There I was, slowly making my way through my shopping list, choosing between Honeycrisp and Granny Smith apples, when I heard the kind of piercing cry that makes an entire grocery store turn around in unison.
And there she was.
Staring back at all of us. Mortified, embarrassed, angry and, perhaps, a little defeated, as her beautiful two-year-old daughter aimed for a record-breaking meltdown. She threw herself onto the floor, screaming, kicking and crying with the kind of commitment only a toddler can muster.
She was having a moment.
One of those moments. But I realized the little girl wasn’t the only one having a moment. Her mom was too.
I watched her try to reason with her daughter, soothe her, pick her up. Nothing worked. With every scream, every kick, every failed attempt to calm her down, you could see the embarrassment growing on her face. Until she couldn’t take it anymore. She picked up her daughter and walked out leaving the abandoned cart with what seemed to be a month’s worth of groceries.
I stood there hoping I could have approached her and told her no one was judging her. But I did what I suspect most of us do in these moments. Nothing.
Why is it that when someone is visibly struggling, we are sometimes more comfortable looking away than reaching out?
Maybe because we don’t know what to say, don’t want to intrude or because we’re afraid our kindness will be mistaken for pity. Perhaps we’ve all become accustomed to parenting being something that happens under a microscope so we’re afraid to help. Because when a child screams in a grocery store it feels like everyone has an opinion. Pick her up. Don’t pick her up. Ignore her. Comfort her. Set a boundary. Leave the store. Don’t leave the store. You’re being too permissive. You’re being too harsh.
Meanwhile, there’s a mom standing in the middle of all of it trying to make a decision while her two-year-old is losing her mind next to the apples.
I don’t know what that mom was thinking when she walked out. But I know what I saw on her face. And that’s the part I keep coming back to. Because her two-year-old didn’t know people were staring or that there’s an acceptable volume for the produce section. She certainly wasn’t thinking about what anyone in that grocery store could think of her mother. But her mother was.
I never saw that mom again.
I don’t know if she came back for her groceries, if her daughter calmed down the second they reached the parking lot or if she sat in her car and cried, laughed, screamed, or called someone.
But I know this. If you’re the mom whose child is screaming in aisle five while everyone turns around to look, you’re not failing. And, if you’re the person standing by the apples watching it happen, maybe don’t be so afraid of making things awkward that you miss the opportunity to be kind.
I was.
And that’s probably why I’m still thinking about the mom who left her groceries behind.
I hope she knows there was at least one person in that store who wasn’t thinking, “What kind of mother can’t control her child?”
Because I was thinking, “Should I help her?
Next time, I hope I do.
