A dad, sitting at the playground picnic table reading a newspaper. Behind him his 9-year old daughter bikes down the pathway trick-style, holding her legs out to the side and shouting “Dad! Dad!”
He doesn’t look up.
In Marin county at a kids’ museum, I overhear these names: Hennessy, Maccrae, Sietta, Aspen, Nixon, Rodden, Montana. I’ve known and loved kids with unusual names (including Boo), but I still snort at the soy-no-foam-cappuccino-ness of these evidently well-to-do parents. The phrase that sticks in my head: “competitive birthing.”
A pack of 3-ish-year olds (including Boo) spontaneously invent a game that appears to be Tag-like, although who’s It is nebulous. One onlooking mom feels it necessary to shout directions: “No, go under the slide! Now, you, cut him off! Stop, go back!” She continues until the game quickly dies.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
“Hennessy, Maccrae, Sietta, Aspen, Nixon, Rodden, Montana.” Too much. The phrases that come to mind are “trying to hard” and “pretentious” . . . not that I’m judging.
I guess I can imagine bringing reading material to the park if my child were nine, but I have seen people bringing magazines and newspapers to the park with their toddlers before. That strikes me as delusional and dangerous?!
My dauhter’s name is Harper. I think some people find it prententious but it’s not. It’s literary.
Aspen. Really?:0
Of course, my name list includes Regent, Gentry and Elsinor, so I’m really not allowed to be judgemental.
And about the rule shouting mom- that stinks. I hate those moments in the classroom when I have to get the students to play a game or do a “fun” activity the prescribed way over their own creative ways so it gets done almost on time. Sometimes you just have to let go! And, usually their ideas are better.
isn’t this one of the things birth control was going to allow? That only those who can ‘afford’ many children will have them, while those who can’t, don’t have to.
Except of course that if it is notably fashionable to have large families (let’s see, Brad and Angie have 5 now?), none of that sort of theory will matter.
I hate crap like that too.
Part of the fun of being a parent is passing judgment on other parents.
A lot of times I wonder if someone names thier kid based on how it will sound if they become a reailty tv person.
You’re LEAVING GNM Parents??? But…. but….
Okay, I totally understand. I will just have to add THIS site to my thingy list.
Don’t worry about being judgemental, I won’t be a dad until march and I keep a rolling log of bad things I see parents in my head. It’s my “I would never do that as a parent” list.
Seriously, what’s wrong with some people?
@Adam – At this point, I do at least three “I would never do that as a parent” things myself every day. So I really oughta lighten up on other people.
But I don’t.