Crying babies

At some point or another if there is a baby the baby will cry.   When out in public there is nothing quite as mortifying to a parent or annoying to everyone else than a crying child.  And if it's not your baby, you can only speculate as to why the crying is happening.  Please don't do so out loud.  You are probably wrong and will be hated forever by the parent of the offending child. (You probably don't care, you hate them for having a child crying in public.)  But seriously if you see a parent dragging a crying child away from a store, it's probably because the child was misbehaving in the store.  The parent is not working on removing the child from public, so unless the kid says "Help, this isn't my mommy/daddy!" stay out of the way.  The noise will pass, and you being a jerk about it helps nothing.

But what if I think someone else's child is crying because of the way their parent is holding their arm?

Then you are wrong.  Believe it or not parents don't go out of their way to make their kids miserable in public.  Chances are a firm grip on the child's arm is in fact the parent attempting to save the child from throwing themselves bodily on to the floor for an impressive face plant.

No way! Why would a kid do something to hurt themselves?

You are asking me to peer into the mind of the overly dramatic children of the world.  But ok, here we go.  No not all kids are this dramatic (at least not intentionally so).   However  I must say there have been occasions when I told my son "No" for what ever reason and he threw him self head first at me, or at the couch or at a wall or even the floor.

Wait this is about parents setting limits?

Yes!  You don't want spoiled children running around in public, but you would love for parents to give their children whatever it is that will make them stop crying....  See how these things don't go together all that well?  I tell my son "No" you can't have the random thing on the shelf.  He cries because he is not getting his way.  Fine whatever.  He needs to learn crying will not get him what he wants.  Now a random passerby looks at me like I'm a terrible person.  I don't need this kind of aggravation! He's still crying so to better make my point I remove him from the store. He throws all of his weight into getting back to the forbidden items, which is still not enough to change the direction we are going.  Then I feel it through his arm, his muscles are tensing in the way they do just before he launches himself.  I lift him by the arm, (no way am I letting you do that here!)  Of course he's still crying and now I hear a random know it all say "she's hurting his arm." Like hell I am! I would tackle a wild animal if I thought that would keep my son from harm!

Of course once we get to the parking lot he can't remember what he was crying for.  I tell him he's all right and he believes me. The crying stops.  And there is no way, we are going back in there today.

So what is the take away from all this?  If you see a crying child, chances are you are also seeing a good parent.  Being a parent is hard enough without random people on the street trying to tell you how to do your job.