Crazy Playground Moms
Has anyone had a run-in with the crazy playground moms?
I took Isaac, Marissa, and one of her friends to a local park last week to enjoy the nice weather and have fun running around. Little did we know that we would witness some serious insanity there.
Soon after we arrived I noticed several suspicious things, the first being moms who were not even watching their children. Now I know I cannot judge, after all I let my baby roll off the bed recently, but this was pretty extreme.
I’m talking about moms were on the phone or chatting with each other at the other end of the park as very young toddlers were climbing up twisty slides backwards and getting bowled over by bigger kids. I even saw some older boy throw sand at a younger one and get it all in his eyes, so of course I nicely asked him to stop because sand in the eyes is not cool! As soon as the words were out of my mouth his mom comes racing over and asking what was I doing to her son. Maybe she was paying attention after all? Now I do not do confrontations, in fact I avoid them as much as possible, so I smiled and simply explained what her little angel was up to, to which she told me it was none of my (insert expletive of choice) business and stomped away.
Don’t judge, Sarah, don’t you do it! Just walk away and be the bigger person said the little angel on my shoulder, while the little one with horns and a pitchfork said What a lunatic! Her kid will end up in jail by age 12 because she is a bad parent! You should warn her, in a nice Christian way of course!
Hey you guys — know I walked away (:
The second thing I noticed was the opposite of no supervision — too much supervision. These moms were all over their kids, holding them as they tried to climb, going down the slides with them, not letting them on anything they could possibly hurt themselves on, which was pretty much everything there.
These kids weren’t given the chance to do anything at all by themselves, which kind of defeated the whole idea of a playground. Let them get dirty, fall down, make friends, discover things, and be kids!
Ha! Easy for me to say until Isaac is on the monkey bars telling me to let go of him but I just can’t do it, not quite yet/EVER.
Beware the crazy playground moms! I might even be one of them!
I have to admit I was the crazy overprotective Mom with my first son… with that said, I am constantly amazed by the behavior of the parents at the playground. I heard a mother defend her child for being obnoxious and pushing all the children out of the way by saying, “it is not natural to take turns and wait in line.” I could not believe my ears! Her child is definitely going to have a hard time if they continue to grow up with that belief system.
Michelle,
So you too have been a crazy playground mom, eh? (:
I’m sure I will be overprotective with Isaac once he is big enough to play, but with Marissa(my 10 year old stepdaughter)I am much less concerned because of her age and independence, but I do keep a constant eye anyway, just in case!
Hmmm…so the next time I am waiting in line at the bank or the doc’s office maybe I should push everyone out of my way…or not! Wow that is worrisome; hopefully that child will have a patient teacher at school who can gently straighten them out (: