It’s the week before preschool starts, and you are taking your child to meet the teachers. As you get out of your car, you hear an awful wailing and screaming coming from another car in the parking lot. You look over and see a mother, positioned half inside the car, trying to put her toddler in a car seat. The toddler is flailing and screaming, most of which you can’t understand, but you do catch the words, “No, mommy, no!” several times.

You take your time getting out of your car and unbuckling your child while continuing to witness the drama. The toddler is screaming and crying hard: deep, primal screams that echo through the parking lot. When you look over at the car, you see the child is now on the floor of the backseat, with the mother bent over the child. You can’t see clearly enough to tell exactly what is going on. Is she hitting the child to cause such screams? The screaming continues, but during those brief moments when the toddler gasps for breath, you also hear a baby crying pitifully.

You take your child out of the car and start to walk to the preschool, looking back at the car. Now the toddler is half in the carseat, and the mother is trying to hold the screaming child in place, fighting off small hands and fighting the toddler’s back arching efforts while she tries to find the buckles. The screams are even more primal now, like a wounded animal.

This happened today at our preschool, and the entire scene lasted 25 minutes before the mother got her child buckled in and drove off. What would you do in this situation? Would you ignore it and let the mother handle it on her own? Would you come over and offer to help? Based on those screams, would you worry the mother is hurting her child and call the police or children’s services?

I’m curious to know, because today I was the mother, and that toddler was Cordy.

I was worried that going to school on a non-school day would be a mistake. When we arrived in her classroom, she threw herself down at the entrance and wouldn’t come in. She did eventually come in, about ten minutes later, and we stayed for a half hour. During that half hour, she had a few moments where she threw herself to the ground because something didn’t go her way.

I gave her ample warning that we would be leaving, but when it came time to leave, she again threw herself on the ground and demanded to go to the playground. I explained that the preschool playground was closed right now, but that we could go to another playground instead. This didn’t work, though, and she screamed and sat down when it was time to leave.

The director agreed to keep an eye on her while I took Mira and the paperwork I was carrying out to the car. (Don’t worry, I started the car at this point to keep Mira cool.) I came back and scooped up Cordy, who had calmed down by this point. But as we got closer to the car, she became frenzied and started fighting me while I held her.

Much of what happened next was described above. I don’t quite understand what set her off, but she was like a wild animal at that point. That car seat was a seat covered in thorns to her, and her tantrum to stay out of the seat was one of the worst I’ve seen yet. Once she writhed and thrashed her way to the floor of the car, I then had to try to restrain her, as she was trying to throw herself into the center console and bash her head on anything solid. Mira had started crying at this point, too, because the car was still parked and how dare I put her there without getting that car moving?

Cordy continued to be dead weight when it came to lifting, and active resistance once I did lift her to the height of the seat. I did have to push against her midsection to force her back in the seat while trying to pull the straps around arms that were working to pull those straps off. 25 minutes into the battle, I finally won and we left.

However, during this entire scene, I noticed the other parents around me. There were a lot of parents coming and going, and many took notice of our little domestic problem. One dad even stayed in his car for awhile, carefully watching what I was doing, before taking his girls into the preschool. When I finally had her buckled in, I looked up to see a group of parents standing on the sidewalk, talking in hushed tones and all watching me.

The weight of the stares these parents sent my way was heavy. Hard, disapproving stares, as if to say, What are you doing to that child? and Can’t you control your own kid? with a little bit of That poor child – what an awful mother! thrown in, too. One parent looked right at me, arms crossed, and shook her head with a grimace. I noticed one parent calling someone, too, and I immediately thought: he’s calling the police or child services. They think I’m an unfit parent, and that I’m hurting my child.

No one has shown up at my door yet, so they may not have called anyone. At the same time, however, not one of these disapproving parents bothered to ask me if everything was OK, or if I needed any help. I could feel their judgment on my back, but at the same time, they knew nothing about us. They don’t know that this is almost routine for us. Had I pulled her out of the car and let her go back into the school, the second try would have ended the same way. Had I waited for her to calm down, we could still be there right now. I had tried bribes and threats early on in the game – neither worked.

And none of them got close enough to really see how I was handling it. Did I yell at any point? No, I continued to talk quietly to her. Did I hit her? No. Did I want to? Hell yes, but I didn’t. Does she have a single mark on her? No. But look at my arms and you’ll see bruises and a bite mark from her.

I held it together the entire way home, even though Cordy continued her possessed screaming. I talked quietly and gently to her in an attempt to calm her down. Once home, I brought everyone inside, closed the door, and broke down crying, hot, angry tears streaming down my face as I collapsed on the couch.

It’s too much sometimes. I know Cordy’s behavior isn’t typical, but the average passerby doesn’t know that, and so I’m immediately judged as a bad parent when I can’t contain a meltdown. I can’t hide my family in our house forever – we have to go out in public, but each time I live in fear of more episodes like this. I’m so tired of looking like the bad parent, when I try so hard to do the right thing.

The funny thing is, a few years ago I probably would have been one of those people who looked at that situation and wondered what the hell was wrong with that mother. Those screams would have led me to believe that child was being hurt. Amazing how a role reversal can change your perspective.

Now I sit here, completely out of energy with aching muscles (she’s amazingly strong when she wants to be!), while Cordy bounces around the room happily and asks me for juice. It’s as if she doesn’t even remember what happened earlier.

I can’t explain to her why mommy is sad. Why I cry and tell myself I can’t do this anymore. Why I wish that just once – just once, dammit! – she could have a good day, free of meltdowns. Why I feel like I want to run away from being a parent, because it’s so hard on these days when there is no reward, tangible or otherwise, in what you do – only struggle and judgment.

Sometimes I worry I’m not cut out for this.

Edited to add: Elizabeth asked a great question I didn’t address: What would I want these other parents to do? In my case, I think I would have rather had them go about their business without the disapproving stares and congregating to watch, or if they felt something was wrong, a simple “Do you need a hand?” or an understanding “Those toddlers sure are tough, aren’t they?” would have been welcomed. In other words, showing me they understood or at least weren’t judging me.

I’ve also learned you never know if a child you see in public has special needs that makes them act out more. Often the parents are doing the best they can, so I try to ignore it or offer a sympathetic smile.