another angry rant about out-of-control children

Subject: mini poltergeists

It's not just Park Slope parents who are forcefully shirking their responsibility to RAISE their children, PS just happens to have a very high concentrate of kids. You have a lot of parents (mommies and daddies, though it appears that the mommies get the brunt of the shit) who wanted to conceive the kid, but would rather not be involved with the actual development of the child. I have an 18 mo. old who gets the same "looK" that my mother perfected on me and my sister and she understands exactly what it means. We did not dare pull some of the shit that I see all over PS because we would have been concussed on the spot. My girl is not perfect, far from it, but there are things she simply will not do because I WILL NOT ALLOW IT. There are certain places we do not frequent, because they are not for children, they are for adults and she is a CHILD. Oh yeah, she's a happy, healthy, normal baby who gets boundaries set because that is part of my job as the mother. She's the CHILD, I'm the MOMMY.

The same chick who asked the woman what she was supposed to do about her kid going hog wild in the Tea Lounge will be asking her shrink the same thing in about 13 years when he's choking her and telling her to kiss his ass on a regular basis. Get a grip people, these little poltergeists who you refuse to discipline and rein in today will be your gross tormentors tomorrow.

Ooh, let's bash working mothers now -- that should keep this thread going for a few more pages.

This discussion fascinates, but ultimately saddens me. When I was 25, I lived in Park Slope with my boyfriend and no kids (and no real thought of having any). I so clearly remember being annoyed by slow-moving strollers in narrow aisles of stores pushed by parents who seemed oblivious, rude, inconsiderate. I remember trying to do my work in my apartment at the back of our building. The incredible amount of shrieking from the children in the yards behind my building on Carroll Street, sometimes practically drove me to distraction. I can actually remember once (not my finest moment) throwing open the back window and yelling "Can't you make those kids be quiet?" I don't think anyone even heard me because of all the yelling. If it were today, I'd probably get myself a white noise machine to drown them out and figure it's daytime and kids are playing, it's something I'll deal with. (Plus I have a much, much greater ability to tune things out now.)

Some years passed. I met the man who became my husband and suddenly realized maybe I would like to have some kids of my own. Now I have two (3 and 7) and I love them dearly. Raising them has been the hardest thing I have ever done. I never realized what a total 24/7 onslaught having young kids was, even though I'd seen plenty of kids being raised. I try very hard to be responsible in public places with them. And I see many, many parents who are not careful, and it seems wrong to me. I must say though, I myself have inadvertently annoyed plenty of people, I suspect.
A typical example: Once, I was in B&N with my 2 yr old daughter, and she suddenly, that very day, realized she was terrified of elevators. She started screaming at the top of her lungs with no sign of letting up. (We used to say she had the lungs of an opera singer.) Literally, every single person on the top level of the store could hear her. I started to dash for the door to get her out of there, then discovered she'd dropped her "bobo" (a little cloth that she really, really cannot live without) somewhere on the lower level. By the time we had dashed back downstairs to find it (me carrying her on the escalator) and then had escaped the store, I think I had bothered everybody on two levels. But I couldn't figure a solution except to get it over with as quickly as I possibly could. Bobo is as important as life itself to her. I couldn't even look up by the time we were leaving. Then, when we finally got outside, she (who was pottty training at the time) peed in her pants, soaking all the way through her clothes and the stroller. And all this before 12 noon! A fairly typical day at that time. I know that some of the people who observed all this thought I was either a very annoying parent--or perhaps given the wild-eyed screaming of my daughter (and the frustration on my own face), perhaps a really terrible one, but I couldn't figure any way to improve the situation.

The other day I was in the Tea Lounge with my laptop (and child-free), and I kept thinking of this board and this thread as unsupervised toddlers came dashing past. One of them kept trying to pick up the pages of a manuscript I was working on, and, yes I wanted to say "Who raised you?" Then, there was a child-free woman who was barking away so loudly on her cell phone that I could clearly hear her from twenty feet away. Again, I thought, who raised you? (And aren't you embarassed to have all these details of your life broadcast?) I really like working in public places from time to time, and I know the Tea Lounge is not a library (believe me!). I don't expect people to treat it as such, but in both cases, I think the adults in question were being inconsiderate. Too bad I'd forgotten my earphones that day.

One last thing--I have a theory that a part of the reason Park Slope Parents behave in some of the ways they do is due to the way we are expected to raise our children now. The current bibles of child rearing such as THE BABY BOOK (Dr. Sears) and, to some extent the WHAT TO EXPECT books, advocate a very, very child-centric view of child rearing. When my own mother raised my brother and me, she fed us formula, fixed tv dinners (although she was one of the earliest yoga-doing, whole wheat eating adults in our neighborhood), and stuck us in the play-pen whenever she wanted, and administered a quick spanking when needed. Today, play-pens are considered to stunt child development. We have to chase our kids around our apartments all day to make sure they don't electrocute themselves or worse; we can never leave the youngest children alone for a minute (though why some mothers feel okay letting their kids dash around Tea Lounge is beyond me). Most mothers in Park Slope breast feed for many months, which is often the time equivalent of a part-time job, and it must be done on demand whenever the child is hungry, of course (this is simply the recommendation of the experts--and the only way to stop a hungry child from crying anyway). Many mothers in Park Slope are trying to hold down part-time or freelance work at the same time. Things are different now than they were for previous generations. Parents are expected to speak to their children differently than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Frankly, as time goes on, I've begun taking more of a middle way, myself.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to try to convey my experiences from both sides. In my opionion, there are people in Park Slope who are inconsiderate of others--and I'm afraid I hate that (I'm working on letting it roll off my back a bit more). I try to tell myself that I don't know what's really going on with other people at any given time. Also, I remind myself how glad I am to live in Park Slope. I'm glad to have cafes to go to with my laptop and have a vibrant scene of people all around me.

I would love to see the fury on this thread go away.

Guest, thank you so much for such an insightful and well-rounded explanation from both sides of the coin. It would be lovely if you would consider registering and participating as a full-fledged member of the boards -- we could use as many temperate voices as possible, especially with difficult, emotional topics such as this one.

i just want to say to you... =D> =D> =D>

Subject: Re: mini poltergeists

Active mommy wrote: ..... I have an 18 mo. old who gets the same "looK" that my mother perfected on me and my sister and she understands exactly what it means. We did not dare pull some of the shit that I see all over PS because we would have been concussed on the spot. My girl is not perfect, far from it, but there are things she simply will not do because I WILL NOT ALLOW IT.

blah blah blah....your post was so 3 pages ago.

We have already concluded:

1. none of us were raised as horribly as kids are these days

2. none of us threw a temper tantrum - we were clean and perfectly behaved in public

3.our parents scared us shitless with a mere raise of any eyebrow....and we are better people for it.

4. we love children, we really do. and we hope to have them someday

5. we go to places with kids because we need the free wifi, (and we are all secretly jealous because those giant strollers cost almost as much as a month's rent.)

6. Innocent X is either my evil twin, one of the gawkerati, or both

7. this thread must die because Hitler said so and the Gawkerati are even bored with it.

8. when do i get my own law?

Anonymous wrote: [quote=MichaelKeys]Jeez, not only has this thread been going round and round and round, it's also gotten way too personal. Posters getting defensive; the old I-haven't-seen-it-happen-therefore-it-doesn't-exist chestnut has been revived; even Jim Crow has made an appearance. Wow.

There is a very basic rule of the internet. This was legend in the good old days of BBS', and it states that a thread must not die until either Hitler or Nazi's are mentioned. After that, it may RIP.

As a current user of a telnet BBS - yes, we still exist! - I'll add that this rule still applies. In my tiny corner of the BBS world, this is referred to as "the Hitler card". As in, "SoAndSo played the Hitler card. This thread is officially over."

Er, I think I'll go pet my cat now.

Subject: Re: mini poltergeists

bklyngirl wrote: 6. Innocent X is either my evil twin, one of the gawkerati, or both
or you're precious williams.

holy shit. this might be my favorite post ever. oh, this is being posted from my heart, not from my modness. I am a person, too. ok? thanks.

"I remember better times, back when weed was grass."

kensingtonmom wrote: So before you people who don't have kids point fingers as to how people should raise their kids--have you asked yourself would you be willing to cut back on your career? Would your partner? Can you afford for one of you not to be working full time? Who will be disciplining a kid after a long day at work when you haven't seen your kid for 9 hours and he is tired and irritable and acting up? Will you NOT turn on the TV and shield your kid from smartass programs?

These shouldn't be questions addressed to people who don't have kids. These are the questions that the lousy parents out there should have asked themselves before they had kids.

brooklynpotter wrote: but if you're going to have children you should really think about what's involved beforehand: if you're not willing to cut back on your career, work with your child in rearing him or her in a good and healthy manner, etc., then you have no business having children.

these are things people should think about before they have kids. and it's the ones who don't feel these things are important who are the ones who cause the problems we've been discussing.

I think this is pretty harsh. Having children is not a class privilege. It's a rare family today that can afford the 1950s model where dad is the breadwinner and mom stays home baking cookies. Even assuming this is really the ideal.

There certainly are many things people should think about before they have kids, and yet it is possible to think deeply about all these things, and still be surprised by how different the reality of it is.

kensingtonmom wrote: [quote=Rose][ Having children is not a class privilege. It's a rare family today that can afford the 1950s model where dad is the breadwinner and mom stays home baking cookies. Even assuming this is really the ideal.

I agree with you and hope that you don't think I was suggesting we go back to that model in my previous post god knows! But I do think kids are getting the short end of the stick now. There seems to be two extremes--overly indulged kids whose every grunt is applauded and revered and kids being shuttled from programs to day care to after school to babysitters. We don't want to go back to Ozzie and Harriet but how do we change things so that the balance between work and childen balances better? I don't think there is an easy answer to it.

No, I agree with you, and I don't know what the answer is, but I think the current structure of American society really sucks in this regard. There is virtually no such thing as a 40-hour job anymore. People are expected to work 60 hours a week and be available by email the rest of the time. High-quality child care is hard to find and so expensive that it's beyond most people's reach. I wish there were more good part-time jobs. I was lucky enough to go part-time in my last job but ended up feeling totally marginalized -- I no longer got the interesting assignments and ended up bored and frustrated.

I agree that the combination of stressed and tired parent picking up irritable and tired child at the end of a long day of work and daycare can be a really bad one. I remember some particularly ugly scenes on 6th Ave as I tried to convince my 3-year-old that no, I could not carry him home from Beansprouts. One time I totally lost it and screamed at him while he lay on the sidewalk and screamed and passersby tsk-tsked at me. But before I went back to work, I felt isolated and frustrated, dealing with two toddlers on my own. I really have no idea what the answer is. I feel lucky to have two sweet and seemingly well-adjusted teenagers who seem to think I'm a good mom, most of the time.

"Kids today.....When I was young......Years ago, things were different (better)"

God do you know how ridiculous you all sound - EVERY generation repeats the same nonsense (Just like every gentrifier laments the newer gentrifier as the destroyer of the neighborhood).

Generally, the problem isnt the kids, or the parents - its you - Your getting OLD.

OH MY GOD! A child - scratch that - TWO CHILDREN were riding scooters in a store!! If ever we needed evidence of the complete and utter destruction of civilization - there we have it.

Bupkis - you deserve a medal for pointing out this great tragedy of an event. I am so happy you survived and THANK YOU for telling us about your fascinating experience. I am glad you are ok. Was it hard to pick out your olives knowing that these hoodlums were nearby? Were you able to give the baguettes a firm enough squeeze with the knowledge that razor wielding children were lurking behind the organic milk case?

I wish you would tell us your story in much, much greater detail.

Hal wrote: Brats beget brats.

That's why I don't plan on having any