing a 2-year-old wailing like that, and then being called cruel names on top of it all, in a public space, for dropping food — is hard for most people to stomach.”
She stared at me. So, I continued.
“Would you like it? Would you talk to me like that?!”
She rolled her eyes, but no answer.
The little boy rubbed his red nose and adjusted his glasses. I was oddly composed. I can normally feel my insides flipping around during confrontation, and my voice rattles. But not this time. She was enough of a storm for the both of us, and this boy, so I guess I was trying to bring the calm.
She shook her head, still a bit smug, but the smile was gone. She looked back down at her computer, as I waited to see if an answer was coming. It wasn’t.
“Just something to think about” I added, and turned to leave, but not before catching the eyes of the little boy. I smiled at him. He blinked and I had to walk away before I started making waves neither one of us could surf safely to shore.
As I walked further away, I kept my ears open for any last-second snide remarks she might’ve felt like throwing my way. I had already decided that if she did, I wouldn’t respond. But, all I heard was a sigh. Hopefully, it was a contemplative one.
I don’t know if I did the right thing. I don’t know if it made a difference. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why I felt I needed to speak up. I didn’t do it to make myself feel better, or to feel like a hero. I guess I just wanted her to know how hearing those words would affect other people, since she felt so comfortable speaking to a child that way in public. I guess I wanted her to know it’s not normal, not okay. Would she like it? Would she speak that way to someone her own size? Most bullies wouldn’t.
Maybe she got it, maybe she didn’t, I clearly don’t — and won’t — know. But, I do wish you could’ve heard it, seen it, seen his face. I wonder if you would have done the same thing in my shoes.
I walked out of the coffee shop shaken up. I choked back tears thinking of the little boy in the orange glasses, and as I reached my son’s school, and saw him bounding out of the school doors, grinning, I was thankful for the sunglasses hiding the pools that formed in my eyes.