This Mom Faces Disapproval Because Her Son Wears a Leash and Backpack, and She Explains Her Reasoning

Being a responsible parent becomes harder and harder. This also means that it’s challenging for parents to keep an eye on their little ones while out and about. After all, you can pick up your phone to answer a text or call, and just like that, your child can disappear. Any parent who has had a chance to raise a small child knows that they can run a mile in a minute if they’re not careful.

Bright Side understands how challenging parenting can be, so today, we want to tell you about a loving mom who turned to Facebook to call out all the “Karens” and “Susans” out there who’ve made mom-shaming a sport and penned a heartfelt explanation as to why she has to use a leash with her toddler.

A mom has been forced to face mother-shaming too many times.

Rachel Butcher is a mom of an adopted son. People who have absolutely no idea about her extremely difficult journey to parenthood and personal struggles feel it well within their rights to throw her disapproving looks when they see her using a backpack leash with her son. One such incident left Rachel in tears, and she took to Facebook to call out all the people who’ve made mom-shaming a way to express negative feelings.

Her post on Facebook made people look at her case from a very new point of view.

Butcher began her post by stating that her day was extremely hard. “Our son has more energy and speed than your average 21-month-old. Aside from his already rough beginning of medicine exposure, we know little to nothing about his biological family and their genetics. So he could be more hyper just from experiences that I don’t know of.”

“What works for your child doesn’t necessarily work for mine.”

Butcher then explained the story behind the backpack with an attached leash: “My child runs faster than me. Due to scar tissue from my hysterectomy, I have trouble running sometimes to keep up with him. Let it also be known, I religiously ran races and ran every day before my surgery. So it’s not due to laziness.”

“My child also hates to be confined, whether it’s by a car seat, high chair, stroller — or shocker, a shopping cart. I use Shipt more often than I should because it’s incredibly hard to go out with him alone sometimes.”

She proves that miracles happen!

“I’ve come home crying because I’ve left stores before finishing shopping because he’s having a meltdown, I also got snide comments and nasty looks then too,” she revealed. “But today, today was worse. We went to Target and he wore his backpack and he did AMAZING. He was HAPPY, LAUGHING, SMILING, and yes, running, but he was close to me.”

“The looks and side-eye I got from no less than 5 ’Karens’ made me grab my 2 items and leave. I don’t know why women feel the need to judge and mom-shame so often.”

She does everything to protect her son.

“My son is nearly 3 now and still runs — like full out sprints — he still attends OT, PT, and speech, and we’re working through his developmental delays and he is thriving. Remember his name, one day he will be a running back!” Butcher said during the interview.

Every mom has the right to raise her kids as she sees fit.

Loving parents face challenges and unhealthy criticism on a daily basis but what matters, in the end, is that you raise a good child with whom you can always be proud of! Just make sure whatever you do doesn’t violate the law.

As Rachel Butcher stated during the interview, this story touched many other moms. What’s the hardest part of parenting in your opinion?