Being a RESPONSIBLE parent as opposed to being a schmuck

Rant ahead, consider yourself warned.

This afternoon, I took my Sweet Girl to one of our local malls to play in the soft play area with some friends. Some of you may know that I LOATHE those places with every fiber of my being, because they’re crowded, probably covered in a fine film of toddler fecal matter, and they are a magnet for irresponsible parents who need a place to let their children run amok with minimal supervision. But we go despite my reservations because it makes her SO happy, and it helps her burn energy.

Near the end of today’s play session, my girl was at the top of a soft play slide, roughly 4 feet tall. I was sitting on the bench right behind her watching her play. Several boys climbed UP the slide (which in our household is verboten and will remain so until she is able to understand that you only do that when other children aren’t trying to go DOWN the slide). There isn’t much room at the top of the slide. It suddenly got very crowded with the boys clambering and pushing each other and everyone around them at the top of the slide. Do you see where this is going? One of them pushed Charlotte. My stomach dropped (and is dropping right now as I type this), and I jumped up as fast as I could to try to catch her. I couldn’t get there in time, and she went backwards off the top of the slide and fell on her head/neck/shoulders on the ground (thankfully, mercifully a relatively cushioned surface). I can hardly contain the tears and I’m still shaking as I think about how gut-wrenching that was, how horrible to watch this happen to your child and know the possibility for serious injury while being completely incapable of doing anything to stop this. To those parents who have bravely watched their children go through much, much worse and still manage to get out of bed every day, I cannot offer enough of my admiration for your courage. Naturally, I scooped up her sobbing, shaking, sore little body, and clutched her to me alternately whispering soothing words and asking her if she was okay. She kept telling me no. Cue stomach dropping a little further.

In the meantime, the mother of the boy who pushed her (Mom A) had been sitting just a few feet from me. This was one of the boys who had been running around this tiny play area the whole time we were there. This was one of the boys whose parents you couldn’t identify because no one was actively paying attention to him or trying to get him to stop acting like a damn fool. This was one of the boys who was veeeery close to being altogether too big for the play area. Immediately after the fall, this mother started yelling at the boy. She told him he should be watching out for the littler kids. She hollered at him to come sit by her. The mother of one of the other boys had been sitting next to her chit-chatting and she grabbed her son as well (Mom B). As I was anxiously soothing my girl, Mom A asked me if she was okay. All I could say in that moment where I felt only anxiety for my daughter’s well-being and anger at the nature of this accident was, “I sure hope so.” Mom A walked away and sat down with her son.

Here’s where it gets really good. Mom A didn’t apologize. Mom A didn’t insist that her son apologize. Mom A didn’t find out for sure if Sweet Girl was okay. Mom A didn’t speak another word to me in the 10 minutes that she sat there after the accident. Mom B, whose son was also part of the melee, didn’t say a word to her son. Mom B didn’t say a word to me. In fact Mom B wouldn’t even look me in the eye.

I. Am. Furious. What I wanted to explain to this mother, and what I didn’t have time to tell her is that while she was busy yelling at her son and blaming him for what happened, SHE is ultimately responsible for monitoring his behavior and REMOVING HIM from a situation that gets out of hand BEFORE someone gets hurt. Don’t yell at your kid because you were too busy talking to your friend to actually PARENT him. He’s a kid. Kids get rowdy. Kids don’t have a great sense of knowing when to calm down. It’s especially hard for them if their parents don’t set and uphold reasonable boundaries. BUT IT’S PARENTS THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO KEEP THE KIDS FROM KILLING EACH OTHER. Also, what the hell kind of parent doesn’t teach their kid to apologize for hurting someone else?! Maybe she was terrified of what my response would be; maybe she felt guilty. Hard to know since she didn’t bother to say. Either way, that doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t have owned up to her mistakes and effing apologized and asked her son to apologize as well. Accidents happen, we ALL know that accidents happen, but my kid could have broken her freakin’ neck falling 4 feet, and she didn’t have the courage? decency? chutzpah? to say she was sorry? WTF, people? What happened to people having an ounce of human decency and taking, oh what’s it called again….oh yeah RESPONSIBILITY for their actions?!

Yeah, I’m gonna need a stiff drink to calm my nerves AND get me off my soapbox.