In My Life: August 2006

It drives me crazy that I can't take my kids to the park, or to the McDonald's play place without having to constantly steer them around mean kids. Kids whose parents are no where to be seen, or who are there but are so not paying attention to their kids, so they have no idea what is going on anyway. I'm sure they have a "kids will be kids" kind of mentality, but that just doesn't work for me when it means that your kids are pushing mine ar0und.
Normally I end up having to tell a kid to stop something, or coach my girls on how to just move on and play in another area if that kid won't stop whatever. Tonight we were at McDonalds and there was a little boy who was about 2 and had his parents totally fooled. He was screaming and bullying kids all over the place while his parents were not paying attention (which was most of the time) and then stopping and turning it to crying when his parents would finally come over (like when he had a 4 year old backed in the corner yelling "help, help" for several minutes before I had to go over and tell both sets of parents that something was going down. then they finally come and look and the little kids gets babied and the older one gets told to suck it up).
So I had already had to get him to stop yelling at/swinging at/pushing my kids several times over the course of about half an hour, which I guess the parents never noticed. They did finally notice once when I had to go into the little ball court thing and make him stop cornering Sophia and screaming in her face to try to get the ball away from here.
Then the parents want to get involved, but only to say that he is only doing that because she won't share the ball with him. The mom asks me what he was doing, so I told her, but apparently she didn't really want to know cause that was her answer, it's because she won't share. So, I say that she just got the ball and he is screaming at anyone that has the ball, but there are just too many kids in there and not enough balls and blah blah blah. So she says if he does something again to tell her because she will "deal with her kid" (I'm pretty sure that would require actually looking at him, but apparently she didn't think so.)
So as soon as she walks away he corners her again and I turn to the mom and say "he has her up against a wall". However by the time she gets over there Sophia has wiggled out from his block so she just walks away saying to her group of people "she's not against a wall, she just won't share yadda yadda yadda". So, we just had to pack up and go. It was just silly.
I understand about kids being kids, and not understanding social graces and all, but I don't understand about parents not thinking that those things need to be TAUGHT. I don't care if your kids is 2, if my 2 year old was screaming at your kid, even if it was because they were not sharing, I would deal with my 2 year old, not just expect the other kid to give him what he wants. It’s like my only choices are to either teach my kids to be mean back or to give in and let the kid do whatever. Heavens sake.
I am such a very non-confrontational person, anything like this just makes me a wreck. I was shaking and fighting back tears for 30 minutes after we left and I will be thinking about it for days. And I know that when we left they just thought we were overprotective parents being mean to their poor little kid. I don't even like going to the park or any kind of play areas because this always happens. It's just crazy. Egad.