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be careful what you share
By heather | June 29, 2009
One of the things that you won’t find in any baby book is how having kids will change your friendships. Sure there’s advice to have date nights and me-time and all that crap but I’ve never seen this bit of truth documented anywhere:
You have friends that you will drop because of the way they parent.
At first it’s sub-concious, maybe you aren’t even sure why you turn down invites to get together. Or why you dread spending time with them, with or without thier kids. Then you slowly start to realize it’s because you do one thing, and they do another. It makes no sense whatsoever to me to observe someone yell at a child for hitting, then spank them as punishment. I cannot comprehend a parent who has a child that continues misbehaving but will not remove them from the situation, thus making everyone else miserable. Nor can I understand someone who is off work for the summer leaving a child in daycare all day every day. Those people are the ones you slowly lose touch with because it becomes more of an effort than a joy to spend time with them and understand their motives.
Back before I knew this, a couple we knew asked us for a daycare recommendation. We weren’t good friends but didn’t have any issues with them per se, and we were thrilled to share what a great person we had found.
If there is one thing in the past three years I could take back, it would be sharing the name of our daycare provider. Because for the last 15 months, that couple’s baby (who is now two) has bullied, smacked, bit, disrupted, and generally harrassed and hassled my kids and the other kids in daycare. He tackles them, pinches, does things specifically to make other kids cry. Which should be no surprise because he’s exactly like his dad, who reminds me of a 30-year old frat boy.
This morning that kid smacked Emily Kate, who was just sitting there smiling at him like she smiles at everyone and I have not stopped crying since. The look on her face has haunted me all day, her innocent belief that everyone she meets will smile at her and love her was destroyed. Something we all need to learn eventually, but not before our first goddamn birthday.
I knew it was coming. Why should she be any different? Every kid there has been bitten or hit at least once and now I have a choice. Do I provide an ultimatum – my kids or this one? Do I let it go and trust that the situation will right itself despite all evidence to the contrary? Should I be more direct in my displeasure at the situation? Because despite the fact that it’s a business – this woman has cared for my children for nearly three years. I’ve asked her to love them and care for them while I work and she has and I know she wants to do the right thing. She feels sorry for this little boy because he isn’t getting the discipline and loving attention he should be at home. I constantly wonder if Alex acting out is a direct result of what he’s seeing – that the way to get attention is to misbehave.
Everything I wanted in a daycare – a family home, educational curriculum, loving provider, small group – all those things are still there. Just less so, because so much time and energy is spent on corralling ONE CHILD. And the fact that his mother is home for the summer yet still leaves him every day for longer than my kids are there makes me sick.
I wonder what his mom would say if I confronted her and asked her what the hell she is doing. Because it’s easy to tell yourself that you want your child to keep to a routine, and that it’s better for them to be around other kids. You can say it out loud and people will nod and agree, but what if just once, someone didn’t nod and agree with you? What if someone called bullshit and made you face the fact that you just don’t want to deal with the monster you’ve created?
Judgemental? Hell yes. Do I know the entire story? Probably not. You never really can, and you have to call what you see and what I see is my kids being exposed to things that I don’t want them to be exposed to yet and an eviction process that is taking entirely TOO LONG. For pete’s sake telling a parent they need to find another method of care for their child doesn’t need to be like firing a government employee.
Just when I thought I’d gotten past my working mother guilt, I’m reminded that the choices I’ve made in one area take things out of my hands in another. And for the millionth time I question and revisit and beat myself up over those choices. All because I gave a referral.
Topics: Alex, EK, parenting | 5 Comments »
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June 29th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Oh no he didn’t…well we talked about this over the weekend. I think you should talk to Miss S and tell her your concerns. Give her a chance to try to resolve the situation…but make sure to tell her that you are seeing this other kids behaviors in Alex and that if it doesn’t get better you might be forced to pull them out. And who the F would touch that precious EK..she is delicous. My heart is breaking for you, but do what your gut tells you. And if you do get ballsy enough, talk to the Mom too. It gets interesting when things involve your kids because the mother lion comes out and people better watch out.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
I feel you!!!
We have good friends who are wonderful people… but are HORRIBLE parents. Your situation? Absolutely been there, almost word for word.
The issue is not the child, not at this young age, it is how that child is being taught. You can deal with that by 1. stepping in and talking to the child yourself; 2. talking to the parent; or 3. (this is what I would suggest) bringing it up with the caregiver.
It is endlessly frustrating. Benefit of the doubt is that Mom of said Child is way over her head, doesn’t know what to do, and might appreciate some help and the chance to apologize and step in… but YOU shouldn’t necessarily be the one to do this. The caregiver SHOULD. If this child is disruptive to her center, then it’s her responsibility to step in and work with the parents of the difficult child. Maybe the child has undiagnosed needs? Maybe the parents need some help from a developmental psychologist? What you don’t want to do is stigmatize a kid as a bully for acting out in ways that aren’t abnormal for a child his age… the idea is to figure out what’s wrong that he’s choosing that way to act. That should be the caregiver’s interest.
Or, at least, this is how we worked it out… the levels got deeper and I’m happy to vent with you on this… I can remember being RED HOT a few times!!!
Holly’s last blog post..Will’s life as a big brother defined.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Oh, wow, that sounds rough. Holly’s advice sounds good to me. Has there been any progress?
And yeah, we have some friends whose parenting ideas don’t entirely mesh with ours. But happily, we don’t see them too often. And luckily, the kids aren’t actually bullies. (Just prone to tantrums to get what they want. Because they have learned that tantrums get them what they want. Ugh.)
(I hadn’t realized how behind I am in my blog reading. I see this is 2 weeks old! Sorry!)
alejna’s last blog post..The June Just Posts
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