Today I was at the park with my 3 RESPONSIBLE friends and their children. However, as I walked around playing with my son, I noticed something very sad.
Many of the mothers were texting, talking on the phone or yapping into their bluetooth. Not to say we mothers can't multi task. We are experts at that. However, I also noticed that many of the children were being ignored all together. For example, one small boy was so thrilled when he conquered the monkey bars all on his own. When he went running over to mommy shouting "I did it Mommy, I did it all the way on the bars by myself". She was too busy running her soup cooler that she just nodded at him and smiled politely. Almost as if she didn't even know him! Like he was a business associate.
Another little girl beganto follow Evan and I over to our group and the mother who was flapping her big fat mouth on the phone didn't notice until I stopped to ask her "is she yours?" Thank goodness I wasn't the local child abductor. By the way the topic of this mother's particular conversation contained words like "protective order", "eviction notice", "loser"...I know this because I was playing and interacting with her two daughters on the playground while she flapped her gums behind me.
AND ANOTHER mother was nearly ripping her poor daughter's arm out of the socket while she was trying to dismount the swing while her "mother" was busy on her bluetooth. She was on it the ENTIRE time we were there. Which was about 1 1/2 hours. Well, at least every time Evan and I passed her.
These are just pathetic displays in my opinion. It is also dangerous. You can't just let your children wander and interact with strangers while you conduct your useless, mundane business. This is why children feel ignored and neglected by parents. This is also how they get abducted, molested or traumatized.
I really really REALLY wanted to just slap every one of them. One woman was sitting in a chair next to the pool...(outside the pool fence) texting while her little boy was taking a swim lesson. What if he does something really "neat" in his book and looks up and mommy is too busy texting to notice? What is so damn important to these women? And don't tell me work. That's complete BS. If you can't take 30 minutes with your child at the park without "work" then you need to re-prioritize sister.
This is just another example of how society is too damn busy to remember the important things in life. I realize I can't catch every one of Evan's little "look at me Mommy" smiles....but I sure do try, and I don't want to be texting when he does it.
