I Called the Cops on a Mom Fighting With Her Screaming Kid. Years Later, My Mistake Still Haunts Me.

Once upon a time, parenting meant letting your kids play hide-and-seek outside with the neighbors while you did the dishes in the kitchen. Do that in front of the wrong set of eyes today, and you best prepare yourself for a full-blown police investigation and visit from DCFS.

One thing’s for sure, today’s society is full of first-class parent shamers—professional mommy watchdogs ready to pounce on the first sign of a stranger’s neglect. As the decades pass, it seems we’ve all become experts on how to raise other people’s children.

Nobody could be more familiar with this tendency than Megan Orr Burnside, a sweet mama who learned the hard way that what our world needs is a little more compassion, not judgment.

While witnessing what she perceived to be a physically abusive situation at a Tennessee gas station, she instinctually called police to report the mother’s violence. What she quickly learned from authorities was that this mom had really struggled with her autistic son in the past and had even called the cops many times on her own, asking for help to deal with his violence.

That apparently ‘violent’ mother was actually a loving parent doing the very best that she could. And instead of helping, she turned her in.

Megan’s foot was lodged firmly in her mouth.

The “overwhelming realization of [her] mistake” sat with her for years—but little did she know, it was a life lesson that would come full circle in cultivating just the compassion she needed to help another struggling mother, at a time when she needed it most.

And it left her with an essential takeaway message that every parent in America needs to hear.