Mum’s Note To Three Teenage Girls In Starbucks Goes Viral

I feel I was born in the wrong decade. I wish to be alive when civil rights protests were taken to the streets, without violence, but within our legal rights. When people were passionate about government and changed what “ought to be” to what it is now decades later. We changed the world this way because we cared what would happen about our future regardless of what happens to us fighting for it. The truth is that standing up for what is right is hard to do.

I came across an article written my Michelle Icard; a mother, writer and parenting expert, on her blog and Facebook. In short, she confronted three teenage girls gossiping inside a Starbucks.

She bought them drinks and wrote a note addressing their mean remarks and suggesting they approach things with kindness instead. Her post on her blog and on Facebook went viral. It was met with those happy she said something and those unhappy she even said anything at all.

Comments like “mind your own business” resonated with me. A thought came into my mind,

“Had she not said anything, would we find later these same three girls were responsible for bullying that resulted in another young girl taking her life?”

Whether they realized its’ importance, this small event in time changed those girls, and Michelle, in some way.

Michelle Icard did the right thing. She struggled to keep her mouth shut but found her voice to stand up for what is right. The truth is that parents can’t be around all the time to correct our children. As a society living under one sky, why do we stop ourselves short of a better future? This is an opportunity to lead young minds into the right path and a more promising future. So why then do we think we should mind our own business? Like Michelle’s note to those girls,

“It would take nothing from you to also be kind.” So where do we draw the line?

Sometimes I wonder what this world would be like had we stopped trying to mind our own business. I know I wouldn’t be where I am now had no one decades before me found their voice to stand up for what is right. We change our future every single day but being kind to one another is the smallest step in moving mountains of problems in our society today. It’s time to stop living inside our own personal bubbles and be kind, show respect, and love one another because our generation and generations to come depend on it.