So we were at Yellowstone in June. Beautiful park, highly recommend — but let me tell you about the day we almost became a nature documentary.
We were trying to find Old Faithful. Simple enough, right? Except we walked the wrong direction, all the way around to the hotel where we had breakfast, then walked all the way back the other direction. With four kids. In the heat. Classic us.
So we’re on the designated walking path — and I want to be clear, it was a walkway. Not a field. Not a restricted area. An actual path you’re supposed to walk on. And on both sides of this path there’s open field, and there’s a bison grazing on the right side. Far enough away. Other families walking by like it’s totally normal. Because at Yellowstone, it kind of is.
We’re about halfway through when we realize we’ve passed Old Faithful — it was behind us the whole time. So we turn around and start walking back. Same path.
Except now the bison has moved closer. And by this point, everyone else on the path had already moved on. It was just us.
The bison was maybe 6 or 7 feet away. Still not charging — just walking. But walking toward us.
I told my kids to walk fast. My son started to run and I said “No — don’t run, just walk quickly.” My husband had our youngest in his arms. The other three kids were between us. I was at the back.
By the time the bison was level with me it was maybe 5 feet away. We kept moving, stayed calm, and the second we cleared it — we ran. Because we’re calm, not crazy.
Nobody panicked. Not me, not my husband, not the kids. We handled it. Quietly, quickly, together.
That’s when I heard him.
An older man, maybe 20 feet away, loud enough for me to catch every word: “There’s a bison right there… some people are just stupid… walking past it like that… with kids…”
I stopped. Turned around. Looked directly at him.
He went quiet.
I didn’t say anything to him directly. I turned to my husband instead and said it — why do people like that feel the need to open their mouths? If you have nothing good to say, just keep walking. We didn’t ask for his opinion. We weren’t in his way. We weren’t his problem.
And my husband, very helpfully, goes: “Why are you telling me? Why didn’t you just say that to him?”
Sir. I just survived a bison. I cannot also be expected to be confrontational on demand.
But he had a point. And somehow that made me even more annoyed — at the old man, at the situation, and now a little bit at my husband too for being right about it.
And I keep thinking — what exactly did that man want to see? Because what he saw was a family moving calmly and efficiently through an unexpected situation with zero drama. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he was waiting for us to scream or freeze or fall apart so the comment would feel more justified. I don’t know.
What I do know is we were on a designated walking path. The bison was already there when we started. We didn’t choose the situation — the situation chose us. And we handled it fine.
I’m one of the most cautious people I know. Every trip, every activity — I’m the one saying “is this actually safe?” I’m Type A, I’m particular, and I don’t take risks with my kids. Ever.
And somewhere else in that same park that same day, I saw a white family letting their young kids hand-feed a bison. Carrot in hand. Child right next to the animal. Like a petting zoo.
Nobody said a word to them.
This wasn’t the first time a stranger decided my family needed their unsolicited input either. I think about the time during COVID when my kids were wearing masks — being responsible, following guidelines — and a woman pushing a stroller looked at my children and said “let them breathe.”
Just offered it freely. Like I asked.
That time I didn’t stay quiet. I turned to her and said “What did you just say? Mind your own business.”
And I’m not apologizing for that one.
There’s a pattern I’ve noticed. A certain kind of stranger who feels entitled to insert themselves into my parenting, my choices, my family — usually when I’m minding my own business and doing absolutely nothing wrong. And somehow I’m always the one left holding the weight of it, whether I stay quiet or whether I speak up.
Neither option feels clean. Staying silent means swallowing it. Speaking up means I’m the one who looks aggressive. The person who started it just walks away unbothered every single time.
I don’t have a perfect resolution to offer here. I’m still figuring out what the right response even looks like in those moments.
What I do know is my family handled that bison just fine.
It was the commentary that was harder to navigate.
And then we got in the car to leave.
My husband got stuck behind someone in the parking lot who wasn’t moving. And he started doing exactly what I had just done — venting. “Why aren’t you moving, what are you doing—”
I looked at him.
“Why don’t you go tell him that.”
He stomped on the brakes so hard I flew forward in my seat.
He sat there for a moment. Not driving. Just sitting.
Then kept going.
And I looked at him and said “that’s the support you gave me back there. So that’s what you get.”
He had absolutely nothing to say to that.
Neither did I.
We drove the rest of the way in silence. The good kind though — the kind where both people know exactly what just happened and nobody needs to say another word.
Yellowstone is stunning. Truly. Go.
Just know the wildlife inside the park is actually better behaved than some of the people in it.
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