John Y. Brown, III: Outrageous Toddlers

I am just hearing about this story, and like most of you, I am completely outraged at what I am seeing, too.

It appears three very young children (one not even a year old) took out an ad blaming their exercise -obsessed mother for each of them being poorly parented and maladjusted. Thanks to their gym-addicted mother.

In this blaring message they are saying to other mistreated children, “You think you have it tough? At least we have a good excuse for our pity party. Does this look like a real mom to you?”

Sure, it can be understandable that a mom with three young children would want to escape to the gym for as long and often as possible each day if the alternative is to chase three toddlers around the house feeding and cleaning up after them. But for the children to “out” their fitness binging mother in this manner in an attempt to publicly shame her into spending more time with them is just how another example of how upside-down our world has become— and how disrespectful of their parents all children (especially very young children) have become.

Sure, it’s easy to see the child on the left is struggling to focus and starved for some basic motherly attention and the child on the right is trying to get noticed and affirmed by anyone or anything who will pay attention to him. And the poor child in the middle of the picture is on the brink of emotional collapse fearing abandonment from a mother he suspects loves doing Pure Barre workouts more than playing Toddler Blocks with him.

But what about parental respect? No one is condoning what this poor physically undernourished and psychologically struggling mother is doing and the devastasting impact it must be having on her three children. But who among us really wants to cast the first stone? Much less have our own children casting those stones at us in such a public and hostile manner?

Children, at long last, have you no decency left? There is nothing aside from sheer public maternal humiliation that you can achieve with this provocative scream for help for your mother….and that will only push her farther down into the emotional black hole she is lost inside. Worse still, your antics may mean missing a critical opportunity –perhaps your only one— for a constructive and professional and, yes, very private intervention on your mom.

You may be stuck with her like this now for the rest of your lives. And if that happens, you have only yourselves to blame.