What Can You See?

I can’t tell anyone to be kinder to their parents (except for our own children, when they’re jumping on our heads). But I can invite everyone to cut all parents some slack. 

Whether you have children or not, whether your parents are still around or not, stop thinking about what you can see – a frazzled mum or dad, snapping at their child; a parent, letting you down – and imagine for a moment what you can’t see: a lone adult trying to do everything on their own, with no back up; someone trying to keep a tiny human from running into the road, when they've only had two hours’ sleep in the last three days; a loving carer who had to drive across a continent while their ‘other half’ is nowhere to be seen, and certainly not when their joint children are behaving like Tasmanian Satans on horse burgers.

Just take a moment, and give them a smile, or a hand, or just restrain yourself from judging them because they can totally see it on your face.