My toddler son ran into the street this week in front of a minivan. The driver didn’t see him or stop until I darted onto the scene, and then she slammed on her brakes. As you can imagine, it was absolutely terrifying.
As I sat on the grass, my heart still pounding, wondering how in the world I am ever going to get him to stop running away in public spaces and understand the dangers of stepping off the curb, I remembered vividly all the times I had seen other mothers with leashes on their children. You know what I’m talking about — the leash disguised as a cute backpack that some moms used to keep their children close.
I’ll be honest: I judged. I thought these moms were taking the easy way out. I thought they were unable to properly train or discipline their children, so they were just tying them down. It’s not that I thought these other mothers with their leashes were bad parents. Not at all. I simply thought I was better.
But as I went home later that night and thought about my toddler’s near tragedy, I realized I had judged those moms without taking into account what their specific child might need. When I started out in motherhood, I had two daughters who obeyed with pretty much perfect obedience. I did not need a leash.
How did I become this mom? I’m the good mom. I’m the mom whose kids sit quietly at siblings’ soccer games. How did I become the mom who looks like a crazy person running after her son at restaurants, onto soccer fields and into streets yelling “No! Stop!”?
That’s when I realized I’d been looking at my motherhood all wrong. I was never this mom or that mom, but merely a mom to this child or that child. And as every mother knows, every child is different with different needs and personalities.
And this time around, I have a runner. A runner, I might add, who might as well be giving me the middle finger as he laughs and does the exact opposite of what I ask.
So like many things in parenthood, I have to go back to square one. What will work for this child? Of course, many of the fundamentals of how my husband and I discipline and approach parenting will remain the same. But we can’t rely on all the same tactics that worked for our two, people-pleasing daughters.
My son is not a bad kid because he runs. I am not a bad mother because he runs. The only undeniable fact here is that we need to figure out a solution that works to keep him safe, and me sane. Now I may not be running out to buy some sort of leash/backpack apparatus, but I’m not above it this time around, either.
Because if there’s one thing that motherhood is always good at, it’s keeping me humble.
So next time I see a mom and my I’m-better-than-that reflex kicks in, I’ll kick it back. And I’ll thank motherhood (and my son) for teaching me, yet again, that the only thing constant about being a mom is that as soon as you think you’ve mastered a small piece of it, everything changes.