Some Kids' Parents

Saturday was such a beautiful day and since Danny and I both had the day off we decided to do something with the kids.  We took them to a water park that's about 4 blocks away.  It's a great park!  There's 2 water areas, one for smaller kids and one for the older crowd, a small creek you can go wading in, and a great playground that's completely shaded in. 

One of the downsides of the park is the size of it; if you have 2 kids it's pretty much impossible to keep track of both of them.  Thankfully Danny and I swapped off on which child we watched. 

This was sadly not the case for another boy's father.  I'll start at the beginning.

Alyssa and I were sitting on the blanket and three boys ran by with water guns; I'm guessing they were around Lynden's age (no more than 2 years older).  For the sake of the story I'm going to call the youngest Johnny, his brother/friend (I'm not sure which) Sam, and the third boy (who did not know the other two) Peter. 

(This is no indication of people I know with these names)

After registering them I went back to feeding Alyssa her snack.  Shortly I heard one of the boys crying; it was Johnny.  Sam was telling Peter he needed to apologize for spraying Johnny in the eye.  Peter was refusing and telling Johnny to stop being a baby. 

Sam was getting more upset with the way his brother/friend was being treated and they decided to not play with Peter anymore.  When Johnny tried to walk away Peter kept getting in his way so Sam (not aggressively) pushed him out of the way so Johnny could walk away.  Sam also said "stop being a bully.  You are a bullying him."

This is when Peter got mad and wrapped his arm around Sam's neck and tried to drag him to the ground.  When Sam managed to get away Peter said (loudly) "f*#k, f*#k, f*#k". 

My jaw hit the ground!


The Peter started to cry; I'm not sure why but he cried and called for his daddy.  Over and over and over again.  As he started to walk around calling, crying, and looking a few other mom's, who were not busy picking their jaws up off the ground, went to him and tried to help him find his daddy. 

After 5 minutes his dad appeared.

Peter hugged his daddy while another little girl, probably 2 or 3, stood next to them looking.  She was wearing a swim suit so I'm guessing they were at the water park side.

Now, as a parent, if Lynden were to go off with 2 other boys and Alyssa wanted to stay at the water park I would have made sure I could see Lynden while he was playing, or tried to bribe Alyssa into moving so I could keep a better eye on both of them.  I also would be checking to see if I could see him every few moments; at no point would I have waited 8-10 minutes to see what was going on (since the dad didn't see any of the scuffle or hear his son crying and calling for him for 5 minutes). 

Danny had come back over to us not long after Peter starting crying and when the dad appeared Danny pointed out that he looked like one of "those dad's"; the kind that look like they've had a rough life (I'm paraphrasing for Danny, he was blunt on his view of the dad), especially since Peter had to learn how to use the F-bomb from someone. 

I can't tell you what was said to either sets of parents from their kids but at some point after Peter had settled down he went back over to Johnny and Sam and took one of their water guns.  Peter's dad sent him to return it. 

It was really sad to see a boy being that physically mean to another child and use such profanity (I'm no saint; I've sworn around my kids and Lynden had repeated it.  I explain to him that mommy said a bad word and that I'm sorry.  I also make a conscience effort to watch what I say around my kids).  It was also sad to see his dad have no idea what was going on with him son, even when he was crying and calling for him. 

Nothing makes you appreciate your kids more than seeing how other kids can act. 

Despite this "show" we had a great time at the park!