Eye for an Eye
Written by The Lassie
I am very seriously mad – mainly at myself. The Lad, the Munchkin and I went to see our neighbour yesterday – said neighbour’s daughter wanted a shot at our Wii, so the Lad set it up at their place and played with her. D, the neighbour, and I sat on the floor in the adjacent room and talked while the Munchkin played around us.
At some point, our little girl found a hand puppet and put it on her hand. She came over to us and showed off the puppet. Suddenly, she took it off her hand and threw it at D. D proceeded to tell her that one does not throw things at people (after I had said that to the Munchkin already, I might add), took the puppet and threw it at my baby’s head!
Luckily, this thing was a soft toy with no plastic bits that could have potentially physically hurt the Munchkin. But the look on our baby’s face was terrible. I was shocked and said as much to D, telling her that we do not deal with these situations in this manner. When the Munchkin throws things, bites or does anything else like that, we very decidedly tell her that we do not want that, that we do not hurt each other and potentially physically remove her from the situation. If necessary, we will do that again and again and again.
D responded by telling me that she has her own rules and that at least with her own children, but also in her apartment, those are the rules that apply. She said that children like our little one would never learn to defend themselves or be able to realize that what they are doing hurts others, if they don’t experience it themselves. To this I just replied that I find this eye for an eye tactic inappropriate and terrible and that I want our child to experience and find different ways to deal with conflict.
Apart from that, though, our daughter is actually in Kita and does experience how other children treat each other. She does learn to stand up for herself, but I DO NOT WANT this to happen by forcefully retaliating until someone gives in!
So I am really mad at myself now. I did not exactly have to start a fight, but I should have been more clear about the fact that D overstepped a line when she treated MY child that way. I should have stood up for my daughter more. She was so confused, she didn’t even know what to do with herself for a little while after that. My inability to speak up about this is symptomatic for my general treatment of situations like that – I never want to make a fuss, want to avoid disruption or fight. It’s awful, when you think about it. I usually end up feeling sick and develop migraines on a regular basis, because I am unable to just be CLEAR about what I want and what I don’t want.
By now I don’t even expect parents in our immediate vicinity to understand our views on child-rearing, much less to support or even share them. We have been frowned upon for babywearing, co-sleeping, breastfeeding, cooking organic baby food, respectful treatment of our child and who knows what else.
Naturally everybody has their own thoughts and ideas on all of these things. I don’t expect anyone to conform to our views. What I do expect, however, is the same amount of respect and tolerance that I show others. I would never dream of ‘disciplining’ someone else’s child because I think that’s the way to go!
If you’ll excuse me, I will go and look for my voice now.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Wow. I can’t believe she did that, especially with you right there. Is she going to bite her kid if her kid bites someone? That poor child. :(
February 8th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
I have the same question as Audrey! Is this person going to hit her child over the head with a toy at some point, or bite her? Because *all* kids do that stuff.
Also, how little sense does it make to say, “We don’t do xyz” and then DO xyz to the child? Talk about mixed messages.
You DID speak up. Don’t be ashamed. I’d give playing with that neighbor one more chance–and perhaps having a short talk about disciplining first “Let’s agree to discipline our OWN children and not each others’ mmmkay?” If she doesn’t agree? Don’t go back.
February 13th, 2010 at 11:23 am
I wish I could say that I don’t know what she’d do in any of those situations, but I do. She did tell me that she has, ‘when needed’, mirrored the actions of her children, including biting and hitting
She says that once she did that, her children were very well behaved. 
February 14th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Hmmmm. Very touchy territory. She was definitely out of line. I think it’s no more than the civilized thing to do to speak to the parent of the child if you have issues with the child’s behaviour. Then let the parent deal with it. What age is this woman—-four?
March 29th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
I think you’re being way too hard on yourself here. You DID stand up and say something, it’s just that the outcome wasn’t what you wanted or expected, and that’s okay. You can’t change people’s behavior (especilaly such an unexpected one!), you can only react to it and then decide if it’s something you’re going to want to deal with in the future.
For what it’s worth, my family probably doesn’t agree with a single thing we’re doing with our child but I don’t really care. When they over step their bounds or make snide remarks about “oh you’re going to be THAT kind of Mom” I ask them “did your mother/father/father in law/mother in law butt into your business when you were rasiing us?” Usually it’s enough to make them at least stop and think. I’ve also told my parents that “yes, you guys did the best job you could do while raising us and now we’re going to try to do the same for Sadie even if it is a little different than the choices you made”. Repeat as necessary!