Many parents will take the opportunity to turn almost any situation into an opportunity to teach their children right from wrong. When Jaime Primak Sullivan took her three children, ages 8, 7 and 5 out for an ice cream treat the other night, she probably didn’t expect it to turn into what it did. The reality of the situation is, it was an act of parenting gone viral.
Solomon hosts a daily video series on Facebook called Cawfeetawk. She describes it as “rooted in social responsibility, human connections and kindness.” When she had the interaction during the ice cream break, she decided to take it to Facebook and tell it to the world.
The post begins with:
So … I am the meanest mom ever … Like … Ever.
Took the kids to Dairy Queen after dinner. They ordered their dessert choices and we waited about five minutes for them to call out our number. The young lady (maybe 17) handed each child their ice cream. Not one looked her in the eye. Not one said thank you. Not to her, not to me …
So I waited. I counted to 10 in my head as they dug into their ice cream and the young lady just looked at me (probably because she thought I was hearing voices) and I watched as my children strolled out the door. I followed them outside where I calmly collected their ice creams and my kids watched in horror as I deposited them into the nearby garbage can. All three launched into mass hysteria. I waited. Quiet. Calm. When they realized I had something to say, they quieted down.
I explained that one day, if they were lucky, they would work a job like that young lady. And I would hope that people would see them. Really see them. Look them in the eye and say thank you. We are too old at 8/7/5 to move through our days without exercising manners and honestly basic human decency.
So today, I am the meanest mom in the world.
You can see her post below:
Sullivan admitted that it wasn’t until she was past her 20s that she started to re-examine how her behavior affected others and she decided to change things.
She realized that she was a bully her whole life and that in order to make things better, she had to make herself better. She became tired of saying that society needed to change and realized that she was society, so she was the one that needed to change. It was this personal shift in perspective that she tried to instill in her children. In her words, “I’m not a ‘selfie’ person. It’s not about self. It’s about us.”
She doesn’t want her children to have that ‘selfie’ mentality either. She wants them to be individuals who want to include other kids and then look back at their mother, who will give them her smile of approval.
She had this to say about the moment that occurred at Dairy Queen.
It’s not enough to say please and thank you: we have to see people … My children need to see the individual value in people.
Sullivan’s first book “The Southern Education of a Jersey Girl” is due to be published in August. She tries to use social media as a part of the dialogue started about the importance of kindness.
None of what I do with Cawfeetawk would be possible without these incredible people who genuinely want to be better … who let me into their lives, into their hearts every morning,” she says. “It’s my way of giving back every day.
Her post has already gathered more than 130,000 reactions. She has also gotten a lot of positive feedback, including one Facebook reader who posted “Thank you for instilling into your children manners and plain human decency!” Interestingly enough, over 5000 people liked that comment.
Solomon had a follow-up video in which she said that she didn’t want her children to be the kids who look past people
Via: Facebook
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