I might have called this little girl a brat if I’d watched this scene 15 years ago. Maybe even 10 years ago. This little blonde girl appeared to be about 3 or 4. She was with her parents in Chick-fil-A — and she was having a loud and sudden meltdown.
I grew up believing children should always be controlled and composed. That belief followed me into my early adult life. I expected children to be little adults in child suits, always in control of their behavior, always perfectly obedient — like little robots.
The little girl in Chick-fil-A seemed sweet. I had talked with her a little bit in line while her parents and I both ordered. She seemed loving and kind. But she was tired from riding in a car all day. Her mom told me they had left Myrtle Beach, S.C., in the morning and they had been tied up for hours on I-20 west of Atlanta by a horrible traffic accident.
The sweet and loving little girl was just tired and cranky. Where I might once have criticized her — and her parents — I now felt empathy for all of them. And it made me think again about how much my attitudes have changed about how to raise children.
We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world
My bad teen poetry suggests I’ve always hungered for missing love
