Share

It's been a day. Swimming with the twins, off to Seth and Isabella, and unexpectedly back to the twins, as their mom realized a friend was in town who wanted to meet for dinner. Thankfully, V has been with me for all of it. Swimming in particular is so much easier with two adults to two kids.

The days have been better. No tantrums on Tuesday; only one small one today. I'm calling Monday a fluke, and praying I never walk into the door at home in tears again.

At the pool today, a mom royally pissed me off. My kids had a few toys they'd brought to play with in the baby pool, and the little girl kept grabbing them. Her mother never stepped in, so it was left to me to do the "Hey sweetie, those are our toys; can we find you something else to play with?" After the third or fourth time, the mom finally came over. As she dragged her daughter away, I heard her say, "No, they don't want to share right now."

Excuse me? Who is at fault in that sentence? Not the girl grabbing other people's toys, that's for sure. I'm all for sharing, and sometimes I ask the kids to at the pool. But taking someone's toys right from their hands is never okay; her mom, though, made it out to be my kids' fault. They weren't sharing. They were wrong.

No, you need to teach your daughter to take responsibility. You took the toys. You grabbed things that weren't yours. If you wanted to borrow it, you should have asked.

Not they needed to give it to you. They should have shared.

The entitlement in that simple sentence, "they don't want to share right now," makes me fear for that little girl's future.

I'm not simply being uber-defensive of my kids. I do wish they shared better; they share great with each other (usually) but not so well with strangers. But regardless, they hadn't done anything wrong. And it irks me that the mother totally let her daughter off the hook.

Rant over.