Playground Justice

I took my boys to the mall playground yesterday.

They love that stupid place.

For one thing, it's inside.  For another, it's got a cookie store and a candy store right around the corner. 

The area is really designed for littles 5 & under.  I figured we were OK because #2 is 6 and #3 is almost 4.  (#1 is on a camping trip with his dad). 

I warned the kids that they had to be careful of little kids.  I reminded them that I would be watching.

Then I watched. 

I watched them jump.  I watched them run.  I watched them climb. 

I watched the other kids too.  For some reason, every boy in there was named Luke & every girl was Nevaeh. (Plus Paul.)


I know that because every time I told Luke to be careful, six or seven little boys looked at me for a minute before determining that I was not admonishing them. 

Also, one mom spent her time between sucking on her grande moacchino, checking her iPhone and occasionally screeching "Nevaeh!  Stop it!  Nevaeh.  Niv-E-YAH!" 

All the other Nevaehs looked up, while the targeted Nevaeh continued to pound on the fish tank or pull on some Luke's hoodie or climb on the potted plants.

She was a little hyper.  Whaddya gonna do?  Kids are hyper.

I try not to be Judgy McJudgermom.  I try SO HARD.

Because my kids aren't perfect. 

But the more I watched Nevaeh, the judgier I got. 

She was wearing a spaghetti strap top.  It's Texas, and pretty warm here, but not spaghetti-strap top warm.  Yes, my son was in shorts, but that's completely different.   Nevaeh is starting to develop, and spaghetti strap tops are not her friend.

She was mean to the other kids.  Not just pushy - she was mean.  She frequently pushed her way to the front of the slide line, and knocked kids out of the way at the fish tank.  She stuck her tongue out at one of the Lukes. 

Every now & then, she ran to her mother to get a pull off the grande moacchino. 

I wouldn't have been surprised to see her mother give her a drag off a cigarette.

I noticed another mom eyeing Nevaeh as well.  Every time Nevaeh did something obnoxious, other mom & I would exchange eye rolls. 

Finally, Nevaeh pushed Paul. 

PUSHED him.

As he tearfully came to me for comfort, I looked at Nevaeh's mom to see if she noticed.  She was too involved in her pinterest account to notice that her kid was being a bully.

I hugged and consoled Paul and looked for Luke.  It was time to go. 

Luke -- my Luke, not the other Lukes -- was chasing Nevaeh. 

"Hey!" he yelled "Hey!  You PUSHED my brother!".  He maneuvered himself in front of her and forced her to acknowledge him. 

"You PUSHED him" Luke reiterated.

"Sorry" said Nevaeh.

"You need to tell him," insisted Luke, and he steered Nevaeh over to us.

"Sorry," said Nevaeh to Paul.  She patted him on the shoulder and then tore off to do more terror.

I didn't say anything to Nevaeh or to her mother.  Nothing I said was going to make any difference, and I am pretty sure that had I said something, I would have gotten a very aggressive retort.  I didn't need to get into a mom-brawl in front of my kids.

I figured Luke did a pretty good job of handling it. 

Playground Justice was served.

Look What I found!

Searching through my e-mail today, I came across a letter I once wrote to our local newspaper.  I wrote it on 5/2/2009.

You can tell by reading the letter that some douche bag named Charles wrote a letter to the paper saying something like:  "Fatties are fat.  They should just not eat so much.  They are stupid fat fatties."

I used to just ignore those mean bullying letters.  But then I started fighting back.  I actually thought that http://www.giftoffat.com/ would be a lot more about providing a voice for fat people and a lot less about pushups and kids.  The fact is, however, I can't keep up the anger 24/7. 

Some of my life is about getting angry at stupid, sanctimonious morons who vilify fat people.

Most of my life is about other things.

When I saw this, however, it rang as true as it did the day I wrote it. 

So now YOU get to read it!

Sent to Caller Times, May 2009:

In response to Charles C_________'s letter of 5/2 regarding obese people should ELF - Eat Less Food:  Duh.

As an obese woman for my entire life, the ELF strategy is used by most of us all the time. With the billion dollar diet industry, ELF takes many forms: the no carb diet, the grapefruit diet, Atkins, Weight Watchers, South Beach, the list gets larger every year. The result: metabolic chaos. I am sorry that Mr. C_________ was "horrified recently" to learn that obesity causes a slew of health problems. Fat people have known this forever. Obesity also causes social and psychological problems -- frequently triggered by ignorant individuals who think that the solution to our medical issues is simple: ELF. The letter is made even more insulting by the tacky cartoon above it which shows the US flag cracking under the weight of an obese person.


Obesity is not a character flaw. It is a medical condition that can sometimes -- but not always -- be controlled by various strategies. When I was a girl, I was the only fat kid in class. Now all the kids are fat. The only upside to this sad situation is that the public is finally waking up to the fact that obesity is a chronic medical condition that needs to be addressed at all levels. Hopefully, the insurance industry will follow suit and begin to pay for reasonable medical intervention before the patient resorts to drastic measures such as gastric bypass or lap band.


It's no fun to be fat. I'll bet it's not fun to have asthma either. Chronic medical conditions don't have simple solutions. Let's stop being so condescending.






Mary A.
Corpus Christi

No. Oh no. No no no no no no no.

I am totally and unapologetically ripping off Jen Lancaster's post. 

She'll understand. 

Read this. 


So.  Anyway.  What Jen said.

OK, but HOW?

I recently watched this video from Ellen.




She's right. Bullying is bad. Suicide is worse.

How do we stop it?

Maybe the first thing I do is tell my kids: "Listen, between you, me & God, we can solve anything. Come to me & Dad if you have a problem. There is NOTHING you can do to make me stop loving you."

Maybe the second thing I do is tell them: "Listen, if I hear that you are being a bully, I am going to knock you into next week."

Isn't that the real problem? We don't think our kid can be the bully. I am working hard to raise good men, but I know that my boys are fully capable of being the bully. If you see them acting like little assholes, tell me.

Maybe the kid from Rutgers didn't know that his parents would have gotten over the video. Maybe that wasn't the problem. He's gone, so we'll never know.

As I've posted before, I was bullied as a kid. Mercilessly.

When I was a kid, I was the only fat one in class. Some years there was one more, but never more than the two of us. I remember one girl named Patty. I've always felt grateful that my name is not Patricia, because Fatty Patty is a horrible nickname.

Fortunately, I have supportive parents who helped me through the bullying. My parents never let us bully each other, either. We beat the crap out of each other (actually, I beat the crap out of my little brothers & sister until they got big enough to hit me back) but unkindness was not tolerated.

Sometimes, however, I was the bully. Not just to my brothers & sister. Occasionally there was some poor schmuck who was below me on the geek food chain. Instead of being compassionate and friendly, since I knew how they felt, I was stupid enough to be mean.

I will never forget in 7th grade how mean I was to a boy in our class named Jim. Jim was chubby, quiet, and really smart in kind of a wierd way. I was as mean to him as I possibly could be. I called him names, I teased him, I talked about him behind his back, I think I even put glue on his jacket. Mean.

He wasn't in any of my classes in 8th grade, and I didn't see much of him during high school.

The summer after my senior year, he came into the McDonald's where I worked as cashier.

O.M.G.

He was tall. Strong. Broad shouldered. Clear skinned. Piercing blue eyes. Shiny black hair. Chiseled abs. He got CUTE!

He didn't give me the time of day.

Served me right.

I still don't know how to stop bullying. Do you?