blogger profile

Renee CK

writer, editor, tweetable http://twitter.com/chicskirt

I'm a fun girl who's on a quest to figure it all out. I'm cynical but living the dream- I'm not sure how that happened exactly. Follow along in my blog for fun, mayhem, and merriment. There's never a dull day! (Or, go download my book!)...

READ MORE

I'm the Mean Mom

it takes a parent to raise a plastic village of children

I wouldn’t call myself a hovercraft parent.  Yes, I had a full-on breakdown when I learned my daughter will not have the first grade teacher my son had.  C’mon, can you blame me?  The teacher and I are friends. We have the lines of communication open already, albeit they’re more like floodgates.  And, most importantly, I know she can do wonders to help the delay I see in my daughter which is easily dismissed with “she has a late summer birthday”. 

But!  I do require my kids follow some simple rules to ensure their safety.  The place I insist most of all is the public playground.  No climbing up slides, (you never know when someone will be sliding down full force and 2-foot you in the face) no climbing on TOP of equipment that is meant to house children under or inside of, the standard no hitting, biting, pushing, cutting, and when we’re inside, no yelling. 

Today the testosterone of the abode went hiking which left the day to us girls.  My princess climbed in bed with me at the crack of dawn when daddy and brother left.  After I woke up, (with her quietly watching TV in the living room) she took a bath, we gave her a mani/pedi, got ready to go, and went out to do pre-birthday party activities for her former beau. (Great family, handsome as can be, and back in the day, namely preschool, they couldn’t get enough of each other- not so much anymore.)  We got the requisite Webkinz and headed to McDonald’s with more time than I had anticipated to spare. Having extra time, we lounged a bit in the indoor playplace.  Now, maybe it’s because I’ve been fighting my sinuses for the past 24 hours or maybe it’s because when I arrived home, I learned that my monthly visitor came, but once I sat down in the playplace, I could not relax.  No, I didn’t mind the toddlers wandering aimlessly in front of me with my ill-fitting top on my Diet Coke.  I didn’t even mind the older kids running from each other.  But I did mind the ear piercing shreiking that came in sudden bursts. Yes folks, it was a girl dominated day at the Golden Arches.  Lucky me.  I listened and was happily able to recognize that it was not my daughter doing the offensive shreiking.  It was a girl who came running full-force to the table in front of me.  I came to realize that she was with the table of adults sitting together while the kids food had been plopped at other tables around the play area.  As I looked over to see what part my angel had in all the mayhem, I saw a nearly 9 year old straddling the slide.  I know the girl was around 9 because my son will be 9 tomorrow and I recognize the size. Old enough to know better and almost too big to be playing in playplaces anymore.

What’s a mom to do?  I take particular offense to this kind of stuff because my son’s form of autism leads him to look around and adapt to his surroundings to make friends.  It is why he growls at would-be friends and tries to tackle them to the floor.  He wasn’t there today and Princess was being good so I didn’t get to bust out my method for dealing with these malcontents.  Maybe it’s a better thing because my method is going to get my ass kicked one day and it’s more likely to happen when it’s a tangle with kids of table of adults sitting together while the kids food had been plopped at other tables around the play area.  Had Princess been shreiking, or had Magificent Morph Boy been present, I would have thanked them for obeying the rules of not sitting on the play equiptment when it’s so clearly not meant for that nor emitting ear piercing sounds that would attract dogs and humpback whales if not in an enclosed location.  Further, I would have told my children that I am sorry that they are made to obey the rules because I seem to be the only parent who cares enough about her children at the present time to make them follow the rules for the enjoyment of everyone in the greater molded plastic area.  Yeah, I’m gonna get jumped one day.

To be fair, no ear piercing shrieking is not in the McRules, but it does make for a nicer enviornment.  Loud volume- yeah, I get that. I mean, they are kids.  But shreiking, growling, and other noises that are made my mammels outside the homo sapien ranks are uncalled for.  But, what do you do when someone else’s kid is clearly breaking a safety rule?  I actually had a neighbor come to my house and get in my face because after asking his grandchildren to behave appropriately in the pool, I finally asked their mom, who was the “responsible adult” on deck for them, to make them stop.  Playing chicken in 5 feet of water with nothing but concrete behind you is just asking for a head wound or spinal injury.  And, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Had I not said anything and one of the teens would have wobbled off of their cousin/friend/sibling in the wrong direction, somehow I would have been responsible because a) I saw them doing it and didn’t say anything and b) because I’m a certified lifeguard, saw them doing it, and didn’t say anything. 

Even when my friends and I go to the known kid places where the kids can run free for awhile while the moms sit and catch up, I still keep an open ear for general malease.  It’s only a moment between a yell and a broken arm I’m afraid. If you stop the behavior that causes the yelling, it’s prevention from a trip to the ER. 

Remember when we were kids?  Our parents would all but lock us out of the house during the day and didn’t care what we did as long as we were home in time for the street lights to come on.  We didn’t act like asses!  We knew better. Someone would tell our mom and we’d be dead.  Now we have these meccas built to protect our little ones because we can’t send them out in the world anymore.   With them under our thumb all the time, shouldn’t they be better than we were?  And then why is it when you correct someone else’s kid, you’re in danger of being yelled at yourself? 

What is this world coming to?

Enjoy!
Renee