I pit my obsessive-parent neighbor

The BBQ Pit
1

So, school started up again today. This means our two kids have to grumble their way out the door and over to the bus stop, just opposite our driveway. (Yeah, we’re lucky, but the stops are only a few blocks apart at most.)

And here comes our neighbor from up the facing street… driving her daughter to the bus stop for the third year running (and probably before that; we weren’t here yet). They sit in their running SUV until the bus gets there, while the other kids stand around and talk and horseplay and all the usual things.

Bus gets there; “Tiffany” gets out of the car and on the bus. Mom waves, makes a U-turn, and goes back home. A whole 150-200 feet down the road.

Bet you’ve made some assumptions, right?

“Tiffany” is 13, same as our kids, starting 8th grade this year.

“Tiffany” has no special needs; I believe she’s actually one of those annoying dance/soccer/basketball types.

There is not the slightest case of friction with other kids in the neighborhood, ours or anyone else’s.

The weather is usually mild if not pleasant, barring a few storm or blizzard days, which today wasn’t.

Crime? The local paper reports it on page one when someone finds a cut screen on their back window that might have been the start of a burglary attempt. We don’t lock our doors here. It was a huge crisis when minor auto burglaries started happening, because we don’t lock our cars, either, and some youngish teens found it was dead easy to find small amounts of cash, phones, laptops etc. That’s our level of “crime.”

In other words, there is no reason on earth for “Tiffany” to be driven 200 feet to the bus stop every single morning and wait in the car until the bus arrives. But you can set a watch by Mom’s headlights sweeping across our windows, every single school day of the year. Jesus.

2

We have a few parents in our neighborhood who do the same thing and I privately judge them, same as you. That said, you don’t really know that these statements are true:

If she’s getting bullied by one of those kids, or has been in the past, you might not necessarily know just from hanging around at the bus stop or shooting the shit with her parents in the front yard or whatever. And not all special needs are obvious. Which is why I privately judge. :slight_smile:

But seriously, people - around here it’s been around 75-80 degrees in the morning at the bus stop. Do you really need to sit there with the car running and the AC cranked?

3

I’d like to Pit the mom for being too lazy to drive her all the way to school. I wouldn’t make my children associate with the riff-raff on the bus. They might hear foul language

4

We have them as well. Two on the cul-de-sac behind our house, a few more in the immediate vicinity. Two houses and three away from the corner, huge SUVs, year round, kids are now teenagers.

I also “privately” judge - by which I mean I don’t go knocking on their door, rolling my eyes. Or even mention it to the common neighbors - I come here. I suppose its POSSIBLE that I live in a neighborhood of hidden special needs, but I think its far more likely I have special snowflakes for neighbors.

When we talk about helicopter parents, its this sort of parent I think about and worry about. I mean, Luke went to pre-school with my son (before he went to private school), my son turns fifteen today - in a few years I’ll be (hopefully) waving goodbye when I send my kid off to the dorm, or bootcamp, or maybe just kicking him out of the house for being a slacker and giving him a little tough love - but I do know that however he leaves my house, he doesn’t need me to take him to the bus stop.

5

Anyone who needs a car to go a hundred metres, judge 'em all you want…

6

In our case, I don’t get the sense that the parents have special snowflakes so much as that the entire family is allergic to walking. First week of kindergarten for my oldest (lo these many years ago), one of the other moms at the bus stop expressed sympathy for me because we lived “so far away from the bus stop and you have to walk such a long way.”

200 yards. From the front door to the bus stop is 200 yards. That’s it. WTF is wrong with people?

7

I’m not getting why we should be outraged at these people. You have no idea why they are doing this?

Maybe the parent works late hours and that time is the only chance they have to spend time talking to their kid during the week.

Maybe the kid is allergic to bee stings and there are a lot of them in that spot.

Who knows what their deal is. Does it bother you in some way?

8

Yes. Does that bother you in some way?

It is Wednesday morning, we are bored, and we are bitching about the other parents in our neighborhood, as is our god-given right as Americans. Try to cope with it.

9

a - It’s a waste of non-renewable fuels, plus increased air pollution in that particular spot.

b - The parent would have more quality time spend talking to the kid while walking them to the bus top

c - Okay, fair enough, but kid still has to stand at that spot once dropped off!

d - Yes, the more distracted drivers doing short journeys with parking/reversing at both ends, the more likely it is that a child walking, or waiting at the bus stop will be hit by a careless driver doing a u-turn to go the 200 yards back to their driveway.

I fucking hate school run mums. Can you tell?

10

You’re kidding with this one right?

11

I used to do that for my kids occasionally. It was a good time to get a few minutes of one on one conversation and make sure any last minute items were sorted before I headed off to work.

I signed many forgotten parent consent forms, wrote many checks for school supplies, handed cash for lunch and helped with last minute homework problem in the half hour before their bus arrived. It was a good way to just get time without running around the house in the hectic confusion of everyone getting ready for their day. I like my kids. I enjoyed the few minutes of relative peace and calm and bonding.

Shrug. Judge me if you must.

12

I am more bothered by the fact that a rant from a barbarian ended up with exactly zero heads getting lopped off from some sort of great two-headed war axe.

“…And here comes our neighbor from up the facing street… driving her daughter to the bus stop for the third year running (and probably before that; we weren’t here yet). They sit in their running SUV until the bus gets there… and then the RED RAGE!”

:mad:

Mother’s head = lopped

:mad:

Daughter’s head = lopped

:mad:

Heads of various innocent bystanders = lopped, lopped, lopped

:mad:

Noggin of bus driver = lopped

:mad:

Frank Frazetta-style buxom vixens suddenly clinging to legs = ignored

:o

Busybody old lady neighbor getting upset at all the nudity and violen… = lopped

:mad:

13

This is what separates the pros from the amateurs.

14

Totally agree with the general consensus in this thread. What kind of fucked up parent seeks out ten minutes of private interaction with her adolescent daughter every day? What possible good could come of that shit?

15

They can’t do that while walking to and standing at the bus stop?

16

Hey, I’m agreeing with you! Most of the best, most honest conversations I had with my own parents were standing in a crowd of teenagers who were listening to and judging the discussion.

17

Have you stood at a school bus stop with children whose parents DIDN’T accompany them? No, it can’t be done.

18

I remember other kids whose parents did that, and we thought they were weird. I haven’t checked but I’m pretty sure they all became serial killers.

19

They do it here, too- first time I’d ever seen it done was when we moved here to NC after living in Arizona, where I’d never seen it, and I did think it strange, and still do. Last year, one of them used to let my teenaged son sit in their giant SUV until the bus came, and they bought him Christmas presents. I guess they felt that he must be disadvantaged because he didn’t have a giant SUV to sit in while waiting for the bus, but hey, win!

20

You monster.