The Day I, Unknowingly, Became a Teenage Mother of Two.

A woman made a judgment call about me today, based on my appearance.  Because my son is so adorable {says every Mother alive}, he eventually sparked a conversation amongst the lady and myself.  What happened next gave me something to think about the entire 20 minute ride home.

The woman behind me appeared to be in her 50’s, was well dressed and had an approachable air about her.  We made eye contact once I noticed her looking at my son and doing the “Momma head tilt”, while saying “Awwwww, he is adorable” (I told you).  She asked me how old he is and I told her 18 mths.  She then accidently pushed him a little while reaching for something and apologized profusely.  I laughed and told her “No, big deal.  He has an older sister at home that beats on him way more than that!”.

Suddenly, her eyes widened and she looked at me as if to say, “What the hell did you just say?”.  What she actually said, was “You have an older child at home?  You barely look old enough to have him!  I thought you were in high school!”

I laughed it off and told her my birthday was coming up and actually I’ll be turning 33.  She did the whole, “No way! thing and then said, “Well you look great!”.  I thank her and we exchanged a few classic lines like, “Have a nice day” and “Enjoy your weekend” and that was that.

I didn’t really feel the affect of that encounter right away.  It wasn’t until after I loaded up the babe and groceries, threw in Adele’s first album (Yes, it was a CD and Yes, I still listen to them)  and started driving home that the conversation replayed in my head.

I suddenly wondered, what was that woman’s impression of me before I told her I was about to turn 33?  She told me she thought I was in high school.  Could she have been looking at me and saying to herself, “Well no wonder she has a cart full of groceries at the ghetto grocery store, she’s probably on food stamps!”?

That’s a bit much I suppose.  She didn’t have that demeanor about her and I didn’t take her for a Republican.  After all, she was in the same ghetto grocery store, even if it was only to buy milk. And yes, I totally understand I just passed judgment on Republicans, no need to call me out on it.

Maybe, she felt sorry for me.  Maybe she wondered how such a “young” girl could let herself get pregnant with all the education out there these days.  I wonder if in that moment, she questioned my own Mother’s parenting ability.

Can you imagine what sped through her head after I said my 18 month old had a four year old sister?  It makes me laugh just thinking about her brain calculating my hypothesized age four years prior.  Her reaction truly was worth 1,000 humorous words.

Perhaps, she felt a sad sense of generational failures for me.  Maybe, she couldn’t quite wrap her head around history repeating itself for so many lifetimes.  Either way, She seemed to be a woman that wanted to hug me rather than hate me.

I have to say though, the amount of relief that was evident all over her face when she learned I was not, in fact, another teenage Mom was evident.

Regardless, this isn’t a piece about teenage pregnancy.  It’s really about how we all make judgments about other people.  We all react emotionally to how we see other people.  Our judgments and observations aren’t always cruel, they’re not always nice and no two are alike.

My mind started to pin point my own turns at passing judgment.  Being that I just left the grocery store, I thought about how I always look in other people’s carts at what they are choosing to buy.  I realized that part of me does this because I’m one meal short of begging people to tell me what to make for dinner.  The other part does it because I am judging how people live and have lived by what they choose to buy.

I will admit I notice if someone has fresh fruits and vegetables or whether they have junk food for snacking on.  I notice if someone chooses to buy a 5lb bag of potatoes or two boxes of instant mashed potatoes.  I also notice if someone has stocked up on frozen chicken nuggets, hotdogs and other processed meat verses a beef roast or chicken cutlets.

What I am actually thinking about people when I see one item versus another started to occur to me .  My own questions/judgments/observations are, “Do they buy fake mashed potatoes because they don’t know how to make real ones or is it because they don’t have the time to prepare from scratch?”.  When I see three boxes of processed fried chicken in someone’s cart, I ask myself, “Don’t they know how bad that is for them?”.  “Isn’t it more cost effective to buy a big package of chicken and then break it down for several meals?”.

As I am processing all this, I realize that even though my own judgments are usually never hateful in nature (unless I’m just in a snarky mood and probably with my beautiful sister) they are based only skin deep, just like everyone else’s immediate opinions.  My natural curiosity about other people’s lives is coated in my own experiences and that causes prejudice for better or worse.

I was a child whose mouth was fed by food stamps.  I’ve been an adult who doesn’t even consider how much money she is spending on food on any one given trip to the grocery store.

Today, I was a woman who lost track of her budget because her beautiful baby boy kept stealing my attention with his love of singing and smiling at strangers.  Today, I am a stay at home Mom who had to pull things out of her cart because she went over her limit and her debit card declined.  Twice.

Today, I was embarrassed as hell even though there were no apparent eye rolling, sighs of aggravation behind me.  I was so embarrassed that I completely avoided making eye contact with anyone in line behind me.  I can’t tell you how many times I apologized for inconveniencing everyone during the process of eliminating my overages.  It bothers me how ashamed I was actually.

Now, I’m considering what my lasting impression was on those shoppers.  In all honesty, and perhaps in their defense, they have no way of knowing I am a (almost) 33 year old woman who chooses to sacrifice financial security so that I can raise my children while they’re young.

By the time I got home, made lunches, put the kids down for their naps, warmed up my Dunkin’ coffee and sat down to write this all out, I realized, how many challenging levels there are to not judging a book by its cover.  I’m not sure that is possible at all.  What I have been reminded of by this experience is that there is always a story lying underneath the cover of any given book.  That should never be disregarded or forgotten.

“Do you love being home?”…Why I struggle with this question.

From time to time, I venture out on my own.  It’s usually to fetch more food for the fam at the dreaded grocery store or something of that sort.  Some call this the Mom-cation.  Sad isn’t … that swaying to Dido, sipping on a Dunkin’ coffee and gazing down the aisle of the overly packaged, processed food can be equated to “taking time for herself”.

While I’m out “on vacation”, I sometimes run in to people I knew in my past life.  The life that involved my brain synapses firing in directions other than figuring out how to burn off four year old energy or reminding myself, for the forth time, to take the chicken out of the freezer for dinner.  I genuinely like running in to people I know, as long as it isn’t on the third day I have put off showering.  The opportunity for adult conversation doesn’t come up much so when it does, even for a small talk quickie, I enjoy it.

I revel in the common, “How are the kids?”.  I’m usually prepared for the, “Are you finding time for yourself?”.  However, I dread hearing, “Do you love being home?”  The first two can be answered simply and in truth with minimal guilt and judgement.  However, “Do you love being home?” makes me want to run and find that family size bag of Doritos on sale that I am way too excited about.

Answering this question is tough.  I don’t want to come across as an awful human being by admitting that some days being home with small children makes me envious of Thelma and Louise’s last road trip. I certainly do not want to sound ungrateful when the awkward pitch of my nervous laugh scares the elderly lady behind me. I stumble at best with my response to this one every time.

I find it difficult to articulate the fine line that weaves between raising your children and enjoying them. To me that line can be straight, jagged, strong and broken all within a ten minute time span and how do you communicate that without giving a bad impression.  I was so tired of answering random questions from my four yr old today I found myself whispering “Please God make her stop” before I even figured out what was for lunch.  I pulled so many things out of my 14mth old’s mouth and hands today that at a certain point I convinced myself that as long as it was the colored pencils, and not the crayons he was in to, he was fine.

I’ve come to realize that there is no such thing as good days and bad days.  There are good moments and bad moments and each exist in EVERYDAY.  I do love being home with the little tyrants.  I would hate to miss that moment when little man walks up to his sister and just lays his head on her shoulder.  Or when my girl busts a move with me in the kitchen and tells me, “Mom, you’re an amazing dancer”. But those moments, the ones that fill your soul and the ones that frazzle your last nerve, are hard to portray in the realms of small talk.

Is there one question you get about being a SAHM or about your kids in general, that irritates you? Am I the only one that feels like driving to the grocery store alone and the two hours away from my family is a mini vaca?