Satan's Spawn

Yesterday was my first experience with "one of those moms". You know the type. Their kids can do no wrong and would NEVER EVER misbehave and your kid must certainly be the heathen child sent directly from Satan to bring great harm to their precious baby.

So here is how it went down. Declan was working his charms on a sweet little girl over at the slide at our local playground. Overprotective Mom of Perfect Child (From here forward we shall refer to her as OMPC) was regaling all of the playground moms with stories about how perfectly cute her child was and she just says the darndest things (don't ALL kids say cute things??? Do we really care strange OMPC lady? NO! STFU!). All of a sudden her perfect child lets out a cry, OMPC runs over to perfect child and discovers that my Satan Spawn has done something that could have brought death & destruction to the playground and to her perfect, cute little girl.

OMPC grabs her perfect child, turns to me and yells "HE THREW ROCKS AT HER!". Then she takes off to the other side of the playground to get as far away from us as she can and spends the rest of the morning giving us dirty looks.

Now one would have thought that Declan picked up a boulder and chucked it at her head the way OMPC was reacting. But we all know that 20 month old children probably can't lift a rock big enough to do great harm. Technically, he wasn't throwing rocks. Rather, he scooped up a handful of those little pebbles they use at playgrounds to cushion the blow when your kid falls off the monkey bars. But boy was this woman PISSED. I mean, how dare my 20 month old do something that could bring such harm to her perfect child who's probably never acted up in her short. perfect little life? And what a horrible mother I must be to allow such perverse acts at the playground. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I certainly don't condone the throwing of any objects at other children. Like any mom, I see this as an opportunity to explain to my kid why we don't throw rocks at other people (even though I kinda wanted to chuck a rock at this woman's head myself). Little kids are learning how to be social creatures. And sometimes they are naughty. It happens. Declan himself has been pushed, slapped and bit by other kids. It's one of the many ways they learn to navigate through this complicated life. I'm sure he picked up those "rocks" and threw them in the air because it's just fun to throw things. Fact is, he is still a baby and just doesn't know better. I couldn't have stopped it if I tried. I'm not going to follow my kid around the playground like a shadow because how else will he learn to be an independent child? I stay close enough to catch him if he happens to get to close to the edge and to be there at the bottom of the slide, but I refuse to be overprotective of him. 

Declan and the perfect child were having a perfectly good time up until Declan tried to bash in her head. And had OMPC not flown off the handle, they probably would have continued to have a good time together because kids usually get over these things faster than their parents do. I would have welcomed the chance to right the wrong my child did and apologize as well as explain to Declan why we don't throw rocks. 

I was upset about this all day yesterday. I am over it now. Now that I have some perspective of the issue anyway. What have I learned from this? I've learned that some people are just assholes and that I don't think I'll be hanging out at that playground any longer.