I spent the weekend attending, among other things, a birthday party.
The older brother of birthday child is great mates with Grizzlewick, they have known each other since older brother (let's call him Neil) was born, about ten months after Grizzle.
When we arrived at the birthday party, Neil grabbed Grizzlewick by the arm and insisted on playing with him, leading him around the party and ordering him around, etc.
About an hour later, I was having a discussion with one of the other parents at the party. “Grizzlewick and Neil are all over each other,” I noted. “Yes,” she replied. “My poor Andrew can’t get a look-in”.
I reported this conversation to Neil’s father, a little later in the day. “I know,” he said. “Paul complained about the same thing last time they were together and was quite pissed off that they weren’t playing with Jane more”.
So, at this point, the count is:
Two happy children playing with each other
Two “excluded” children
Two pissed-off parents
One completely oblivious Gigglewick.
At first I was a little bit upset that Grizzle and Neil were being perceived as exclusionary, but now I can’t help but feel a bit crabby. Neil and Grizzlewick see each other about three times a year, but speak of each other constantly and truly LOVE each other.
Grizzlewick, in his defence, has spent the sum total of about three hours in his entire life in the company of the other children in question – I doubt he could name them let alone pick them out of a crowd.
Even more irking, is that I have the sneaking suspicion that this is less to do with the kids and more to do with the parents.
Nevertheless I do worry:
Am I becoming one of those “cool gang” mothers that facilitates the merciless targeting of bullying and name-calling?
Should I do something about this exclusive play, and if so, what?
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4 comments:
Oooh. Parental politics... don't you just love it???
I would say to those other parents: Get a life! As long as Grizzlewick is not being mean and nasty and bullying, but is merely enjoying his friend's company, then he is doing nothing wrong.
And the two Nigel No Friends can go play with each other...
I reckon I'm with actonb, it's more about parental politics than the kids' behaviour. Given that it was a party, I'm assuming there were other kids to play with. And since Neil wasn't the birthday boy it's not like he was ignoring his other guests.
I do have sympathy for the Nigel N.F (as a child that was all too often me), but beyond a gentle suggestion to Grizzle that maybe Nige would like to play too, what can you do?
Just out of curiosity, is it actually possible to get a three year old and a four year old who are good friends and intent on playing with each other to do anything but that?
I ask merely because I have never ever achieved such a thing.
So, I'm going to cast my lot with Acto and Miz and say its very much a parental politics thing and stop stressing about being a bad mother you are clearly not one.
I took the boys to a three year old birthday party last weekend and it took me about an hour and a half to get Bundle to do anything other than sit in one of the bedrooms playing with a train set. When I finally insisted that he actually interact with the other children we had tantrums and tears and this continued until I finally managed to distract him with fairy bread and everything was fine.
So in conclusion, parenting is tricky and we just try to do our best, really.
Parents like that really irk me because lets face it - the parents are making the observations it's not as if the little tykes are complaining. I just always try to think back to when I was that age and how I felt - and of course I can never remember!No-one remembers that stuff, they're just little kids being in the moment - pure bliss!
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