You know those moments when something other that you- normal, functioning, everyday you – takes over your body and before you know it you are doing something you had no intention of doing? Something you didn’t even know you were going to do?
I had one last week.
As I drove to the mortgage-the-cat school to collect my child, I chanced to drive along the quiet back street shortcut lined with family homes. Past a very large child kicking a soccer ball across the road to his sister, who would throw it back. I could see them ahead along the straight stretch, so slowed to make sure he wasn’t going to do anything kid-like and kick his ball in front of my car.
He didn’t, but he did do something else. He very clearly yelled ‘hurry up woman’ as I drove past.
After collecting geek boy I head home the same way, and there is soccer kid again. As I drive closer I can feel little prickles running along my arms, fingers and toes – prickles I get when I think something is going to happen. As I slowed, I heard again “hurry up woman”.
I truly don’t know who that woman was that stopped her car in the middle of the street. I don’t know who that woman was that rolled down her window and gave soccer boy a finger pointing lecture about mouthing off at drivers, speed limits of 40 k an hour that are set to save lives such as his, and how-would-his-mother-feel-after-he-was-squashed-on-the-road because he had either infuriated someone with his yelling, or because he was jumping out in front of cars? I don’t know who that woman was that asked him whose fault it would be if he were squashed on the road beside his ball (to his credit, he did reply in a small voice ‘mine’- the only word I heard him say during my finger pointing tirade. Mind you, that woman wasn’t letting him get a word in edge-ways anyhow). As his sister fell about laughing that woman finished up her trouncing lecture with a sound ”watch yourself, kid” and drove off up the street leaving 3 kids open mouthed in her wake and 2 kids open mouthed in the back seat.
As I pulled in to my own driveway it struck me that *I* was that woman. I had no restraint or control over what I did, I just acted impulsively out of anger and concern and protectiveness and fully let out on this soccer ball kid. I turned to my son and said “Sorry about that. I am not sure why I did that, I hope I didn’t embarrass you”. ”No”, he shrugged, ”you did the right thing. It was pretty awesome, mum, you had your teacher voice on and your don’t mess with me right now voice on too and the kid should appreciate that someone was worried about where he was.”
I wonder if he’ll go inside and tell his mother” I mused.
“I was wondering that too!” said geek boy. “He should, he should tell her someone was worried about where he was and what he was doing. He should tell her he was being stupid”
I decided that was a lesson in itself for the day, (for both of us!) and nodded at my own child’s good grace and common sense.
Until he said “It’s not like in your day though mum, is it, when you could play on the road all you wanted and there were no such thing as cars around on the roads”…
Ouch!
On all accounts!
Yeah…
you can take the teacher out of the school, but you can’t take the school out of the teacher. I’d do the same thing.
Bwaaahaha! This is too funny. Not the part about the little boy playing in the street; and, not the part about the lecture…those parts were serious. But, geek boy’s comment about no cars when you were young? Where did he get that? Too cute.
“It’s not like in your day though mum, is it, when you could play on the road all you wanted and there were no such thing as cars around on the roads”…
LOLOL!
When I was staffing my first 4-H camp I gained a reputation for being strict because I gave the teen counselors heat for not doing their jobs (as the camp director was too busy being their buddy to notice that there were unsupervised campers off behind cabins playing “I’ll show you mine . . .”–true story).
My less than complimentary name drifted back to my ears by way of one of the campers aka my then ten year old son who was horrified. I was upset enough to to pour my heart out to my oldest son, then a sophomore.
“Good for you,” he replied. “I’m impressed. Most high school teachers take two weeks to earn that title.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It means you’re doing your job. Don’t worry about it. If (the director) was doing hers she’d have the same title.”
I wanted to hug him.
Ha! I would have also let my inner feelings flair out in an explosive tirade of language and then felt terribly embarrassed afterwards. He did need to be told – but I know I wouldn’t have found the most eloquent words in the heat of the moment. I love your son’s support. I too would have felt the need to say, ‘Sorry’ and that I could have handled things better, but it’s great when your children accept you for who you are and know that we mean well, even if we’re not always perfect.
I was laughing at the end with the ‘no cars on the roads in your day….’ bit – so cute, thoughtful and perceptive!
lmao
kids. gotta love em………. cos we aren’t meant to gaffer tape them to the wall with their mouths shut ;)
You walked 17 miles to school in shoes made out of paper bags, then went to sleep at night in a hole in the road… didn’t you?
I once had a chold very excited about bringing ‘olden-days’ money to school for show and tell. Turned out to be a $1 note. The ones that were withdrawn and replaced with the $1 coin. I was tempted to give a finger pointing lecture about the ridiculous use of the term ‘olden-days’!
I think I would have been that woman too. He needed telling..
Did you tell geek boy that you were so glad that you didn’t have to wlk among the dinosaurs like gran’ma? Oh wait,!! he thinks I am a dinosaur.
:-)
Geez. I think that woman was me. In my age, I’ve come to responding to virtually everyone, including my elders, whom I have taken the time to advise that they are being rude. Because they are. And they need to be told. And I will do it.
Nothing wrong with what you did at all. I may have done the same thing. Any Mum or Dad giving a lecture sounds like a teacher, don’t take it personally, and besides that IS how a kid (should) know to PAY ATTENTION. Its entirely appropriate.
I have nursed a 5 year old who had all the skin ripped off a lower leg by being hit by a car while playing ball unsupervised in a front yard and running into the road. It was a terrible injury and well worth a lecture to any random kids to prevent it happening to any other child.
I’m glad geek boy got the point of it, and his sense of humour is quite wicked. Cheeky monkey!
Oh bravo! Quite right! That child needed a lesson in politeness and in thinking things through.
Yes, I remember the days when all the kids used to play outside on the roads. It was a lot of fun. What’s more we used to wander unsupervised around the neighborhood, and far and wide too, and parents had no idea where their kids might be.
Not many families had cars, and the men used the cars to get to work, while the mothers struggled to the shops on foot, pushing prams and holding on to their (numerous) below school age progeny, and then struggled back home again laden with however many groceries they could carry. These trips were made frequently because the mothers certainly could not manage to cart back a weekly grocery shops. There were many occasions when the older children would be sent up to the shops to get some missing ingredient.
I have just made myself feel almost elderly. What utter nonsense!
ha ha ha ha – good ON you!
Baahaaaa! That is funny! How to feel decidedly young…ummmm….not!
And I would have felt like giving that child a bit of a lecture, too! There’s nothing like a teacher voice when you need one!
Oh and am still pmsl @ the ‘mortgage the cat’ school! Both of my kids go to one of them and now one of them is slinging me for private music lessons, too! :(
LMAO Excellent on all accounts!
Yeah, how about those horses and carts we had to dodge whilst playing hoops and jacks in the middle of the dirt roads as kids…?! :P
Ha! That is hilarious!! I’m a lecturer in my old age too. Aging must be like alcohol, making the inhibition threshold lower.
Sometimes you just have to get in their faces and help them know what is right!
I have been known to react in much the same way a couple of times. Children should not be allowed to get away with such (or similar) behaviour. A bit of shaming in front of their peers, and a remark such as ‘what would your mother say if she knew what was happening here?’ will surely be a force for good …
OK it is a different world in some ways, as your son suggests, but there is no excuse for disrespect in my book. And after all, I reckon his mother would have been grateful that you were intervening to encourage her son to think twice.
June in Oz
I want your teacher voice. I think I just sound all whiny.
You probably have saved that soccor kid from running into a less patient person.
The ending to your story is a real hoot! I laughed at your son’s comments about your teacher voice as well as back in your day!
Good. On. You.
(and chuckling about your son’s comment!)
You are so kewl :)
hee hee hee – too funny …. I tell other people’s kids off all the time – in a firm yet fair kinda way … and I am not a teacher so I don’t know what my excuse is …. le xoxo