by A.N. Carter

Created on: November 29, 2008

Dear Parents Anonymous,

I owe your organization a debt of extreme gratitude. I do not think that without your programs, group meetings, and counseling, I would have been able to get through parenting at all. Very soon, I will have the pleasure of passing out your cards, and I cannot tell you how excited I am to do so.

The first time I thought I was ready to give up completely, was when I was eight months pregnant with my second child. My two-year-old son found great joy in grabbing things out of my hands, running around the house, and watching as I waddled after him as fast as he could. He would laugh hysterically at lack of ability to run like a normal person, and to this day, he still remembers it fondly. It was not bad enough that I felt bigger than a car, had swollen ankles, and enough stretch marks to build my own race track; he had to make my life even harder!

Although, in retrospect, that was nothing compared to the extreme embarrassment I suffered when my daughter asked me in the grocery store, "Mommy, why is that woman standing next to you so fat?" Of course, I lectured my child and taught her the important lesson of respecting the feelings of others. The next time we were at the grocery store, we had an extremely weighty cashier, and I was terrified that the incident would repeat itself. But then the lady handed me my change and I was home free! I breathed a great sigh of relief, held my head high, and packed the last of the groceries in the cart. What a wonderful parent I was! I was able to teach my daughter an important life lesson and have her implement it. I was just beginning to envision the parenting book I would write, when my daughter said, "See Mommy? I didn't say anything about this lady being so fat!"

As time went on, however, humiliation became quite a routine. Your organization slowly taught me how to cope with such a regular emotion until the time came when I hardly felt shame at all. I am proud to say that I did not blush when I had to take my son to the doctor three times in one week because he had been eating bugs and shoving beads up his nose at summer camp. I learned how to be gracious when my three-year-old daughter would shoplift granola bars, and the grocery store manager would have to give her a talking-to. Heck, I even learned to laugh when my son flung a butter knife across a restaurant and hit some poor stranger in the back of the head. Without thinking, I was soon beginning every sentence with, "I am so sorry that my child

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