Target Tantrum

Dear rich and snobby mother at my local rich and snobby Target,

Your little 2-year-old daughter was very cute with her little hair bow and purse and dress. Super, super cute. It was sweet and precious when she clutched the toy you were buying her to her chest as you went through the check out line in front of me. It was amusing when she refused to part with it, even for a moment for the man to scan it.

Less cute, but I commiserated with you when she started to say "no" more vehemently and fuss a bit when you tried to get the toy from her--I mean, I have a kid, I get that kids sometimes fuss and there is nothing you can do about it.

Only clearly, you NEVER do anything about it.

Letting your child start screaming and yelling and crying HUGE real tears because you are trying to take a toy from her to check out (especially when there is a line of people behind you) for 2 whole minutes while simply cooing "We just won't buy it if you won't give it to me" and not even attempting to physically take it from her is not cute.

In fact, I'm going to go there....it's bad parenting.

Your little baby girl just schooled you good. You might have finally managed to twist the shopping cart so that the man could use the back up gun to scan the toy in your daughter's arms, but the fact that she continued to cry really hard and scream for 2 more minutes while glaring at you for DARING to attempt to even reposition her arms showed everyone in line who runs your house.

Now, I'm not a perfect mom by any stretch of the imagination, but here are a couple tips I would like to share

1. If your child won't give you something you need, take it from them. I promise, you are stronger than your baby.
2. If you have to say more than 5 times that you are not going to buy something, how about following through on that threat and not buying it.
3. If you hold up a line of people because your prissy-pants daughter is throwing her weight around and reminding you who is boss, have the decency to look those other people in the eye and at least fake some sort of apology. Personally, no, your Coach bag and Juicy sweats and Black Amex (yes, we all saw you pull it out and flourish it around) didn't make me think you deserved to be wasting my time.

Sincerely,
A mama who will strive just a little bit harder now not to end up like you.