On Kids and Assumptions

There are so many assumptions people make about kids. Last Halloween, a Kansas City mom had to defend her son's choice to dress up as Daphne from Scooby-Doo, as people thought the kid must be gay. Her response was, "My son is gay. Or he's not. I don't care. He is still my son. And he is 5. And I am his mother. And if you have a problem with anything mentioned above, I don't want to know you...He is 5 years old. He has no conscious sexual orientation." To be honest, I do not know how I would respond if Josh wants to dress up as Daphne, but I would still love him as my son.

This week, Josh had an awful eczema flare where he scratched his face so much during sleep that he woke up with blood streaks on his face. It completely broke my heart when I found him in his crib covered in blood stains. (He actually didn't think too much of it, as he was still his happy self when he saw that I came in to get him.) I cleaned him up as much as I could, but did not want to scrub hard to remove everything. I put some ointment on him, and we proceed with our day. When we were out and about, a woman at the farmer's market saw Josh and remarked that he had "red food stains" all over his face that were not cleaned up. The response that I was thinking was "My son is a messy eater. Or he's not. I don't care. He is still my son. And he is 10 months old. Am I am his mother. And if you have a problem with anything mentioned above, I don't want to know you...He is 10 months old. He has no conscious eating etiquette."

Instead, my response to that woman was, "That's not food, that's blood!!!" I pushed his stroller away, leaving a dropped jaw from her face.