Went to local playbarn with BFF and our three tiddlers. It's normally quiet so we were (stupidly) confident that it would be fine. And it would have been, had it not been for 'precious mum' who was also there with her little girl.
Now don't get me wrong, Toddler is bouncy. Toddler is loud. Toddler likes to jump off things and shout RARRH and squidge all the huge foam shapes into the ball pool with great gusto. But he's not mean nor nasty nor malicious.
Every time he so much as looked at the little girl her mother stepped forward ready to intervene. I was sitting outside the glass enjoying a coffee, nattering and feeding Baby but could see him the whole time and was happy with his behaviour.
It started out like it always does, with me rolling my eyes and making a few loud comments about being kind and gentle so they knew who he was with and that I wasn't blind! Then it slowly turned into a terribly disloyal paranoia. I found myself thinking 'for the love of God, stop jumping off that bloody step...why must you slide down that thing headfirst so near to that little girl??' and getting quite snippy with him. His behaviour was rubbing me up the wrong way, and really he wasn't doing a damn thing wrong. And still they huffed and puffed and tutted under their breath. By this point I was sitting IN the soft play area with Baby and BFF so could see them quite clearly when they dramatically grabbed their daughter out of Toddler's reach if he galloped past her.
Then my BFF pointed something out to me that made me stop and reassess. Their other child, a little boy, was racing around and deliberately banging into their legs, to which they would all laugh and cry 'cheeky!!' So apparently, when their kid did it it was fine, but when my child joined in their game he was a violent bully who needed removing??
So then I swiftly moved back to rolling my eyes and ignoring them.
Why must parents, especially other mothers, be so clicky, judgmental and bitchy? He's a young boy who was enjoying his time at a facility that is designed for boisterous play. Surely if your child is made out of glass it's not the best place for her to spend her Friday morning?
Just a thought!
No comments:
Post a Comment