As I may have mentioned before, Evangeline can be a very easygoing child.

[conuly]

Recently she's begun overcoming this - as I say and have said before, she's finally hit the terrible twos.

And for the most part, this is a good thing. She doesn't let Ana walk all over her anymore. If she wants to play Princess and Ana relegates her to the role of the baby, she doesn't just say "Okay" about it. If Ana decides something is gross or ugly or stupid, she doesn't just agree and put it down. For that matter, she'll now occasionally pick something without waiting to just copy what Ana picks! (That was the source of 18 months worth of consternation on Ana's part, who took to whispering in my ear.)

She stands up for herself, and for the most part, I'm happy to see this.

Of course, she's also started occasionally throwing tantrums. And when I say this, you have to understand that she basically never threw tantrums at three, or four. The only event I can even remember stands out because of how pathetic it was - she said she didn't want to nap, and then she took her mouth close to my hand and pretended to bite me. It was the most inept tantrum I've ever seen in my life, and she was all done in half an hour anyway.

I mean, she did throw tantrums before, occasionally, but not many and they were over quickly and almost always when she was extremely tired.

She actually threw two tantrums at the Y this week. The first one, after swimming, she refused to get out of her bathing suit and refused to get back INTO her bathing suit, so she just sat there half naked and screamed (until somebody came in and told her they could hear her outside. Then she stopped.) She also held onto her chair with all her might, and after determining that it'd be really hard to get her to stop without hurting either her or me (and hurting a little half-naked child in the locker room of the Y has got to be the worst possible ending to a tantrum EVER) I resolved to just wait her out (I didn't know they could hear her outside either) by sitting as far away as possible.

That ended fairly well, once she realized they could hear her outside. (And to her credit, she didn't scream today either.)

Her tantrum today started when she realized that her outfit for Tae Kwon Do was too big. I sympathized, but once again she refused to either take it off or keep it on. (Plus, you don't get your way by STARTING with a tantrum.) I managed to wrestle her into it, but then she neither wanted to leave nor go to class. So we stood at the door while I tried to convince her to just make a choice already. ANY choice.

While she's there whining (no screaming at the Y!) a woman comes up and asks "Do you need help?"

I figure she means, like, help manhandling her or bribing her to behave, and I go "No thanks". As she elucidated later, she meant psychiatric help, but we'll get to that.

After this comment followed what has to have been the worst-timed conversation I've ever had.

Busybody: Well, she's clearly upset about something!
My thoughts: No duh!
Me: Yes, well, she can't just whine about it. Evangeline, are we staying or going?
Busybody: Well, if she doesn't want to go to class, you shouldn't force her.
My thoughts: Aside from the fact that I'm NOT, I'm glad you have money to throw away like that.
Me: Well, I can't stay here, her sister is out in the waiting room with her homework.
Busybody: There must be something wrong.
Me: Her outfit is too big, but there's not much we can do about that. Evangeline, which is it?
Busybody: No, something in her life.
My thoughts: Well, I sure the hell am not about to talk about the recent changes in her life to YOU, random stranger!
Me: I don't think so :) Eva?
Busybody: You need to talk to her doctor about that.
My thoughts: About tae kwon do? Or sewing?
Me: No, I think she might just be a little tired.
Busybody: Then you shouldn't come here! You should go home so she can rest!
My thoughts: Right, I'm going to make Ana suffer so Evangeline can refuse to take a nap at home.
Me: She's five. She hardly ever naps anymore.
Busybody: You need to talk to the doctor then. Or YOUR doctor if you can't see there's something wrong.
Me: There's nothing wrong. She's five. They throw tantrums.
Busybody: MY child never acted like THAT. (Like "that" is whining and clinging to my leg. It was the quietest tantrum you ever saw.)
My thoughts: Well, bully for you! I'm glad to hear that your child is perfect, your life is perfect, and that YOU are perfect!
Busybody: I mean, if you're not feeling up to taking care of -

At this point I gave up on manners, as she clearly had none, and told her the truth, which is that I was feeling just fine and had no problems until some busybody started sticking her nose where it wasn't wanted.

And then I managed to unstick Evangeline and drag her off to the waiting room, where Ana convinced her to stop the whining portion of her tantrum by asking her to be quiet so we wouldn't have to go home and Ana could make it to her class.

A few minutes later Evangeline had calmed down enough to consent to take a piggyback ride to pick up her shoes from the gym. Along the way we passed one of her teachers (who had come looking for us) and the busybody, who - hilariously - was tattling on me to him!

Busybody: She was one of those women who looks like - oh, there she is now!

I have no IDEA what I look like, because I was there now.

Once back inside the doors another woman told me I was doing nothing wrong, which I knew, of course, but it's nice to hear. I wish I'd been thinking a little faster, I would've sent her out to counter-tattle.

Oh well. My diabolical plan was to convince Evangeline to rejoin her class, but that didn't work. Still, after she got over her embarrassment of the whole situation she was cheerful and chipper right up until we got home and she had to take a shower. We read a few books, and the second chapter of The Penderwicks, and we ate dinner and all, and she was asleep by 8:15... sadly, before her mother came home. She really was a little tired.

I swear, though, I meet the most judgmental people on Thursdays! It was two Thursdays ago, en route to the Y on a bus, that I met Mr. "Control Your Kids", who apparently objected to the kids existing. It was a crowded bus, and their behavior wasn't quite up to my standards, but he would not have even NOTICED they weren't behaving (fidgeting a little, that sort of thing, except that when every inch counts you can't have fidgety children) if I hadn't been reminding them! He apparently felt that "Control your kids" was the necessary refrain to every statement I made, statements such as "No, I'm sorry, you can't look out the window, sweetie" and "Ana, you're crowding your sister there". (There were a few "Don't kick!"s in there as well, but not very many.) I told him what I thought too, in the end. You can think whatever you like, *I* certainly do, but nobody really wants to hear it.

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

I completely understand the need for strangers to intervene in matters between children and care givers. This can come up if the child's safety is in danger and the caregiver doesn't seem to notice (some examples I've read was a child who dashed unsupervised into the kitchen of a restaurant and was reaching for a knife or a very young child playing with a plastic bag, young enough it could end up over the head, or it might even have been (not yet suffocating, but still), if the caregiver is beating the child, or if the caregiver is seriously verbally abusing the child. These all seem like times when one ought to step in. Times not to step in: when a child is throwing a tantrum (you are likely to make things worse unless you know the kid), when a child is being mildly disciplined (I would include spankings even though I dislike them, also lectures, removal of privileges, etc.), and so forth.

Although I have intervened now and then when a child was merely bored and a caretaker seemed tired to try to help entertain the child. That has generally been well received. Usually it's a situation where I'm on public transit, so we're stuck together for a bit, and I can try to entertain the kid with no physical contact in a non-threatening manner. I don't do this often though, because my don't talk to strangers instinct is pretty high. But sometimes I just start out by doing something interesting that the child can see if this is an option. With babies, this can be almost anything, but often it's harder for their caregivers, because they are no longer novel and the toys they have are no longer novel, so it takes them more work to be equally entertaining.

[conuly]

I'll tell you, if I've got a tantrum situation, and somebody helps (in some way that doesn't totally undermine all of us - offering candy is BAD!) and it, you know, helps? I'm not gonna complain.

That happened yesterday. The woman mentioned that she could hear Evangeline in her office, and Evangeline stopped screaming. That was a HUGE help, and I really hadn't known they could hear her all the way out there. (Boy, did I blush. I also nearly cried, but I think I'm going to get my period soon.)

But this woman didn't want to help, she just wanted to annoy.

[leora.livejournal.com]

The problem is that correctly assessing what will help and what will make the situation worse with a child you do not know and a situation you don't have the full context of can be really difficult to do.

It's great when it helps. But if she had instead reacted to knowing that by using it as a tactic to scream louder, you likely would not have been pleased. Guessing how a child you don't know will react can be hard.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

OMG, people like that get on my last nerve, and they always strike at the worst possible moment.

I was on a transcon with BG when he was 2, and the flight had been delayed for four hours before it finally took off. He hadn't had a nap and was horribly cranky, but happily fell asleep shortly after takeoff. I was desperate to keep him asleep for the entire flight, and it was a challenge in that tight space to stay comfortable at all. He woke up about a half hour before landing and was sitting on my lap looking out the window, and the woman in front of me turned around and started telling me to put "her" (apparently a boy with anything other than a buzz cut is automatically assumed to be female) in her own seat because she'd been kicking the woman for the entire flight.

There was nothing I could do to convince her that he'd been asleep the whole time and that it had been my knee in her seat, most likely. I apologized for that, but she just bitched me out for being so rude and a horrible parent and so on. I finally said, "Do you have children?" and she said "Yes, and I'd never let them behave so horribly on a plane." (He was asleep, BITCH!) I said, "Then surely you've had to deal with a cranky 2yo who hasn't napped at some point? Perhaps you could have a tiny bit of sympathy for me?" She turned around and said nothing else.

When the flight landed, the people all around me made a point of fussing over BG and saying how wonderful it was that he'd slept the whole flight, and so on, all shooting pointed looks in her direction. She left the plane with her nose in the air, and I left it smiling.

Thank goodness for nice people who have your back!

[conuly]

Oh, kicking the back of the chair pisses me off so much. (And your kid wasn't even doing that.)

YES, it's annoying, and NO, they shouldn't do that, and ABSOLUTELY you should make an effort to stop them.

But no matter how much of an effort you make, there will be some bumping. Either they sit with their back against the back of their seat (in which case their legs have nowhere to go BUT the back of the chair in front of them, because their knees aren't bending!) or they sit all the way forward, in which case their legs dangle uncomfortably and they kick just to keep them from falling asleep. So long as children have to sit in grown-up sized chairs, this is something you'll have to deal with... especially on long flights, because even the calmest child will fidget a little after a couple of hours!

Did you ever read the story about Ana kicking the chair in front of her on the bus? She didn't even start kicking until this woman told her to STOP kicking....

[erisiansaint]

My SO had our 3 year old (he was 3 at the time, now he's 10,) at a bus stop on a busy street. This wasn't just a busy street, mind you, but a busy minor highway near some car dealerships, and our boy would NOT stop trying to pull away from my SO's hand. And if he'd succeeded, he'd have ended in the street, getting run over. After my boy repeatedly ignored commands to stop, (and he was far too heavy too heavy to pick up for long,) my SO gave him a swat. (The single swat on the rear end was effective, and at this point, necessary, since he wasn't obeying verbal commands.) Some idiotic woman came over and started freaking at my SO and threatening to have him arrested for child abuse. He finally snapped and said, "Oh, you'd rather he finally managed to wiggle away from my hand and die in traffic? You'll make a terrific parent, all your kids will be road pizza." She shut up and shot him dirty looks until the bus came.

That woman was a moron. And I think you did well to stay as polite as you did, for as long as you did.

[conuly]

Man, I'm not saying you should beat up on your kids all the time, but if there's ever a time and a place for a good firm smack...!

[erisiansaint]

Exactly! And I think you're doing just fine with how you deal with tantrums, too!

[ncp.livejournal.com]

One of the few, minor advantages of being Ambiguously Brown is that people are wary of approaching you with unsolicited advice.