A Tulsa, Oklahoma, mother said a stranger left a note on her car shaming her for using a handicapped parking spot Wednesday afternoon.
“We watched you pull into handicap spot and get out carrying a toddler," the note read. "You have no right to park in a handicap! It is for handicap people! Shame on you!”
Mom Colleen Stice said the stranger was too quick to judge, because her 4-year-old son uses a wheelchair. They didn’t have it with them at the time because it was being cleaned after her son had an accident. She said her handicapped tag was in full view on her car's rear view mirror.
Stice said that what the stranger didn’t see was how much she struggled to hold her son after a long day of shopping for Christmas presents.
She wrote a response in a Facebook post Wednesday night.
"It is not your place to judge me or my decisions on where to park. It isn’t your place to shame me the way you did. Don’t let today’s society make you think otherwise," Stice wrote. "I know shaming has become a huge part of our culture these days, but please, please, don’t do this to another person. You don’t know what they may be going through. I was having an alright day today, but I was doing what I could to ignore the sad feelings that arise around Rowan’s birthday every year. These feelings happen to all special needs parents when they see their children turning another year older, but mentally not aging more than a few months if they’re lucky.
"What you did made me cry. What you did blew away the wall I had put up to keep those feelings from getting to me. What you did hurt me more than you can possibly understand. And I was having an alright day.
"Imagine how bad days can get for special needs parents. The possibilities are endless," Stice wrote. "You don’t know me, and you don’t know the next person you see parking in a handicapped spot. Don’t shame them. They probably don’t deserve it. Just be kind."
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