A mother has written an open letter in response to the stranger who criticised her for “spoiling” her baby girl.
Kelly Dirkes, from Minnesota, took to Facebook to reveal how she really felt when a fellow Target customer made a remark about how her daughter wouldn’t learn to be independent.
She wrote: “If you only knew what I know… If you only knew how she spent the first ten months of her life utterly alone inside a sterile metal crib, with nothing to comfort her other than sucking her fingers.
“If you only knew what her face looked like the moment her orphanage caregiver handed her to me to cradle for the very first time–fleeting moments of serenity commingled with sheer terror. No one had ever held her that way before, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do.
“If you only knew that she would lay in her crib after waking and never cry–because up until now, no one would respond.
“If you only knew that that baby in the carrier is heartbreakingly ‘independent’ –and how we will spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years trying to override the part of her brain that screams ‘trauma’ and ‘not safe.’”
She finished her emotional and incredible post with the following statements: “If you only knew what I know.
“’Spoiling that baby’ is the most important job I will ever have, and it is a privilege. I will carry her for a little while longer–or as long as she’ll let me–because she is learning that she is safe. That she belongs. That she is loved.”
Kelly’s post has been shared over 15,000 times and is getting praised by fellow parents.
One commented: “Amen, sister. This is truth. My babies will always know their parents’ arms as long as I am alive to wrap them around them… It is absolutely amazing.”
Another wrote: “Thank you for sharing this. I am welling up with emotions. First of all, what a beautiful little girl! Secondly, why are people so quick to judge!? Lastly, you’re amazing.”
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves!
