This story started as a Facebook post. “To the millennial employees who just kicked me out of the fancy coffee shop because my 5 year old was losing her shit – i can’t fucking WAIT till you have kids.” I wrote this status because this actually happened to me and my daughter in a store on Smith Street and 2nd Place called Milk Bar. If you ever go there, I highly recommend the sparkling water – it costs $1.63 and comes in a beautiful blue bottle. Every time I buy it I feel like a princess as I sip on on it. My name “Sarah,” actually means princess in Hebrew. Okay, enough with the tangents. Let’s get to the story; the terrible story.
After school, I took my kids to Milk Bar for two sparkling waters. My kids sat on two stools as I collected the magical bottles of sparkling goodness and split one of them between my son (8) and my daughter (5). Naturally, because my daughter is a child, she spills things frequently. Today, she decided to spill her sparkling water intentionally on the stool in order to make a “lake” for her stuffed monkey to swim in. She loves monkeys. It’s adorable, actually. Ironically, she was born in 2011, which (according to Chinese astrology) is the year of the monkey. As soon as I see this impromptu lake that she’s created, I look her in the eyes and say:
“Clean that up.”
My 5-year-old (whom I am convinced is a genius) meets my gaze and promptly states “No.”
I silently walk over to the counter while the millennial employees with flawless eyeliner watch. I want that girl with the nose ring to teach me how to do what she has done with liquid eyeliner. She looks amazing. I pick up some napkins and walk over to my child, who is standing beside her lake and simian pretend creature.
“Clean this up please.” I say to her.
“NO!” She screams at me and starts to shriek.
Every child development professional will attest that the most effective way to handle a tantrum is to ignore it. My five-year-old began to throw the most epic mind-blowing tantrum I have seen this week. I attribute her ornery state to the fact that it was 86 degrees outside, she hated her lunch today, her Pre-K partner tries to kiss her shoes (true story) and she just woke up from nap time. In other words, she doesn’t fucking know, she’s five and doing the best she can. Give her a fucking break. I followed the advice of pediatricians and clinical psychologists and ignored her massive freak out.
Unfortunately, my child is extremely intelligent and persistent, qualities that will serve her well. She continues to refuse to clean up the “lake” by shrieking. I do not want to clean up the mess for her. I resort to threatening, because clearly I don’t know what the fuck to do.
“If you don’t clean up that mess, you’re not going to watch TV when you get home.”
“I DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT!” Yells my five-year-old bad ass.
Oh well.
In the midst of this insanity, one of the parents from Samara’s class comes in and reminds me that I am doing the best that I can in that moment by ignoring the tantrum. My child is flipping out, losing her shit because she refuses to clean up glorified seltzer and throw the napkins in the garbage. After this goes on for five minutes, one of the women behind the counter (with the flawless black eyeliner) walks up to me and says:
“Excuse me. You’re going to have to leave.” She says to me while modeling her flawless eyeliner.
“What?”
“Yes, you are disturbing the other customers.” She says.
I stare at her, amazed that she just kicked a child out of a store. I had one solitary thought.
This woman does not get it. She doesn’t have children. When/if she has kids she’ll understand.
So my daughter, my son and I walked out of Milk Bar and I felt sad that this woman lacked basic empathy skills. Because the truth is, she didn’t have to have kids to have compassion. She could have looked at the situation and said, “hey, I’m sorry your daughter’s going through it.” But she kicked us out with a cold heart and closed mind.
As I walked with my screaming child to the F train, I thought about the time that I visited Puerto Rico when my son was 14 months old. We walked down the street and strangers proclaimed:
“Que lindo,” when they saw us. In Puerto Rico, children are treasured. If my daughter had thrown a tantrum in San Juan, I’m certain that random strangers would have tried to soothe her or empathize with both of us. It’s just not that way in our culture; particularly in New York City, where the priority is not disturbing customers and correctly applying liquid eyeliner.
