Earthmovers and Sandcastles

It’s pretty pathetic when far more of your daily conversations and interactions are online than off. Just sayin.’ (I mean, if that’s what you prefer, it’s one thing, but when it’s not… )

Waiting to hear from Eric. He called a while ago when his train was pulling into Chicago, and he’s taking the local train up here. I’ll have to go pick him up in a while. Gabe ought to enjoy that errand. He’s been upset with me over our staying close to home this morning, waiting for the phone.

I had it out with the neighborhood kids this weekend. Sam came home crying yet again after being teased and called names. I was fed up, and I told him so. He’s younger than most of them, and it seems like they pick on him for simply acting younger or just for their own entertainment. (And I would like to take this moment to interject: Amanda Jenkins, I want to apologize for every single bit of torment that I and the friends my age doled out to you when we were kids. You were littler and cried easily, and we took advantage of that in horrible ways. Now I understand at a level I never did before, and it kills me.) When his tears dried and he wanted to go back out to them, I wouldn’t let him. When, an hour later, one of the teasers came to the door, as I predicted would occur, acting like nothing had happened, I answered the door myself.

“No, he can’t come out to play,” I said in the most level voice I could muster. “My family is tired of the meanness and cruelty that’s happening, and it’s not acceptable any more. You can go back and tell B. and D. [the other primary bullies], as well, that Sam is not going to be playing with you. Now, go.” Her eyes were huge as she left. Sam was upset and wanted to go after her, but I kept him in, explaining that it was my job to protect him, and I was doing that. “Real friends don’t call their friends ‘retards.’ If they’re really friends, they’ll come and apologize,” I said. “But I’m not going to let you be their target practice.”

I figured that, at worst, he’d have a week to feel sad and miss them; next week begins his playground program, with a new group of kids, and the week after that adds in a school enrichment program. He’ll have plenty of other playmates to enjoy. But yesterday the girl to whom I’d spoken came back and apologized. Sam was ready to jump back into the fray, but I made sure she understood that I was serious. “Real friends do more than just not join in when people pick on their friends,” I told her. “Real friends stand up for each other and tell the bullies to stop. Sam needs you to be a real friend.” She nodded seriously. I hope she holds to it, since she is the oldest one in the group and could potentially be a good stabilizer.

It is so hard to know where the line is for a parent. Sam wants us to step in and discipline the other kids whenever they start acting up, yet it’s clear that doing so drives home the idea in their heads that Sam is a “little kid” and perhaps also a tattletale. I try to teach him how to calmly deal with tense situations, but he is a little kid. He doesn’t have the same social skills that those kids do, for better or for worse; just as it wouldn’t occur to him to call someone a baby for crying, it doesn’t fall naturally to him to tell somebody to knock off the name-calling without involving a grownup.

This parenthood stuff just keeps getting trickier and trickier.

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