Excerpt from the book: When Mothers Cry Written by Nicholl McGuire

"When mothers cry the first thing people want to know is why? Why would a woman bother to shed tears in front of an audience that would judge, berate, belittle, accuse, lie, or abuse her. Why would any mother allow her tears to fall in the presence of critical, negative, judgmental people who can’t see outside their ignorant boxes they call, “self?” I’ll tell you why because sometimes the only way you can tell a story is to cry. Sometimes the only way you can make your point be known is to raise your arms up in the air and scream! When mothers cry people had better listen! When they take to the streets with picket signs and expressions on their faces that look as if they are ready to kill, people had better worry. The worse thing that any man, childless woman, or rebellious child can do is to add fuel to the fire of a mother who is already enraged about her partner, children, boss, relatives, finances, and more by telling her, “You should…” Listening to someone tell me this while I am in the heat of anger is like nails scratching on chalkboard! "So what should I do?" I feel like telling this know-it-all! Then I brace myself hoping they will not say anything more.

A woman, man, or child who hasn’t walked two steps in someone else’s shoes ought to be quiet! Why open yourself up to a mother telling you off wherever you may stand? Why act as if you know how she feels when the truth of the matter is you don’t. Who has ever felt that rush of heated anger creep from the bottom of your stomach to the top of your head while someone tries to tell you how to raise your children? I know some of you put a critic back in their place without hesitation! They most likely responded with, “I’m sorry!”

We mothers cry for many reasons far too many to get into detail at this moment, but our concerns are valid. We need to vent we have to vent, because if we don’t we will blow up inside or outside and God have mercy on the one that has to hear our stories! He or she may be listening to us for hours ranting and raving about everything that everyone ever did to us and why we will not sit back and allow our children to go through what we did as a child!

I admit I am a mother with a cry and that is why I even bothered to write a book for anyone who can relate to my pain. Notice I said relate not feel because you can’t feel what I feel and most likely if you had the opportunity to live through some of the things I have gone through as a mother you probably wouldn’t have reacted the same way. You see we can say what we would do if a situation arises, but the truth is we don’t know how we would react.

I have witnessed mothers scream and yell at their children in the public hoping that somehow their scolding will shame the children enough that they would do what they are told, but oftentimes it only makes them act worse. Then they wonder why the child attempts to yell back at the mother in frustration. A child will only behave in the way that the parent treats them. Yell at them and watch what you will get --a child with an attitude waiting for an opportunity to tell you about yourself. Call them names and later, if you listen real close, you will hear them call you the same names under their breath. Who was the foolish mother who thought that if she acted mean toward her children she would get loving and kind adult children who would honor her in old age?

There was a time in my life that I had never wanted to be a mother. I didn’t want to have to deal with the responsibilities of caring for a child. I had witnessed too many mothers around me lose their cool with children, including me, so I reasoned that having a child makes you mean and I didn’t want to be a part of anything that was going to make me act like what I had observed mothers do. I saw them scream, push, spank, and cuss their children. I knew that if my mother said she was going to knock my sister and my head off, after upsetting her with our toys and stomping around the house, we had better take heed to what she said. At the time I didn’t know that she couldn’t literally knock our heads off and I didn’t want to find out either."

Nicholl McGuire