Praising Mom’s Harsh Reply to Man Who Criticized Her Kid
The man who called out Nicole Skaro’s son Vito for giggling in a movie theater got a well-deserved smackdown from this ticked-off mom (Photo: Nicole Skaro)
If a stranger has ever wrongly criticized your kid’s behavior in public, then you’ll relate to the understandably angry letter one mom recently penned. The missive has been making the Internet rounds – it’s been shared more than 5,000 times and racked up 6,500 comments since it was posted Wednesday.
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“To the Man Who Yelled at the Movie Theater About My Child” was written by Nicole Skaro, a mother of four boys from Minnesota. In the letter, which ran in the Huffington Post, Skaro recalls the recent afternoon when she and three of her sons, 9-year-old Dom, 3-year-old Vinnie, and 20-month-old Vito, went to see Tomorrowland at their local movie theater.
Going to the movies is a pretty regular thing for most families. But Skaro’s family has an extra challenge to consider. Vito had recently undergone two operations and chemotherapy to treat the brain cancer he was diagnosed with at 11 months old. His cancer is now in remission, but the treatment left him unable to speak words. He vocalizes his excitement in grunts and giggles.
“My husband and I debated whether Vito could to the movies, but because his vocalizations don’t happen often and he’s so calm, we thought it would be okay,” Skaro tells Yahoo Parenting, adding that 7-month-old Luca stayed at home with a nanny.
Skaro brought Vito’s stroller to the disabled seating section of the theater as she usually does; his treatment affected his muscle coordination, and he can’t sit in a movie theater seat like most toddlers can. (Vito uses a stroller now, but he will be getting a wheelchair soon, says Skaro) Then she and her boys sat down and began watching.
Vito, at right, hangs out with his three brothers: (l-r) Luca, Vinnie, and Dom (Photo: Nicole Skaro)
“Vito did cry at one point for about a minute, but otherwise, he didn’t vocalize very often,” says Nicole. “It was a theater filled with parents and young kids, and no one complained. This is a theater that will say something if your child is being too loud, but no one did.”
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That is, until about 20 minutes before the film ended. With Vito giggling and shrieking, a man suddenly shouted, “Get that kid out of here!” The nasty comment stung Skaro. “I felt like we were being shamed. I thought, who are you to say this, to judge us? You don’t know,” says Skaro.
So after spending a few sleepless nights upset about it, she decided to write the letter. In it, she set the man straight, explaining what kind of a toddler Vito is and what he’s been through.
“It would be one thing if you told us to leave when he was crying, but he wasn’t,” she wrote. “You shouted for us to leave when Vito was laughing and giggling. Like other kids in the theater. But my son just laughed differently.”
“To say I’m sorry would be acknowledging there was something wrong with him,” she continued. “There’s nothing wrong. He expresses himself differently. My son earned his right to be there. He has fought hard for every one of his skills and his life.”
Skaro said one man did approach her to assure her that Vito wasn’t being loud, and that his giggles were actually joyful to hear. She addressed this kind stranger in her letter as well.
“To the man who stopped me by the bathroom saying you enjoyed our Vito: Thank you,” she wrote. “To the other guy, I truly hope you read this and realize that there are different people in this world. Different because of battles. They are amazing because they survived these battles. They have every right to sit and watch a movie.”
Skaro says the response to her letter has been split; some readers said that it’s made them think twice about judging parents for their kids’ actions. “Others have made it a parenting issue, when to me it’s more about dealing with differences and opening a dialogue about people who have disabilities,” she says.
Skaro doesn’t know the man’s name or anything about him. But if she met him again, she says, she would tell him this: “think before you judge.”
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