Saturna

oftentimes i wonder if i am providing enough discipline for my child. he feels to me like he is so off the hook the great majority of the time that i find myself thinking, "what am i doing wrong here?" it turns out that he is a perfect little gentleman with anyone else that is not a parental figure. this means that besides me, his father, his weezer and his favorite sitter, Brianne, he acts quite civilized.

this week, i have had to have a come-to-jesus meeting with myself on my tendency to denigrate myself on nearly everything. i was going to let this rant slide and not even write it, but multiple occurances have driven me to the point where i am now sitting here spouting off, and not about what you may think.

see, it turns out, that i am a damn good mother. i know this, if only, from watching the other parents at the park this week. i know, terrible for me to judge anyone - but when their actions create total havok in a public place, all bets are off.

monday i met Mel and her brood at the park here in midtown where there is a water area and a slide/swing area. we are hanging out in the water area and we experienced two separate parents who are, at the very least, completely thoughtless, and at the very worst, raising their children with outrageous senses of entitlement.

one had brought a water gun. i do not agree with bringing individual toys to the park. first, the whole park is a toy! second, it is asking for conflict with all the other children who are naturally going to want to play with said toy. as a result, i refuse to allow isaac to bring toys to the park. we play, and with the park. this same child, after refusing to share, but running around and shooting every kid with the water gun, while his father sat there and said nothing, then went to the car to get into dry clothes. his father then unloads this huge 4-wheeler type of riding toy and the kid goes tearing through the park. again, refusing to let other children play with it. even going on about "this is expensive - you might break it!" and then proceeds to almost knock down Vega, who is under two years old. again, the father just sat there. did not speak to his child. did not ask his child to be careful or kind or anything.

i was flabbergasted, and quite irate at this man. he is basically teaching his child to run roughshod all over others, by not asking him to consider his surroundings. we left. it became too much work to keep everyone safe and calm and in and enjoyable headstate. thanks, dude - i hope your kid had fun - i, myself, have not heard about anything but 4-wheeler for days now.

and then today - we are at the mall at the indoor playground, where it is cool and where there was a one-day Macy's sale. (at which i found nothing reasonable, even 75% off - foolish me, i should have known better - i am the thrift shop queen, but i figured it would be an adventure.) this particular playground is for children 48 inches and under. jah isaac is well under that. he gets in there and starts playing and i am doing my normal of reminding him to watch out for little ones and to be kind. then there is this whirlwind of children, one of whom was taller than me, tearing through the place. turns out they were completely unsupervised, with the tallest one being in charge about of five, and he was egging them all on. we had to leave again. because it is just no fun to be hyper-vigilant so that your kid does not get kicked in the head by a twelve year old who has no business being there.

so i am guessing that i do a pretty darn good job being a parent. but i am just about sick to death of having to counteract the ways of being that are demonstrated to my child lately at the park.

so my questions are - are these parents just over-tired? no common sense? lazy and thoughtless? caught up in this give-your-kid-anything culture, just to shut them up? or what?

all i know is that i had to physically carry my nearly 50lb son half the length of the mall, from the outside, in 90 degree heat, rather than cave to giving him ice cream when he was pitching a fit. because we do not get rewarded for pitching fits in my world; therefore - i would rather go through that hell of having to strong-arm my kiddoe to the car, and him begin to learn that lesson, than raise someone who has absolutely no sense of how to treat people.

seeing what i have seen this week makes me feel like it is no wonder the world is in the state it is. kindness and compassion are so needed, and the only way to truly have a long term and true change is by teaching this to our children.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 10:30 pm and is filed under Family, Motherhood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.