As parents, many of us are used to receiving disapproving stares and judgmental comments from strangers when our kids are being kids – and just how shaming it can feel.
And yet, while it may not happen quite as often as we'd like, sometimes a stranger's words can be exactly what we need to hear in those moments when it's all too much.
That's exactly what happened to mother-of-three, Jamie Primark Sullivan, who found herself completely overwhelmed in the supermarket with her two young children.
Taking to Facebook to share her experience, Sullivan explained that it was the day after the election and she was operating on zero sleep. After taking two flights home from New York, Sullivan arrived just in time to collect her kids from school.
She writes, "We went home, changed clothes, unpacked back packs, started homework, made snacks, walked the dog, started laundry, made a grocery list, finished homework, filled water bottles and we were back in the car for basketball."
Dropping her daughter off at practice, Sullivan had 50 minutes to do a food shop.
"Max, Charlie and I walked in and immediately they saw flowers, then balloons, then free samples," she writes, sharing that she lost control, her system breaking down. "They were giddy, touching everything, and not at all using their inside voices... Meanwhile, I was lost."
Not having shopped at the centre before, Sullivan writes that she became more and more overwhelmed, unable to find anything on her list. As she navigated her way through the aisles, her children started to ask for balloons and ice blocks and telling her they were hungry.
"Hanging on by a thread" Sullivan writes, "Finally, after the 15th time asking them to quiet down, stand by me, stop touching everything all the while my Jersey accent getting thicker by the second - my face dropped. My chin slumped to my chest. I was physically and emotionally exhausted."
In that moment, Sullivan felt "two soft fingers" reaching out towards her. "Chin up dear," said an elderly woman, smiling as she lifted Sullivan's face.
Describing the kind stranger as "easily 80, dressed as nice as nice could be" Sullivan writes that she responded, "I'm so tired."
"We're all tired," the woman said as she watched Sullivan's "babies." "It's just a matter of what we're tired of. I'm tired of silence. My husband is gone, my children are grown and most days I don't hear well, so for me, this noise is nice. Enjoy it while you can."
The kind lady's words were exactly what Sullivan needed to hear, the mum thanked her and continued shopping.
"Last night I prayed for that woman, for her heart and for the remaining days of her life," Sullivan wrote. "I felt incredibly thankful that she felt a call towards the human connection and acted on it. Lord knows I needed it."
Like Sullivan, I still remember the time a thoughtful stranger's words arrived right when I needed them. My son was a few months old and, desperately trying to settle him, I'd put him in the pram and set out for a walk.
Nothing was working; he was overtired and just wanted to be held. And that's how I found myself standing in the street, 20 minutes from home, doing the mummy bounce – trying, trying, to get my little one to sleep.
On the verge of tears, my eyes heavy with exhaustion, a woman opened her front door, emerging with a toddler. As she made her way to her car, she took one look at me and smiled, "It's so so hard, isn't it," she said. And I nodded and bounced my baby and smiled back with relief because yes, it was hard. Wonderful and humbling and full of moments that made my heart sing – but oh so hard, too.
I'll never forget her words – the validation I so badly needed at a time when I felt like such a failure. And now, when I'm out and about and see mums who are struggling, when I can read the exhaustion on their faces, I try to pay it forward with words of kindness or reassurance, too.
For mother-of-two Gabrielle, the words "you're doing a great job," as she sat breastfeeding her baby in a café, were exactly what she needed to hear in those early weeks of new motherhood.
Kerri, a mother-of-three, told me that, impressed by a little boy's kind gesture towards them (he sweetly gave them a flower) she and her friend spent the next half an hour telling the mum what a "sensational" job she was doing.
As we head into festive season, when tempers are frayed and exhaustion hits, let's embrace kindness and pay it forward.
Because the right words at the right time can be so powerful when you're feeling depleted by motherhood. A reminder that we're all in this together – and that those moments that leave us feeling completely and utterly overwhelmed, are moments we'll probably miss one day.
Read Sullivan's post in full below:
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