Yet again, here’s another instance of a mom getting “mom-shamed” pretty fiercely by a stranger for breastfeeding her baby in public, this time at a Target in Connecticut.
So why am I even talking about it?
Because this incident ended in a surprising twist. We’re used to hearing about “mom-shamers” just swooping in from out of nowhere, dropping their unsolicited two-cents bomb on a mom going about her business, and taking off without receiving any kind of repercussions for their shaming.
Well, not this time. In response to this dude’s unwarranted verbal assault, both shoppers AND Target employees actually came to the mom’s defense and took the bully to task. I’m not just talking about two or three people, here; EVERYONE who was present for the incident stepped up to call this guy out.
The mom, Jessie Maher, had the presence of mind to record the whole thing and published it on her Facebook page. Here’s the full video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvo84pLun1Q
Since the incident on Monday, this video has legitimately gone viral. In the recording, you’re going to see the full force of this guy’s anger and hate, countered by some very touching moments of random strangers actively comforting the mom and berating the perpetrator.
After all of the sadness of this week, it’s so incredibly heartening to see this kind of random acts of kindness and compassion — despite the fact that this kind of thing shouldn’t be happening anyway. It takes so much more effort to be hateful and angry than it does to be loving and kind. We all have our own stuff going on, our own issues. So, as humans, we need to do a better job of helping each other get through it, rather than trying to put each other down.
Have you experienced something like this before, either as the victim or as an onlooker?
If you had been there watching this verbal assault go down, what do you think you would’ve done?
If you had been the mom, how would you have responded?
