Parents and their children are allowed to exist in public spaces.

Yesterday, I almost said, “take a picture, it’ll last longer,” to a bunch of people in the doctor's waiting room.

Okay, so we both had know I’d never actually say that, I’m awful at conflict, but my goodness it would have been satisfying.

We were having a real time and a half, let me tell you. The baby was getting her immunizations and our toddler was also along for the ride and I’m just going to make the blanket statement that having two small children in a very quiet, confined space which is designated for their least favorite thing - waiting - was about as fun as getting a tooth pulled. Or maybe three teeth pulled. One was crying because she was tired and we’d just gotten out of the car and she hates the car, so it was all too much really. The other was crying because she wanted to run onto the road and I stopped her.

I’ll let you decipher who was who.

Anyway, to cut a long, painful story very short, there was a lot of crying on both their parts, both in the waiting room and outside the front door. We ended up outside to escape all of the staring and so that I could try calm them both down without what I felt was a torrential rain of silent judgement. There might not have been all that judgement; perhaps everyone was just thinking about what they should make for dinner or if Sally really is running for the parish council or whether it's going to rain tomorrow.

And we also left because I felt bad for disturbing everybody. Actually, this played a big part too.

This is quite a common battle I have with myself in motherhood. To not let my mothering or my family ~ disturb ~ anyone or be inconvenient or be too in the way of anything. It becomes a battle because I don’t want to raise my children thinking that their very normal, wide range of emotions and behaviors, is something wrong or to be ashamed of. To be stopped and hidden away; the age old seen-but-not-heard ideal. I don’t want to raise them to feel that they cannot express how they feel and that it is wrong to do so. 

And to be perfectly fair, I think it's very healthy to be able to express a full spectrum of emotions. Overcoming emotional suppression and carrying around a large, Persian rug with you to sweep everything under is a huge problem that many adults face. And some never overcome it. Because it's always better to be conveniently agreeable rather than to feel anything outwardly, isn't it?

One of my biggest, recurring challenges that I find myself facing time and time again (hmm, I wonder what that means Kaitlyn?), is to not care what other people think or what I perceive they think about me. Basically, to allow myself to take up space.

And sometimes this space that myself and my family takes up isn’t quiet. Or pretty or orderly or easy.

Part of me always just wants to apologize endlessly in these situations. I'm sorry for the noise. Sorry for taking up space. Sorry for us existing, essentially.

So this is a conflict that I’m always working on. Allowing myself and all the messiness that entails to simply exist outside of our four walls. Fears, tantrums, crying babies and all. To allow us to take up space, unapologetically. Because when I think about it, I can guarantee that I'm the one having the harder time, dealing with the stress and anxiety of two crying babies in a silent room full of people, than the people watching on, simply inconvenienced by the lack of peaceful silence.

I mean, it’s not like we were in their personal spa pool or in a Very Important Board Meeting or hovering at the foot of the bed while they were trying to sleep.

But as I said before, maybe they aren't judging me or thinking I'm doing a bad job or anything. I mean, no one actually said anything. Yet this intolerance of parents and their children merely being in public spaces definitely exists and is all too rife. You see the disproving looks in the supermarket, you hear the mutters under their breath in cafes, and you feel for the mum whose toddler is throwing a whopper of a tantrum in the middle of Farmers. You don't feel sorry for her because of the tantrum itself, but because it's under the eye of everyone else and all parents know how unaccepting others can be.

Parents and their children are allowed to exist where others can see and hear them. And they won’t always act how you want them too. They will be loud and polite and quiet and shy and grumpy and energetic and they will ask big questions and make funny noises and maybe get in the way and they’ll also be lovely and hold hands and run away and take a while to do things. How else do they learn about being in the outside world without, you know, actually being there and practicing?

And this is all okay. Because we are so very human after all.

I’m trying to let myself believe that the messiness of parenting has a place too.