Mostly, I am a pretty agreeable person except when it comes to my kids. My personality does a 180 if I think anyone is messing with the boy or the girl.
Last weekend, I heroically took both my children to Crane’s Beach. It was heroic because I was completely on my own, and I had to haul the kids plus all of their crap up the sand dunes myself. We finally get to the sand, and I set myself up. Not 15 minutes later, a group of blond 14 year old girls show up with their moms in tow. They wore identical black bikinis. They had names like Devon and Madison, and spent their time doing cheer poses.
But it was ok, because my kids and I hit the water and we didn’t come back for a few hours.
But when we came back to our blankets, I heard one of the mothers say, “Here he comes.” And then she nodded towards my son while the girls giggled.
I gave that woman a look that stopped her short. She got up and headed towards the ocean.
My son, who was oblivious, started to sing. He was loud and repetitive and very annoying. Normally, I would tell him to knock it off. But I couldn’t help but notice how much it was irritating my nemesis. I smiled at him and read a magazine.
One of the other mothers started to sigh, and whine, “Oh, I had to get and move because I couldn’t read.” I said nothing. I said nothing until 45 minutes later I was satisfied and bored, and decided we should all go home.
It made me think of all the people who complain about children in public. The whine is always, “Its not the kids…it’s the parents.” If a child is being really annoying, and his parents ignore it, maybe they are crappy parents.
Or maybe they hate you.
Mommy on the Floor 
Did you shake your towels on her?
But of course…
This is very funny!
win!!!
I don’t have kids, but, before you had kids, didn’t you ever hate hearing other people’s kids make a lotta noise, and didn’t your whole attitude change when you had your own kids???! Just askin’.
Hey Rhea, I am the oldest of five. Growing up, my family was pretty rowdy. I think I was always more tolerant than the average person of children, even misbehaving children. I was on a plane once and my friend freaked when a woman got on with an infant. I was never liked that.
That being said, I do try to keep my son calm in public places. I also think there are some places where children do not belong like very fancy restaurants and R rates movies.
That being said, there does seem to be a faction of the public who feels entitled to not interact with children at all when they are out in public. I make no apologies to those people. My children have every right to be in a public space just like any other person. They may find my kid annoying but I find loud conversations on cell phones annoying. I also think it’s annoying to be on the T and hear people’s Ipods through their head phones. I think drunk people are annoying. I think hipsters are annoying. But it’s the city, and I deal.
This is a very long answer, but I have been thinking a lot about this very thing!
Fair enough.
hands down best. blog. post. ever.