You know those parenting decisions that feel totally innocent until they backfire in a spectacular blaze of toddler chaos? Yeah. That was me. And a children’s museum.
I thought I was being a fun mum. I packed up my then-20-month-old and headed to a museum “activation” — which I assumed meant open-ended play. Toddler dreamland, right? Nope. What I walked into was a scheduled toddler time class. Circle time. Group songs. Actual structure.
Cue the internal panic spiral.
See, my son? He’s a runner. A climber. A touch everything and bolt kind of kid. Sitting in a group? Not in his repertoire yet. But we were already there, and I had a mum friend meeting us — one of those perfect, chill mums you meet at baby group whose toddler will sit and happily engage in a craft for 45 minutes with zero snacks or bribery.
We joined the group anyway. And for the next 20 minutes, I spent every second dragging my child back to the mat while hers sat, angelic, singing along to “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” Mine was sprinting between exhibits, trying to chew on laminated fruit and scale a wall.
I could feel the eyes on me.
The judgement I was probably making up in my head… but maybe not? Either way, I was dying inside.
I wanted to scoop him up and disappear. Or melt. Or teleport to a fenced playground where my little chaos goblin could be free and I wouldn’t feel like I was failing in front of an audience.
In the moment, I did my best. Gentle redirection. Whisper-yelling. Smiling while crying on the inside. But on the drive home, the mum guilt hit hard. And not just guilt — shame. That awful feeling that maybe it was me. That I was doing this whole thing wrong.
But here’s what I know now:
My toddler wasn’t broken. He just wasn’t built for that kind of structure yet. And honestly, the only thing I really did “wrong” was putting him (and myself) in a situation where neither of us could thrive.
That’s the part we don’t talk about enough:
Now that he’s older (2.5 and slightly more able to chill for longer than two minutes), we’ve been back to the museum. And surprise — he sat. He sang. He didn’t lick anything. Progress!
But even if that never happened, he’d still be my wild, clever, curious boy. And I’d still be doing my best
So if your toddler is the one doing laps around the room while others are building towers and singing songs? I see you. I am you.
You’re not a bad mum. You’re not raising a monster. You’re probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time with the very right child.
There’s no shame in leaving early. No shame in skipping the group class and hitting up the local fenced-in park instead. No shame in choosing connection and calm over pressure and performance.
And hey — next time I’ll meet you at the park. I’ll bring snacks.
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I used to say no to things that didn’t really matter — costumes at dinner, noisy trucks in public, toddler logic at its finest — not because it was wrong, but because I was scared of judgement. It wasn’t until I let go (and let him wear his firefighter outfit to dinner) that I realised: supporting toddler autonomy isn’t chaos, it’s connection. And it changed everything.
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