Does This Make Me a Helicopter Parent?

The other day I took the kids to the lake, mainly because it was finally warm enough to do so. When we go to the lake, or a playground, we have an unspoken rule that if a sibling is playing with friends, the other siblings can join.  This is especially true if one sibling runs into friends and the others don't.

I hate it when kids exclude each other. When I was teaching, the fastest way to tick me off was to exclude other kids from games or conversations. I don't mean that I expect all kids to be best friends or that I think every kid in the class has to be invited to every birthday party. But, if you're playing in a public area? Everyone plays.

My personal parenting philosophy.

So. On this day, Lovebug ran into one of his friends. The friend was going to the playground adjacent to the lake and I let all the kids go there. When I (finally) got there, everything seemed fine. I did not see the parent Lovebug's friend was with (who was not his own), but that's not all that rare at playground. A lot of parents just stay on the beach while the kids play. 

Anyway, at one point I notice that Ironflower isn't with the other kids. She's off by herself and she looks sad. She says that Lovebug's friend has forbidden her to play because she's a girl. I tell her to just go play with them anyway. A few minutes later, she's off alone again, fighting back tears. The friend said he wouldn't play if she did, and she wanted to let her brothers play because they were having fun. 

I march over to the boys and start speaking to Lovebug. Ironflower jumps in and states that Lovebug stood up for her and Lovebug reassures me that he wants her to play. As I'm praising him for that, the friend states again, "No girls can play." 

I say, "We don't play that way. We let everyone play." 

And the kid looks at me and says, "Well, if she plays I won't play." Lovebug starts trying to cajole him into playing, basically begging him to play together. And the kid keeps repeating his stance. You have to admire his conviction, if nothing else. 

Poor Lovebug is in the middle, poor Ironflower feels awful and I decide it's time to leave. I tell Lovebug that we were only sticking around so that he could play with his friend (which is true - I love it when they run into friends at the lake or playground, it's so much easier than trying to organize play dates, plus, I don't have to clean my house) and since his friend won't include everyone, we're going to leave. And so we did. 

On the way to the car, Lovebug asked me if he could still have a play date with this kid. I explained that the kid's behavior had made me really unhappy and I just wasn't sure that a play date was a good idea. I don't know if he's a sexist little jerk at heart or whether he was just acting up because his mom wasn't there. Either way, it doesn't bode well for a play date. 

Hot Guy thinks I might have been a tad over-protective in this situation. What do you all think? What would you have done? Should I say anything to his mom?  I would want to know if my kid was acting that way. But I don't look forward to that conversation, either. 

Tell me what to do, great interwebz oracles. 

Second Grade

Second grade was a bad year for me. My teacher was harsh so I panicked whenever she called on me. I didn't have any good friends in my class. I actually don't remember having any friends in that class at all, but I could be wrong. It was a long time ago.

I mostly remember two things about second grade; my crush on Jeffrey MacIntosh and my frenemy Kristen McCormick.

Where I went to second grade. The trees were still standing back then. 

Photo courtesy of Patch.com

Oh, and I loved the movie Grease.

Jeffrey was my first crush and I have no idea why I had a crush on him. It may have been his bright red hair. It may have been that he was only at my school for that one year. It may have been that I watched Grease too many times and decided I needed to have a crush on someone.

What I know, though, is that Kristen started buddying up to him after I admitted my crush. She told me all sorts of things about their "relationship", all of which I believed, none of which were probably true.

At seven, Kristen was already that kind of girl. In my memory. Which may be colored by the mean things that she actually did in later years. She was definitely that clique-y, mean girl that Tina Fey wrote so wonderfully about, though by high school her power had all but disappeared.

I actually can't remember what she looked like in high school, but I can still picture her face telling me about Jeffrey MacIntosh trying to kiss her. Or how she looked when she made fun of people.

Anyway, I'm thinking about her because I think Ironflower has her own Kristen McCormick this year. Well, not exactly. This girl doesn't pick on Ironflower much (yet?), but I sense the malice in her. I've heard the malice in her when she didn't realize an adult was around. Ironflower reports on the malice in her regularly.

But she's not threatening anyone, or destroying their Facebook walls, or even spreading rumors about them. She's just saying mean things and excluding others from her playground games and her birthday party (who invites all but two of the girls in the class to the birthday party? Who?). Unfortunately, there's nothing in the anti-bullying regulations about that.

Ironflower, though, is already smarter than I was at that age. While she has remained friendly with Kristen McCormick 2.0, Ironflower is distancing herself. She's made other friends in their class. She's decided that she doesn't want her to be one of the 5 who gets to come over for her own almost-sleepover party. She's not relying on this girl for friendship, nor is she taking what she says personally. And if she has a crush, she certainly hasn't mentioned it to anybody.

It's probably because I haven't let her watch Grease.

More Reasons My Kids Will Need Therapy

I swear to the Goddess that this post was going to be happy. I was going to list things I like. Or something. I really wanted to write a post that didn't involve bitching. Possibly that's too much to ask when I'm on the rag, the kids have spring break and my allergies are trying to kill me, I don't know.

I do know that I was a shitty mother this morning and I feel the need to confess. I had this plan in my head. I would take my kids to the indoor play area and grab some fast food lunch (sorry Jamie Oliver, I really am trying to do better {more on that later} but I've got 48 hours of solo time, killer cramps AND a headache). It would be fun. They would be happy. And cramps like french fries.

There were a few other people there, one family with two boys and a pair of women with their 2 girls. Lovebug and Ironflower rushed to make friends. The older boy didn't want to befriend Lovebug at first, which Lovebug took on the chin and moved on. Eventually, the boy changed his mind. Ironflower seemed fine with the younger girls. I spent my time chasing ChunkyMonkey and preventing him from getting trapped in the play area.

Until I saw the 2 girls, but no Ironflower. The place isn't very big, so I found this surprising. Eventually I found her crying in the corner. The girls didn't want to play with her anymore. Now, I try to be reasonable. I know my daughter can be bossy. The girls were younger and already knew each other. I said as much (well, I substituted "decisive" for "bossy"). She kept crying. I asked if they said anything mean. She shook her head. She rejected playing with her brother. And me.

And then. . .well, I got mad.

I told my daughter that she needed to get over it and not let those girls ruin our good time. Or we would have to leave. She got up and climbed slowly around. She bit my head off when I checked on her and then she cried some more.

Even after the girls left, she didn't want to play. She was too sad about them not wanting to be friends with her. I hugged her and held her on my lap. And then I sort of went off about the whole situation.

It's not that I wasn't sad for her. But if this kind of thing is going to devastate her so much. . .how will she ever handle elementary school? How will I?

I pointed out that she was ruining our family fun time over 2 little girls that we would never see again and obviously weren't very nice. I pointed out that she loves to play with Lovebug. I pointed out that I had gotten dressed  and paid money and dealt with 85 ChunkyMonkey tantrums so they could have fun, dammit, and why couldn't she just have fun for the love of God??????????????? (I left out the dammit, but I'm not sure about the "for the love of God)

I am not a nice person.

The mood lifted as we left. We got McDonald's. We read stories. We had quiet time. Now they are watching a DVD. Under calm questioning, Ironflower still cannot articulate (and if you know Ironflower, you know that's very very strange. . . . Ironflower is nothing if not articulate) why she was so upset.

But I'm so afraid of the next time someone doesn't want to play with her. We've always encouraged our kids to be friendly and to include all kids in their games. But maybe that's not the best thing for Ironflower emotionally. I just don't know.

Advice, internets? Also, feel free to tell me how to handle this without turning into an evil cow.