One mom’s blog post is drawing tons of Internet buzz after she thanked a stranger for disciplining her son at the playground.
“My guess is when that mom told my son to knock it off, that might not have been an easy decision to make,” Karen Alpert of Chicago told ABC News. “Most moms are biting their tongue before they tell another kid to stop it.”
She added: “I would like other parents to have that courage and I feel like if another parent does that for me, then, ‘Thank you’ – you deserve the applause for having that courage.”
Alpert, who’s mom to Zoey, 7, and Holden, 4, said it was earlier this week when she brought Holden and his buddy to play on the playground.
While Holden was swinging on the monkey bars with another child, Albert noticed he hadn’t waited his turn. A nearby mom asked him to stop, Alpert said.
“He’s a nice, sweet kid, but he really wasn’t stopping to think about this other child,” she said. “I kind of saw it going on in the corner of my eye. You walk over, and you’re so angry at them for doing that instead of thanking the other parents for helping.”
So Tuesday, Alpert took to her blog babysideburns.com, to show her gratitude for the mom who helped out that day.
The post read, in part:
“Now before I continue, I just want to say that yes, I know I should have been there when this all went down, but unfortunately I was on the other side of the playground with my son’s friend who was crying. So no, I wasn’t there, but does that give you a right to discipline my kiddo? Does that give you the right to talk to him sternly and tell him to knock it off? Does that give you the right to act like you are the person in charge when he is actually MY child?"
"Ummmm, yes. YES IT DOES.”
She added: “I didn’t get the chance to say this today, but THANK YOU.”
The letter received 317,000 Facebook “likes” and a slew of comments in three days.
"Omg! I was almost scared for the same type of blog," one person commented. "I totally agree with this! The beginning sounded like it was gonna go the complete opposite way! LOVE THIS. It takes a village to raise a child."
Another argued: "If there is something my child is doing, by all means politely come up to me and inform me. Disciplining a child without first acknowledging the issue with the parent is largely overstepping the boundary."
Alpert said she was surprised of her post’s going viral.
“I guess it’s a hot-button issue," she said. "It seems to me that most parents agree with this and they realize how difficult parenting alone is and we need to rely on each other.
“[I’ve heard] friends complaining – that not everyone feels this way,” Alpert added. “ … But if your kid is doing something to bother my kid and there’s no parent around, I’m going to say something. Maybe one less child will get hurt physically or emotionally when another parent speaks up.”
Alpert hopes her blog encourages parents to support one another.
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