Dear Mom Throwing Shade at the Next Table Over:
I saw you roll your eyes and give a loud laugh to your husband that implied "Unbelievable!" I had just told my 7-year-old daughter that I did not, in fact, want to hear about the characters on her iPad game and that I just wanted to quietly check email on my phone. You know I saw you because you were directly in my line of sight. You clearly intended for me to see and hear you, so there was no reason to move your eyes away when I looked directly into them.
While you sat there basking in your self-righteousness, I was barely holding it together.
What you couldn't know from just eavesdropping on a mother and daughter at the next table over is that I homeschool. So, I probably have more conversations on a daily basis with my daughter than you could ever imagine having with the daughter who sat by your side.
But, that would be a weird presumption for me to make just from looking at your family, right?
You were also unaware that, in addition to homeschooling, I also run a business and a non-profit from home. And, this has been a week of client emergencies, which had me juggling homeschooling while putting out fires. I was also under a huge project deadline.
But, of course you didn't know that. We don't even know each other.
And, how could you even imagine that I'm basically a single parent during the week, so that leaves me with all the house work and the decisions and the driving to activities and taking care of the pets... in addition to homeschooling and running a business and a non-profit.
But no, you couldn't know that. We've never even met.
Nor could you know that this week included an unexpected visit from relatives, which had me cleaning the house from top to bottom, alone, at night, in addition to juggling the fires from clients and the big project. Then, the dryer broke, leaving me with mounds of wet clothes and dirty laundry that needed to be done before the guests arrived.
In your wildest dreams you probably couldn't guess that this week included me chasing an escaped dog around the neighborhood in the rain or that I spent 30 minutes in the parking lot one evening after theater class trying to get the one car we have left in the family to start while the 7 year old cried in the backseat.
No, that's crazy, how could you know those things, right?
A woman who makes a judgment about another mom just needing peace and quiet for a few minutes in her day instead of listening to her 7 year old must know what she's taking about, right? I mean, you were so confident in your judgment that you had to know something more than what it seemed on the surface, more than an opinion you could form about me and my situation in a split second and one comment.
Right?
A version of this post appeared on PrimeParentsClub.com. Follow on Twitter as @PrimeParentClub.