Yes, I have 4 boys. Four wonderful, respectful, intelligent, imaginative, and fantastic human beings that I have the pleasure of calling my sons.
Meet Lucas, Jack, Ian, and Walter.
At the time of this photo, they were 8, 6, 4, and almost 2. Aren’t they adorable? I especially love Ian’s outfit. He picked it out all by himself and was in love with the tie.
They are the loves of my life. My reasons for being who I am today.
I was grocery shopping the other day.
It was a typical Tuesday morning at Costco. Quiet, despite the fact that it was almost lunchtime and the samples were starting to be put out.
I had been sick for well over 10 days, and this was my first trip out since coming down with laryngitis. I still wasn’t feeling 100%, but we needed food. I had a huge list and was focused on getting in and our before the lunch rush hit.
I do not know what it was about Costco that particular day. Rarely do I get stopped by strangers, but everyone was extremely friendly this day.
It started off innocently enough.
We walked past the hiking poles and there was a woman there looking at them. Ian asked if those were the hiking sticks we had, to which I replied: “yes, those are the ones we have”. The woman perked up and turned around. She asked me a few questions about them and was very interested in if the children used them as she was looking for them for her daughter who was 6. I shared our hiking adventures and how the kids use them and like them.
She then commented on the fact that I had 4 boys. Commented on how it must be so expensive to feed them all. Yes, it can be expensive but we buy in bulk and mostly whole foods so it keeps the costs down. She joked about how much her 12-year-old eats, told me her budget. Her budget was twice was I spend a week, despite the fact that our family is twice the size of hers – clearly, we are buying different kinds of foods. I talked about how we stretch our budget by growing our food forest, and preserving what we can. We parted ways and that was that.
A few aisles later, I am stopped by another woman.
“Oh my, 4 boys! You must have your hands full”
At this point, the boys were being their typical, polite selves. They were staying close to the cart as to not disrupt others and were not bored yet as we had not been there long. Walter was in the cart. Ian was beside me. Jack was reading the list and Lucas was figuring out what section of the store we would be going to next.
My hands were only full with the handles of the shopping cart.
I simply responded with “they are wonderful boys, and I could not be happier.” The woman responded with “yes, they are behaving well” and then continued on with her day.
The next woman I encountered was, to put it frankly, brash.
This conversation actually started out the exact same as the last one.
“Oh my, 4 boys! You must have your hands full!”
“My boys are wonderful. They are very helpful”
And this is where it took a turn…
“Well, they are for now…”
She proceeded to tell me how they will grow up. They will not listen to me. They will act out. They will eat way too much food. They will not help around the house…
After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I ensured her that they are very respectful humans and I don’t buy into the cliche of boys will be boys. I purposefully started calling them humans instead of boys to put all of us on the same playing field.
I would have assumed that she would have just moved on at this point, but she kept on pushing it.
To sum it all up, she basically said that all boys will grow up to be terrors. She used a few more words than that, but that was the implication.
All I could say was “I do not agree” and by the look on my kids’ faces, I knew I had to move on.
I started to push the cart away from her and she stopped me. She physically put her hands on my shoulders and stopped me. That shocked me, but her words shocked me even more.
“I will pray for you”
I shook my head in disbelief. You will pray for me? Because I have wonderful, well behaved, intelligent, respectful, kind, imaginative, fantastic human beings for children?
I do not need your prayers.
I love my boys. I am extremely blessed to be able to raise these boys. I am excited to see what wonderful men, what wonderful human beings, they will become.
