Alice reports an infuriating incident.
Henry was having a hard time making inroads with the other children, all of whom paired off according to some mysterious, prearranged order. Then he spotted a group of older kids. They were either eight or 21. Probably somewhere in the middle. They were sitting at the top of a slide, drinking soda and chewing gum, feeling dangerous. Henry was entranced. Before I could stop him, he was right there, standing outside their circle. I watched. Sometimes older kids are nice! Maybe!
The ignoring that ensued was brief but painful, as Henry repeatedly attempted to introduce himself and I considered tearing their lungs out through their mouths. Too much?
After he walked away from them, he looked over at me and started to cry.
“No one wants to know my name,” he called out, weeping. And two women standing right by him—c’mon, guess!
Guess!
They didn’t just laugh—they laughed their asses off. They thought that was the funniest damn thing they ever heard. Such a cute little kid! So clever! With the stringing the words together! Just like a person!
Which of course set him off even more. The two of them tried to direct more commentary at me about my funny kid with his funny feelings while I dealt with my son, who was dissolving completely into the soil.
Oh yeah, this is one of my pet peeves. Where does it come from? Are people really so basically mean and cruel? I think it's an insensitivity, as in "these nerve endings are dead," born either of (a) complete lack of regular interaction with real children as human beings that they have gotten to, you know, know, or (b) being treated like this when they were kids.
Which doesn't make it okay, but might explain why they don't know any better.
More on this next post.
(If you aren't regularly reading Alice, and her commenters, at Finslippy, you should be. Even if you don't think mommyblogs are your bag. She's got one of the funniest blogs out there when she's being funny, and is a great writer even when she's not.)
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