It was just another day and Lindsay Rae was in the grocery store shopping for dinner. The store was crowded and children were screaming.
Many people looked tired, especially one particular mother of five children. She did everything in her power to keep an eye on all her kids, but she still got sour looks from people around her.
A couple standing behind her in line started talking about the mother and her children. Two of the children were as white as the mother himself, while three of them were black.
The couple started talking loudly about how many “baby daddies” the children probably had.
“Can’t even dress those kids for weather,” the couple said. “Just wait until she whips out the food stamps.”
Lindsay grew more and more annoyed by the rude couple, but felt she had enough on her hands with her own 3-year-old to get involved.
Then the couple continued, “There’s our tax dollars neatly at work.”
Now Lindsey had had enough. She turned around and scowled at the couple before approaching the mother, who couldn’t figure out how the food stamps she held in her hand worked.
Lindsey understood that the woman was the birth mother of two of the children and she saw that there were several pieces of clothing in her shopping cart.
“Foster or adopted?” Lindsey asked kindly. “I have 9 kiddos…two bio. I get it. Please let me help.”
The woman smiled, but looked embarrassed at the same time.
“New foster mom. This is my first time using one of these. They came three days days ago. Gonna be with us for a while. They gave us food, but the kids needed clothes. But no stipend has come through yet,” the woman said.
Lindsay looked at the children and told them how nice they were and how good it was that they could stay together. Then she showed their foster mom how food stamps work.
The two women hugged goodbye and Lindsey assured her that she’d do something about that couple.
As soon as the mother and her five children were out of earshot, Lindsey turned to the couple and opened her mouth.
“‘Those children’? They lost the right to live with their parents just days ago. ‘Those clothes’? Probably the only clothes they own or got to leave their home with. ‘That woman’? Opened her home to kids, kids that needed a safe place to go, when the one they lived in no longer proved safe enough or secure enough for them. And even if those kids were all hers and she had a dozen ‘baby daddies’ and was on food stamps, no child in this country or any other deserves to be cold or hungry. I am sorry, but your behavior? Poorly done, very poorly done.”
The couple hung their heads in shame and got in another line.
Read Lindsey’s entire Facebook post here:
Although it sounds terrible, it’s not unusual for people to behave so poorly.
Never judge other people, because you haven’t walked in their shoes.
Like and share to pay tribute to both Lindsay and the foster mother, both of whom set a good example and make our world a better place!