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Molly Lensing is being called a “terrible mother” after this photo of her and her 2-month-old baby at the airport went viral.

Lensing was singled out and put on trial by internet trolls who called her a “neglectful” and “terrible mother” who “cares more about her phone than her baby!”

 

Little did the haters know, Lensing had “the unfortunate luck of being stuck in the middle of the Delta computer shut-down” and her flights were so delayed that she spent more than 20 hours sitting in airport with her two-month-old baby.


She explains how her daughter “Anastasia had been held or in her carrier for many hours. My arms were tired. She needed to stretch. And I had to communicate with all the family members wondering where the heck we were.”
Molly is a paediatric nurse who told Today’s Parent how she was worried the negative attention could get her in trouble with her job. She explains how she “had recently started working on a labour floor and I was terrified of my co-workers or boss seeing the photo and comments and believing that I should no longer work with infants.”

 

Thankfully, blogger Mary Katherine Backstrom came to Lensing’s rescue online, writing:
“No. Just no. We do not snap photos of exhausted mothers in the airport and shame them publicly. This is gross and needs to stop. I’ve been this woman. My flight delayed, running on zero sleep, fearful that my baby might slip straight from my arms and onto the floor if I nodded off … I wish she knew that there are mamas who understand exhaustion and imperfection and don’t choose to pounce someone in their weakest moment.”

 

Looking back a year later, Molly Lensing says:
“I absolutely feel as though my privacy was violated… I am powerless compared to the internet”

A picture isn’t always worth a thousand words, and maybe this will teach people to think twice before sharing a photograph of a stranger without their knowledge, their story or any context.

 

 

Filed under: kissmornings, mom, trending, viral