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| little shits |
| 09.02.05 (4:25 am) [edit] |
Well, it happened. Jake finally found out that people suck.The school had a "welcome" picnic last night, held on the lawn at 6. Families were to bring their own dinners and blankets, and the PTA provided desserts. I picked up the boys and a bucket of KFC, and we headed over there. DH hopped a train and walked from the train, and got there maybe a half hour after we did. When I arrived with the boys, it was pretty early. A fifth-grade boy arrived with his dad, tossing a Nerf football. Jacob immediately asked if he could meet the bigger kid (Sam) and play. However, when more kids arrived, Sam's friends did too. Jacob asked the boys if he could play catch with them, and I guess they told him to wait, that they would get him. At one point, I was standing beneath the slides, making sure Danny didn't get trampled by the bigger kids playing tag around him, and I noticed that Jake was sitting by himself on the curb of the playground. "Jake, what are you doing?" I called. "Waiting my turn to play," he said. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach even before he came to me and burst into tears. The bigger kids had snuck off, leaving him sitting there alone. Jacob regressed into the most pathetic version of himself, crying as though his heart was breaking, which I guess it kind of was. He just kept bleating "Mommy! Mommy!" I sat with him on a bench and attempted to console him. It was awful. People were looking at us with that mixture of relief and revulsion. My kid's innocent soul was destroyed. And I was resigned -- not even angry -- because I knew this could be just the tip of the iceberg. "Sometimes bigger kids don't want to play with younger kids." "They probably don't even know that they're being mean. It doesn't make it right, but we can't change it." "We'll find kids in your class to play with." "Why would you want to play with kids who don't want to play with you?" "How about we get dessert and wait for Daddy?" "When you're a fifth-grader, you'll remember what this felt like and be nicer to little kids." "They're not worth your energy." "They don't know you and what a cool kid you are; this isn't personal." I said all of this and more, but Jacob was undeterred. I dragged both boys to pick up a couple of cookies and fell onto our blanket with them draped all over me, praying that DH would get there soon. When he arrived, Jacob collapsed on him and cried again. To his credit, he got mad pretty fast after that and wanted revenge. He wanted to do all the Dudley-Do-Right stuff; tell the bigger kids they were mean, insist they apologize, etc. In turns, he would suggest that perhaps he didn't hear them call his name, or he didn't understand they were coming back for him and maybe he should go after them. We think Jacob was milking it a bit, but OH MY GAWD was he hurt and angry and sad. He's such a friendly kid that he generally has no problem finding others to play with; in fact, before we left, he was in a pack of boys from his class, racing down the slides in bunches (and letting baby brother Danny tag along). DH asked Jacob questions about those boys from his class on the way home, but Jake returned to pick at his wound a bit more. How do you tell a five-year-old that sometimes, people just suck? What a shitty lesson to learn in a week where he's already having trouble. My poor kid. |
| 0 Comments |
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