What Would You Do?

You know those incidents when a kid makes such a scene that you are appalled at their behavior? Whether they are being spoiled, rude, or ungrateful--it’s pretty common, and truth be told sometimes it's my kid. But what about the times when the parent’s method of dealing with the kid is even more appalling? I’m talking about the times when we bystanders are dying for the parent to take that bull (kid) by the horns and show them who’s boss. With calm and controlled actions, of course. But there are times when parents are pushovers, and it’s the kids who are running the show.

Take this weekend, when I brought two of my boys to an ice cream parlor. We were waiting in line behind another mom with two boys. The mom ordered cones for her boys, and when she inquired about sampling another flavor, the teenage server offered to give the mom a small sample scoop on top of her son’s ice cream cone. A couple bites of decadence for free! The mom graciously accepted the offer. When she picked up the boys’ ice cream cones, she quickly devoured the sample off the top. (It looked delicious.) But one of her boys was not happy with the sharing. He immediately started screaming about her flagrant misdeed—she had eaten some of his ice cream! Well, that kid wouldn’t take the ice cream cone now. I was trying not to gawk, but I'm almost certain I saw the boy attempt to toss the cone on the floor and his mom caught it out of midair. She pleaded with him and tried to explain that she hadn’t eaten any of his ice cream, but he was having none of it. I stepped away from the counter with my kids to browse the candy selection, and my 3 year old picked out a tootsie pop while I pretended not to notice the embarrassing situation. The mom finally brought her screaming demon-boy outside, but damn if that kid still wasn’t taking that tainted ice cream cone.

I may be too heavily affected by my surroundings, or maybe I was just in a pissy mood to begin with. But at that moment I decided I had to set some unusual ground rules for this ice cream purchase. Bear in mind, we had already eaten some ice cream at home earlier that day, and my plan was simply to have an enjoyable outing in 90 degree heat, and share a simple sundae between the three of us. So, I told my 5 year old there were four flavors of ice cream he could choose from, and they happened to be flavors I wanted. Is anyone any bit surprised that he didn’t like the choices? He wanted cotton candy flavor, I wanted double chocolate fudge. No deal. He wanted bubble gum flavor, I wanted caramel toffee swirl. Not happening. (By the way, those flavors he wanted? Those are candy, not ice cream. Why do they try to turn ice cream into candy? Come on.) So, we were at a stalemate. In the meantime, that mom with the demon-boy, she had come back in and pretended to wait in line to get little Damien a new cone. I must have lost my appetite, because I really didn’t care if we got ice cream or not anymore. If my 5 year old and I couldn’t come to an agreement, no ice cream for us! So we grabbed another tootsie pop, and on the way out I resisted a really strong urge to grab the ice cream cone from Damien and eat it myself.

I'd like to think that I always handle every tough situation perfectly, but of course I don't. I'd probably go back and change something about every day of the week if I could. Too bad we don't always get a chance to stop and think about our options before we act, because I hope if Damien's mom had stopped to think, she would have eaten the whole ice cream cone herself, while he watched in shock. It’s tough to watch when parents don’t have control, maybe even tougher than being that parent.