Yesterday was not a good day. It started off pretty pants when I received yet another text message from a friend saying that I was rubbish at keeping in touch and that if I carried on this way I would lose more friends. It wasn’t a horrible text, they didn’t mean to be nasty but it upset me in a big way. You may have seen from my post yesterday, I am a very busy person and whilst I don’t meant to not contact my friends, I just get so carried away with all the different things that I have to get done in a day by the time I finally stop, it’s far too late at night (or early morning) to consider sending a text and with all the best intentions to text the following morning my day just snowballs again.
So yesterday afternoon I made arrangements to meet up with Karin at a local cafe with a play area so that we could have a chat (the text was not from Karin) and the children could play. The afternoon was going well, I was beginning to feel more relaxed (despite feeling very under the weather health-wise) and the children were all playing well together. After a while some other Mummies turned up with their children and sat in the play area to chat whilst their children played. Karin, baby Sam and I were sat on tall chairs at the side of the play area so that we could have a drink and something to eat BUT we were in full view of the children and were watching them all the time.
When the other Mummies and their children arrived Beanie Boy took quite a shine to one little girl who was around the same age as him, perhaps a little younger. Initially he did as he usually does and tried to pat the little girl on the head whilst saying ‘ahhhhh’ because he thought she was a baby. I spoke to the mother and said, he wasn’t being mean but just to watch him as his ‘loving’ tends to be a little heavy handed at the moment but he didn’t mean anything by it. She didn’t really respond to me.
Beanie Boy and the little girl continued to play together really well, both pretending to fall over and then descend into fits of giggles. They chased each other around, played in the small house together and were generally having fun. After a while I saw Beanie Boy pull the little girl’s socks off (a favourite game of his!) and the mother snatched the socks off him and gave him a very stern ‘no’ before putting the socks back on. Beanie Boy’s lip dropped a little but then the little girl and he carried on playing.
Some time later I watched as Beanie Boy and the little girl went back into the playhouse together, the little girl bent over to pick something up and Beanie Boy seized the opportunity to climb on her back for a ‘piggy back’ ride as he does with Curly and Little Bean. He began bouncing up and down on her back ‘giddyup’ style and naturally the little girl was horrified. She didn’t understand what he was doing and so she began to scream. I jumped down from my chair to go and rescue her but her mother was there before me. I watched in horror as the mother grabbed Beanie Boy by the arm and forcefully pulled him off her daughter, through the door of the house and then shoved him to one side before picking up her daughter. I turned to Karin and said “did I just see right, did she just grab Beanie Boy and shove him”. Karin replied “yes she did”. I walked over to Beanie Boy who was now screaming and sobbing, obviously very frightened by the actions of this stranger. I picked him to console him and then turned to the mother and said “how dare you touch my son like that, you’ve frightened the life out of him”. She continued that she was simply removing him from her daughter and that he had frightened her daughter. I said that I knew he had frightened the little girl but he didn’t mean to he was just playing with her, I reiterated that he was just a baby himself and he didn’t mean to cause her any harm. The shouting continued, mainly from me I admit and then one of the other mother’s piped up that I should have been sat in the play area with him and not sitting outside. I asked her how sitting four foot further away than her was going to make any difference, the fact of the matter was her friend should not have man-handled my son in that way. In my frustration I ended up swearing at the pair and immediately regretted my actions. I behaved unacceptably but I was so upset at seeing my son treated in that manner and the day could not really have descended much worse. I gathered up Beanie Boy and Little Bean and made a hasty retreat to my car having totally embarrassed myself, Karin and set a very bad example for my children. I am not making excuses for myself as I have always said “touch my children, hear me roar” but my language and reaction was not appropriate for the situation and I felt very ashamed of myself.
And just to finish off the day perfectly, Beanie Boy was sick all over his bed and the bathroom last night. I’m hoping today will be a better day!
Please don’t feel bad, if it helps I think I would of done the same. God help anyone that lays a hand on my child, I am like a lioness protecting her cub. She should of guided him of her rather that using force to grab your child then shove him out of the way. She could of easily dislocated his arm by grabbing him in the way you say she did.
I definitely was a lioness that day!! I completely agree with you, guiding would have been far more suitable, thankfully he forgot about the incident far sooner than Mummy did!
I wish I could say that I wouldn’t have reacted like that but I probably would have too! No one has the right to manhandle your child. She doesn’t sound like she was friendly from the start so I’d just put this one down to experience and try not to dwell. xxx
It was not a pleasant situation at all but I am trying to put it behind me now, thank you for your support x
I know which play area you are talking about, and many times have sat in exactly the same place as you and had no problems. You were close enough and she definitely didn’t have any right to man handle Beanie Boy – regardless of what he did!
We were out today when N walked towards another girl – maybe a year older than him – who picked up a handful of stones and threw them at him. Fortunately her throw wasn’t very powerful but I managed not to man handle her out of the way!
Exactly, all of my children have been in similar positions and I have never laid a finger on anyone else’s child – I never would!
I think I would have reacted exactly like that too.
How awful for you and Beanie Boy. Hope he is ok now xx
I would of reacted the same!