Mothers often learn early on that everyone has their own opinion on how to be and how not to be a good parent, and most of the time people won’t agree with your parenting techniques. However, one mom was left stunned after a total stranger claimed one of her parenting choices was ‘child abuse.’
When one Massachusetts mom’s three-year-old little boy told her that he wanted to wear a tutu, she didn’t bat an eye since she didn’t want silly gender rules to limit her son at such a young age. “My three-and-a-half-year-old son likes to play trucks. He likes to do jigsaw puzzles. He likes to eat plums. And he likes to wear sparkly tutus,” mom Jen Anderson Shattuck explained.
“My son has worn tutus to church. He has worn tutus to the grocery store. He has worn tutus on the train and in the sandbox. It has been, in our part of the world, a non-issue. We have been asked some well-intentioned questions; we’ve answered them; it has been fine. It WAS fine, until yesterday,” Jen wrote in a post to Facebook, which has since gone viral.
While out on a walk in the park, a man approached Jen and her son Roo, and demanded to know why she was dressing her little boy in a skirt. “‘I’m just curious,’ the man said.'”Why do you keep doing this to your son?’ He wasn’t curious. He didn’t want answers. He wanted to make sure we both knew that what my son was doing—what I was ALLOWING him to do—was wrong. ‘She shouldn’t keep doing this to you,’ he said. He spoke directly to my son,” Jen explained. “‘You’re a boy. She’s a bad mommy. It’s child abuse.’ He took pictures of us, although I asked him not to; he threatened me. ‘Now everyone will know,’ he said. ‘You’ll see.'”
“I will not be intimidated. I will not be made to feel vulnerable or afraid. I will not let angry strangers tell my son what he can or cannot wear. The world may not love my son for who he is, but I do. I was put on this earth to make sure he knows it,” Jen wrote. “If you disagree with my family’s choices, know that my goal is not to change your mind or the way you choose to parent. My only goal is to support my son.”
“Roo may not always want to dress this way, but we hope that he’ll remember that, when he did, he was loved. We hope he’ll know that no matter what other people thought or said in response, there was always peace and safety in our home,” she said.
How would you react if someone claimed a parenting choice was child abuse? Let us know in the comments below, and please SHARE this with parents and friends on Facebook.
[Featured image: Facebook/Jen Anderson Shattuck]
Man Accuses Mom Of Child Abuse For Letting Son Wear Tutus is an article from: LifeDaily