Comments on: Ordinary Mother or Potential Child-Killer? YOU Be the Judge!

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 21:02:27 +0000

I ended up telling Alex to not play with the nasty boy – at which point the father gave me the stink eye. Can a mother kill with an icy glare? I sure as hell tried. thanx for the share.

By: JenC

JenC — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 05:15:39 +0000

Ugh, mean toddlers. My daughter (3) who can be the sweetest thing, isn’t a morning person. When I drop her at preschool in the AM, her friends run up to hug her (she’s sweet, honestly!), she screams at them and sucks her thumb while yelling “NO!” loudly. Totally hurting the feelings of the hugee and I feel terrible. Moments later, they are happily doing a puzzle or pretending to be fire(wo)men. It is hard to watch and I apologize every AM to the parents of the hugging children. I sometimes think I’m the mom of a “mean girl.”

My older daughter, on the other hand, didn’t have all the same experiences with kids, and was so similar to Simone, working up her courage to play, only to be rebuffed and I wanted to shake the kids and tired of the parental apologies. I still remember a scheduled play date when #1 was 4, she brought a little picture of herself (a photo) with her that she was excited to give her “friend” and the “friend” took it, tore it up, and said she “hated it.” I wanted to cry, #1 did, and we never played again with that one.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:50:49 +0000

Totally normal. Totally, totally normal.

I want to break that kid’s fingers, one by one. And I’ve only seen Simone on the internet.

By: Palmer

Palmer — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:43:42 +0000

Most of your commenters are way more restrained than I was when my three children were menaced by evil, hulking, brats. When I witnessed acts of aggression against any of my darlings I used to call the little snots out, right in front of their parents. Nobody messed with my kids. Nobody.
Now they’re big enough to fend for themselves but back in the day I used to go up to bullies who were picking on my children and give them what for. I’m proud to say that one little thug in training actually WET HIS PANTS in terror and went running to some older, grandma-type who was supposed to be watching him. She tried to get mouthy to me but I shut her down, too.
Somewhere in a crappy trailer, there’s a 20-year-old man who wakes up in a cold sweat remembering how, years ago, a lady in a playground told him she’d twirl him around by the rat tail hanging down from the back of his white trash hairdo if he pushed her son again.

By: lisa c

lisa c — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:33:55 +0000

It is heart wrenching when another kid hurts your child. When my middle was 2 we were at Borders in the kids play area and another little boy was there and he approached my son. I thought this was good, because my boy only had an older sister so this would be good boy contact. The other boy started to innocently wrestle him and sort of got on top as if to give him a hug and within a second, he bent down as if to kiss my boy and instead bit him on the nose. Blood curdling cry, blood coming out, my husband hearing the cry from across the store and runs over and I was sitting right there. It happened in a second. The other mother was all apologetic explaining that he has two older brothers and they can be rough and then tells me that he’s had his shots. I felt like the worst mother in the world for not protecting him.

By: Sara

Sara — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 19:33:12 +0000

Just a thought – now that she’s past the quarantine stage, you might want to seek out a play-group (the local park districts in MSP surely have something like this) or on your own try to find some parents with similarly-aged kids for her to get to know and play with regularly. That might help her (and you) feel more at ease striking up social interactions with other kids at the playground and out in the world.
I cringe a little to offer this suggestion, because I myself never had any interest in “mom’s groups” and the like where the sole point of common interest was parenthood. For me, though, there also wasn’t much of a point, because several of my good friends happened to have children right around the time my daughter (Simone’s age) was born, and she’s had a nice cohort of “friends” since babyhood (and now they really are forming friendships). My daughter’s got a fairly timid disposition, and I think it helps that she has kids she knows with whom to “practice” asserting her personality (not to mention sharing, etc.). I know it’s impossible to just conjure up friends with kids for Simone to play with, but it might be worth some effort, however much you might feel allergic to hanging out with near strangers just so your children can play together:)

By: Kate

Kate — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 23:54:27 +0000

Um, “innocent” and “entirely inculpable”? When it’s someone else’s kid who was pushed down, yes. When it’s your kid? NO WAY IN HELL. TAKE THAT LITTLE SUCKER OUT.

By: ashley

ashley — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:54:40 +0000

Simone’s shirt is rad.

By: bon

bon — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 23:09:40 +0000

i’m just sorry you were robbed of the chance to call the offender a cocksucking hooligan. :)

By: Alisia

Alisia — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 01:36:40 +0000

I am ashamed to say that my 2-y.o. daughter (also a preemie named Simone) was a pusher. I can’t tell you how many unsuspecting toddlers have fallen prey to my bossy little one. Each time I have removed her from the situation and apologized profusely to the child and the glaring parent. Thankfully, she seems to have outgrown this behavior.

Consequently, when she was pushed by a little beast at her play class recently, I wasn’t terribly outraged. Karma!