S.T.
i LOVE this! how awesome to hear about the site coming in useful like this before the problem arose! thanks so much for posting that.
i don't have a cool example like yours, but i was in a bookstore the other day and there was a mom who was really having a day. she had 3 (at least) littles, a wrapped moby baby, a toddler and a little fellow of 4 or 5. the mobile fellows were SO excited about the bookstore and its halloween decorations, and she was soooooooooo frustrated with them. there was a lot of sub-vocal hissing, arm-dragging, and random yelling. it would have been awfully easy to judge (and who doesn't, for good or ill, at least to some extent), but geez, the kids were so adorable and really basically well-mannered. as she descended on one little guy in the aisle where i was browsing he looked up in excitement at her to show her what he'd found, and his face just dropped when he saw hers. 'i'm sorry, mommy,' he wailed, and kept repeating it as he was hauled off, mommy growling 'it's NOT okay!'
i had a few moments of amusement picturing the spectrum of responses this mom (or someone posting about her) would get.
i gave her a bright sympathetic smile when i caught her eye at one point, which she did not reciprocate. sometimes sympathy from a stranger is just not what you want, is it? i thought her moppets were adorable anyway, and that she's probably an awesome mom.
:) khairete
S.