Whenever a parent fails to lynch their child in public or caves to their demands there is always that person who says something along the lines of, "You act like you're afraid of that child. You're the parent." That irks me because some of these people fail to realize that...well this is better explained with an analogy.
Kids are like guns. I'm not afraid of a gun, rather I fear the bullet that comes out of it. I'm not afraid of my daughter, I'm afraid of what comes out of her. There's an invisible force called stress that erupts from her on a daily basis disrupting the natural order of things. I was alive 28 years before she was born. That's a long time to get used to things and set in one's ways. I had this false notion that I'd always have some impact on the daily flow of events as they pertained to my life. Then came the baby.
Suddenly simple tasks like going to the mall became advanced level routines that required military grade preparation.Do I have enough food for the trip, did I pack a bottle, is there a snack in the stroller, do I have her toys, is there an extra set of clothes, can the stroller fit through that aisle, what's the backup plan in case the elevator takes too long, do we chance it on the escalator, is it almost her nap time, don't let her fall asleep in the car because she'll be up all night, how am I gonna carry all the stuff in the house along with her and so on.
My brain is like a computer and right now I have too many programs open at once. Over time you get used to thinking like this and things become second nature, but you first have to survive initiation. You're stressed out over all of this stuff and the child is still in a good mood. Imagine what happens when the child has a Jack-Jack moment and turns into a hell spawn in the middle of a crowded store.
You go through the motions of trying to remember your training. The authors of all of those parenting books are secretly off somewhere laughing their asses off as you try to remain calm and "subvert your child's tantrum." The kid wants the Elmo doll that costs too much and you try to hand em an Elmo Graham Cracker outta your bag. They don't tell you that subversion only pisses the kid off more. The five-point harnesses installed in most strollers was not designed with the child's safety in mind. It's to stop the kid from climbing out the stroller, breaking that graham cracker into a shiv and repeatedly stabbing your lifeless body with it.
Then to make things worse, the kid will ask for stuff that it doesn't want. For some reason their brains operate like time-lock safes. If you miss that window to give them a nap, they lose grasp on all cognitive functions of logic. They ask for a toy then cry when you hand it to them. The kid asks for water. I pull an ice cold bottle of water out of the little travel freeze bag. She takes a sip and throws it on the ground screaming in protest. I don't know if she's doing her Mister impression from The Color Purple (Ain't cold enough) or what, but she just doesn't know how close she is to being safe dropped at the police station.
Over time you not only get used to it, but you start to recognize the signs. There will be moments when you can avoid it. You see the nap time counter winding down and you get em to sleep just in the nick of time. Maybe you just say the hell with it and leave the mall early. Other times you have no choice. You're in a restaurant, you already ordered and the food just came out. The kid's eyes roll up in her head and you realize that Regan is gone. You're now "speaking to the person inside of Regan." The kid wants to play with your $700 iPhone so to have just one meal in peace you give it to em and pray they don't levitate away still strapped to the highchair. Someone somewhere will look at you and judge you. "They're scared of that child." No I'm not, I'm scared of what will happen if all these programs inside my head crash at one time under the weight of the stress.
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