Open Letter to the Family I Saw at Target Last Night, While My Sister and I Were Buying a Mop.

Dear Assholes,

A dozen years or so my friend Mary and I watched a very small boy break loose from his pregnant mother and dash toward Lake Shore Drive. She shouted after him, and his older brother, a boy of about ten, sprinted down the sidewalk and yanked the little boy back from the street just as his foot stepped off the curb. The older brother pulled the child back to his mother, who impulsively snatched the yellow plastic Nerf bat out of his hands and spanked him on the butt with it four times, before bursting into tears.

My friend Mary wanted to call the police on the mother for abusing the child. I didn't, because I knew the mother's actions came out of extreme fear and helplessness. It's the anger you feel when your friend leaps out of the dark at you and shouts BOO, multiplied by a thousand. I knew that mother didn't make a habit out of hurting her children. I knew she was a good mother trapped in a bad moment, and why make this already unforgettable day worse for everybody?

Years later, the exact same thing happened to me when Steve and I were vacationing with the kids in Asheville, North Carolina. Christopher was standing on the sidewalk and I was leaning inside the car unbuckling Alex when Chris suddenly took off. He was the age where they start doing that, 2 1/2 or 3. I was running as fast as I could, but knew I couldn't catch Chris before he stepped into the street. At the last second, a man who was about 4 feet tall jumped out of the passenger's side of a van that was parked on the side of the road and grabbed Chris by his collar and held him there until I could catch up. Christopher was so enchanted by the man's size he just stood there grinning delightedly at him until I had a chance to grab him myself and cry. Clearly, guardian angels come in all shapes, colors and sizes, from ten year old skinny black boys to stocky white, 4 foot tall, tattooed guitarists.

But your son didn't have any guardian angels last night, as my sister and I stood in the next aisle listening to you, Dad, berate him in an increasingly angry tone. I couldn't hear the boy's responses to your rage, but I heard the slapping sounds your hand made when you started hitting him. I heard you bellow at him to stop his whining, to shut up, that he'd been whining all day, and to start minding. I heard you stomp past us a few seconds later and drag him back to the aisle, screaming at him again for wandering off.

I felt a pressure in my chest that was becoming unbearable, and I urged my sister to pick a mop, any mop, that I couldn't listen to you anymore, that I couldn't think and we had to leave.

My sister said she couldn't pick anything out either, so we grabbed the mop in front of us, which turned out to be pretty lousy, so thanks for that, too, and threw it in the cart just as your family left the aisle you were in and wheeled your cart past us.

And that's when I heard you, Mom, say this to your son:

Of course I don't love you. Nobody loves you. You're bad.

I want you to know I burst into tears on the spot when I heard that. I cried all the way home, I cried on the phone to my husband this morning, and I'm crying again now retyping what you said.

Where do you get off saying that to a child? Where do you get off saying that to a child who has nobody but you, who depends on you and your shit husband for everything? Do you think maybe the child was whining because it was after nine at night and he may be a little bit tired?

Do you think I don't understand that you're tired too, and frustrated? You think I don't get angry at my own children when they whine all day and wander off? You think I haven't had moments where I wanted to put my hands around them and choke them like Homer Simpson does to Bart? I have, and my sister has, and all parents have had those moments. We all know about parental frustration. But telling my kids that I don't love them? Nope, never did that. Never will. I'm afraid that's the line where my suspension of judgment is drawn. I hope someday you'll pay for how you treat your son.

And before I go, I want you to know something else. My sister and I called the police on you. We both know it's not against the law to verbally abuse your child, to strip him of his dignity and self-esteem, to make him hate himself. But the police officer we spoke to didn't remind us of that. Instead, he headed off down in your direction to see for himself what two grade A child-abusing assholes look like. And just in case your face shows up in the paper someday, on that day when maybe Dad's discipline goes a bit too far, maybe all three of us can go to court to let everybody know about your history.

In the meantime, I hope your child grows up, leaves you, and never speaks to you again.

I hope for this because I don't love you. Nobody does. You're bad.