So myself and the wife and our two year-old son are at the GAP outlet over the weekend.
Mommy’s trying on jeans so I’m watching my son from about 10 feet away standing under some clothes on a stand with one hand on the upright walking around in circles.
Along wanders a couple of sisters away from their mother (about four and two i’d say) to check out my son. He’s happy to see a couple other kids and grins at both of them.
Then the older one decides to give him a whack on the head. I do a double-take and continue observing since he doesn’t seem to be phased by it. Maybe she was just patting his head. Then she does it again and says “bad boy!” as her little sister starts hitting him in the arm. Before I know it they are both hitting him repeatedly chanting “bad boy” whack-whack-whack. He seemed more shocked at it than hurt probably wondering what the hell they were doing.
So I step over and pick him up.
The 4 year-old looks up at me, frowns, and says “He’s a bad boy!”.
I just smile and say back “Naww, he’s a good boy.”
But she’s adamant about it. “Nope. He’s bad. He’s selfish.”
So there I am. A 38 year-old man standing in the middle of the Gap arguing with a preschool girl about to bend over to get right in her face and say “Why don’t you go fuck yourself bitch.” when reality gets a hold of me and I just turn and walked away wondering what the hell I was thinking.
Just what my family would need on a Saturday afternoon. Daddy being hauled away and charged with verbally assulting a child.
I was at the grocery store a couple of months ago and there were these two kids, probably 3 and 5, running around and screaming like they were on fire or something. Then one of them somehow gets ahold of some type of bigwheel kind of thing and starts riding around the store as fast as he can. I almost ran over him with my cart twice, and the third time he came out from behind a display and dashed in front of my cart I did say, “What the fuck are you doing?” before I caught myself and realized I just swore at a little kid. I was a couple aisles over and I was talking to my roommate and I said, “I know I shouldn’t have sworn at that kid and now I feel bad, but honestly I almost decapitated him three times! Where the heck are his parents that they don’t care he is putting himself in danger and upsetting the other shoppers here?” Then I looked about 3 feet to my right and saw the woman with the empty stroller listening to my conversation. Yep, his mom heard me talking about how bad a parent she is and heard my confession that I swore at her son. She looked at me and said, “They are just having fun” and kept shopping. I noticed she kept them closer to her after that though.
I, too, am impressed at your restraint. While I doubt I would have started swearing, I would have said something scathing or sought out the girls’ parents. Though nowadays that doesn’t seem to have much effect.
I wonder why she said he was selfish?? Sounds like a kid with issues. I wouldn’t have cussed her out, but I’d have told her to stop smacking my kid and pointed out that she was being bad for doing that.
Kids that young just mimic what they know. No doubt they’ve been on the receiving end of beatings and scoldings themselves. I’d have said very loudly “excuse me little girl, but why are you hitting my child? Where are your parents?” and when the parent arrived, informed them that their children were beating my kid, unprovoked.
Actually, I’d probably have just grabbed my kid and left, but this is what I’d wish I would have done.
I would have reacted with a loud Hey! to get their attention as soon as the first slap happened. After than I’d have no trouble admonishing them that hitting is not acceptable and they should go find their mommy or daddy.
(yes, I was that parent who would correct any kid misbehaving in public, why do you ask?)
Good for you, velvetjones. I am also one of “those” people.
I think that’s part of what’s wrong in society. People are afraid of how it will look, or what the parents will say. I see nothing wrong at all with telling (or yelling) at kids to get them to behave!
I was in a Taco Cabana one day, when this woman came in with a bunch of kids in tow. She sat them down while she went to order the food. One boy placed his hands between two tables and was swinging his legs, and the tables were wobbling. I fussed at him to “Stop that! You’ll fall!” in a stern voice. He sat down. Later, he must have told the woman (who turned out to be an older sister) because she apologized for him and thanked me for correcting him.
I would actually want someone to tell me if my kids did that so that I could take the necessary actions. However, I seriously doubt my kids would do that, so that may be why I hold that view. I don’t even think my kids know what the word selfish means, now that I think of it…
What corkboard said. Dollars to doughnuts those two little girls have been on the receiving end of beatings during which they were called “selfish”–except their beatings were administered by adults, and no one rescued them.
Agreed. It’s pretty easy to tell what kind of homes my kids’ friends come from, just by observing how they play with each other and talk to each other.
I too am of the, “HEY! Quit hitting my kid, and WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS?” school in this type of situation.
I was volunteered to man the moonwalk at an employee/student picnic the other day. It was filled with about 5 kids (3 girls and 2 boys) who would not behave- kept taking running leaps into the netting, kept jumping up and down by the exit, and other things that could have had very very bad consequences (not for me so much as for them). I tried my soft “No sweetheart” voice to tell them telling them to stop or they’d have to leave- no avail. I tried explaining “You’re going to get hurt really bad!”, and when that didn’t work I ultimately used my “loud and stern voice” (no brag just true that I can stand on a stage and bounce my voice off the back wall without need for a microphone and when loud and stern are added it even scares adults and students) but to no avail. They just laughed and did it harder and faster. Obviously I couldn’t put a hand on them and since the bullets for my Glock 9mm stupidly have my monogram on the shell it was too risky, I was at wit’s end.
Luckily nothing happened before I was relieved, but damn! When I was a kid if an adult raised his voice and said “DON’T DO THAT!” I can honestly say I’d have cut it out- these kids, I might as well have been singing Greek sailor songs. I’m sure that if you spend enough time around kids they start seeming almost like little humans but I haven’t spent that much time around them yet and don’t intend to, so I just gained yet more appreciation for a line in a Katharine Hepburn interview when asked why she never had children (something to the effect of “Sooner or later it would have disobeyed me and I’d have had no other choice than to kill it”). I’d long ago decided never to attempt reproduction as too many prophecies could be fulfilled, but this just showed me there are secular incentives as well.
:eek: Sorry that happened to your kid. Sorrier for those girls, who obviously live with this kind of shit daily. (and how can a 2 year old be “selfish”?)
I am also :eek: :mad: over chicky mama with the out of control kid in the grocery that pbbth was menaced by–what kind of reaction is that? What happened to “oh, I’m so sorry. Jr, come here and stay near mama?”
The worst thing is that after all of this when we were waiting in line to pay for our things she and her children walked by and she made a big deal out of loudly teaching them ethical lessons while in line, one of which was “to be careful not to annoy other people” when it was obvious from her behavior earlier and her vocal tone at that moment that she didn’t give a sweet, buttery fuck what her children did or who was bothered by it. I guess it didn’t occur to her that I was bothered by it because I almost killed her son 3 times in about 6 minutes.
