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Last Updated: May 15th, 2008 - 10:07:20 |
A Run-in With The Parent Police
By Lisa Barker
Apr 25, 2008, 22:40
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(An excerpt from Lisa Barker’s book Just Because Your Kids
Drive You Insane...Doesn’t Mean You Are A Bad Parent!)
There I was in the
middle of the bra aisle with the three-year old and two-year old in tow. I’d
played it smart. I had both children strapped into a shopping cart of their own.
I had them parked out of range of the merchandise.
I knew my size. I
deftly hunted for the appropriate color, whisked it into a cart and weaved my
way from women’s lingerie to skivvies for the kiddies.
It was looking as
if my underwear mission would soon be Mission Accomplished, but no.
Along
the way I noticed this strange trail of plastic cards. “Hmm. That looks just
like…my ATM card! My credit card! My driver’s license!”
Grinning like a
happy hamster, my two-year old demonstrated how the contents of my wallet had
been strewn along like a plan Hansel and Gretel had hatched to help Mommy find
her way back to the bra department by smoothly tossing the little important
slips of paper and money in my purse up in the air like confetti.
Of
course, I knew my priorities. I immediately abandoned my kids as I desperately
tried to collect all my most important personal and financial tokens. You’d
think I was a mad woman on a treasure hunt in the aisles of
unmentionables.
Satisfied that I had retrieved all my things before my
identity could be stolen, I returned to my children only to discover a ‘helpful’
fellow shopper standing there to inform me that my two-year old had stood up in
his seat.
It was as if she thought I’d just decided to park my kids in
the middle of nowhere and stroll off to browse and have a jolly good
time.
Parenting Police are convinced that you should have never had
children to begin with. They will shake their heads and cluck their tongues,
offer you unsolicited advice about birth control or state the
obvious.
“Your child is running through the aisles.”
“You mean
this isn’t Disneyland?”
“Is it naptime?”
“No, they always scream
like this.”
“You must have your hands full.”
“No, I just like to
drop bottles of milk on the floor to see how fast it takes the clerk to call
out, ‘Wet spill in aisle three!’”
“Your son has a potty mouth.”
“My husband and I think self-expression is $%#&*@ GOOD for them.”
“These children are all yours?”
“So that explains why they keep
following me home!”
Well, we made it to the checkout without anybody
calling Child Protective Services. At least for now, sarcasm isn’t viewed as
parental incompetence.
____________________________________________
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About
the Author(s) : Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker and syndicated
through Parent To Parent™ and is available for newspapers, websites, e-zines and
newsletters. Here's all the info you need to publish Jelly Mom™: http://www.jellymom.com/editors-pubinfo.php
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