free-range park slope kids

friendlypitbull · October 2006

Except Shishkab before your mother could even funnel you out of the place you misbehaved in, all these curmudgeons would be tsk,tsking and saying how "when they were kids...."

BTW - beautiful dog!

shishkab · October 2006

friendlypitbull wrote: Except Shishkab before your mother could even funnel you out of the place you misbehaved in, all these curmudgeons would be tsk,tsking and saying how "when they were kids...."

BTW - beautiful dog!

HAHA! good point!

and thanks (she's a really special girl)

homeowner · October 2006

See I don't think there is anything wrong with kids being kids, but I think that if you are going to take your kids out it is incumbent upon you to teach them how to behave. That means that if they knock something over they (and you) should pick it up. I remember that a great deal of my childhood was spent learning what behavior was acceptable where. That I couldn't act the same way at school, church, home, in a store, etc. Why is that so difficult for parents to grasp?

eviegr · October 2006

shishkab wrote: Weeeeelllllll, yes and no. if kids are left to their own devices, then sure, they're gonna create a ruckus sometimes. we excuse that behavior because they are children -- they are too self-involved to be otherwise, and that's absolutely fine (seriously -- no sarcasm attached to that). but there are times when it's okay to act like a wild child and times when it's not.

i was raised in a strict household where my mother made it perfectly clear from the beginning what behavior was acceptable in public, and what behavior wasn't. when i misbehaved, she removed me from the environment (in a house of worship, in a store, in a restaurant, in a friend's house, whatever) so that i would not disturb others. she made it clear my entire childhood that it was not okay to act up in public. once she removed me from the environment, if i continued to misbehave, i was summarily punished. there was no conversation, no rationalization, no putting me in touch with mommy's feelings. there was, "you are being punished because you are being bad. stop being bad and i'll stop punishing you." and these were not idle statements -- she followed thru every single time so i always knew she meant business.

and heavens to mergatroid, know what happened?!?!? other than a few "off" occassions, i was a pretty well-behaved child who knew how to have fun but also knew to respect her surroundings and her elders. i went to fancy restaurants and grown-up parties, and people always remarked at what a well-behaved kid i was. at home, or in the playground, i was a lunatic kid just like everyone else.

now that i am an adult, i have a powerful appreciation for how hard my mother (and my aunts, and my friends' mothers) worked to have decent kids. it can be done. it just takes a lot of effort and dedication, which i find to be sorely lacking with some of the parents i see here. it's the parents i blame, not the children. call it "entitlement"if you will -- i just call it "lazy."

I'm nominating Shishkab as my new spokesperson when I have to leave the house

+2

shishkab · October 2006

Flexichick wrote:
I'm nominating Shishkab as my new spokesperson when I have to leave the house

+2

Bwah-hahaha! okee-dokee, flexi, but i have a feeling you are going to have to have a few "time out"s!!! hee-hee!!!

laura · October 2006

Flexichick wrote: I'm going to go buy some condoms.

lucky lady · October 2006

laura wrote: [quote=Flexichick]I'm going to go buy some condoms.

I love that commercial! My friend in SF sent it to me (and she has a kid)

anonymous · October 2006

homeowner wrote: See I don't think there is anything wrong with kids being kids, but I think that if you are going to take your kids out it is incumbent upon you to teach them how to behave. That means that if they knock something over they (and you) should pick it up. I remember that a great deal of my childhood was spent learning what behavior was acceptable where. That I couldn't act the same way at school, church, home, in a store, etc. Why is that so difficult for parents to grasp?

This is why I don't take my kids out to a lot of places because I think to be a responsible parent--takes a lot of effort. On the other hand, people can try to be forgiving of a person who has only been on the planet three years and is TRYING to learn to be an adult. Forgiving is the problem--we are just not a very forgiving culture right now.

What bugs me about the cliche park slope kid is not necessarily the kid, but the indulgent parent who doesn't make some small effort to correct obnoxious behavior. My kids are actually well behaved and I feel bad for them when brats rip toys out of their hands or shove them over. Do I raise them to be wimps or should I raise them to shove back? I find myself saying passive aggressive things to the parents such as "well, honey some kids don't have parents who tell them right from wrong." I really dont' know what to say at times and that just doesn't feel right at all.

anonymous · October 2006

that was my post by the way

rose · October 2006

Anonymous wrote: I find myself saying passive aggressive things to the parents such as "well, honey some kids don't have parents who tell them right from wrong." I really dont' know what to say at times and that just doesn't feel right at all.

Haha, I remember saying stuff like that as well. Of course it does absolutely no good.

I agree that parents need to control their kids and teach them appropriate behavior and that others sometimes need to be more patient and forgiving. It's great if you can remove the child from the setting where s/he's misbehaving, but sometimes that is impossible -- like you're in line at C-Town and your overtired toddler is melting down, and you're just stuck. On the other hand, if a toddler is careening down the aisles of C-Town and runs into someone, then an apology from the parent is in order (not a glare at the person who just got run into).

One thing that always drove me crazy when my kids were little were the parents who could not or would not say no to their toddlers and would have to go into this elaborate explanation of why it was time to leave the playground, complete with acknowledgement of the child's feelings: "I hear that you're angry about leaving now . . . ." It would go on forever with the end result that the kid would be dragged away screaming and crying, which could have been done twenty minutes earlier without all the attempted negotiations.

linusvanpelt · October 2006

Rose wrote: I agree that parents need to control their kids and teach them appropriate behavior and that others sometimes need to be more patient and forgiving. It's great if you can remove the child from the setting where s/he's misbehaving, but sometimes that is impossible -- like you're in line at C-Town and your overtired toddler is melting down, and you're just stuck. On the other hand, if a toddler is careening down the aisles of C-Town and runs into someone, then an apology from the parent is in order (not a glare at the person who just got run into).

Agreed. It seems like in so many of these cases, the problem is not the child's behavior or accidents per se but the parents' not having the simple courtesy to acknowledge it and apologize. Look, other people are inconvenient, and in NYC, there are a lot of other people. And, regardless of our sepia-toned memories of our own childhoods, the children of the best parents are not perfectly formed miniature adults. They're learning boundaries and manners and simple motor skills, and they can only learn by going in public and screwing up. Sometimes even the kids of strict parents are going to have meltdowns in stores; sometimes they'll run into you or step on your feet.

When that happens, it's the parent's responsibility to correct the behavior and apologize; but it's also the non-parent's responsibility to recognize that this is part of what comes from belonging to a social species that does not reproduce by dividing, amoeba-like--sometimes, you will be inconvenienced by a child. Parents should learn where it's appropriate to bring their kids, but a supermarket is not Carnegie Hall.

All that said, no one is more critical of other people's lazy and permissive parenting than other parents, simply because it makes it that much harder to teach your own kids proper behavior. I have acquaintances, friends even, whose lazy-assed parenting and unruly kids exasperate me. You just have to be the hardass sometimes and say that, even though little Quentin is allowed to punch through a screen window, we have different rules in our family.

And all that said, I honestly don't think the behavior of most Park Slope parents or kids -- or anyone else, for that matter -- is as bad as we make it out here. There is always a tendency to take the most memorable moments of seeing people at their worst--especially the ones that reinforce our favorite stereotypes--then bitch and magnify them on the Internet. The kid who doesn't run over your foot, the guy who doesn't take up three seats on the subway, the boutique that doesn't reneg on store credit -- nobody notices them.

jennitrixie · October 2006

I think shiskab and I have the same mother!

My mom's party line was that going out and doing things with/around grownups was a privilege that would be revoked if I acted up. That said, she had the luxury raising me in a smaller town, where it seems like it would be easier to figure out the limits of my young attention span/energy level. And also I didn't have any siblings close enough in age that we would set of a chain reaction of obnoxiousness. (I remember when a stranger praised my good behavior at a museum or something, my mom responded, "Well, she doesn't have anyone to pick a fight with. That's half the battle won right there.")

shishkab · October 2006

jennitrixie wrote: I think shiskab and I have the same mother!

My mom's party line was that going out and doing things with/around grownups was a privilege that would be revoked if I acted up. That said, she had the luxury raising me in a smaller town, where it seems like it would be easier to figure out the limits of my young attention span/energy level. And also I didn't have any siblings close enough in age that we would set of a chain reaction of obnoxiousness. (I remember when a stranger praised my good behavior at a museum or something, my mom responded, "Well, she doesn't have anyone to pick a fight with. That's half the battle won right there.")

ohmigosh, i think you're right -- that comment your mother made about your good behavior sounds EXACTLY like something my mom would have said. she simply would've followed it up with something like, "And that's why I only had one. I planned this well." (i was an only child). too funny!!!

free-range park slope kids

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