Today at the Tower Grove wading pool, I was yelled at by a mother for pointing at her son to let him know that I was talking to him. I don't know that I will ever fully understand why people find that action so "aggressive", but fine people do. The reason I rushed over and pointed at him for a brief second to make sure he knew I was speaking to him...he was repeatedly pushing my child's head under the water causing him not only to inhale water, but also scraping his face, hip, elbows, and knees on the concrete. I started walking over the first time I saw him do it and, in the few seconds that it took me to get across the fifteen feet between us, he did it two more times. The Scientist was struggling to catch his breath and get away. This kid's two brothers and his sister all stopped when they heard me say, "Hands to yourself." He did not (obviously). So I did point and said, "Yes you." Unpoint, switch to a open hand. "You may NOT push people under the water. You need to keep your hands to yourself. You could really hurt someone. Do you understand what I am saying to you?" This exchange took about three seconds, he nodded, and then I went over to make sure The Scientist was okay. We went over to our stuff, right on the edge of the wading pool where I perched because I know a lot of the kids there are poorly supervised, and the mom came over with the offender. She says to me, "You are not his mother, so don't point at him." I replied, "I'm sorry if I've offended you by pointing briefly to get his attention, but he was repeatedly pushing my child..." Here she interrupts me to say, "I'm his mom and I was sitting right over there. That is why I'm coming over here to have him apologize." To her son, "Apologize." Son weakly says, "Sorry." Then she walked off. My issues with the situation are as follows:
(1) She was about fifty feet away from your children. Granted the rest of her children were not attempting to drown any of the other children at the pool, but one of them was. This makes me think that really you should be within a closer vicinity of your children (all five of them).
(2) She never even attempted to get up off of her butt until she noticed that someone had pointed a finger at her child, who was holding another child's head under the water. I am absolutely sure that you cannot be an effective parent while sitting on your ass.
(3) She finds a brief finger-pointing at her child more egregious than her child holding another child's head under the water.
Am I completely wrong in what I find the greater issue here? I would love to hear comments. I sometimes feel like I'm too aggressive when other people's children kick my children in the face repeatedly, hold my child's head under the water repeatedly, etc. But in those instances they do happen repeatedly and the other child's parents are nowhere near the child and/or don't seem to give a shit that their child is bullying another child. Am I going overboard in stepping in on the situation?
4 comments:
You are absolutely not wrong to have "finger pointed" - however, I have heard that "finger pointing" in other cultures is used by the parent - you know some of the culture stuff is so blurry, it was a finger point, no biggie. My kinda guess is though - that she was also getting up to make him apologize, but that also couldn't stand the humiliation that her kid was doing such a thing that another person reprimanded him and had to save a little face.
Be mad at the stranger and not at the family member kinda thing.
You did good - I would have touched the kid on the arm - imagine what she would have done! She would probably have drug me back to the pool and dunked me like her kid did.
I don't think you did anything wrong. I wouldn't worry about what she thinks.
I would like to give some sort of deep advice, totally meaningful and with lots of purpose. But I can't. It's almost eleven and I'm gearing up to go grocery shopping. It'll be a ghost town, since it's Saturday night.
I'm on your side with this. I think if there are parents who are not going to "teach" their children how to behave then someone needs to and maybe if enough other parents corrected these kids they would get SOME positive influence somewhere. I am assumign this mother saw what he was doing and did not stop him? I think anytime your child is in potential danger you as parent need to step in...other parents be damned. If my kid was acting out I would expect someone to do that, especially if they were closer in a danger situation or if I did not see it happen. As far as finger pointing. I don't get that issue, either. I do know some cultures think that is super offensive but I don't get why. Course this is usually the same culture that I see repeatedly smacking their very small children in public for "crying".
I got yelled at by an 11-year old the other day for telling her to stop beating up another kid. This little girl turned on me and started screaming at me (no other adults around). I must say I think it takes balls for a kid to yell at a mom. She accused me of being a racist since the kid she was punching was white and she was black. I assured her I hadn't said anything to the white kid simply because I hadn't seem him pounding anyone's face in. Argh.
Ruth
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