Tuesday, January 8, 2008

To the lady at the Piedmont Park playground yesterday

Yesterday, while on a play date with a few gal pals and their boys, my little peanut was happily enjoying his favorite activity - poking at the ground and piles of leaves with a stick - just off the playground proper. Again, he was not on the actual play space, I was a mere 10 feet away and he was not swinging this stick at anyone or in anyone's general direction.

Along came a little boy about peanut's age who paused on the edge of the playground in front of my guy. After a few moments of staring at each other, peanut offered the stick to this new boy with a smile. The new boy took it. At which point an older woman with the little boy took the stick, knelt down and started giving what looked like a lecture to my son, broke the stick in two and tossed it (without looking), dragging her little one away.

He's a little BOY. His favorite words right now include poo-poo and snot, he plays with sticks and he gets dirty. It might not qualify me for mother of the year, but I think it disqualifies my kid from getting lectured by complete strangers when he didn't actually inflict, or even threaten to inflict, any type of bodily harm. So unless this lady was actually complimenting my peanut on sharing and saying thank you, she can just keep walking her overprotected kid to the swing set.

Oh, and watch where you throw things, lady. It's a playground. You wouldn't want anyone to get hurt.

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