We all know the saying “Don’t judge a person before you walk a mile in their shoes.” It’s basically the adult-version of the Golden Rule (though that should never have an age cap on it either).
Unfortunately, this age-old saying sounds nice coming out of our mouths, but isn’t always displayed in our actions—especially when there’s an obnoxious child and a limited amount of personal space involved.
Taylor Myers often wishes others could walk in her shoes.
Taylor Myers
The single mother of two has her hands full with her 4-year-old daughter, Sophie, who suffers from severe attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and a young son.
So you can imagine that Taylor’s trips to the grocery store aren’t like what you’d see in a movie script.
Rather than being able to put her kids in the cart, strap them in and mozy around the store at her leisure, Taylor’s grocery runs are more like a Tough Mudder half-marathon. Get in and get out as quickly as possible, and make sure to complete each of the obstacles along the way.
But last week, Taylor finally hit her breaking point.
In an honest Facebook post following an emotionally draining shopping trip, Taylor broke down and shared her Walmart experience.
“It finally happened,” she writes.
Taylor Myers
Taylor explains how she’d done her dance around the store, managed to fill her grocery cart and make it to customer service with both kids in tow to cash her paycheck.
While waiting in line at customer service, Sophie “sat, stood, did head stands in the cart” and whined at her mom for taking away a bag of chips after she called her a bad name.
“She’s relentless. I know this. I live with it. Her ADHD and obsessive little heart gets on these subjects of things she finds unjust and wrong and it doesn’t stop until she eventually falls asleep or something very dramatic happens to snatch the attention off the obsessed about subject.”
In the past, Taylor has always fled the store because her daughter’s behavior was too much to handle. But this time she was committed to sticking it out, no matter how uncomfortable things got.
“We stood in line for several minutes, me ignoring her whining and refusing to give in. What’s giving in to bad behavior going to do but reinforce the bad behavior? I’ve walked out of stores hundreds of times because of her. Almost every time, actually, I end up leaving with nothing I came for and a tantrum having a four year old attached to my hand and a baby on my hip, but this time I had to stick it out to get the groceries.”
But it wasn’t just Sophie’s behavior that put Taylor to the test. The longer they waited in line, the more impatient other shoppers around her started to become. Taylor received dirty looks, frustrated grunts, and one woman even spit out some cruel comments that did nothing but make matters worse.
“I tell her for the tenth time to sit down so she doesn’t fall and the next thing I hear is a woman behind me in line saying, ‘oh, for Christ’s sake give her a cookie so she’ll shut up!’”
Taylor couldn’t take it. She admits she could have responded in a kinder way, but the pot had boiled over at that point, and steam was flooding out of her ears. She turned around and angrily told the woman to mind her own business.
Embarrassed of her outburst, Taylor quickly cashed her check, then moved to a different area of the store, knowing that everyone had already labeled her as “that person.”