little hooligan

I have a tendency to be a pretty judgmental person. I've been that way for most of my life, but I think that parenthood really brought it to the surface; yet, as a parent, I feel the need to keep the judgmentalness under greater control than ever before since I'm now a role model. Being the mom of a toddler, I'm not as critical of other parents as I was when Tristan was a baby. I generally do my best to sympathize with the mother, realize that I don't know anything close to the whole story, and go on. Though sometimes I can't help but commenting things like, "Oh, that baby is crying. What do you think he's trying to say he needs? Maybe he wants to be held." I want the boy to grow up to eventually be a good father, after all.

Every once in a while, though, I see enough of the story to realize that, geez, that mom is just not parenting well. Perhaps she's overworked and stressed out, perhaps she doesn't like parenting, or maybe she's just incredibly lazy. Enter the Local Yarn Store Kid (LYSK). We have been visiting a LYS since I started knitting last October; I really enjoy this particular store because they have an amazing variety of harder-to-find yarns. I was also impressed initially because they have a children's room, with toys and a television, etc. Tristan was impressed because those toys included toy trains. The first time we visited, we met LYSK, a child about Tristan's age. He was stuck in a highchair, in front of the television, eating various sugary snacks. OK. I figured that his mom was just trying to get in a well-deserved moment of solo yarn shopping. After visiting a few more times, and finding LYSK present in various temperaments, I realized that his mom was not just shopping; she was moving in. I am still not sure if this lady works at the LYS or whether she's just hanging out knitting, but we have only visited once (on a Sunday morning) when LYSK was not stuck there.

As LYSK moved more deeply into toddlerhood, he became more and more...uh...difficult. This child is as close to a hooligan as a toddler can be. We visited the LYS today before meeting Jon for lunch. LYSK met Tristan at the door of the playroom and immediately shoved and then hit him. "No, we don't hit," I told him, holding his hand back from hitting Tristan again. "MOMMY!" LYSK shrieked, running out into the store. Tristan just looked after the kid like he was nuts and went to play with the trains...until, of course, LYSK ran back in, grabbing the train Tristan was playing with and screaming "Mine!". These scenes replayed in various forms for the entire fifteen minutes we were there, and I only saw LYSK's mother once, right before we left. Tristan was crying because he didn't wasn't ready to leave the trains and the mom came in and said, "oh, I thought my boy was trying to start something." Uh-huh, where were you for the past quarter hour?

It's not that I begrudge any mother from having a life outside of her children; but when a young child is spending much of his time with minimal adult interaction and supervision, he is suffering and I certainly do grudge. Greatly.