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Mortifying mom moments

Even the sweetest of kids sometimes turns a public outing into an embarrassment

BY DENISE NEIL

The Wichita Eagle

Moms of the world -- we've done the research, and we've found the answer. If you want to avoid being publicly humiliated by your child, simply avoid taking your little sweetie to any of the following locations: Malls, churches, grocery stores, weddings, funerals, neighbors' homes, amusement parks, restaurants, hospitals, drugstores, museums, airplanes, zoos, your front yard, your backyard and your porch.

In essence, just keep them indoors -- curtains drawn -- until they're at least 18.

At least.

Recently, we asked moms to share tales of utter public mortification inflicted by their children.

The stories just kept coming, sent in not only by the horrified moms themselves but also by apologetic grown children.

The following tales are certainly hilarious, but they're also encouraging. If this many moms can survive this much mortification -- and laugh about it today -- then maybe it's safe to take the kids out after all.

Happy Mother's Day!

Feeling frisky

The year was 1947. It was a nice spring day and Pam Hanson's mother, Virginia, had taken Pam's 3-year-old sister, Lolly, to the lunch counter at Woolworth's in downtown Wichita.

Lolly trailed along behind her mother as they left, passing the lunch counter filled with patrons. The counter had a big mirror hanging directly across from it.

"Mother was an attractive woman used to receiving an occasional second glance," Pam said. "But on this particular day she noticed the head of every person seated at the counter jerked up to the mirror as they passed, leaving her feeling very pretty indeed. That is until she glanced back at her toddler.

"As they walked, Lolly had been entertaining herself by trying to turn the seats of every stool, inadvertently patting each diner on the behind. However, when the startled diners glanced up at the mirror, all they saw was an attractive brunette woman walking by, apparently feeling frisky indeed."

Mall menace

Anne Hislop's 4-year-old son would not stay with her in the mall. So she walked up behind him and took his arm.

"You broke my arm!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Needless to say, everyone in the mall looked at me as if to say, 'Child abuser,' " Hislop said. "Right then I took him to the restroom and gave him a talking to."

Hislop's son is now 31 years old, and she still hasn't let him forget.

"He does not remember it but I remind him once and a while just for the laughs," she said.

It's lingerie, sweetie

Sandy McInteer's tale of humiliation inflicted by her daughter, Bethany (now a mom herself), is best told in McInteer's own words.

"My children got off the bus from school right as the mail came," she wrote. "I was having a rare meeting at home with a contractor. My helpful 6-year-old daughter yelled, 'Mom, your sex magazine is here.' I tried to ignore her, so she yelled at the top of her lungs, 'MOM, YOUR SEX MAGAZINE IS HERE.'

"I quickly ended the meeting, and as the man ran out the front door, my daughter dutifully handed me the Victoria's Secret catalog.

"We decided to do the remodeling ourselves."

Cottage cheese carnage

Kathy Butler's 17-month-daughter Erica was usually so good in the grocery store.

Usually.

But when Kathy took her shopping just before Christmas in 1981, Erica had, shall we say, a moment.

Kathy had pushed the cart, with Erica in it, up to a waist-high dairy case.

"As I'm checking expiration dates, I hear this whoosh followed by a loud slapping sound. I turned to see my daughter looking in the direction of a 3-foot-long mess of cottage cheese laying next to a large cracked open container."

As mother and store employee desperately tried to clean up round one, Erica launched round two, hurling another container of cottage cheese at the employee.

Splat.

"I was embarrassed and a bit angry, but how mad can you get at a cherubic-faced pretoddler who is blithely unaware of the carnage she has caused?" Kathy said. "So I paid for the cottage cheese -- I insisted -- and the rest of my groceries, and got the heck out of there."

'Sounds like a ghost'

Shelly Wolff doesn't remember this one, but her mom never let her forget.

She was about 3 and sitting in the front pew at church when she decided to offer her own, loud critique of the church soloist.

"Sounds like a ghost."

"My mom, the minister's wife, tried to shush me," Shelly said. "'Well, it does!' I insisted. Mom said she wanted to crawl right under the pew."

'Hey, Mommy'

Lorraine Artman's daughter Isabella is 7 now, and she's become a little less embarrassing in public.

But that wasn't always true.

"She used to remind me of a drunken friend at a bar who couldn't keep her mouth shut," Lorraine said. "My favorite one is when she was 3 or 4, we were walking into a QuikTrip, and a well-dressed middle-aged man held the door open for us and smiled.

"She looked up at me and asked loud enough for everyone in the area to hear, 'Hey, Mommy, is that your boyfriend?' I thought that poor guy was going to choke."

Yee-haw, Jesus!

Carol Mesa still feels bad for her mom, all these years later.

"I am in my 60s, and my mom no longer alive, but I still feel as embarrassed today as she must have been way back then," Mesa said.

"I was about 3 or 4 years old and we were at Sunday Mass. During the most sacred part of the Mass when all was quiet, I stood up in the church pew, swung a rosary above my head like a lasso and announced, much to my mother's embarrassment, 'Hang on, Jesus, we're going for a ride.'

"My mother then attended Mass at a different time for quite awhile after that incident."

Poke, poke, poke

There he was. Carol Dumler's teenage sweetheart. The one who had broken her heart 10 years earlier.

Dumler, now the mother of a 2-year-old son, headed over to say hello.

"I wanted him to see how good I looked, and how beautiful my son was, so I was holding my son while we talked," she said. "I guess my son, Rob, got bored and he started poking my breasts. Poke, poke, poke. I tried to act like he wasn't doing it, and kept moving his hands, but he was absolutely determined to break up this conversation.

"I was mortified at the time, knowing where all my ex's attention was going, and that no one was paying any attention to the conversation."

Refreshing

Peggy Graber took her little girl to a Catholic wedding on a very hot day.

The child hadn't been raised Catholic and wasn't familiar with the concept of holy water.

"My daughter put her hands in the water and splashed the water on her face and said, 'Wasn't it nice of them to put this water here for us to use to cool off with?' " Peggy said. "They still let us attend the wedding."

No thanks, Nanny

Deena Williams was happy to have her youngest granddaughter, Tori, attending her day care center.

Once, when Tori was 3, Deena accidentally knocked her over while carrying a large box of Legos. She dropped the box to comfort the girl, and it landed on both of their toes.

Later that morning, the health nurse came for Deen's yearly assessment.

"When I was introducing her to the children and attempted to draw Tori near, she quickly said, much to my chagrin, 'I want to stay over here, please, Nanny. You hit too hard!' "

Bodily functions

Jane Dean tried to help her daughter, who was struggling with potty training, by assuring her that "pooping is good."

"A few weeks into the poop campaign, she and I were in the west Target," she said. "We had just begun shopping when she looked up at me with her big brown eyes and asked in her most serious 2-year old voice, 'Mommy, do you like to poop?' I heard some snickers, but in the spirit of 'positive pooping' reinforcement, responded in the affirmative. This encouraged her. 'Does Daddy like to poop? And Grandma and Grandpa, and Uncle Jack and Aunt Lyddie?'

"We left a wake of hysterical laughter behind us."

That's Virginia

Susan Aker's whole family is from Virginia, so her children are accustomed to hearing stories about the state.

When her daughter, Laura, was 4, they were shopping and discussing a lesson on heritage Laura had just had at school.

"My daughter announced in a very LOUD and proud voice, 'And mom, I told my teacher and my friends that you're from VAGINA!' "