If there is one thing that all parents crave, its the opportunity to take a little time and spend with people their own age. Let’s face it, we all love our children and we want to spend as much time as possible with them but sometimes, we just need some adult conversation. The playground gives us the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. We take our children to a place that they love and they can run around to their heart’s content. At the same time, we can visit with some friends who also take their children to do the same thing.
When we go for any type of time at a public park like this, it can turn into a wonderful play date. I’m not just talking about a play date for the kids, either, I’m also talking about a play date for the parents. We need to talk to our kids before they go on such a play date, however, because they need to know how to share properly and to enjoy some time with their friends. If you take care of things properly in advance, everything should go just fine.
There are times when some questions may come up and one mother asked Carolyn Hax for some help. She is an advice columnist at the Washington Post live chat and the mother said that she had met up with other mothers at a public park. All of them had daughters who enjoyed playing with each other.
Everything seems fine up until this point but that is when problems took place. Another mother came to the park who had a son.
The mom told Hax, “I asked her (nicely, I thought) if she would mind leaving because we had wanted it to be a girls-only time.”
The mom goes on to explain, “She refused and seemed angry at me. If she comes back, is there a better way I can approach her? This has been such a sweet time for moms and daughters and having a boy there is naturally going to change things.”
How would you feel if you showed up with your son and suddenly, a mother with a daughter was asking you to get out of there?
I’m sure you would be irritated.
The mom continues, “We live in a world where boys get everything and girls are left with the crumbs, and I would think this mom would realize that, but she seems to think her son is entitled to crash this girls-only time.”
Hax’s response? “Goddess help us all.” She tells the mom that “shooing off the mom and her boy was terrible…That kid is a human being–not with privileged little man feelings, either, but with feelings, period.”
As far as girls being “left with the crumbs,” Hax says, “the adult you shooed off is a mom, possessor of the same crumbs you’ve been fed, no? So don’t you think she would have just liked to hang with some fellow moms in the park while she was out with her child?”
We’ll give her that one. Hax seems to think that it shouldn’t be about girls or boys, it should be about mothers. She recommended that the mother go to a private location if she wants a girls-only gathering. People should not be excluded from a public area.
It sounds like a good solution to us. Then again, it seems like a question that really didn’t need to be asked in the first place.