Exciting news! I have moved blogs. I am in the process of slowly moving all the posts over. Please join me at MomOffTrack.com.
It’s SUMMER TIME!
Oh how I love summer~the sun, the heat, swimming~everything a desert girl lives for! Except….
Everywhere we go is plastered by children on summer break. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against school kids enjoying the places we get to all year long. I do, however, have a problem with parents that let their kids ruin these places for those of us who have come to call them home. If you are a homeschooling or unschooling parent you know exactly what I mean. Summer is the time of year we stay away from the zoo, the library, movie theaters and such as our quiet havens of fun and learning have been invaded for the most part by children gone wild. A trip to the pool is like watching young children being trained for college spring break. Moms who are just happy to have something for the kids to do during the summer chatting with their friends and thinking it is so cute to give little Johnny a super soaker to run around and spray anything in sight “Hey, it is SUMMER!”, right? Actually NO, it isn’t alright and it isn’t my families fault that your kids only get out 3 months of the year. It is a choice you make. It is a choice I make that my kids swim 3-4 times a week all year and therefore don’t see it as a chance to go wild. Again, I have no issue with the kids being respectful of others enjoying these places. It is fun to see them get a break. My issue is with the mom who clearly views summer as a chore and looks to offload her kids at any spot that distracts the kids from driving her crazy and lets them do whatever they want because “Hey, it is SUMMER!”
So, my message to those mothers is this: Please realize that 80% of the population couldn’t care less that little Johnny is off for summer break. It doesn’t give him license to squirt me with his super soaker! Realize that you are invading OUR world~shocking I know but there are hundreds of thousands of people that go the movies during the week, grocery shop, swim, go to the zoo, library, museum, ALL YEAR long. These people have the right to continue to use these facilities without risk of injury even though your kids are on SUMMER break. Realize that these facilities are not a novelty to some kids. My kids go to the zoo a lot so I will quietly explain to them when your kid pushes me out of the way to see that “cool polar bear” that I can be patient and let them get a chance to get to know our animal friends. I, however, won’t be nice when your kid pushes mine.
Take the summer to teach your kids that the world does not revolve around them. Give them a fair shot at not ending up on the cover of College Kids Gone Wild a few years from now. Teach them that while summer may be a fun break for them, they still need to be respectful (just like I am sure they are in school).
…and to those of you completely offended by my post, you shouldn’t be unless you are the mom sipping flavored water gabbing to your friends while your kid pushes mine or shoots us with that super soaker. In that case, I hope you are offended ’cause someone needs to tell you how obnoxious you and your kids are!
to my little corner of the blogosphere. I am Barb, an ex-public school teacher turned blogger and forum owner. Read all about our family antics as we muddle through the chaos that occurs daily when you mix a work-at-home-mom with an unschooled, wheeling, tween and a teen in Catholic school. Not to mention my very traditional high school sweetheart turned husband of 17 years. Hey, at least I am giving my kids something to talk about in therapy when they get older...
So true!!!! As a homeschool MOM you will appreciate this….. Funniest thing I heard this week “oh I’m so happy it is summer so “Johnny” has time to socialize with his friends….school is just so busy and they just don’t get enough time to be kids…” UMMMM hello (i’m saying this in my head while she is talking…) then why are you always concerned about my “Timmy” being homeschooled and so worried that he doesn’t get to socialized with other kids at school! haha @susieqtpie on twitter
That is a great story! I couldn’t agree more with what you were thinking to yourself
No kidding! Life is funny, ain’t it?
*whistles innocently*
Ha! and Amen. It is a relief not to see 1400 school buses in the parking lot until the second week of summer when 14,000 school buses return with “summer camps” which have even less supervision/control over kids than the schools do. UGHHHHH. Let’s look at behavior and close the “unsocialized” debate. forever.
I know! we try to aim to go at 1:30 if it all to places cause that is when the camps usually start to leave.
I’m not a homeschooling mom, but I understand what you’re saying. I think kids can have the freedom to be children while still teaching them to respect others and be considerate of all people. You’re cheating your kid if you don’t teach them this.
Glad you commented. I agree, whether you homeschool or not you need to teach kids this.
It’s funny that you write about this. Here is what happened to us last week. Monday mornings are our quiet time at the library. We always go every monday at 11am. Some mondays I even host story time for the community babies and have volunteered at this library since I was in Kindergarden. ANYWAY, So this past monday we get Elijah out of the car seat and into the stroller and am heading for the library door. Up comes running like 7 kids. They PUSH hub and the stroller (yes actually TOUCHED the stroller tray and pushed back and attempted to push my husband back) Hub raised his voice and said ‘EXCUSE ME! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?’ The 2 pushing kids yelled ‘GET OUT OF OUR WAY’ I was standing there in disbelief! Elijah starts crying then because he is scared so I start to try to calm him. Then the mom comes walking up (we are all still standing in front of the door. Kids are still trying to push ME, the stroller and dave out of the way. Elijah is screaming so I am trying to calm him) and tells us ‘You want to move out of the way, you are blocking my kids from going in’
I seriously thought hub was going to freak out. He looked at her and calmly told her how we were in our way in and her children came up and started pushing us and our son back. Told her ‘great parenting and way to set an example’ She proceeded to PUSH US all of the way and went in.
Meanwhile one of the librarian comes out after hearing the noise and helps me calm Elijah down by telling him we would go in and get in his comfy chair (a big overstuffed chair in the children’s side) and have story time.
We go in and this woman’s 7 kids are just going nuts. Screaming, pulling books off the shelves, running around, total chaos. And the mom is over sitting in the comfy chair legs crossed, laptop out, not paying a bit of attention. There are about 5 neighborhood moms with their babies waiting for story time with us TRYING to sit on the story carpet and the 7 kids are jumping over them. all the moms stood up and were talking to each other by the time I got over there and they all asked that the head librarian make them calm down or leave. so she went over to the mom and talked. next thing you know the mom is screaming about how the library is a public place and they babysit kids all the time, so why cant they babysit hers! I don’t know what she had THOUGHT the library was, but in all the years I have been coming I never heard of this babysitting service. So she packs up her stuff (kids are still running around and still pulling at books at this point) and walks towards the counter. I’m standing at the counter with the books for story time in one hand, Elijah on my hip and she walks over and says ‘Thanks for ruining it.’ and tries to smack the books out of my hands, She ends up hitting me, elijah, and almost causing me to drop him and walked out. Now I am really stunned. I NEVER had someone try to hit me AND she hit my son! in a library!?!?! So everybody starts yelling at her. Hub takes ELijah to make sure hes okay and the mom FINALLY leaves, not telling her kids. So the librarian yells “Your Mom is leaving without you” With that all the kids ran out. Another librarian followed her out and got her tag because he said we should call the police and report her for assault and see what they say about the mess they caused. I still couldn’t believe she hit me and my 8 month old! Who does that?
So instead of story time all the moms that were there helped the librarians and we cleaned up all the books those kids had thrown. In the 10 minutes they were there they pulled out ENTIRE shelves of books. It took us about an hour & 1/2 to clean everything back up.
We talked to the police and they were just as surprised by the story. It’s ridiculous. We live in a VERY rural area. It’s unusual to see anybody in the library you don’t know. This woman was just totally out there.
You are so right with this post! What do these moms think?!?!?! How can they be so stupid?
I can’t believe that happened to you. Makes me grateful for my pool day experience. Babysitting in a LIBRARY? She must have been off of her rocker!!!!! I hope the police follow up!
We went to the lake at a nearby state park. And I am embarrassed to say, that it was my group of kids who were splashing! Teenagers! They never noticed the Dad with two little ones standing right beside them. I quickly informed my little angels that it was not ok to slam the ball in the water and had them apologize to the Dad. He was ok then. But, I sure felt his glare when the kids first splashed him.
capriliz´s last blog ..Lost TV Series – Why I Love Lost! updated Fri Jun 19 2009 5:21 pm CDT
Yeah, but you did the right thing.