Strange Social Interactions

OK, I had one of the weirdest encounters of my adult life over the weekend. Just so strange it made me totally question my own understanding of my social habits and default settings.

My sons and I attended a birthday party for one of my 5 year-old’s friends at a park. The kids who had been invited all showed up and they were all playing and clearly having a great time together. Then, a little girl came over and wanted to play with them. It was obvious she’d been attracted to the group, to the fact that they were all having so much fun. She also had been attracted to the food table with all the party snacks.

At first, it seemed a little sweet, and then a little sad. All the mothers at the party felt the twang of having had to explain it to our own kids when we would happen upon a party they hadn’t been invited to. Little kids have no understanding of the concept that they don’t know another family and so that’s why they weren’t invited. It doesn’t make any sense. Plus it’s so unfair – those other kids are getting cake and goodie bags. Wah. I want some, too…

PS – This scenario is heart-wrenching enough when it’s people at a park you don’t even know. God forbid there’s a classmate who hasn’t invited your kid somewhere and they find out – a whole different ball game.

Anyway, we’d all been there as moms. And we would have eventually taken our kids out of the area or just created a game for them to distract them from the party. Move on.

But what’s so weird abut this weekend’s adventure is that this child’s mom didn’t do that. At all. Not once in the course of about 3 hours of the party. So strange.

And clearly, the child had never been taught about not playing where she didn’t belong or fit in, because she never felt the need to leave. Even when we, as moms, tried to give her little hints, like “This food is for the party kids, honey. And we wouldn’t want to give you any food without your mom knowing…”

If anyone had said that to my child, I would have been so mortified I would have probably taken him home right then.

But this mom didn’t. She stayed about 20 yards away, close enough to watch, but not close enough to speak to us — or for us to speak to her – easily. And her daughter didn’t listen to her mother OR any of us Other Mothers as we tried to dissuade her from joining our party.

As this went on, we would all waver between slight outrage (Why isn’t this girl listening to an adult?? Why isn’t her mother DOING anything??) and slight concern (Maybe they’re homeless…? Maybe they’re hungry and the girl needs this food…?).

At times, while trying to be concerned, we got outraged. The child asked for a hot dog as we were serving lunch to our own children, and one of the moms agreed to serve it. We all exchanged looks and it was understood we thought this child was hungry. But while the hot dog was cooking, the little girl acted, well, annoying! She said, where’s my hot dog?! The mom who had agreed to get it for her took a deep breath and explained about waiting, and being patient, and gratitude.

And it would make a great story to say the little girl was transformed by that moment of boundary-setting and an adult who spoke to her with grace and courage. But it wouldn’t be the truth. She got her food finally and had to be told to say thank-you like it was the first time she’d EVER been told to say thank-you, and she still didn’t listen to any of the adults the rest of the day.

Finally, when she was elbowing the other kids out of the way during the furious candy-grabbing after the Pinata came down, and I told her for the umpteenth time to stop, that it was time to STOP, I turned to her mother, who had been watching the entire time, and I said Can you help us out here? She won’t listen to us – maybe she’ll listen to YOU.

Well of course she didn’t listen to her mother, either.

Weird. The whole event just made me SO aware of my own socialization. Of how tightly controlled my social world is, and how well I’ve been trained to behave. So much so, that when anyone behaves just a bit outside the box of the NORMAL way of behaving, it completely throws me for a loop.

So interesting to NOTICE things about our own lives. Even if they aren’t the BEST things. Keep on noticing.

An original post by Sarah Auerswald.