Column: Grocery store tantrums

Hey everyone. My last column was a hodge-podge of different topics. The last half was on cutting parents of crying toddlers some slack when they're in public. (It follows, below....)

ANYWAY, you would not BELIEVE what some horrible, self-righteous people wrote to me following this column. So I wrote a follow-up, "rebuttal" column that will go in this Wednesday's edition of the P-B. I'm flowing that in below, too, so you can get the whole story! :), Jen

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At the grocery store last weekend, I ran across a fellow mom flanked by three kiddos — ranging in age from about 18 months to 4 years. Not an easy task, but she was holding up remarkably well.

She was probably halfway through the store — her cart stuffed with Cheerios, diapers and lunchmeat — when it happened.

Her pigtail-wearing toddler — eyes the color of chocolate pudding — launched into a flailing, kicking, screaming, snot-running-down-the-face, I’m-getting-out-of-this-cart-now tantrum.

But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is how her fellow shoppers reacted. Did they sympathize witih this poor woman? Did they lend a hand? Oh no. Instead, there was sighing. There was head shaking. There was, if you can believe it, eye-rolling. I was aghast.

People. Toddlers are not logical beings. No matter how loving or kind or well-versed on proper child-rearing techniques their parents are, toddlers are going to throw tantrums. And sometimes those tantrums are going to be in the grocery store.

So the next time you are shopping next to a parent with a crying and/or screaming and/or projectile-throwing child, here’s what you do not do: You do not shoot dirty looks at the parent. You do not “tsk, tsk” the parent. You do not say, loud enough for the people in produce to hear, “I don’t know why some people take their kids out in public….”

Because here’s the deal. The parent already feels like crap without your annoyed looks and rude remarks. And not only does she feel like crap, but she needs to finish this trip in order to buy milk for the two-year-old who’s throwing Spaghettios at her face.

It’s not her best moment.

Help her, people! Look at her sympathetically. Smile and tell her you’ve been there (even if you haven’t). Tell her she’s doing a good job.

And then scoot over to the next aisle where you can avoid flying cans. You’d be surprised at the distance those little arms can get.

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[HERE'S THE FOLLOW-UP FOR THIS WEEK...]

Sheesh.

Who knew a two-year-old’s tears could be so divisive?

In the last week, I’ve had parents write e-mails, send letters — and deliver one well-placed kiss on my forehead — in praise of my column defending the occasional childhood grocery store tantrum and imploring shoppers to cut war-weary parents a little slack.

“Yes!!” was one woman’s simple message. Another wrote, “Thank you for telling off all the people who’ve shot me dirty looks in the grocery store!”

One mom wrote about “an exhausting trip” she recently took to Wal-Mart with her two-year old. “He threw a major tantrum just as we were approaching the long check-out lanes. He wanted the strawberries in our cart. Was I going to give them to him to shut up? No, because I wanted to teach him that we have to pay for it first, and that you don't get rewarded for bad behavior. We received several condescending looks, but did anyone offer to give up their place in line? No.”

Then there was the other side.

I received several messages (but no kisses) from my column’s detractors. People, like one mother, grandmother and daycare provider, who said she would “never subject anyone, anywhere to a child that is misbehaving. I would leave the store in a minute. Common courtesy.”

One man wrote that I was “way, way off base.”

“First,” he wrote, “do not take three kids grocery shopping. It is difficult enough to shop alone. It can be difficult to maneuver around a mom and three kids. Leave the kids at home with dad.

“Second, Barlow's Hy-Vee has a place where the kids can play, with supervision, while the parent shops. Take advantage of this free service.

“Third, a little better parenting might be in order to control the tantrum child. This starts at home. Toddlers know what they are doing. If the toddler throws a fit he/she knows the parent will react and will hopefully give the toddler what he/she wants.

“While a grocery store is not a church, it also is not Romper Room or run around time. Leave the kids at home and complete the task of grocery shopping.”

I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree.

Sometimes parents don’t have a choice but to take the kids shopping — whether or not they want to. Sometimes parents don’t have a spouse — or they have a spouse who works long hours (to make money to pay for the groceries, no doubt) and isn’t home to watch the kids. Sometimes kids are under two years old and don’t qualify for Barlow’s childcare service. Sometimes toddlers — no matter how wonderfully they are parented — are going to cry in public.

But that’s all really beside the point.

I do believe the true focus of my column — and, yes, I did just re-read it to be sure — was that of tolerance. Of being kind to people when they could use a little kindness. Of substituting eye rolls with sympathetic smiles.

We’ve all had moments we’re not proud of. Moments we wish we could erase. Wouldn’t it have been nice, in that moment, to have someone lean over and whisper, “It’s OK. I understand. Your day will get better.”

That’s all I’m saying.

Jen's a MySpacer!

Hey friends,

Jen here. Well, I did it -- I'm on MySpace at www.myspace.com/jenniferkoski.

Yes, yes, I know MySpace is the go-to spot for all teens and college students... but Barack Obama is there, so I figured I could belong, too! (I tell ya, I will do anything for that man....)

I have to say, that after surfing around a bit, I've come across some really interesting people.. and places on MySpace. (Interesting factoid: Thief River Falls has its own MySpace page. It's funny -- its "friends" include other cities, like East Grand Forks.)

My friend Nenna put me at ease when she became my first MySpace friend. "Welcome to MySpace," she wrote. "Where we're almost creepily too old to be here, but too young not to be." Right on.

Check it out. Talk to you soon. :), Jen

Latest column: Chocolate!

April is Chocolate Eaters Month and National Smile Month. Coincidence? I think not.

Chocolate equals smiles. The math seems right to me.

It doesn’t hurt, I suppose, that April plays host to Easter. I love the chocolate holidays — Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Easter — that feed my habit under the guise of complying with tradition. Easter’s especially sweet. There’s always leftovers.

(Unless you live at my sister’s house. She was jerked out of bed at 6 a.m. Sunday morning, horror-stricken at the realization that the Easter Bunny had forgotten to visit her house. Her kids got juice boxes, Nutragrain bars, and 99-cent gas station cheese and crackers in their Easter baskets.)

Unfortunately, I’ve abused the “chocolate equals smiles” connection to the point that my doctor told me last month that I need to cut down on the sweets. Because, well, they’re replacing things like fruits and vegetables in my diet.
And even I can step back and see where that might be a problem.

Each year during the chocolate holidays — after gorging myself on the candy I sneak from my kids’ stashes — I vow to change my ways. Each year, I tell my husband to take all the leftover candy from the house. Get it away from me. Out.

And then, the next day, I call him at work in a panic. “Did you take ALL the candy? You didn’t leave any?”

“You told me to.”

“I didn’t mean it,” I say incredulously. “Don’t you know me at all?”

He likes to tell people about the time I called his office at 8:45 a.m., demanding, “Where did you put the KitKats? I can’t find the KitKats. DID YOU TAKE THE KITKATS?”

Because I know it’s a sickness, I’ve tried not to infect the children. They have no idea how much cocoa-based confections are hidden in and around our house. In my jewelry box. Under the Santa mug in the back of the cupboard. Inside a nondescript paper bag at the top of the pantry.

Still, they’re little detectives. I get away with nothing.

“What’s in your mouth, Mommy?” they’ll demand as soon as I pop a chocolate egg into my mouth. It doesn’t matter how stealthy I think I am — crouched behind the pantry doors, pretending to search for the crackers for their tomato soup. They know.

But I don’t give up easy.

“It’s a carrot,” I lie. “Want one?”

My seven-year-old stares me down, suspicion in his eyes.

“Really?” he says. “What was that crinkly noise?”

Before I can answer, my four-year-old — with a nose as sensitive as a bloodhound’s — yells, “I smell chocolate! Are you eating chocolate?”

In defense, I must point out that researchers are discovering that certain chocolates — primarily those of the dark variety — actually have some health benefits. Heck, someday chocolate might be considered a health food.

And then I’ll be ahead of the game, having eaten so healthily all these years.

Until then, I guess it’s time to follow that “Everything in Moderation” mantra I like to quote so much. Cut back on the cocoa and actually start eating more of those carrots I’m always claiming to be chewing on.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

I'm on a roll...!

Hi friends,

It's our second update in less than a month. We're really rolling now!

Jen here. It's a Monday night at nearly 11 p.m., and I'm up writing about the benefits of bicycling. But, as you can see, I'm stalling. Jay's watching a show about aliens in the bedroom, where I was writing, until his saying, "Weather balloons!" every few minutes drove me away.

My next column doesn't come out until Wednesday, but I'll post it for you here tonight. Just, shhhh....., don't tell anyone at the P-B. We'll keep it our little secret.

The part about Angie's Easter Bunny moment is absolutely true and it cracks me up.

Jay's boat hunting, so please, please, please let us know if you know of any 16- to 18-foot Lunds with a deep V and swivel seats for under $3,000.

We will ALL be happier when Jay gets his boat. (The male variation of "If Momma ain't happy....")

OK, I'm going to post this week's column. Remember. Shhh... Jen