Appropriate Behavior
Do you think I’m referring to my child? No, not really, instead an over-friendly, and unknown grandmother. I was lamenting that I have not written in a month and then this morning happened.
Back in April, I had my first real altercation with another mother. Sara Ellen and I were at the mall and I was letting her climb around on the over-priced rides next to Playtown. A little girl had gotten into the firetruck and sat in the backseat. Sara Ellen jumped in without asking and sat in the frontseat. I probably should have taken her out immediately, it’s usually ok to share but you need to ask first. I was standing aside and the other mother went to speak quietly to her child. I went up next to get Sara Ellen and I let the other girl know she could move up to the front before the ride stopped. Then the mother came up and asked me what was going on. I repeated what I said and she got quite upset, asking why I was speaking to her child like we had a relationship, also complaining that Sara Ellen had jumped on without asking. Except for the unauthorized ride-sharing, I was a bit speechless as to why she was so upset. She gave up and walked away. We also left, me very unhappy, and drove to the Cupertino Memorial Park. It was cloudy, which seemed to keep most visitors away except for one couple. This is how we met Michaela and Kathleen. What a blessing they were.
Today I was on the opposite end of the mother spectrum. We visited CMP this morning. A beautiful sunny day, a couple groups of kids, and other parent/child pairs. After over an hour Sara Ellen found a little girl to play with, whose grandmother was also there. I sat down to read and then a conversation started between myself and mothers on either side of me. The grandmother was very friendly, instead of seeming like Sara Ellen was intruding but over time she got to be too friendly. Sara Ellen and the girl were coming down the slide together or one after the other and at some point Sara Ellen came out of the slide and ran straight ahead into the arms of the grandmother! I was quite surprised but laughed a little. But it was not an isolated insident and the grandmother was very encouraging. It’s perfectly ok with me for Sara Ellen to hug her new boy and girlfriends, but a strange adult? No ma’am. My friends? If she wants. Her teachers, again, if she wants. I asked her to come over to me and I quietly told her not to get so close with adult she doesn’t know, but that she could hug her new friend. She may have gone down the slide and then she went back to the woman. She just stood in front of her but held her hand. She looked at me and I shook my head a bit. The other mother saw me but didn’t say anything. The grandmother started peeling an orange and as I was getting up she offered some to Sara Ellen, without asking me. Well, that’s quite enough. Sara Ellen was upset to leave but I had her wave to the girl and picked her up. I don’t want her to afraid, but we don’t have the problem and though this is a first, I don’t want it to set a precedent.
Why is it so strange for a stranger to interact with your children like this? I had a similar incident occur, where a grandmother was helping Meredith slide (I was standing back, trying to let her climb up and slide on her own) and the lady said that Mere was scaring her and she acted all anxious! I was so weirded out by it….it was like she was parenting my kid or something. Then we were at the play place at the mall, and these kids were eating (hello, it says no food!) and they started feeding my kids! I didn’t make them leave immediately, but we did eventually.
How do your first question and your story go together? Do you not think it’s strange?
It’s strange being a parent. In my first story, I felt like that mother freaked out, but I suppose I should have spoken to her directly and apologized. With the food thing, it only makes sense to offer to someone you know, even then I’d ask the mother if it was ok.
Tim wonders is maybe the grandmother grew up and raised her kids a different way. I’d say “it takes a village” only applies when you know eachother. I’m glad she was being kind, but I’m still weirded out.
Email Discussion:
D – no i do think it is strange, but i wonder why it is so strange….like how do you help your child develop to understand that someone is a stranger but that stranger could potentially become your friend….i was just posing the question.
i get all bothered sometimes when i say [my son's] name in public and then hear someone say it back to him. he is so little. and so friendly.
R – I had that same thought today, about the names. Yeah, it was a challenge trying to explain it to her, wondering what she understood. I think, I hope I said that lady should have talked to me first.
Stranger danger *is* strange – I don’t know how to deal with it sometimes myself. Matt and I do not have children, but we have very similar experiences when we walk our dogs in public places. Our dogs LOVE children and are super well behaved so when children run up and ask if they can pet them our immediate response is “Yes! They love children” but I have to catch myself and do a quick head spin to try and find the parents to ask THEM if their child can pet my dogs. It is just odd- like disrupting the flow of action and I try to not change the tone of my voice too much so it doesn’t seem like I am trying to dissuade them from petting because 1) I instinctively want to reward children who are polite / responsible – ie ASKING if they can pet before petting 2) my dogs genuinely do LOVE children and they get SO happy when they come over to pet them (they give these sweet gentle hand licks and stand perfectly still — we practiced this with them when they were puppies because it was important to us that they be good with children) and 3) it builds a cache of good experiences with dogs for the children, which I also believe is important — it breaks my heart to see people who are afraid of dogs.
But here is the problem, sometimes parents are no where to be found, and in that case I just let them pet and remind hem to wash their washes (after licks) and usually tell them where they can wash. But it always makes me feel a bit uneasy.
This happened to us in Ocean City on Father’s Day, we were going to a fenced in dog park up on 94th street that we had found via the internet – back luck, the internet dos NOT tell you that it is a PASS only dog park (really high tech for a dog park, you had to own a swipe card — it had a card reader like an ATM — kinda odd and SUPER frustrating) and it also had NOT mentioned it was right next to a playground— just things that you should know about. Anyway, as we were piling out of the car a little run RAN FULL SPEED up to us and the dogs and immediately started petting and hugging them and my head just about spun off my neck! I quickly asked her to go check with her dad (I only saw 1 adult at the playground and he was interacting with 3 other boys, so I assumed he was this little girls father – I am guessing she was 6-7 years old) to see if it was ok – her response “My dad lets us come here” ….um…ok again ” Ok how nice of him, can you run over there real quick and ask him if it is ok to pet my dogs?” little girl ” we come here all the time, he lets me walk dogs and play all day”…….hyper…… ” !yay! can you go ask him for me?” pet pet pet pet pet me-” is that your dad right there?” little girl ” no, my dad drops us off here for a while ” me panicking….she is 6 or 7 and he boy she is with is no older than 8 or 9 and they are ALONE at an Ocean city playground at 6 pm …. and I can’t get her to unlatch herself and I also feel like OMG WE DRIVE A WHITE WORK VAN – this does NOT look good. We try to go to the dog park thinking we can escape her there – the whole thing is just making me uncomfortable and she is telling us WAY too much about herself and her family and is trying to hold my hand and wants to walk our dogs — which I keep trying to explain that they are too big for her– very friendly like — because they weigh around 100 and 65 pouds, respectfully —-anyway it is freaking me out because I can’t stop thinking that if this was MY child this behavior would be terrifying, she ran up to us like we were her aunt and uncle and was interacting SO intimately and I can’t find ANYONE to get approval from.
it just gets worse
we are trying to get her to go away (haha I know that doesn’t sound good, but now the other father and his 2 boys are GONE and I assume the other boy is her brother, is running off somewhere out of my eyesight and this little girl is clinging to the dogs and begging to walk them and telling me all these stories about their NEW MOM and OMG OMG OMG ) Matt quietly asks if he should call the police – who leaves such small children ALONE at a playground in a city where people come from ALL OVER (ie stranger times 2! haha) to come or a day or two and then leave – it would be SO easy to kidnap this little girl it what is being implied. We start to open the back doors of the van to put the dogs back in their crate ( I am freaking ouy because OMG WHITE VAN OPENING DOORS WITH CHILD RIGHT THERE!) when an ancient junker boat of a car pulls up and these two NASTY old people start SCREAMING at the girl and the boy to “get dere **explitive explivite** into the car right now — LOTS more yelling, typical kid responces “I want to play more — I found these dogs — I don’t want to go home yet” which is all met with more explivitves and I think — crap would calling the police been better? would the children have been taken away from this obviously abusive homelife?
But it honestly all happened so fast – ugh- I was nervous for about an hour after that and also thankful that we were headed back to be with Matt’s extended family around children and parents we know.
Luckily on the beach Monday we had the exact opposite encounter, a Mom walked up to us and asked if her son could pet our dogs, he had been watching them all day and really wanted to pet them and of course we just about exploded saying “yes, yes of course! they love children” and to our surprise her son was this sweet little baby – just turned 1- who was saying “goggie goggie goggie” and Raven (1 of our dogs and who happened to be EXACTLY the same height as the little boy) was so happy she licked his hands, and his ears and held perfectly still while he pulled her ears and poked her in her nostrils and eyes LOL the mom was SO happy that our dogs where so well behaved and we were SO happy that they got to interact with the baby haha she even let me take a picture of them touching and licking
and when we went to leave the little guy started crawling after us HAHA
lesson for today – parents / adults should talk to eachother LOL brought to you by the letter R and the number 2