Shamed

My children were big enough to be out of car seats but still pretty young when I took them to Hammonasset Beach near Madison, Connecticut, on Long Island Sound. Their father was a way for several weeks and I was juggling a full time job with their summer activities in campus. Being a beach lover, I thought a day in the sun, sand, and salt water would be just what I needed to re-energize for another week of single parenting.

We packed up early on a Sunday morning loaded down with a beach umbrella, towels, sand toys, a chair for me, sunscreen, and a cooler filled with drinks, sandwiches, fruit, and cookies. We wore regular clothes with a plan to change into our suits in one of the bathhouses, and then shower and change back into our dry clothes at the end of the day. 

We arrived early enough to get one of just a few dozen coveted parking spots that were close enough to make for an easy trek from car to sand. By noon, the area was packed. It was a gorgeous day—not too hot, low humidity, and a gentle breeze. The kids played in the lapping waves and built a sand castle. We watched yachts criss cross in front of us on their way to and from places like the Thimble Islands, and we saw water skiers and people on jet skis. It was a day just as I had hoped for. Fun!

And then, after changing and loading the car back up, the drive back home began.

We had long separated the kids from one another in the car. My daughter always sat up front as she tended toward bouts of motion sickness; my son sat in the back. With one parent driving, and the other in the back, each child had the undivided attention of one of us. But I was on my own for this trip. They started bickering. 

My son poked at his sister, and she turned around to make faces at him. The complaints began. 

“Mom! He stuck his tongue out at me!”

“Mom! She touched my knee!”

“Mom! He just kicked my seat!”

“Mom! She grabbed at my blankie!”

I responded, trying to keep things from escalating, but realized about ten minutes into the squabble that paying attention to them meant not paying close attention to the road. When a driver startled me as he sped by me on the left, I knew I had to do something to end the distraction of my children’s misbehavior.

Preferring backroads to the Interstate, we were on a two-way undivided highway, with a speed limit of 45 mph. 

“Why does she always get to sit in the front seat?” complained my son.

“Because I get sick,” my daughter answered with barely controlled contempt.

“It’s not fair, Mom!” he further remonstrated.

Possibly feeling threatened over her front seat status, my daughter looked at her brother and said, “You’re just a baby, anyway.”

“Mom!” he screamed.

Saying nothing in response, I looked in my rearview mirror and turned my right signal on. I pulled over into the breakdown lane and brought the car to a stop. I then turned on my hazard lights. The kids were suddenly silent.

“Mom, what are you doing?” my daughter asked as I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached for the handle on my door. I still said nothing.

Both kids were now staring at me, their heads on swivel as they watched me leave the car. I walked around to the passenger side door. Their eyes were wide. I opened the passenger door, and said, “Get out.”

They stared at me in mute confusion. 

I changed the tone of my voice to something sterner. “Get out,” I ordered.

They both unbuckled their seatbelts and slowly, warily, maybe even frighteningly, stepped out onto the pavement of the breakdown lane.

Cars passed us; the people in them curiously looked at us.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” they asked.

I closed the passenger door. They both leaned up against the car.

“Distractions for a person driving a car are dangerous. Do you understand me?” They both nodded their heads.

While gesticulating wildly with my arms, I said, “In a car, it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever where anyone other than the driver is sitting. Got it? The vehicle is for getting from Point A to Point B. That’s it.” More head nods.

“Now. We are going to get back in that car, and you two are not going to say another word until we arrive home. Is that clear?” More head nods. 

Cars continued to pass us.

“Everyone is looking at us,” my son said.

“Good!” I said.

I opened the passenger door. They both scrambled into their seats, buckled up, and sat with hands folded in their laps.

The rest of the drive home was in silence.

To this day, both children recall this day not for the wonderful time we spent on the beach, but for the fact that their mother shamed them on the side of a road in front of the whole wide world.  

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2021