When stupid parents attack

Imade 20 mothers snap their heads to attention at the sandbox the other day. See, I broke one of the unwritten rules of playgrounds: I raised my voice to another parent. A woman, to be more precise. She was maybe 5-foot-2, 100 pounds, tops, and I said, through clenched teeth, breaking up the sentence into itty-bitty parts for emphasis, “I said. It’s under. Control.”

I couldn’t be prouder of myself. For real. I could get a Nobel Pulitzer Man of the Year Congressional Medal of Honor, and this moment, this moment when I got loud with this (insert curse word, adjective optional) would trump it. I feel like I struck a blow for parents everywhere.

Details? I’ve got ‘em. We were at Marquand Park in Princeton. (I know what you’re thinking already, especially if you don’t live in Princeton: “Ugh, Princeton, of course.” And while I’m not going to dismiss this sentiment out of hand, let’s just be clear: There are curse word, adjective-optional people everywhere. This one just so happened to be in Princeton. Anyway …) Anyway, the main draw to this park is the giant sandbox. It’s huge. Must be 50 feet across, easy.

On this day, there’s about 20 kids in the sandbox, and my 3-year-old boy is immediately accosted by another 3-year-old boy, his older sister, and another girl. They “planted” a “garden” in the sandbox (read: stuck a weed in the sand, not exaggerating) and when my son got close, they told him to stay away from their garden. He didn’t care about the garden. He saw a small group of kids playing, and he wanted to join in. I know my boy. Social to a fault.

He’s also inherited my on-again, off-again desire to fight for what’s right, but has yet to realize the pen is sometimes mightier than the sword. So when he picked up the nearest shovel, put a heaping mound of sand on it, and proceeded to sneak around behind the other 3-year-old and begin the process of pouring sand on the kid’s head, I wasn’t the least bit surprised.

I yelled my son’s name, he looked at me, and without having to say a word, he dropped the shovel and nary a pinch of sand touched the other kid. The shovel didn’t even got raised above waistlevel. My boy understood. He understood when I say his name the way I said it I mean business. He grokked the non-verbal cues I gave him, mostly the hard stare and the turn of the neck. Crisis averted. He wouldn’t be dumping sand on the kid’s head. (No matter the fact the kid kind of deserved it).

Five minutes later — and on the other side of the sandbox — my son picked up a shovel again, this time playing with another kid, building a sand mound or something.

A woman approached me. We affirmed my boy was indeed my boy, and her boy was the kid who almost had sand dumped on his head. Here’s what happened next, as verbatim as I remember it:

STUPID MOM: Your son is making me nervous with the shovel. My boy already has some sand in his hair.

ME: Not from my son, but it won’t happen again.

STUPID MOM: But now that he has a shovel again, can you tell him to not do it?

ME: He won’t do it. It’s taken care of.

STUPID MOM: So aren’t you going to talk to him about what he did before?

ME: He’s 3. I don’t need to “talk” to him. He’s not going to do it again.

STUPID MOM: My son is also 3 and I think you need to talk to him about what he did! ME: It’s under control.

STUPID MOM: I want you to talk to him. I don’t want my son to get sand in his

ME: I SAID. IT’S UNDER. CONTROL.

With that, she looked at me like I had a unicorn growing out of my forehead — not a unicorn horn, mind you, but a full unicorn — and backed away. For real. She backed away.

Every other mom’s head? You bet they snapped up. A silence settled over the sandbox for a moment. And then everyone went back to their business. Now. You’ve got a problem with my kid? By all means, let me know about it. I don’t want him dumping a metric ton of sand on your son’s head any more than you do. Believe me, I’ll take care of it.

But to tell me how to parent? How to talk to my son? When to talk to my son? Lady, please.

My hope is next time this woman decides to impart her parental wisdom, she instead decides to shut up.