I just don’t get some people.
A while back, I told you about E’s kissing buddy at school. For the sake of this story, we’ll call him Peter since one of their favorite things to play is Peter Pan. Some days E’s Wendy. Some days she’s Tink (I have mixed feelings on both so I’m not sure which I prefer) but her buddy is always Peter.
Well, to save you the hassle of clicking over to my previous blog on this topic, here’s the rundown: E and this kid are inseparable. They walk around school hand-in-hand ALL.DAY.LONG. Wherever E goes, Peter is not far behind. Apparently he lets her boss him around all day. Poor kid. He’s actually a very sweet little boy.
Well for awhile, they were smooching all over the place. At first it was just little pecks on the cheek, but then I must have accidentally let her watch Dirty Dancing “Glee” one night or something because they progressed to some mouth-on-mouth action. At that point, the teachers shut down the kissing games.
For awhile things seemed to simmer, but then there was The Wedding. No, not the Royal Wedding, although I think E’s Carter’s dress was just as lovely as Kate’s McQueen gown. No, this was on the playground and like Wills, Peter gave E a ring but didn’t put one on himself. Where did this trend come from. (An aside, if you’ll indulge me. I was so proud of her. She called off the marriage later that day, but kept the ring. Good girl.)
I tell you all this because like me, your natural reaction is probably, “Oh that’s a little creepy. Cute but creepy. But clearly not the worst thing in the world two 3-year-olds could be doing.”
Peter’s parents, on the other hand, see NO humor in the situation. In fact, the whole thing has made them downright hostile toward us.
Peter’s dad and I tend to pick up our kids at about the same time every day. A few months ago, when the kids’ love affair was just starting to blossom, he would say hello to me like all the other parents and we even joked about the kids’ obvious BFF behavior.
But then after the Big Talking To, things changed. He and his wife stopped saying hello and seemed to rush out of the room whenever I was in it.
At first I thought I was imagining things, and frankly I have better things to do than to worry if a set of parents, whom I would probably never socialize with anyway, like me or not. Clearly I’m too busy ruining the teachers’ surprise or dealing with lost tuition checks to dabble with such melodramas.
But now they’ve been rude to my kid, and it’s ON.
E. and I were at the grocery store this weekend and we saw their whole family there. The first couple times I saw them, they legitimately may not have seen us. But once E. saw Peter she kept saying, “Lets go say hi. Why can’t we go say hi?”
To be honest, Peter’s parents seemed to be having one of those days where they may not have been getting along so well (you know we’ve all been there ourselves). This is why DadJovi and I can never go to the grocery store together — it doesn’t end well.
I thought I saw them leaving the store so I told E. that we’d just see him at school the next day.
But then, as we reached the front of the check-out line and I was paying, they walked right in front of us. E. suddenly yells out “Peter!” He saw here and leaned around his stroller (they had just passed by us) to say hello. The parents, though, kept their eyes straight ahead. Not even a glance at me.
Again, I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but then I saw the dad shush Peter and tell him to turn around. C’mon, you’re going to try and make your 3 year old snub my 3 year old? That’s BS.
And again, the next day at school, I got a big fat snub from them again.
What gives? Are kissing 3-year-olds really that offensive? Do they think my daughter is a harlot or something?
What should I do? Do I say something? I’d prefer not to, but I’m afraid that we’re going to be in school with them for the next 15 years. And I’d rather deal with things sooner rather than later.
And Peter is E’s absolute favorite friend at school. They should be having playdates, not treated as star-crossed lovers. We all know how those stories end.
People suck.
Seriously??? What the hell is wrong with people??
They put the kibosh in kissing in B’s class this year (in PreK) — before that it’s too hard to control! Especially if you come from a very loving family where kissing is the norm. I just don’t get why some parents think they (or their kids) are better than others. It’s just unacceptable to teach their kid to the be rude. When someone says hi to you — you should say hi back!! Gah – this has just made me so mad. Clearly, the parents have issues.
If I were in your situation — I would probably try to take my passive-agressive approach to dealing with asshats and kill them with kindness. If they start making rude comments though? I’d definitely call them out on it! Sorry you have to deal with these people.
My husband’s strategy is to kill the kid with kindness and completely ignore the parents. It’s not hard because the boy is very sweet. So now we go even more out of our way to talk to him and not them. Childish? Yes. Satisfying? Very.
Wow, these people are unreal. First, I don’t really understand what the big deal is about 3 year olds kissing each other. Maybe it’s because I’m French, but I think it’s cute and telling them not to do it makes it sound like there’s something wrong with it. I’d much rather my son kiss other kids than kick them like he does (ahaha!). Second, those parents are effed up and I feel bad for that poor boy. I would talk to them about it if I were you (although they appear to be idiots who probably wouldn’t get it anyway.) Good luck, I hope E doesn’t sense any of Peter’s parents’ wierdness!
Marie — I don’t think the teachers were so against the kissing. They still don’t tell them not to hold hands or kiss on the cheek — it was the mouth kissing that they put an end to. To be fair, I agreed with that call. I don’t want her to think it’s bad but also to recognize that there’s a time and a place and with the number of ear infections and illnesses she has anyway, maybe she shouldn’t go around kissing everyone all the time. But we’re big kissers at home so she’s still getting a lot of affection from us! As for his parents, well, who knows what their deal is. Their lack of a sense of humor about the whole thing makes me want to tell E to kiss him all the time!
Yes, people suck. I think the approach that you mentioned in the comments above sounds good. I wouldn’t worry about having to see them in school for the next 17 years. Truthfully we see very few of the families we knew in preschool anymore. Kids end up all over the place for elementary school. Even if you do run into them over the years, these memories will fade and the kids will change before then anyway. If E. ever recognizes the rudeness you just have to tell her that sometimes people are just not nice. But WE always have to be nice, even if others aren’t. That way we can feel superior to the meanies and we’ll have good karma and they’ll have bad karma. I have honestly seen this happen to an ex-friend who was very mean to me and Cal about six years ago. She de-friended me (in the days before that was just a Facebook thing) and said some very hurtful things about my parenting (her kid was a biter and she had been kicked out of TWO Moms Club groups, but whatever). Since then her business failed and she got divorced. Karma is a bitch. 🙂
Ugh, why are some people so mean? And even if we don’t see them in school, we’ll see them everywhere else. I haven’t quite figured out where they live but it’s definitely within a couple streets of us because we SEE.THEM.EVERYWHERE! Ah well, I’m sure it’ll all blow over. Either that, or E will somehow be that person who marries her “first love” and I’ll be cursed to deal with them for life. 🙂 (that emoticon is just for you, CC!)