Hellparents

Well, maybe she's one of those new mothers who's getting too much sleep at night...

DM — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 08:18:00 +0000

My mother-in-law is very young -- her son is younger than my daughter. Second wife and all that. Anyway, I almost screamed when I saw her filling her eight-month-old baby's bottle with Coca-Cola. Not diet or decaf or anything. I've heard of giving babies a spoonful of cola syrup for an upset stomach, but this is ridiculous.

Hey, look! More denial!

DM — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 05:06:00 +0000

I worked at a small independent bookstore for several years. We didn't get many people with kids, but once this woman came in with her daughter, a toddler. I don't know where people get the idea that there's some law of physics or mathematics stating "bookstore (or other public place) = free babysitter," but this woman obviously believed it. She sat down in the fiction section to browse and the second she picked up a book, it was like her kid wasn't even there any more so far as she was concerned. Or maybe she felt like she was at home in her own living room, reading while her child entertained herself. The bookstore was one of those places that prided itself on being comfortable and homey. I think the building actually used to be a house.

The kid wasn't a bad sort, I hasten to add. She was cute and perfectly sweet. She wasn't a screamer and she wasn't a destroyer, but she hadn't quite grasped that whole gravity thing -- she was maybe a year and a half old, at most -- and she really did seem to think that she was at home, or at least at somebody's house. Certainly her mother hadn't told her otherwise. So she went about her merry business, looking at all the interesting things around her, while her mother remained obliviously absorbed in a romance novel.

Books are made of paper and tend to tear, fold, and crumple pretty easily. And oddly enough, people walking into a bookstore that sells allegedly new books are put off by merchandise that looks like it did two or three rounds in a boxing ring. So after several minutes of bulging my eyes in a hinting and increasingly frantic manner at the mother, I began quietly following the little girl and doing what damage control I could. I picked up the books she'd knocked over or dropped, repaired displays, and steered her away as best I could from the cases of delicate items the bookstore also sold. The little girl was perfectly nice and didn't mind my occasional quiet guidance at all, which steamed my clams because if she'd behave that well with me, a total stranger, surely she would have been fine if Mommy -- you remember her, the one who was supposed to be guiding this cute little life -- had given her some appropriate direction.

This went on for a good half hour or more. I was the only one in the store, and so I was spending every second I could spare away from the cash register or customers who needed help trying to keep the store from looking like a small but determined earthquake had just hit it.

All of a sudden, the mom looked up. The little girl had just knocked something over with her elbow, and I guess that sound finally got her attention. At any rate, the mother looked over at the fallen books, looked at me, and said, "She didn't do that."

I was too surprised (and annoyed) to say the first thing that popped into my mind, which of course was "How the [bleep] would you know?" I just stared back at her and said something like, "Whatever you say."

Has anyone but me noticed that this is the kind of person who never buys anything? If I were going to turn a toddler-tornado loose on a place, I'd at least drop some dough.

(Insert your favorite variation on "Denial isn't just a river in Egypt" here.)

DM — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 20:15:00 +0000

This one isn't funny, just kind of tragic for everyone involved. I knew a mother who had to walk with a walking stick, a hefty one. She had MS and so her health was a really big concern. She felt guilty because her illness must be a cause of stress to her six-year-old son, so she never disciplined him.

He was an absolute terror. None of the kids in our circle wanted to play with him because he would either bully them or use language so foul that even the really innocent ones knew something was wrong.

The really sad thing was that the mom saw her kid being left out and decided that his life was tragic -- he had an ill, disabled mother and he was shunned by the kids who ought to have been his friends. So then she'd be even "nicer" to him -- let him do whatever he wanted no matter how scary or inappropriate.

Not being an idiot, he soon learned that he could pretty much do anything he wanted. He didn't even bother hiding his behavior from her, because he didn't have to. When he got angry about something -- one time when she wouldn't buy him a third treat from the ice cream man, another when they had to go home from the park and he wanted to stay and play -- he would pick up her walking stick and swing it at her. This, of course, made the other kids that much more determined not to play with him. If he'd act that way with his mother, someone who loved him and whom (presumably) he loved, what would he do to them?

This mother was apparently so terrified at the idea of her son's really being in the wrong that she would do anything to avoid having to confront it. Once she followed a little girl around after the girl had said that this boy had called her some really bad names. Several other kids had heard him, and when he denied doing so, he used even worse language than he'd been accused of, so it looked pretty bad. So the mother kept following this girl around and just haranguing her with questions. She insisted that the little girl must have done something first to provoke her son into saying what he said. She literally wouldn't leave this kid alone. The girl just wanted to be able to play in peace, so after about fifteen minutes, she "confessed" -- yes, okay, maybe she said something that upset him. The mom came away feeling vindicated. See? There was nothing wrong with her son. He had only acted in self-defense.

More than once, when other mothers would try to talk to her about any of this, she would say, "No one's ever said anything about his behavior to me." Well, first of all, she was saying it to someone who was saying something about it; and since she had occasion to say that more than once, it obviously wasn't true. Second, there was good reason that people hadn't spoken to her much before. If it was something he was doing to her (or right in front of her -- he would swear like a sailor and she wouldn't turn a hair), what were we supposed to say? "Okay, just so you know, he just said three bad words and almost gave you a concussion with your own walking stick." And when it was something that he did to another kid, as soon as the kid would run up crying about what had happened, this mother would usually grab her kid's hand and just split -- leave as fast as she could.

Kind of like a Bermuda Triangle for Hellparents...

DM — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 06:34:00 +0000

We were at a science museum and they had a set of exhibits about animation (as in making cartoons). In one area, there were cameras and animation tables so that kids could make their own short stop-motion animations.

A woman with two boys came up to the exhibit. The woman read the instructions and told her boys, "These don't do anything, you have to do all the work yourself."

Undeterred, the kids wanted to give it a try anyway, and they made a short animation. They showed their mom what they had made and her only comment was, "Was that really worth your time? Let's go find something that actually does something."

This was pretty bad. And at the same time this was going on, a kid at another station in the same exhibit was showing his mom an animation she'd made. Apparently the kid didn't get her hand completely out of the frame for one shot, because the mom's reaction to her effort was, "I saw your hand! I saw your hand!" How's that for positive reinforcement?

So tell me, is this exhibit a Hellparent magnet or what?

She's just trying to be supportive...

DM — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 19:59:00 +0000

As a teenager I was a member of a 4H club group that put on magic shows. During one show, the brother of one of our group was sitting in the audience and yelled out how each trick was done as it was being performed. His mother, as a good parent who wished to instill a sense of propriety and manners in her child, sat next to him laughing.

Hellish, yes -- but in Los Angeles and Boston, we're only surprised when people DON'T drive like this.

DM — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 04:23:00 +0000

When I was in high school, one of my friends had a little brother three or four years younger. His mother was a single parent and, as such, tried to overcompensate by being very indulgent. One way that she indulged her youngest son was to let him be involved in driving the family car. It was a stick shift, and when it was time to change gears she'd depress the clutch and let the boy work the gear stick. This came back to haunt her when one day, while they were driving, the boy apparently decided that he was experienced enough with the whole gear thing and tried to change gears without being asked. The resulting gear-grinding noise proved a surprise to all.

And if this weren't enough, the mother once let her son sit in her lap so that he could "drive" the car himself. He put his hands on the wheel and, when Mom took off her hands to let him steer, said "Look, I'm driving!" and started turning the wheel back and forth like he was driving a bumper car. Fortunately they weren't moving too fast and there were no other cars around, or this story would be tragic in the real and not just the pathetic sense.

Hey, Mr. Magician -- for your next trick, could you saw this Hellparent in half?

DM — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 05:34:00 +0000

I was once watching a big-production magic show and the magician asked for a child from the audience to volunteer to come on stage. A father came running up to the front of the theater carrying a little boy who was crying and thrashing, obviously not wanting to volunteer (to put it mildly). The magician nicely pointed out that he'd rather not have any volunteers that were there against their will, and the father returned to his seat, still carrying the crying (but, at least, no longer struggling) child.

Oh, so now taking something without permission or payment is stealing? When did they make THAT rule?

DM — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 04:49:00 +0000

On more than one occasion I've seen parents of young children in the supermarket feeding their child from the store shelves as they shop. A piece of fruit, a piece of candy from the bulk candy bin -- I once even saw a woman take a snack out of a box for her child and then get a "fresh" box off the shelf to put in her cart. I guess shoplifting is okay, so long as it's to keep your kid quiet while you shop.

I just HATE the way my kids tell the truth all the time!

DM — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 03:45:00 +0000

In an online forum where vacations plans are discussed, a woman was looking for advice on how to handle her son's age. It seems that her son is now too old to get into theme parks for a child's price, so she'd like her son to lie about his age. The problem is that she's worried her son will forget to lie about his age when asked, and even if he does remember, she worries that her other son will spill the beans.

A number of people pointed out that if she just paid the extra money and didn't try and teach her children to lie to save $10, she could dispense with all the anxiety. Unfortunately, this was not the answer she was looking for.

Good to see a parent who's got his priorities straight.

DM — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 19:23:00 +0000

In an R-rated movie, I overheard a little boy telling his father that he "really didn't like" the movie and wanted to go. His dad just shushed him and kept on watching the on-screen violence.

Crime and...punishment?

DM — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 04:38:00 +0000

I was once in a store and saw a little girl run up to her mother to say that her brother had taken something off the shelf and put it in his pocket. The mother proceeded to lecture the girl for "being a tattletale." So far as I could tell, the boy got a chance to stand looking smug at his sister, but no punishment other than that.

Calling All Hellparents!

DM — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 07:25:00 +0000

Listen! Hear that deafening silence? That's the sound of all those clueless hellparents not telling us their stories! If they knew how lousy they were at their jobs, they wouldn't be hellparents! That's why we need faithful gossip-loving readers to send in their sightings! Give us your worst!

Hellparents are always ready to give the lion's share of guilt to the wrong party...

DM — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 07:18:00 +0000

At the zoo, as I was looking at the lions, I overheard a woman explaining to her daughter why the male lion was asleep. She said that in the wild the lion would be active and happy, but that it was lazy and depressed because it was locked up in a zoo. All of which makes me wonder why the woman is bringing her kid to a zoo if she so obviously disapproves of the place. It makes me wonder, too, if the woman knows that lions in the wild also sleep something like twenty hours a day.

Come on, kid -- would I lie to you? Again?

DM — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 04:38:00 +0000

Once, while waiting in line for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, I heard parents reassure their young (and obviously apprehensive) son that there was nothing scary or dark inside. I tapped the mother on the shoulder and told her, in a low voice so the boy wouldn't hear, that there were actual several dark places in the attraction as well as some spooky lighting and skeletons. She said that she knew, and that she and her husband had been on the ride lots of times -- which just makes me wonder how they expected their child to ever trust their reassurances again.

And then this mommy went home and read her kids the story of the ant and the grasshopper.

DM — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 04:26:00 +0000

I remember being told about a mother who gave her son and daughter each their own pack of gum. The little boy plowed through his gum, throwing a piece out as soon as the sugar was gone and eating another one. The little girl was more conservative -- she ate one piece and saved the rest for another time.

Later in the day, the boy saw that the girl still had some gum, and since his was gone, asked for a piece. She said no, so the boy went to his mother and complained that his sister wasn't sharing. Mom, ignoring her daughter's protests, insisted that the girl "learn to share with her brother" and give him some of her gum.

There are two lessons here. One, live life for today because if you save up for tomorrow your brother will just take it from you. And two, Mom is more interested in not having to hear her son whine than she is in doing what's right.

Famous Hellparents (part one).

DM — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 06:37:00 +0000

Apparently, actress Helen Mirren's mother was a four-star Hellparent. According to an October 6, 2006 New Yorker article, she once held her daughter out a window, telling her, "If you don't stop crying, I'm going to drop you."

Why, yes, as a matter of fact, we DO negotiate with terrorists!

DM — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 20:11:00 +0000

I was babysitting one night for some friends of friends. They had a daughter about five years old and a son about two or three. They came back at around midnight. The daughter had been asleep for hours, but the little boy (who'd been a terror all evening, by the way -- eventually I refused to babysit for these people any more) bounded down the stairs as soon as he heard his mother's voice.

"I have to drive her home," the mother said to her husband, nodding towards me. "Can you get him back to bed? Read him a story or something."

"I want to go with you!" the boy shrieked.

"No, honey, you can't," she said. "It's too late. You have to go to bed."

I expected the boy to have a fit at this, but he didn't. He walked quite calmly over to a bottom-heavy table lamp and put one hand on it. He looked at his mother and waited until he had caught her eye before starting to tip it to one side. In a very deliberate way -- he didn't let go of it or push it over. He just tilted it until it was at an angle that was almost unstable, but not quite. All the while looking at her, eyebrows raised. His whole expression said (without his having to bother to put it into words), "So, what are you going to do about this?"

I was floored. I knew he was bratty, but there was something unnerving -- and, to me at least, enraging -- about his actions. They were so calm and purposeful. If he'd started screaming or throwing a tantrum, that would be obnoxious, but at least it would have been, I don't know, age-appropriate. It could be called a crime of passion, anyway. This couldn't.

I looked at the mother, waiting for her response. She sighed. "I'd better take him with me," she said to her husband. "We'll be back in a few minutes." And the little boy smiled. I still don't know which of them I wanted to smack more -- him or her. In the immortal words of Roz Chast, cartoonist and parent, "What a wimpy, wimpy mom."

Good help may be hard to find, but hellparents are everywhere.

DM — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 05:45:00 +0000

When I was just a slip of a thing, I got a live-in job as a nanny for a very rich family with a two-year-old child. I was only eighteen, so I let them get away with all sorts of stuff that I would never put up with now. They expected me to be up and working by seven in the morning, regardless of what time any of them decided to get up; and if I quit for the evening before seven at night, they'd say that I was taking off early. And no, I didn't get any time off during the day.

Only the dad worked, by the way. The mom spent most of her time either out shopping or upstairs in her luxurious room, and expected me to engage in stimulating, enriching activities with her son every minute he was awake, and pack all the cleaning, straightening, dusting, and scrubbing involved in keeping a two-story house spotless into his naptime. Oh, and all the laundry required ironing, including the towels and the dad's boxers.

Anyway. The mother had told me that if her little angel ever did anything wrong, I was to wait until I saw her, tell her what had happened, and let her deal with it. It didn't matter how bad it was, I was not to do any disciplining, not even verbal. Which might have worked out okay, except that I wasn't allowed to go and get her about anything, either. So several hours might go by between his doing something wrong and her hearing about it. And even if she were inclined to take what he'd done seriously, which she usually wasn't, what was the use? He was two years old. Hours after the fact, he'd completely forgotten what had happened. He wasn't going to see any connection between the boring scolding he was getting now and what he'd done this morning. So he wasn't going to feel any need to change his behavior.

The father, apparently, had different ideas about childcare. I didn't see him very often in the first few weeks I worked there, but one morning we were all having breakfast together and while the mother was getting something from the refrigerator, the little boy threw his spoon at me. The father was sitting right there, and he gave me a look.

"Are you going to let him get away with that?" he asked coolly.

I felt trapped. Like a moron, instead of trying to explain that the mother had forbidden me to discipline, I started into some spiel to the kid about how we don't throw things. Right in the middle of it, of course the mother came back to the table. She looked at me as if she'd caught me dropping a spider in her coffee.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

Well, the husband explained what had happened, and then she explained the rules she'd laid down, and they both apologized for the misunderstanding. But they still both blamed me for the whole incident, I think, because I lost my job not much later. At that, I'd lasted longer than most of their household help did. I learned from a woman who did secretarial work for them that the couple had had twenty-one nannies in the past year and a half.

This one's creepy for so many reasons...

DM — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 02:39:00 +0000

I was at Disneyland over the weekend and while in line for the security check, I saw a woman digging through her purse with one hand and pulling up the back of her seven-ish daughter's shirt with the other. The daughter had a tube-top kind of thing on under her shirt, and the mom was taking things out of her purse that I guess she thought wouldn't make it through security (scissors, a nail file, etc.) and trying to get them to stay under her kid's top. Great way to teach a kid about the fine arts of smuggling and security avoidance!

Forbidden fruit?

DM — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:37:00 +0000

I was sitting in a restaurant and overheard a woman talking to her son while Dad was off getting food. "The kids' meals have carrots," the mother said.

The little boy smiled at this. "Do they have fruit?" he asked in a hopeful tone.

"Yes," said the mother. "We'll get something good later."

Way to tell your kid that fruit and vegetables aren't good! Particularly when he seems so happy to eat them!

None so deaf as those who will not get a clue.

DM — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 05:36:00 +0000

On the way into a show, I saw a woman tell her eightish son to move forward when the crowd moved, and he didn't. She told him again, and he still didn't. Then she said, angrily, "Will you listen to me? Move!" and dragged the boy by his arm.

I suppose this doesn't sound too Hellparenty, so let me back up a moment. In the queue for the show, I saw this same woman fussing over her son, putting earplugs in his ears. I guess she was worried that the show would be too loud for him. And I guess that someone should tell his mother that earplugs will make it harder for him to hear her, too.

I don't like pink, either, but this is ridiculous...

DM — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 05:11:00 +0000

I was in a restaurant that had murals painted on the wall. Sitting near me was a family with two young boys, each of whom had noise-making "blaster" gun toys. One of the boys was shooting at a painting of a cat on the wall.

"No!" said the boy's mother. "That's not nice. Don't shoot at the poor cat. Shoot at people. There's a lady in a pink shirt, shoot at her."

So many good lessons all wrapped into one. Good job, Hellparent!

Sorry doesn't make it all better -- but it's a start.

DM — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 00:42:00 +0000

We were at my son's piano recital today. Several other music students had performed as well, and the parents had been asked to bring refreshments. I made some brownies that are extremely rich, and one of the teachers asked me to serve them out in little pieces so that the kids wouldn't go nuts from a caffeine/sugar rush.

One little girl who goes to the school has a reputation for being, well, special. She has an extremely high I.Q. but has almost no friends because she alienates other kids with her outbursts and sometimes violent behavior. The reason I don't have more compassion for her -- I started out with a lot -- is that her parents say things like, "I don't believe in making children apologize if they don't really mean it." Very modern.

So. At this piano recital, I'm serving up brownies as requested. This little girl comes up with her plate. Her father is right behind her and asks for a brownie. "Just put it on her plate," he said. "I'll share it with her."

Okey-doke. As requested, I put one of the brownies that I baked the night before (also as requested) -- my wonderful, melt-in-your-mouth, three-chocolate brownies -- on her plate.

She looks at me as if I just spit on her and she'd like to return the favor. In a small room with wonderful acoustics, she shrieks, "YOU INFECTED MY FOOD!"

I look at the dad, who's looking sheepish. "Honey," he says tiredly, "I asked her to put it --"

"HOW DARE YOU INFECT MY FOOD!" she shrieks, and decks me on as hard as she can on the arm. "You THING!" she adds, just in case I haven't gotten the message.

Her father says absolutely nothing. I'm embarrassed, vaguely humiliated, extremely annoyed, and my arm hurts. And he's not doing a darned thing. I look at him, waiting for a response. She's obviously not going to apologize; it would be nice if he did. "Come on, Emi," he says, and takes her arm and gets the heck out of Dodge. I've seen this kind of behavior before, usually with the parents of kids who are such blatant bullies that they'll act up even when the grownups are looking right at them. The mom or dad just pulls a disappearing act with the kid in tow, and the next time you see them, it's like the whole thing never happened. Earth to Hell Parents: SAY YOU'RE SORRY, ALREADY! If your kid acted up, do the decent thing and apologize, would you? Don't know how much good this public service announcement will do. Made me feel a little better, anyway.

How much is that baby in the window?

DM — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 01:20:00 +0000

I was working in a big chain bookstore that had large display windows in the front. The windows didn't have a door to them, but they obviously were not part of the store proper. Anyway, a toddler was stumbling around the store and wandered into the display windows. I'm sure passersby were mighty entertained! I went after the tot and brought her back into the store and found her mother. The mother said thanks, but didn't seem to think anything was particulary wrong.

You'll have fun -- or else!

DM — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 07:12:00 +0000

One of the most bizarre bits of parenting I've ever heard was at Disneyland, yelled at a crying child: "Stop crying! We're here to have a good time!" What's even stranger is that I've heard from many Disney fans who have heard variations on this same theme. It weirds me out that this might be common.