One Parent’s Behaviour At My Child’s Gymnastics Class Sent Me Into A Rage. Then I Realised Something I Didn’t See Coming.

I remember visiting my sister-in-law after she’d just had a baby. Her son was chill. She told me how much easier motherhood had been than she expected — he slept well, he ate well, and he was what you’d call a “good” baby. At the time, I was heavily pregnant myself, and I distinctly thought, My baby will not be chill. Because, well, I’m not chill.Whether it was a premonition, a self-fulfilling prophecy, or just my intuition, my baby was indeed many things: curious, adorable, with my husband’s thick dark hair and sweet brown eyes. She was everything I had hoped for — but, unsurprisingly, not chill. Instead, she was extremely colicky and didn’t stop crying for the first three months. I remember bouncing on a yoga ball, and if I stopped for even a second, the howls would start again. I convinced myself that my breast milk was the problem, so I cut out everything except quinoa and sweet potatoes. That helped me lose the baby weight but did nothing for my mental health.Then came solids, which brought a whole new nightmare. It turned out she had severe food allergies. I had already confirmed a few allergies, so I always kept an EpiPen in her diaper bag. But, of course, the one day I left the diaper bag in the car was the day my husband decided to drive to the office. And, naturally, it was also the day I discovered a completely new allergy. My baby’s face started to swell after I gave her something I thought was safe. I panicked and called an ambulance, but due to COVID, they were slow to respond. Thankfully, my husband made it home before things got worse. We used the EpiPen, and she was fine. I, however, was not. It was one of those “small T traumas,” stacked right on top of my 36-hour labour, the forceps delivery, and — oh right — the bit of placenta they missed, which chose to fall out randomly days later and had me convinced I was dying ... but anyway!With the constant threat of anaphylaxis and my own anxiety, it’s safe to say I’m not a chill mom. It didn’t help that my second child also came with life-threatening allergies. Because of course he did. So, do I carry multiple EpiPens at all times? Yes. Do I worry every time my kids leave the house that something terrible will happen? Yes. But, I’ve learned to chill the f**k out. At least on the outside. In fact, nobody would know that I’m that parent. I let my kids climb the bars at the park without hovering. I make myself not hover — purposely. I let my kids go to birthday parties, even if there are foods around that could send them to the hospital. I’m careful but not crazy.If you asked my mom friends, they’d likely say I’m not a helicopter parent. And that’s intentional. I made the decision to not over-control for two reasons: so my kids don’t grow up with anxiety thinking the worst will happen at any moment, and so I don’t drive myself crazy. It’s been a journey. Could I do better at chilling the f**k out? Sure. But overall, I think I’m doing OK.That is, until I lost my s**t — not because of my own anxiety, but because of someone else’s.It happened during my eldest’s gymnastics class. It’s a drop-off one, meaning parents get a blessed 45 minutes to leisurely stroll to the nearest coffee shop, doomscroll, or just stare at a wall. That was my routine until one day, my peaceful scroll was interrupted by a parent running full speed across the gym toward what I assumed was their child, for no apparent reason. Then, this parent hovered around their child, completely oblivious to the coaches and the other kids, disrupting the class.“Is there a problem?” I found myself saying as the group moved closer to the bleachers where other parents were waiting, most glued to their phones. “Are you worried about their safety? Because the coaches know what they’re doing. They’ve got this.”This parent seemed taken aback and muttered something about it being their child’s first drop-off class and wanting to “make sure” their kid was OK.Bulls**t, I thought. The kid was fine. This parent was the one who wasn’t.“Do you see that parent out there getting in the coaches’ way?” I said to anyone nearby, most of whom were barely paying attention to the class. “Yah... annoying,” they replied, chuckling a bit. But I wasn’t laughing. I was raging.I even took a picture and texted it to a few friends, half-jokingly asking if I should publicly shame them on Facebook for being such a hovering parent. “I’m just so mad about it!” I told my husband later that day. “Why can’t they just sit down and enjoy the child-free time like everyone else?”“Why are you so mad about it?” he asked. “Sure, it’s annoying, but I don’t see the point in getting so worked up.”“Because!” I thought. “They’re ruining it for everyone!”Later, I told my mother. She asked, “Do you think the other parents were as annoyed as you were?”I thought back to the bleachers. No one seemed to notice much. “No,” I admitted.“Well, that’s worth thinking about,” she said. “Umm, no,” was my initial response to that one. But I took a beat and really thought about it. Sure, this parent was kind of the worst, but they weren’t really disrupting the class or stopping the coaches from doing their job. Annoying? Yes. Rage-worthy? Maybe not.One of my friends later texted again: “I don’t think you should put the picture on Facebook. It’s irritating as hell, but they’re not a danger to society.” And then it hit me. The reason I was raging.It was because I was that parent. On the inside. But I’d learned to control it, to keep it in check. Watching this parent’s anxiety spill out so publicly made me feel exposed, like they were revealing what I was struggling to hide.“You should have compassion for them,” another friend said. “They’re clearly suffering, and this is how they’re coping.”My friends were right.I tried to let the anger dissipate. Instead, I replaced it with compassion. Because, someday, there might be a moment where I can’t keep my anxiety in check, and I can only hope that, if it happens, people will have compassion for me, too. And you know, not publicly shame me either. After all, as parents, we’re just doing the best we can — and we don’t always/rarely get it right.Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at [email protected]...'She's Not Naughty, She's Autistic': Every Parent Should Watch This Dad's Open Letter To His Kid'I Didn't Know How To Cope': Why Parents Of Autistic Children Are Turning To A&E For HelpThis ‘Normal’ Advice Is Secretly Making Parents Feel Like Failures