Connor and I were at Burger Thing with my mother, my sister and her friend (both 16). It was 1pm on a Thursday. The place was pretty much empty. Besides us, there was another little family - a mother, her infant son and four year old daughter. There were also four rowdy teenagers, three girls and a boy, probably all around the age of 15 or 16. Before I go any further, please don't think that I discriminate against teenagers because of the way they look or act. My son is a teen now, and I would hate to think that someone doesn't like or trust him just because he is male, of a certain age, noisy, and might dress differently. I prefer to think all kids are good kids until they prove otherwise.
Connor decided he had to use the bathroom. I took him by the hand and walked in to the ladies washroom. There inside were the three teenage girls, AND the boy. IN THE LADIES WASHROOM!!! He was trying to "hide" by turning his back towards me, two of the girls were nervously giggling, the other was glaring at me with a cold look, almost challenging me to say something to her.
I looked at the guy and said "You know this is a GIRLS bathroom right?"
"Yeah." he says, snickering.
"Ok then - Buh-bye!" I hold the door open for him to leave.
"They made me come in here" he laughs, almost embarassed as he walked toward the door.
The other girl continues to stare at me cooly.
"You can't think for yourself?" I'm shocked to hear myself say this to him.
My three year old son is right there with me, after all. And this teenager is not my son, this is another woman's child. Would she be pissed at me for speaking sharply to her son like that? How dare I speak to him like that? - I'm a stranger to him. Would she be mortified at her son's behavior like I would be if it was my oldest and tell him that he's lucky "that lady" only told him to leave? And that I thought I taught him about being true to himself and about not giving in to peer pressure?
They all file out of the washroom and not another word is said. Connor does his thing, we wash our hands, and go back out into the restaurant. The teenagers have left.
This incident itself was harmless enough. I think the boy's pride was the only thing that was hurt. We live in a small place, and even the "city" is fairly small, where most people know who you are or who your family is. That in itself is the dangerous part. It sets us up for a false sense of security.
My nine year old daughter likes to be independent. She gets offended when she needs me to escort her to the bathroom in a public place. I refuse to let her go to a public washroom alone. She's never alone in public, for that matter. My thirteen year old son knows that I will wait by the door of a public washroom that he is in. He usually goes before we leave the house to avoid this "embarassment". I'm just not ready to put them in a situation that they may not be able to get out of. Does this make me overprotective?
We hear too many stories on the news about horrible things happening to children. But isn't that how these stories get on the news? We feel safe enough, comfortable enough at one o'clock on a Thursday afternoon at a "family restaurant" to let our children run to the bathroom unattended?
My children are the most precious things in the world to me. Of course I want to protect them to the best of my ability. But am I going too far? I know nothing happened. I know that those kids are probably harmless, they're likely adored by their parents and generally good kids. They were just fooling around and being kids. Maybe I am too overprotective, but I don't want to take that chance that whoever is in there with my kids aren't "just kids being kids."
It's not even the fact that it was teenagers, or even a teenage boy for that matter. What shook me the most was how easy it is for Something Horrible to happen to a child. I'm trying to teach my children about peer pressure, doing the right thing, and how to be careful (read Not Scared) of "strangers". After all, friends used to be "strangers" at one point. But how can I convince them of this when all I can think of when something like this happens is "I saw on the news last night about a little girl..."?
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9 comments:
i don't think you over-reacted. imo its just a RULE that grown boys/men go in the men's washroom and girls/women in the ladies. not too difficult. and for the reasons you say...maddie prolly would have turned and walked out instead of using the facilities if faced with that if she'd entered alone.
i haven't had to deal with the whole having my child use public washrooms alone thing yet. i'd always pictured myself waiting outside tho... you really never know who could be waiting inside. just because you don't see them go in doesn't mean there isn't someone in there waiting. i guess that's where you teach your kids to scream at the top of their lungs...
ugh....i wish they'd just stay innocent.
I think you did the right thing. Its hard to know when is the right age to let them be alone in public. The world is full of weirdo's. All we can do is teach them right from wrong and you are doing a good job of that!
Just as a side note, this mornings news on the radio reported that a man was caught and charged with "sexual interference" after dressing like a woman and lunging at an 11 year old boy at his school, and another man was caught and arrested for selling crack cocaine to students at the local convenince store. Both these incidents took place within a three block radius of the Burger joint.
Good for you! I'd have done the very same thing! The problem with a lot of these kids is that their parents don't know what they're doing and a lot of them wouldn't really care if they did. I admire you for taking charge of the situation!
Welcome Burg! I think you're right, a lot of parents probably wouldn't care even if they did know what their kids were up to. Sad.
The whole thing kinda freaks me out. I sometimes feel a little neurotic, you know, standing outside the mens washroom door while my 13 year old is in there. But after hearing that stuff on the radio, I feel a bit more ok about it now.
I don't think you are being overprotective. I worry about my kids everywhere. I know that if they are not within my eyesight and reach that they could be hurt. It's the scariest part of parenting.
Sometimes it seems neurotic but then I remember all of my friends and family that I know who were sexually abused as children in "safe" places and calm down.
You definitely did the right thing. Scary.
Visiting from MMTaM, I agree with you 100%! Now days it is way to easy for kids to get into situations or be put into situations that they can't handle. Once I have kids I am sure I will be the same way!
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