An Open Letter to the Mom I Envied at CVS

How being the Worst Girl at Yoga has helped me feel better about my most embarrassing moments.

Dear Other Mom in the Minute Clinic Waiting Area,

First of all, thanks for that wet wipe you gave me when I sheepishly asked if you had anything I could use to dab squirted-out applesauce from my son’s face and clothes. I owe you one. No, actually I don’t anymore. The debt has been repaid, though you may not realize it.

Do you even remember meeting me? It was early summer 2022. We each clutched a toddler: yours cherubic and placid, mine devious and besmirched already with apple-carrot-mango puree. As your son sat calmly in your lap, turning pages in the interactive board book you’d pulled from your well-stocked diaper bag, mine was pushing a Jurassic Park jeep around on the dubiously clean (okay, let’s be real: definitely NOT clean) pharmacy floor. I had a snack in my purse, a water cup in hand, and no diaper bag on my hip. I’d left it in the car. Surely I wouldn’t need it for a quick in-and-out.

You, meanwhile, had juggled a purse, diaper bag, drinks, umbrella, and toddler into the waiting area with aplomb. When I realized I had no wipe for my little boy’s face, you graciously proffered one like the Mary Poppins of the Minute Clinic, waving off my thanks with a practiced and deft hand.

As I was struggling to keep my toddler from licking the underside of the grimly sticky plastic seat, your child was snuggled in total serenity. As you read aloud in a mellifluous voice clearly accustomed to the task of enriching a malleable mind, my child began flailing, wailing, and doing his best impression of the Wicked Witch of the West– that is, melting down.

For the tiniest instant, your gaze flickered over and your eyes met mine. And, oh, Revered Mother of the Minute Clinic, I saw in your cool glance the barest trace of Judgment.

And you know what? I get it. Your kid was behaving. Mine was not. You won that contest neither of us were officially playing and no mother wants to admit.

I’m choosing to look at it not as a loss, though, but as a gift that I’m giving to you: the gift of being the better mom. Better in that moment, at least. Better in the eyes of an uninvolved passerby. Not perfect, not even necessarily great– just not the bottom of the class.

There’s a concept that came into play that day which I like to call Worst Girl at Yoga. (Stay with me here.) I, personally, am not great at yoga. I haven’t even been in a yoga class since before my first child was born. (I kept meaning to, and somehow five years went by. Whoops. But it’s all worth it when I remember that reading this paragraph will make the disciplined yoga devotees feel good about themselves. I did that! You’re welcome.) But when I did go to yoga, I was self-conscious. Stiff. Awkward. The big mirror on the wall did not help. In every class I felt like the sore thumb who was clearly performing at a level below everyone else.

The thing is, in every group activity, someone has to be the straggler of the pack. They might be trying their hardest; they might even be objectively good at yoga, just not as good as everyone else. This is a relief to everyone else in the class, especially the Second-Worst Girl at Yoga, who would be sitting in a slightly different spot were Worst Girl at Yoga not there. Being the Worst Girl at Yoga is not inherently a bad thing, nor is it precisely quantifiable, but it’s the concept of being perceived as the worst at… whatever it is. The slowest eater at a dinner party when everyone else is ready for dessert. The last person to laugh at the joke. The woman who brings a pack of silicone spoons in a crinkled gift bag to the baby shower when everybody else has a tenderly wrapped Pottery Barn toy crafted with natural beige materials. All of these are, in spirit, the Worst Girl at Yoga.

I’ve been the withdrawn, anonymous Worst Girl at Yoga in a mother’s group when everyone else is proudly celebrating their milestones and I’m keeping quiet about the fact that my little boy isn’t talking yet. I’ve been the outgoing Worst Girl at Yoga when I raised my hand in a poetry class and said “I just didn’t understand what that stanza was about” and I heard audible sighs of relief from two of my classmates who were too scared to ask. The Worst Girl at Yoga can be whoever you want her to be. No one needs to know she is you except you. But she shines brightest when you leverage her to help everyone else feel better.

And that’s perhaps truest when parenting is on the table, because if there’s anything moms are good at, it’s self-judgment. (That and stocking a diaper bag. But as we have already established, I am not great at that.)

See, I want to be the Mom Who Has It All Together. I want to be the person whose contribution to the class party is organic and original and delicious, and not paper plates again. I want to be the DIY speech therapist whose parental engagement is just so winsome that her little boy spouts full sentences by eleven months. I want to be the Best Girl at Yoga, the one whose mat somehow smells like lavender and who never, ever sweats, and who can do a flawless handstand on just one hand. While her kids sit, calm and serene and screen-free, in the back of the fitness studio.

But that isn’t my reality, nor is it reality for most of us. Everyday life has us slogging along only sometimes remembering the diaper bag, often silently comparing ourselves to the Perfect Mothers we see (or think we see) in the wild, and finding a little solace in the moments when we aren’t the one whose child has to be surfboard-carried out of a restaurant.

So you see, you gave me the gift of inspiration, O Mother Supreme of the Minute Clinic. (By proxy, you also encompass all the other moms about whom I have had these thoughts, by the way. Wear this crown with pride.) And I, in turn, gave you the gift of knowing you were at least not doing as badly as I was that day.

Make no mistake– I’m not imputing to you an attitude of scorn and superiority. Most of the time, I’m fairly certain you’re not actually thinking that about me. This is not some four-dimensional chess in which I am actually the better mother because I would never dare to lift an eyebrow at someone who is Just Doing Her Best. But you could be the kindest, most gentle and women-supporting-women goddess of all time and still have a moment of secret relief that at least you’re not screwing up in that department.

Because here’s what I know, Good Witch of the Waiting Room. I know there are times when you, too, are the Worst Girl at Yoga. There may be times when the stacks of neural-development board books you brought won’t cut it on a delayed flight. There may be times when your mother-in-law makes a snide comment about the chicken nuggets you made. (Sorry, can’t help you there– my MIL rocks.) There may even come a time when you are the mom who stands two chairs down from me at the discount hair salon and watches, with barely concealed envy, as my now-preschooler sits demurely for his haircut and makes charming small talk about dinosaurs with the stylist, while your child shrieks as the scissors come within a meter of his head.

And in that moment–when it’s my turn to metaphorically be the girl at yoga who effortlessly executes a handstand scorpion pose with abs of steel and a gas-free digestive system– I’ll look over and smile understandingly at you. And I won’t actually mouth the words “thank you.” Because that would be weird. But I’ll be thinking them.

Truly it is better to give than to receive.

Much love,

That Mom Who Pulled Out Her Phone and Turned On Winnie-the-Pooh in the Minute Clinic Waiting Room