It was just another casual day when the mom wanted to spend some quality time with her fellow mothers. It always feels good. While they were seated in the break room, sipping coffee, the mom enjoyed the lovely stories all of them had to share and kept laughing, as all moms do, to make everyone in the room feel heard and loved.
From bedtime battles, soccer gamers, and picky eaters, they talked about anything and everything—mostly about their kids! This is how a perfect mother-child duo looks; the love is always selfless. The mother felt nothing else than happiness when she heard and felt connected with other children through the stories the mothers kept telling. Not only this, but her heart filled with joy because of the bond they shared.
Everything was fun and games until she heard a story that made her fearful.
One mom in the room said something that shocked her: “My son makes fun of the autistic boy in his class. It is hilarious”, she said. The smile on the mother’s face disappeared immediately. She wanted to believe that she had misheard things, and for the first time, she let it go, but when the mom continued telling how her son acts like an innocent autistic child and felt pride in describing all this, the mother’s heart kept sinking with each word she uttered.
Everything the mother was taking pride in, from her son making fun of an autistic boy to acting up all his actions, e.g., repeating things, covering years, broke her heart.
Her son does what the other mother was saying!
While she thought of her son’s innocence, how he flaps his hands in excitement and twitch in excitement, she said a silent prayer: “May the world be kind to him.”
At the moment, she was trying to hold back her tears and gather the courage to join in the conversation further, but she was frozen and zoned out because of what had just happened.
How was it so easy for a mother to make such things acceptable? Is this how most mothers shape their children? By encouraging them to make fun of those who lack abilities?
What shocked her further was that she continued without thinking about how the other mothers in the rooms whose children might too experience all this felt. She enjoyed the conversation to the fullest, giggling and acting like a child with all those hand movements.
No one in the room passed a single smile, making her realize she had messed up and said too much. We can do nothing but hope that the world doesn’t teach children cruelty, as it leads to nothing but destruction.
A fellow mother leaned over and asked her if she was okay. She agreed, but she had never been this hurt before. Spending years teaching her son about what bullying looks like, she missed an essential part of how it can start at home!
She learned how bullying isn’t limited to a particular place or people but can hide behind smiles and laughter!
