I think–I think–I got bullied today. The suspects: all in their mid-thirties, with double strollers, juice boxes, antibacterial wipes, and Cheerios. They stuck together in a little group at the playground entrance. One mother was running around, though; she was frenetically scrubbing all of the equipment with her towel before her toddler was allowed on.
My boys, 3 and 1, like to climb up the slide instead of sliding down. Pretty typical. Our rule: if no one else is on or near it, go ahead. Today, a little girl, about 18 months old, toddled over and tried to climb up with them. Her mother sprinted over from that little group of mothers; they were sitting at a picnic table with their heads together. My sons and I The little girl got a loud, stern lecture spit at her, loudly: “Slides are for going down–we never, never climb up them. This is how children get hurt, and it is against the rules of the playground. We follow the rules.” Then she whipped the little girl away, almost leaving her shoes behind. Hmm. There was something odd about that, but I just thought, High-strung, having a bad day, whatever, no big deal…she couldn’t have been passive-aggressively yelling at me. That would be too weird.
Until the next mother broke off from the pack and galloped toward us–this one had her towel flying behind her–it was clutched in one hand and her antibacterial wipes were in the other. Her son had wandered close to us, and we had moved over to the monkey bars. With disgust in her voice, she called to him: “I will wash this for you, baby, because there have been shoes all over it, and it’s a mess now. We never climb up slides. That dirties them for all the other children.” She began to scrub vigorously at the not-in-the-least-dirty-or-muddy slide. OK, I don’t go to playgrounds looking for confrontations. But if my head didn’t whip around, and if I wasn’t ready with a: Hey, you passive-aggressive control freak, shut the . . . But no, I would never. If I remember correctly, conventional wisdom says to ignore bullies . . . or punch them back so hard they never do it again. . . . I ignored.
Actually, going up the down slide is quite a hot-button issue with some people. I saw it on the internet. The disagreement seems to be between the this is the rule, all the time camp and the let the kids climb however they want without hurting anyone camp. I guess I usually assume that if my kids are being safe, polite, and not infringing on anyone else’s space, they’re typically OK. I totally get the other side, though, and think it’s a fine rule, it’s just not mine. If we were playing with a little friend who wasn’t allowed to climb like my kids, we’d probably curtail our own crazy climbing, too, so our friend didn’t feel bad and we didn’t make it tougher for his or her mother or father. The vast majority of people I’m around, even strangers, think it’s nice to help each other out with kids–but some apparently enjoy sprinting at other mothers, furiously waving antibacterial wipes and scolding. Maybe that’s fun, too…
Fun read. As a 27 year old kid (with my own 3 month old) who spent his whole life (literally and metaphorically) going up the slides, I appreciate that I never have to worry about being bullied from your camp!
Yep, you were bullied. And the wipes thing is really weird.
Is there a rule about up the slides? I thought it might have been a social custom or an expectation, maybe, but I had no idea we were such dirty shoed law breakers.
I’m with you: if it’s safe, if there’e no-one waiting, then up, up, up!
Ha-”dirty shoed law breakers”–I like that. Now that’s what I should call this blog.
And maybe it’s the metaphorical part that’s the problem–here I am, all happy when kids do their own thing and then here comes “The Establishment,” freaking out and waving antibacterial wipes!
No shit? I have yet to meet parents like this. I have heard they exist, but thankfully, they continue to elude me and Bean.
Scary bullies. Even scarier for those kids. Wait, I will not judge. I will not judge. Sometimes it’s so hard not to. I remember being petrified the first time I went to the playground with me son. I had no idea what the mores would be. Somebody give me some rules, I wanted to shout. Then I realized that was my own hang up. So keep on climbing those slides.
You’re right about not judging, and I certainly don’t want to make them too evil. It bothered me that they ganged up to scold me; I wouldn’t have thought twice about them instructing their own kids. Can you believe I actually looked up: “climbing up the slide the wrong way” on Google when I got home? Ha.
Screw ‘em. They’re nuts.
I had no idea we were breaking rules. Well, at least not that rule. But, I have more things to worry about then my son running up slides, which he loves to do.
Oh..my. I have never encountered such uptight parents. I don’t even carry antibacterial wipes for hands, let alone slides. We are building our immunity!
As for the slide rule, I’m with you. Unless someone is waiting to go down, who cares? I love it that my kids are creative and do things differently. Damn the man, and all that jazz.
The only time I make it a hard and fast rule to only go down the slide is if the playground is VERY busy and the odds of someone getting kicked in the face is high.
I don’t have any problem judging people who act like that. What can you judge people by if not their behavior?
I would bet any of them as individuals would not have said a word. If you had been with a larger group of “dirty shoed law breakers” I bet they’d have been equally silent.
Up with slides,
Down with bullies-
Will
Yep, it had mob mentality written all over it. And I wonder if it had been my husband breaking the laws instead of me… I betcha no scolding.
I can certainly make one judgment call–I won’t be hanging out with them anytime soon. I just can’t judge them as bad parents, bad people, that kind of thing. They freaked out, they were rude, whatever. Forgivable…and funny. They probably have some great qualities, too….like cleanliness? Being germ-free? Being great fodder for a blog post?
“Up with slides,
Down with bullies-” –Ha! Perfect!
Sorry to comment so far past the discussion, but I wonder to sometimes about the regional differences — Texas and Oregon both tend towards libertarian politics and I think it showed up in the playgrounds — though there were parts of Dallas where I can imagine the scene above — and maybe one or two parks in Portland.
Parenting in Prague was an adventure in never being quite sure of the mores and stumbling and violating and being aware of the violation without having enough of the language to understand exactly how — which will toughen your skin right up.
And you can kill ‘em with compassion, I suppose — imagine how terrifying parenting must be when someone is trying to control that many things, that fretful and anxious about — germs on playgrounds?!? This is somebody for whom the challenges must be manifold! And will only multiply as their children develop, ahem, wills of their own? Of course they need support groups!
germs on the playground, eeeeek what a world
i am a we go down the slide kinda person, but there are Always exceptions to the rule
ya gotta pick your battles carefully