'When your child has a tantrum in public, there's one thing I want to say to you.'

We've all been there.

You are in the middle of the Princeton bookstore surrounded by the cultural elite. Your child throws himself on the floor for no discernible reason and loses his mind. You are at the Philadelphia Zoo and you find yourself running after someone who is much faster, but has significantly shorter legs — how is that even possible? — and you have to throw him over your shoulder or hoist him up under your arm, kicking and screaming, because you are also pushing a stroller he won't get into, while feeling the mortification of a million eyes — both primate and marsupial — judging you as a parent.

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And when I see that happen at say, Target, or at the airport, or at the supermarket — when I see your darling Charlotte scream red-faced with rage at Starbucks or when I watch you drag sweet Declan, bleary-eyed and burbling, to the car, I am flooded with a feeling so immediately and thoroughly, it's almost hard to describe. It is a combination of two different emotions that converge into an overwhelming abundance of feeling.

I'd like to call it joylief. Maybe rejoy. It is a combination of joy and relief.

Thank God, I think. Thank God, other children act this way.

I am delighted that your child is having a breakdown and calling you an awful parent. Are you kidding me? I am thrilled that your sweet, sweet baby has tipped over a display at Trader Joe's and you are failing at containing your mounting anger, or that your kid is kicking the back of my seat on the plane while you intermittently ask him to stop and he ignores you.

Once, in a fit of rage, my toddler pushed over a five-gallon humidifier and flooded the second-floor hallway — and we just got the floors redone! How did he even think to do that? I would have been impressed if I hadn't been so angry. It was like that Bitmoji of the character flipping over a table, except it was real life and I may have screamed "What the actual f**k?" and I had to use all the towels we own to sop up the overflow.

Is every single thing in your day a challenge, an all-out battle? I want to look you in the eye and shake your hand, and say, keep fighting the good fight, fellow traveller. Are you trying to be a gentle parent but everything in you is screaming, your jaw clenched, your teeth ground down into a fine powder, that this is absolute bullshit and why can't this child just follow the directions the first 17 times you ask gently? More power to you, brother, keep on keepin' on.

When we had to go vote yesterday, my four-year-old disappeared for 10 minutes and returned from his room wearing socks on his hands and underwear on his head claiming to be a pirate. He wanted to go to the polls like that. He almost had an all-out melt down when I tried to explain that voting was a serious duty, that our democracy was not a joke, but I found myself doubting it even as the words left my mouth. Maybe this was the world now. Maybe it was okay to wear underwear in public. On your head. I no longer know what day it is anyway.

Fortunately, with some cajoling, he removed the head underwear, but we had to bring two stuffies and a dowel rod to the polling place and I had to carry them because his pirate had sock hands. Pick your battles.

Then I voted incorrectly and had to do it again because I was so distracted by his athletic performance in the gymnasium; he raced around the entire place while I struggled to remember what a surgeon general does. Also I vote via time travel portal to the '90s where we use cardboard barriers and pens like we are taking some kind of bizarre SAT about who will lead us. Which is neither here nor there but somehow meant there was more shame involved for me when my first ballot didn't go through the fax machine from the past.

Afterwards, I had to chase him around a public school gym and carry him out. All the workers said it was fine. He'll sleep well tonight, they said. They always say that. I didn't correct them.

So here's what I say.

I say, I am delighted when your child screams in public. I am thrilled when your kid refuses to leave the playground. I have never once seen someone chase after a child like I do. Bring me your speed-racers, your oppositional defiant, your huddled masses yearning to break free. I want to see someone over the age of 40 chase them. I should have the body of a supermodel for my efforts. I should be able to do parkour.

I had to tackle my child at Altitude Trampoline Park after he smacked the very nice child and mother of the child he was playing with in the face with a ball, while I apologised, mortified. I should qualify for the Olympics with all of the agility trials I undergo daily, but mostly I feel absolutely and utterly alone, like I am the only mother on the physical and emotional roller coaster of parenting hanging halfway out of the seat because no one put down the safety bar.

On the bus the other day, my child snuggled into me and told me he loved me. Then he spent the ride from the airport to the carpark singing an original song at the top of his lungs about pinching while pinching every available flesh-point on my body, then kicking me repeatedly and telling me I was the worst mum in the world.

So, yes, I love it when your Artemis smacks you in the face in the checkout line. I adore when Lucca screams obscenities at Whole Foods.

I saw a child sit on an escalator the other day and his dad whipped out the dad voice with a "GET UP". It was amazing. Thank you, escalator Dad. Thank you.

And that's not to say my child is not lovely. He actually stops and smells flowers, and picks them (sometimes from neighbouring lawns) to give to me. He mounts full-fledged performances in our kitchen in full costume. He used the word "astonishing" yesterday. He's a wonder. When he isn't causing me bodily harm or running away in a crowded area or ignoring my very patient gentle-parenting requests. But even then — I do sometimes think: I would never have the audacity to do that? I would never have done what I wanted instead of what someone told me to do. And that trait, while challenging in a child, is actually something admirable in adulthood.

Maybe I just have to play the long game.

So, I have stopped getting flustered and embarrassed and feeling enormous amounts of shame when my child goes berserk in public. I hope you will too. Mostly, it's not that I am an awful parent. Mostly. It's that he's tired, or hungry or dissatisfied in some way, and doesn't have the vocabulary or patience or emotional regulation to manage it. And guess what? Sometimes I feel that way too! And I would love to flip a table or punch someone in the face or destroy a display at Whole Foods. I just don't, because I have better impulse control and understand time and repercussions in a more comprehensive way.

Think about it. The world is a big, busy, overwhelming place. Children are dwarfed by comparison, their little selves flailing against the madness and the mayhem in the only way they know how. Maybe we all deserve to lose it when it's hot out or when we are hangry or when someone cuts our sandwich wrong.

So know this. When your kid throws a full out fit — I am talking red-faced, tears, screaming, appendages everywhere — I am absolutely watching.

And you know what I am thinking?

I am thinking: Thank you. Thank you for reminding me that I am not alone.

Kate Brennan is an artist, educator and creator committed to bringing more humour and humanity to the world. For more from Kate, subscribe to More Humor, More Humanity.

This story originally appeared on Medium and has been republished with full permission. 

Feature Image: Getty.