When Other Parents Don't Parent

This is not a “when someone doesn’t parent the way *I* would” sort of post. This is a “hey, like collectively as parents what are we doing when another kid is a dick to our kid and their own parent just sits there”. Like.. genuinely what do you do?

My first three choices would’ve landed me in jail, so..

Nothing makes you more quickly realize that you might in fact need to therapize your anger than seeing someone (especially a kid) be mean to your kids.

I’m generally so far in my own lane, that I truly do not care how someone else is raising their kids.

And then.

A playground bully.

And look. I am not naive. Kids can be mean. And this is probably controversial, but in some ways it serves a purpose. Kids humble kids in ways that parents could never. WITH THAT SAID, our job as parents is to intervene, right? Especially when we witness said behavior?!

It started innocently enough. We walked to our neighborhood playground and came upon two moms chatting, and three kids, all older than my own, but still, kids.

My two and three year old started going up the stairs, down the slide. Rinse and repeat. The youngest of the other brood, only about five himself, sprinted over, stood next to my two year old daughter and started yelling loudly “MOMMMMM what’s this BABY doing here?!” His mom ignored him. After the seventh time of him yelling this question, I was looking for eye contact from his mom. Nothing. No response.

Hmm not how I would handle it.. but I admittedly can be a helicopter parent, so decided I might be overreacting and let it go.

My two year old isn’t one to be phased anyways, and continued climbing up the stairs. Said five year old sprinted in front of her, blocked the slide, and said she wasn’t allowed to go down.

Me: waits for mom to intervene. *crickets*

Me: stands and stares at mom. *crickets*

Five year old: turns to my three year old son and says he can’t go down the slide either.

I suppress the urge to call him a fucking punk and calmly walk over. He tells me my kids can’t go down the slide because it’s for big kids only. I respond with “yes they can, now move”. Could I have been nicer? Sure. But some days I barely have the patience to gentle parent my own kids, much less someone else’s when said parent is sitting three feet away.

I look to mom for any sort of indication she cares I spoke to her child. *crickets*

My kids move on to making “pizza”, aka bark chips on the spinner. Other brood’s seven year old comes sprinting across the field, “STOPPPPP STOPPPPP NO DON’T TOUCH IT”.

Me: for fucks sake can this mom please come parent her kids?! *crickets*

Five year old: joins his big sister and starts swinging his arm at my two year old, trying to knock her away from the spinner. *crickets*

Two year old: bursts into tears and runs towards me.

I scoop up my two year old and calmly walk, storm the fuck over to the spinner, asserting that EVERYONE can play at the playground - And AT LAST, some intervention from mom. She says her son has a temper, she asks him to apologize. He runs away and hides in the trees. She looks at me and shrugs.

I debate if decking this other mom will traumatize my kids and get me arrested. I conclude it probably will.

I do it anyways.

OKAY OKAY NOT REALLY, but oooh did I fantasize about it.

Here I am, no better than her five year old.

BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

What I actually did was walk away without saying anything, I hyped up my kids to make pizza elsewhere on the playground and we talked about pretend toppings for a solid ten minutes.

Should I have done something other than ignore her and walk away? Probably. But if I opened my mouth in that moment, I didn’t trust what would come out.

My kids are young, I’m a relative newb to this whole mom thing - What’s the protocol here, experienced parents? What would you do?

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