Perfect Parent Syndrom vs. Hands-off Parenting

And then there’s me. The paranoid one.

While eating at Chick Fil-A this afternoon with the family (and my sister and SIL) we witnessed a very interesting interaction between two very strong-willed parents. In case you’ve never let your kids play there, the play area is completely enclosed in a glass room, so parents can peacefully eat, and still see their children play without having to actually be in the play area themselves. I rather like the set up myself. Anyhoo…

We were sitting there peacefully eating while the kids played in the play area, when I hear the mother at the table next to me say something to the effect of, “that kid is beating my kid up. I’m gonna kick his butt. Honey, go get him.” I look over to see my son, playfully rough housing with two other boys. They, ALL THREE, are hitting and pushing each other with smiles on their faces. However, I don’t like to encourage my kid to hit or push no matter how much fun they are all having. So, as the man with the oxygen tank is dutifully obeying his wife’s request to go kick my kids butt, I immediately stand up and announce, “I’m sorry, that is my kid. I’ll take care of it!“ and proceed to pull Jacob out of the play area. I then make him sit at the table with us as punishment for hitting and pushing. I sit down and continue to eat my chicken ceasar cool wrap, and soon hear another mother approach us saying, “it’s not just that kid, (referring to Jacob) that other kid is now hitting my daughter”. When no one gets up to go stop the kid, she directly confronts the offending parents (who, you will remember, were just about to kick my kids butt, for “beating up” her innocent and helpless child.) “Is that your son in the maroon shirt?” she asks. “Yes”, is all she says. “Well, he’s hitting my daughter!” No response. The woman just sat there, staring at whatever game device she was playing and ignored the concerned mother. Just then, the victimized child comes out, complaining that said “innocent child” had spit on her. She again confronts the couple. "Your son just spit on my child!" No response. So she takes her daughter back to her table and doesn't let her go back in. At that point, Lizzie was the only other child left in there with the two boys and I decided I better keep a close eye on her. The parents of these boys are sitting almost directly in my line of vision, and seeing I’m keeping a close eye on things in there, start making comments about the other mother. “I’m sorry lady, but sticking out his tongue is hardly considered spitting.” AKA, “I can’t believe you are accusing my perfect child of doing anything wrong!” As I’m watching these two boys slowly take over the play area and not let Lizzie do anything I decide to let Jacob go back in and I quickly finish my chicken ceasar cool wrap so I can go sit inside the play area to supervise. Things seemed to be going pretty well after that, other than a heated argument between the two parents, that I didn’t hear cause I was inside the play area, but was told it involved something to the effect of, “I’m sorry you have perfect parent syndrome” And “Well, maybe you should discipline your child.” A few minutes later all the kids were up inside the slide area where I don’t have a clear view of them and I hear one of the boys say, “hey that hurt, that was my peanuts”. At that point I wasted no time immediately ordering my children out of the play area, and announcing that it was time to leave, NOW!! Jacob came down the slide immediately, but I was getting no response from Lizzie, even after counting to three. Shocking, I know! So, I climbed in there and dragged her out myself. (If you know me, that's pretty surprising. I'm a little claustophobic. I've been known to make other mothers, who may or may not have been pregnant, go up in there after my kid before. Sorry about that.) I was not letting her stay in there with these bullying, child molesters. (Okay, I doubt there was any molesting going on in there, but I wasn’t taking any chances!) As we are leaving the restaurant we notice the offended parent had dragged management over to talk to the offending parents, and the argument continued.

We planned to do some shopping after we ate, so, when we got back to the van we got the stroller out for the youngest kiddos, got them buckled in, and I decide I need to go potty. I go back into the restaurant to find “offended parent” talking to management about getting “offending parents” kicked out for letting their children be bullies. I glanced over at the "offending parents" and sure enough, there they continued to sit. The wife, still playing her game, and I’m sure sticking around purely to annoy the other parent. It was quite the stand off. I can’t say I’m sad I didn’t get to stick around to see how it ended.

We did our shopping and it took us a bit longer than expected. So instead of heading to a park where our antsy kids could play in the dark, we decided to take them back to Chick Fil-A to play some more before heading back to our hotel. This time the restaurant is a lot busier. As we are sitting there, a mother walks up to the couple sitting at the table next to us and says, “is that your child? He just hit my child”. We all cringe. But to our relief, the mother stands up, apologizes and goes in and gets her son and makes him come sit with her. We all look at each other, relieved that we didn’t have to witness another cat fight. I don't thing restaurant play areas will ever be the same again. In the words of Mike, “I think we’ve all got PTSD.”