In which I am a crappy adult provoked by a 2.5 and a 5 yr old.
I totally lost it today at some little girls at the park.
Dear Jack, Do not model yourself on your mom’s behavior. Thanks. Love, Mom
My kid is only 2 which means that I’ve only been a mom for 2 years which means that I was not quite prepared to act appropriately. I thought I was doing it right up until the moment when I realized that no one had ever been mean in this way to my kid before and suddenly the snotty little bitch girl behavior just GOT TO ME.
So Jack and I are hanging around the public gardens. We walked in to the community garden part and there was a mom with her two little girls and Jack went over to investigate them and the mom told me the smallest girl was 2.5. At some point the two girls sat on a bench (where I had just been sitting not 2 seconds before) and Jack went over and wanted to get up on it too. And the littlest girl started screaming in his face, “GO AWAY WE DO NOT WANT YOU GO AWAY”. So I was kinda like, “well, maybe they will work it out” and so I did not interfere. But the little one kept doing it and the bigger one joined in! The other mom sort of half assedly said, “why don’t you let him stay” and then I said, “yeah you can pretend he the noble steed of the castle” but still the yelling! and then she (the littlest one) pushed him off the bench! and then he hit her in the face!
So I pick Jack up at this point and say “well y’all have decided this is a girls only castle huh? I guess we will just leave”. And the girls say, ” “Good because we don’t want you here”. And the mom is just standing there like a jackass and this is where I lose it and in my most horrid snotty little girl voice with my face squished up, head tilted, “well, your games are BORING and we don’t want to play with you ANYWAY!”
So we walk away and the girls are still screaming at him! still! and so I screamed back about how they were boring and jerks. Yes. that’s right. I called them jerks. That last horrible “good we don’t want you here” just really really pushed my buttons. One, it was spoken to me AND my kid and to have someone’s little shitty 5 year old be rude to me that way…and to have that parent let their kid be that rude to to a grown up with out saying anything… hmmm.
But anyway! Maybe I should have swooped him up and left right away? But it was a public garden and how could I know they would be quite so horrible?! And we were walking there! Enjoying ourselves! and Jack had just spent 15 minutes playing with a nice little girl over by the rock fountain!
So, I don’t think that all little kids have to play together all the time and I don’t think that parents have to intervene to make kids be nice to each other. OR DO I? Now I am not sure. That mom let her kids be total assholes and she absolutely should have jumped in and told them not to be assholes. I’m still so mad!
I want to know what other people think. Am I just an annoying california hippy parent? Well, the answer to that is that I am half hippy half total jerk who stoops to a 2.5 yr olds level and then ups it by calling them jerks. omg.
Dear Me, Please please do not ever do that again. Love, Me
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July 10, 2009 at 10:55 pm
i know i’m not supposed to approve, but i feel like saying good on you for telling them in language they could understand! hehe. plus that mum was a jerk for not demanding better behaviour from her girls. that’s my inexperienced opinion, anyway.
July 11, 2009 at 8:19 am
I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same. Judging from their attitude, I wouldn’t be too worried about any negative effect you might have had on them. There has to be some reason those girls thought it was OK to talk like that–they must hear mean things from, oh, say, their own parents all the time.
I think even a nasty parting word to the equally rude mother would’ve been appropriate, too.
July 11, 2009 at 10:09 am
i probably would have said something sarcastic to the mom like, “preparing your girls for sorority life, eh?” in a very sweet voice and then said, “jack, it’s time you learn not all girls are nice. it’s an unfortunate fact of life. come on, let’s leave them to yell at each other. we’ll go somewhere fun.”
moms like that need a good virtual slap in the face.
July 11, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Better to maybe have address the girls’ rudeness since the mother didn’t? Something like, “Oh dear, I’m surprised your mother lets you speak so rudely to other people in the park who are just trying to be friendly!” And then walk away.
Still, at the moment, you can’t be blamed too much for getting upset!!
July 11, 2009 at 8:30 pm
There is no way you could have been prepared for that hideous situation. If the little girls were behaving surprisingly rudely, and then their mother was behaving surprisingly rudely by not DOING anything about it, then it was like the Twilight Zone and who KNOWS how to behave in such a situation? I have NO IDEA what I would have done. NO IDEA.
July 12, 2009 at 8:59 pm
HIndsight is 20/20, my dear. Maybe you could’ve handled it better but all you can do is promise yourself that you will try to handle it better the next time some awful little snot is being an awful little snot. Personally, I feel like the remarkably poor parenting award belongs to the other mother – WTF? What kind of human being thinks that this bullying is acceptable behavior????? And though I’m sure her horrid shirking of responsibility will come back to haunt her, she’s likely one of those people who will cry, ” Heigh-ho, why me?” Sigh. I feel for you.
July 13, 2009 at 8:41 am
I expect parents to step in too. I would have if my child was acting like that. And in your situation, I probably would have said something to my son along the lines of, “Come on, honey, let’s get away from these mean girls. They are not nice enough for us to play with” and I would have made sure the mother heard me.
July 13, 2009 at 7:21 pm
You go, Not-Perky! I have almost 18 years of parenting experience, and that mom’s head was so far up her ass it is still stuck in there. You & your boy were in one of those situations in which a person does not know how to react. It’s always kosher to speak directly to a kid when a parent has abdicated responsibility: “That’s a mean game and we don’t play like that” is fine, or, if you are utterly taken aback, yelling at the kid one time ain’t sucha crime either.
July 16, 2009 at 12:47 am
woot. you all rock.
July 17, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Hehehe, your story really made me chuckle. Hopefully enough time has passed that you can look back and laugh.
It’s hard to hold it together when you see your child being treated poorly. If I were that girls mother I would be mortified by my little monsters…but, anyone that would let their kids behave that way must not have much going on upstairs.
The other day I heard my little boy stand up for the little girl who lives across the street when her brother said something mean to her. I was so proud of him, then she turns around and sais “It’s not cool to be nice. if your nice, people will call you a crybaby and hit you” WTF, where do kids get these things?
July 31, 2009 at 8:20 pm
First of all, love your blog, first time visitor, but will be back. Secondly, when I witness any kid being mean to either of my sons I want to strangle them. And sadly, if it is a little girl it sometimes pisses me off more. Maybe b/c some mean girl memory from jr. high is triggered for me? Uggh. So I really don’t blame you for reacting that way, it is so hard not to when someone is being a jerk to our child I think. Even if the jerk is super short. On a much lighter note, that hedgehog shirt you made for your son is insanely adorable.
October 10, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Oh my lord. LOL.