I think this may be inexcusable of me ... but I have absolutely NO patience for some small children. Really small. From age 1.5 through age 5, I believe, is my no patience zone. I think that if you were to look at it closely, it would be the parents that I'm most frustrated with.

One example -- there is a little young toddler who lives upstairs from us. She is very adorable, and really a good natured little girl. She lives with her parents and a set of grandparents (which I can't imagine in one of these apartments - they're 2 bedroom apartments that are not blessed with much common space -- there's generally a large great room that comfortably fits an eat-in kitchen and a still-large-ish living room area -- and that's it.) Anyway - the kid. She lives with her parents and her grandparents. The parents both work full time. I do not know the grandparents' situation. But when the parents come home from work or school or whatever (they're probably my age, maybe a bit older, so let's say b/t 35 and 40), the grandparents take over with the child. Sometimes, like most young children, she is fussy between dinner time and bed time.

And apparently, either the mom or the dad, have very little patience for the child and her fussy times. So .... what does very nice doting grandpa do? he takes his granddaughter in to the hallway/lobby. While she's screaming. And crying.

Our apartments are VERY soundproof. next door to me is a family with 2 small girls - they are 2 and 3, and remind me so much of my girls when they were little. Sometimes, when I am walking past their door, I hear that one or the other of the girls is having a tantrum. From the hallway, right in front of their door, the tantrum is kind of loud. But then I re-enter my apartment, and I hear nothing. Even though we share a good bit of wall space with this family.

So from apartment to apartment, very little sound carries. But from hallway to apartment? It may as well be happening in my living room. So I get a LOT of the noise from this toddler upstairs, even though I would hear NOTHING if she was in her own house. But instead, she's being walked and shushed - ALL THE TIME - in front of my doorway.

I just don't understand why the hallway and lobby are being used as an extension of the apartment. I think it's rude. I think that we are each paying rent for our apartments. That yes, we are allowed to use the hallways, the lobbies, the elevator, as part of the incidentals of the building, but not to LIVE IN THEM. Not to take a kid and play with balls (yes, balls are often kicked throughout the hallway to try and amuse her out of her grouchies), and to try and soothe a miserable baby (sometimes as late as 11 p.m.).

*** Clarification after the original publishing: This building has 18 apartments in it. I would say that more than 10 have children living in them. I know that only 4 of those (including us) have school age children - the rest are young - preschool and babies. And this child mentioned above is the ONLY ONE that is brought into the hallway in this manner. None of the other ones are.

I also have very little patience for young children who ram their bikes into my legs, or who come over to me and my children and take our things out of our hands and wander from their to our table in a restaurant and stare at us, or take things off our tables. I don't have much patience for those who scream and cry in public places to the point of keeping others from enjoying their meal/movie/other. But it's not the KIDS that really bother me - I don't understand why the parents don't take the kids outside and calm them down.

Once I was on the T, and a 4 year old boy sitting behind me spent the entire ride kicking the back of my seat. Not lightly. He was a boy, a strong boy, a strong, energetic boy. It was VERY disruptive. His mom/guardian/whatever was really just clueless. I sat there quite miserable over the fact that I was so angry. I was thinking about how I feel about children - I love them, I think they're great, and I think that they are people deserving of the same respect and consideration that adults are given (ideally). I was thinking about how if this was his mom that he was with, she was just getting out of work, and picking him up at the end of a very long day. I thought that if I wanted to address this, I could do it in a very respectful, even loving, way. I could turn around and talk to the boy in a very kind way. I could engage him in conversation on unrelated things, and then talk about the way that seats are made, and how we're actually *sharing* the seat, and isn't that kind of cool, but look, when you kick the seat, you're also kicking the person in front of you, and that can be really uncomfortable for the other person.

But I didn't do it. I was ashamed of myself for some time after. My ideas about community, and about the raising and teaching of children does not go well with anger at little kids b/c they're making noise and being kids.

That 4 year old on the train, however, was different than a younger less cognitively developed and independent baby. There is a line somewhere around 3 where a child can be engaged, and dealt with directly. But the younger ages - the parents or guardians are still the only recourse. I think that parents are charged with giving their children an understanding of the fact that we all share this world, and that common respect is due to those around us. There's nothing wrong with teaching your child that things you do while you're out and about affect people other than yourself.

Sometimes these things happen when I'm alone. And I think that if I do show my disapproval of rude behavior (I have been told many times that I have a transparent face, and that very few guessing games are needed to know exactly what I'm thinking), I am easily dismissed by parents as some sort of child-hater, or an impatient workaholic bitch (if I'm wearing a suit). And I almost am BEGGING them to say something to me to that effect. So I can tell them, no! i am not a child hater, I have two children, and they used to be small. And when they were small, I spent time talking to them about shared spaces and about respect and about politeness. I think if more parents DID do that, then there would be less child-haters out there. We could all go through our day knowing that if a child was having a meltdown that it was something to be pitied as a showing of a truly hard day - a display of a child who is growing and learning and reached his or her maximum input level, and needs a hug and some understanding. but instead, a lot of people end up with shorter patience levels, b/c even though kids aren't at their max, and even when they're NOT having a hard time or a hard day - they're kicking our seats. or coming over to our tables and taking our bread. Or screaming and crying through a movie (sometimes, a movie that leaves me almost sick to my stomach in consideration of the fact that a parent brought their child into the theater and exposed them to the content that was so clearly NOT meant for children).

god, i'm getting so old.

posted by Zuska @ 4:51 PM

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