If your kid is being an asshole I’m not going to tell mine off for telling yours to f*ck off.
Kids are seen as an amalgamation of angels and devil by their parents. Little Ben is an angel when mom’s talking to someone else – “He is just amazing, really, he’s never done anything wrong in his life.” – and the devil reborn when mom is having a rant – “That little shit just never stops and lets me have a minute, does he?” It’s honestly funny. We are all guilty of it. If our cat is mean to everyone, we laugh and say, “But they are an angel who can do no wrong.” But if our cat scratches the shit out of us? “I can’t believe I feed and house the literal devil, begone beast.”
We have this dual vision of the people (and pets) we love: they’re at once faultless and full of fault. Lucifer and Gabriel, co-existing in one being. Despite the fact that I am guilty of acting like this with my own girls – they make me so proud but they also make me want to tear my hair out – I am not going to, under any circumstances, tell them off when they tell your kid to Fuck Off when they’re being the second coming of Lucifer.
I see you coming at me with that “Young Ben has never done a wrong thing in his LIFE how dare you and your daughter suggest such a thing” business. I see that. I even respect it. But honestly?
Honestly?
You can fuck off too.
Actions have consequences.
Just because you don’t want to hold your child accountable for their shit behaviour does not mean that my kid has to suffer it, too. You’re probably thinking that I’m being really harsh, that this kid and their mom aren’t the worst and I’m overreacting. I’m going to tell you the situation that made me so angry that I had to write this post, and then you can judge whether I’m being a grade a bitch or not.
So. We’re at the play park. Mommies and kids and some dogs. They’re playing and we are sitting, chatting. We talk about mommy stuff; the messy kids we are rearing and the dinners we have to cook and the jobs we have to do and just the general state of stress we live in.
Kids are so much all the time!
Our mommy dishes on the park benches are under appreciated short therapy sessions.
Anyway. I’m dishing to another mom. My kids are stomping about the jungle gym. Little Ben (a pseudonym, of course) is stomping around the jungle gym too. The jungle gym is the place to stomp.
So, we watch and we dish and everyone has a good time.
Then Little Ben has a fit.
At my girls.
He just starts screaming, loud, high pitched screaming interspaced with words that are too garbled to make out. His mom looks over. We all look over. I see that this kid is screaming at mine. We both step up to go sort this out and then –
“Fuck off, Ben,” rings throughout the play park.
Ben freezes.
Him mom freezes.
I laugh.
Ben and his mom start to scream at the same time, at me and my girls. The mom tells me to reign in my girls. The Ben tells my girls that that’s a naughty word and he’s going to tell his mom.
I tell the mom, “No, you’re kid was screaming and they told him to stop.”
She tells me, “They swore at him. He did nothing wrong. His fit was completely justifiable.”
I tell her, “Screaming like that is never OK.”
We ask the kids what happened. Turns out, Little Ben started to scream when my girls wouldn’t get off the jungle gym because he wanted to be the only one on it. I turn to his mom and say, “My girls did nothing wrong, your son is just having a tantrum.” She dragged her son away when it became clear that neither my girls or I would apologise for his behavior.
That’s the crux of the matter though. Women have always been asked to excuse male behaviour – to face the consequences of their actions for them. It’s stupid. It’s annoying. It’s got to stop.
Moms, hold your sons responsible. Don’t let them get away with everything. They’re not blameless little angels, they’re little people who are capable of fucking up like the rest of us. Don’t raise bullies.
It’s not a bad thing to want to be treated with respect. It’s not a bad thing to say no to boys and men who are being ridiculous. It’s not a bad thing to hold them accountable for their actions. So, no. I won’t apologize for my girls telling your son to fuck off because, honestly? He can fuck off. I taught my girls to have zero tolerance for bullshit, and you should too.