MAAAverick; Or, Witness as I Throw Motes at People’s Glass Houses

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Do you remember at the beginning of the summer when I wrote about letting Franny walk herself to school and the helicoptery flack I was getting as a result?

Well, friends, hell has frozen over. Today I am walking the girls to school when I see childrens A, B, and C walking together but otherwise unaccompanied to school.

Child A has lovely parents but is a manipulative bully. She’s the kind of child who hisses lovely things when the teacher isn’t looking like, “Give me your pencil or I won’t be your friend” and swoops in and takes a kid’s seat when the kid gets up for water, and then acts all innocent upon the first child’s return. I reluctantly allowed a playdate with this child last year because she has a long history of playing with Franny while at her dad’s house.

[As an aside, I told Franny that a tactic for dealing with her was to shame her. When Child A did something sneaky and manipulative, I suggested that Franny should call her out, loudly. “WHY DID YOU TAKE MY CHAIR?” Franny said this was successful and got the child to pick new targets. I should tell you about this year’s bully. She makes Child A look like amateur night.]

There was a friend schism for a while during the divorce after the whole SeaFed getting the mommies at school to sign paperwork attesting to his awesomeness after knowing him casually for three months. I didn’t really trust anyone for a long time, because I know the busybodies and gossips, lo they walk among us. There were mommies who were reporting various things that SeaFed was doing to me, totally unprovoked and unasked for.

So finally I said, well, okay, let bygones be bygones, they have all been in this school together for many years, let’s try it. Child A left the house, picked up by one of her very nice parents, I turn around, and Franny is in tears about some weird psychodrama involving Child A and Strudel, who Franny felt was being treated unfairly. The fact that she couldn’t even really describe what had happened made me think that the mind-fuckery was going deep. I asked Franny if she wanted to keep doing this. She said no, but she kind of dithers on it. This year they are in separate classes and Franny’s teacher has expressed relief about this, because she sees Franny is under a lot less pressure. I think a lot of people want to be friends, but they don’t know how.

The point of this long ass build up is that Child A’s mother offered Franny a ride home last year when she saw that Franny was all by her lonesome for two whole blocks. I do not resent the offer, really, but it was a clearish late spring day and it was more about people meddling, no matter how well-meaning.

Children B and C. That is more complicated, though I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say her children are stunted and neurotic due to some of the most pernicious helicoptering I have ever seen. The mother of children B and C got in Franny’s face last spring and told her that she didn’t think Franny should be walking by herself, which undermined Franny’s confidence, made her angry, and made the teacher decide to hold Franny back for five minutes every day so she could walk on her own, happily independent and unharassed.

This mother’s youngest is two years younger than Franny and a year younger than Franny was last year when she walked alone. You can say, yes, well, at least they’re walking together. With the way they have been helicoptered, I would not trust those children to be able to make it out of a wet paper bag with a map, flashlights, and a trail of breadcrumbs.

The icing on the cake is that they were going in at the same time as my kids, for the earlybird program, which the mother of children B and C had previously referred to as “glorified daycare for parents who just want to ditch their kids,” despite having friends whose children are in the program and claiming to respect the choices of women with careers. And people ACTUALLY ASK ME why we’re not friends anymore.

22 thoughts on “MAAAverick; Or, Witness as I Throw Motes at People’s Glass Houses”

  1. This really begs the question why you haven’t told these individuals where to head the fuck in. Or why Frannie hasn’t kicked someone’s ass. Or do I have to come up there because they are fucking with STRUDEL! But yeah, I know, gotta live among the cannibals as peacefully as possible and avoid getting eated.

  2. Jeezly crow. You have it bad in your hood. The worst I have is the tittering of the Rich Kids hopping out of trophy wife/mommy’s Lexus every morning while my awesome kids get out of the POS Chevy Lumina. It’s all good, though, in the long run. Which is officially the worst thing to say to someone going through shit in the right here and now. I like how Frannie uses her words.

  3. Actually, greer, I am pretty happy just not seeing these people! My kids hardly see them either, except for Child C (who she has class with), and he is a well-meaning kid.

    I like how Frannie uses her words too.

  4. “[As an aside, I told Franny that a tactic for dealing with her was to shame her. When Child A did something sneaky and manipulative, I suggested that Franny should call her out, loudly. “WHY DID YOU TAKE MY CHAIR?” Franny said this was successful and got the child to pick new targets. I should tell you about this year’s bully. She makes Child A look like amateur night.]”

    I wish you’d been my mom!

  5. I know, was your mom all “turn the other cheek” or “bullies are jus jellus of you”? My mom was the latter. Thanks for nuffin, muffin!

  6. I think that was good advice to tell Franny to call the kid out on it, and that was brave of her to do too.

    I hate kids that are mean to other children and they certainly get it from somewhere.

  7. I love the advice about calling it out (about bullies). My kid was going through a rough patch earlier this year and during meeting with teacher mentioned that I was advising said tactic to my kid. Teacher was mortified, as school policy is to advise kids to ‘ignore’ bully and then to ‘tell’ teacher. I think that confident and condoned peer/social censure would actually stop bullies dead. This idea that you starve them of attention and it will wither away doesn’t work in my opinion–but I guess it’s hard to monitor escalation of the angry.

    Bullies still need hugs but.

  8. Yes, I too am like: Fucking with STRUDEL?!?

    What the hell?

    God, you are a genius, though. This could be a total consultancy thing. Deal with bullies. Of course, all the helicopter parents would be all calling you because they haven’t a clue how to deal with bullies.

    Also, I want you to look at my child and see where I’m going wrong. Seriously, you need to be a consultant. Only helicopter parents hire consultants. But still!

  10. “I know, was your mom all “turn the other cheek” or “bullies are jus jellus of you”? My mom was the latter. Thanks for nuffin, muffin!”

    The second one was my mom as well… :P to that.

  11. “I know, was your mom all “turn the other cheek” or “bullies are jus jellus of you”? My mom was the latter. Thanks for nuffin, muffin!”

    Actually my parents were of the “let’s tell the teacher” type. Doesn’t do a thing and mostly made things worse. My poor clueless parents!

  12. It totally blows my mind that people can be such ridiculous assholes. I feel like, so far, I’ve wandered through life relatively unexposed and unscathed to such caddy retardation, so when I hear stories, it shocks me all the more. Speaking of little assholes, you should totally watch Summer Heights High if you haven’t seen it already.

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