I thought I should take advantage of the fact that's it's not snowing or freezing (technically, anyway) to take the kids to the park. Naturally they requested the playground in the next town over, with its two sections that make it difficult to see all of them and few things that Hugmonkey can do independently. But I agreed to it, hopeful that the last 6 months would make the place easier to manage.
It wasn't.
Hugmonkey is no longer much of a climber, quite possibly because he is the youngest and used to having Mommy there to push him up. Which I did. Ironflower ran off and joined up with a girl her age. Lovebug wandered rather aimlessly until 3 small boys arrived with their mothers. He asked to play with them and one boy totally shot him down. As Lovebug tried to follow them up the slide, the same boy had a huge tantrum, climbed down and then screamed that Lovebug had cut in front of him. I had been just watching while pushing Hugmonkey in the swing, hoping that the one boy would accept Lovebug and let him play. But even after Lovebug climbed down and let the boy go in front of him (which I complimented loudly enough for his mother to hear), the boy still wouldn't let him play.
As more boys and moms joined the clique, Lovebug tried a few more times to play. But the boy rejected him each time. I then eavesdropped on some of the other boys and was horrified that a bunch of 4 year olds could be so nasty to each other while their parents were nearby, totally ignoring them. I encouraged Lovebug to play with Ironflower, but there's only so much pretending to be a boy fairy he can take.
I shouldn't be surprised, given that all the moms were unfriendly too. I should be over it - Lovebug is. I shouldn't be judgmental, because I'm trying to see the good in people.
But.
Not only did those brats hurt my kid's feelings, they tried to tell him it was THEIR park. I said something about that too, but once again the mothers totally ignored me and their children's bratty behavior.
Ironflower asked me, after we'd left, why those parents let their kids act that way. Before thinking about it, I responded, "Because they just don't care." I don't know if it's that they don't care to make the effort into making their kids good people of if they just don't care if their kids turn out to be good people, but I didn't go into it with Ironflower. She just commented that it was "too bad".
It's really no wonder those kids are little assholes.
Oops, that sounded kind of judgmental, didn't it?
6 comments:
It's funny. I ALWAYS tell my kids "if the mother is nice, the kid will be nice". Sometimes these kids go through phases but I generally can write it off as just that if the kid acts jerky as long as I know that the mother is good.
I have even had a mother call my daughter a "goody two-shoes" because my daughter is so well behaved in school and her kid is one of the "PUNKS". I say "F*$k YOU!" to these mothers.
Oops! Was that judgemental?
Judge away my-lady! I feel the same way when my kids encounter other kids that are mean. I usually have to engage my kids in some other way so to divert them from the evil ones. And it is just ridiculous how the moms can be...so cliquey. ugh. I'm with you/assholes are they!
Parents make me sad. When did people start becoming so rude to people?? And now all these rude people are having babies, and raising rude, self centered little snots.
No wonder the teacher tells me how caring my boys are, and how they are always making friends with the new kid, or helping someone out who is having a bad time with something. It isn't the norm! This makes me even sadder.
@Jersey Girl "Goody two-shoes?" Really? Sounds like she should be friends with this mother. And it's definitely true about the mother/kid prediction.
@Sooz Thank you. I wish Lovebug would be diverted, but that never works at the park. Ugh.
@Carol It's heartbreaking. I'm glad to hear that there are still some parents out there who care about their kids being good people.
it's hard not to be judgmental when witnessing excellent examples of asshattery, from both kid and parent.
I drives me insane when parents do not parent their kids and then wonder why little johnnycakes is a rotten kid.
Both of my kids are the"good kids", but it takes work to get them there. That's the deal parents are lazy, our generation was raised by people who didn't believe in discipline, so this generation doesn't know how to discipline.
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