Invasion of the Alpha Moms

[question everything]

Invasion of the Alpha Moms
Who do you blame as your child holds on?

BY KEDRIC FRANCIS

The mom and her toddler were with the checker at Barnes & Noble when I lined up behind her. It was a weekday mid-morning. I wasn’t in a hurry, but expected to be in and out quickly. That wasn’t going to happen, a fact that became clear when the clerk called over a manager. The mom was returning two books, but didn’t have receipts. She’d have to fill out a form, the manager said. The books were Father’s Day gifts she’d bought her husband. I knew this because she wouldn’t stop talking and just fill out the form, though I fervently wished she would do so. One was “The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the Toddler Years,” the other was also a “how to” book on child-rearing ­ because most guys just love to get books as gifts, especially ones on raising kids. He won’t read them, she explains to the clerk (and us), can you imagine?

(snip)

The woman’s cell phone rings. She puts the kid down while she digs through her saddlebag-sized purse for the phone. “It’s her father,” she informs everyone, though she’s yet to acknowledge the line growing behind her. “I’m returning the books you won’t read,” she tells him condescendingly. “Taking time out of my day…blah blah blah,” she continues. I block her out for a few seconds, watching as her daughter toddles away toward the front door. “…It will spread to all the kids in school…you have to get the right shampoo (on no, tell me she’s not talking lice) ...while you’re washing, you have to pick out the ones you can see (she is). Hold on.”

(snip)

Finally the manager comes up to help the line move quicker, a look of exasperation on her face. I walk up, and mutter some conciliatory words to the manager as she rings up my purchase. The woman finishes her graphic lesson in lice eradication, giving me a dirty look as I mutter something about waiting to answer the phone. “It was her father,” she says, as if that explains it all. “Time and place,” I mutter back. “Time and place.”

“I hope you never have kids,” she says as I walk out. “Madam,” I reply, “if you were my wife, I never would.”

(snip)

The current crop of miny mes seem fearless. They’re not afraid of adults, parents or police, and certainly not teachers. When I was a kid I was afraid of them all, but now kids know that their parents will side with them against any authority figure, and the authorities know it too.

(snip)

http://www.ocmetro.com/metro070705/beachbuzz070705.html

[Bouncy Ball]

1. So what is this, more parent bashing?

The author might do well to remind himself that not all parents are like the one he described. I am well aware of lines forming behind me, and am very polite. I do not yammer away on my cell phone in public. And I teach my daughter to be respectful of authority figures.

There are ALWAYS going to be jerks in the world--both of the parent and non-parent variety. If you choose to focus on the jerks, that's all you're going to see. (You in the general sense, not question everything, the poster.)

[Iris]

4. The problem is the jerks seem to be around in ever larger numbers.

The arrogance some people have simply because they have kid is often unfathomable.

I gave a baby shower once with a woman who had a 9 month old. There were at least 3 other pregnant wome there besides the mother we were giving the shower for. My co-hostess kept turning the air conditioning off because her "child is cold." Well, she didn't bother to put a pair of tights on the child because her "legs are just so beautiful, I don't want to cover them up" and as a result, she expected every adult present to suffer in silence while she jacked up the air conditioner to 86 degrees.



Then she chilled cabernet sauvignon, but that's a whole other story. . .

[Bouncy Ball]

6. Again, seriously, there are plenty of jerks

who DON'T have kids.

Maybe your radar is set to particularly notice the jerks with kids? I don't know. I see them too, but unless you've got some kind of study or facts showing parents are jerkier than ever, I'm just not buying it. My mom was an enormously inconsiderate parent, but more because she neglected her children and let them become other people's problems and that was in the 70s. I hardly believe she was alone in being a jerky mom back then.

The plural of anecdote isn't data. How many moms at the shower were perfectly pleasant and polite?

[Iris]

7. Most moms were perfectly pleasant and polite.

But they are also, in many ways, just as selfish as this mother.

Look around you. It is a phenomena. Children are like little household gods these days. It's reflected in just about every story you see about families run ragged and exhausted - a lot of the time because no one knows how to say no.

The woman in the story is even doing this with her husband. If he didn't like the books, he could have taken them back himself. But, no, she HAD to prove what a good wife and mother she is.

Which is what this sort of thing gets down to - the "alpha mother" doing things to make herself look better to other people.

[Bouncy Ball]

9. So you know all the ins and outs of this mom's life?

You know exactly why she took the books back ("she HAD to prove what a good wife and mother she is").

Seriously, give me the lottery numbers for Texas, the Saturday drawing, I want to win.

You don't know that's why she took those books back!

How were the perfectly pleasant and polite moms "just as selfish" as the mother in B&N or the rude mother who kept turning down the AC???

So, I am a polite mother, raising my child to be a polite person, we do NOT treat her as a household good, we do NOT run around ragged and exhausted, so am **I** just as selfish as any other jerk mom you see?

Why? Because I dared to HAVE a kid?

Give me a break. Just SAY you hate kids and parents and be done with it, for crying out loud. I'd have more respect for that kind of honesty, anyway.

[Iris]

11. She TOLD everyone in line when she told her husband she "had

to do it because" he would not.

Ok. The perfectly pleansant moms sat on the floor with their infant daughters and took turns pulling the babies' thumbs out of their mouths because they didn't want the other mother's to think they let their babies suck their thumbs.

I don't hate kids and parents. But it is certainly disconcerting to see parents modeling rude behavior to their children. Honestly, in a day and age when most people CHOOSE to become parents, is it too much to ask that people get their shit together before bringing an innocent child in the world.

As long as you're being honest - am I asking you to admit you hate and disdain people who DON'T have children?

[Bouncy Ball]

12. Hell no, I don't!

LOL, some of my closest friends don't have kids. One of my best friends doesn't ever want kids and I completely respect that. I wish more people would listen to their hearts and not have kids if they don't want them. I also defend childless people against this crazy societal notion that everyone just HAS to have kids. That's insane!

As the mother of one, I've had enough pressure to deal with regarding society's misconceptions about only children and even once had another mom tell me I "wasn't a real mother" because I stopped after one. Fuck her! LOL! We're happy as a family of three and really don't care what anyone else thinks.

I just find this glee at jumping on parents maddening and maybe a bit understandable, considering how child-centric everything is in the US. I may be a parent, but that doesn't mean that's my ONLY identity, so I've noticed it, believe me.

My only argument here is that jerks come in all stripes and flavors. Jerks who are parents were probably jerks before they were parents. And short of saying who can and cannot have kids, there's no way you can stop jerks from procreating, unfortunately. If we could, there'd be no freepers!

:rofl:

But I'm just a person trying to raise a little person to be a good person and contribute good to the world. How many times did I use the word "person" in that sentence?

Who cares if they were trying to pull their kids thumbs out of their mouths? So they're caught up in that game? Big deal. I just laugh.

[Iris]

13. Ok. Truce!

I'm all on board for the one child train! And I see where you're coming from.

[Bouncy Ball]

14. Thanks, good deal!

Nice talking to you!

:hi:

[Jokerman]

8. Jerks who have kids are just easier to spot.

Maybe because they're often accompanied by a louder, more energetic version of themselves that they're raising to be an even bigger jerk.

[Bouncy Ball]

10. Yep, I would agree with that.

Jerks without kids ARE harder to spot than jerks with kids.

But jerks of any stripe are easier to spot than non-jerks.

Because polite behavior is what most of us expect out of each other, it goes mostly unnoticed. It is the rude behavior that sticks out in our mind. I think that's why it's so tempting for people to believe there are MORE rude people nowdays than ever before. That MAY be true, but I haven't seen any kind of wide-scale study.

[Iris]

15. Yep. Me, too. Bouncy Ball and I are agreeing with you and each other

on this one!

[LizW]

2. All that because he had to wait in line at B & N?

Rude people come in all varieties. We all have to deal with them.

Why did he go on the rant about children? The woman was an idiot, but she would have been just as big an idiot without the child. And what did the child do that was so wrong? Toddled away while the mother was trying to return books in a store? Oh, the horror! What an unfit parent!

Before I had chldren I was the world's biggest expert on how children should be raised. Now that I have teenagers, not so much.

This guy needs a reality check. At the very least he should get clue that when you go in Barnes & Noble at mid-morning on a weekday, you just might encounter the crushing inconvenience of having to see and hear a preschooler or two.

[Iris]

5. This person is not claiming to be an expert on raising children.

He's just asking for parents to use good manners just like we ask of everyone else.

It's true people are a lot less civil than they used to be, but it's disconcerting to watch a parent set an example of incivility for his/her child.

[The Jacobin]

3. Hrm.

I have to find the originator of the quote:

Never attribute malice to actions that can be explaned by stupidity.

You should have taken the time to read your purchase rather than make snippy comments about others.

[gollygee]

19. Great response, and it's Napoleon

:hi:

[seaglass]

16. Where'd the OP run off to? n/t

[Javaman]

17. I'm single, no kids and blissfully happy. :)

[Beaverhausen]

18. oh goody

:popcorn:

[Pacifist Patriot]

20. LOL!

Mind if this breeder pull up beside you with a bucket and a brew?

[Moderator]

21. Locking

...as flamebait on the issue of proper parenting.

DU Moderator