It can be a real minefield. When you are around what you perceive to be "bad parenting", how do you handle it? I took our girl to our local Chik Fil A for lunch after her CCD program as a sort of reward. Someone posted on social media that they were having a chicken giveaway so being the cheapskate that I am I thought it would be a good day to take my kid to lunch. Unfortunately for me, half of Gloucester County had the same idea. The place was mobbed. The promotion was for a free entree for every customer who showed up dressed as a cow. That was the one half of the promotion I missed.
We lucked out and found a good seat in full view of the play place. I managed to get us settled and waited in line to order food. If people took voting as seriously as free chicken I'd feel much better about the upcoming election but I digress. Fortunately, I looked down and found a cow spot sticker on the floor. I put it on my shirt just for the heck of it, not expecting anything. When I got to the register, Playing dumb, I asked the cashier if there was some kind of party at the restaurant. The guy was nice enough to tell me I was supposed to dress like a cow and gave me a free sandwich just for a stupid sticker!
When you order a kids meal rather than giving you a toy, they give you a book. As a mom, I always thought this was great. As it turned out, my daughter really didn't need another book, especially one that was written for younger kids. Oddly enough, there was an older girl sitting across from us who was waiting for her mom. She was older and after talking briefly, we could tell she had "special needs". My girl decided that she didn't need her book and gave it to the older girl who was sitting there and chatting. Every once in a while, she surprises me and makes me proud of her. It's really disconcerting!
The other girl's family came and joined her and my daughter decided to go to the "play place". This "other girl" also had a little brother who (we discovered later) also had issues. He also chose to use the play place. This boy was overweight and younger than my daughter. A short tine later my girl came out crying saying the kid kicked her in the stomach. Assessing how bad she is hurt is one of the hardest things I run into as a mom. Half the time we refer to it as "injuring her hambone" depending on the amount of attention Meryl St reep's boo-boo is getting. While I want her to be able to shake things off, I also want to make sure I don't downplay something serious. Nobody ever clutched their chest and yelled for an accountant.
Evidently, its older sister must have told the manager because an employee came by and offered her a bag of ice. In the meantime, the nasty boy had apparently been bothering two other kids. The little beast emerged from the play place, refused to apologize and threw a hissy fit when he was denied ice cream! I saw the mother take her kids up front. Oher mothers were looking on and commenting. "She's not getting him ice cream is she??!!" Fortunately, the family left shortly afterward without dessert.
The manager came over to us and asked us what happened and if my girl was ok. I let her know everything was fine. To the restaurant's credit, the manager took our information and offered my girl a free ice cream cone, which she gladly took. It's been very rare in my experience to see fast food places give a rats ass about their customers despite the litigious world we live in. These "play places" are hard. They are offered for the convenience of the customers, they are not free childcare! As the parent of a one and only, it's not easy to back off the helicopter. Oddly enough, the best parenting advice I ever got came from probably one of the worst parents (in retrospect) I've ever met, my father. He once told me "You guys didn't come with instructions!".
That, in a nutshell, is it. The advice that covers everything. My problem is my brain and the drop shoot effect I seem to suffer from. My friends know all too well what a sarcastic critter I am and diplomacy is not one of my strong suits. According to my spouse, I am aptly named, Barb. How do you avoid judging someone when the situation looks so bad others are commenting? Doubt has been removed, one would think, about what you're seeing. Worse than that, as one who overthinks everything, I worry about what kind of impression this is making on my kid.
Young as she is, it didn't take long for my little Judge Judy to make comments. "He was mean! He shouldn't have done that! He's supposed to know better. That was not nice. He was bothering other kids, too!" I found myself reminding my own daughter that it's not our place to teach him how to behave. That's his mommy's job. It appears that judgements are about as easy to avoid as germs! This is not the first time I've been "caught by surprise" in these parenting situations. I'd say it's pretty much a way of life.
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