Park/public space etiquette
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Anonymous
| FTM here, my daughter is now 18 months. We were at the park and towards the end of our outing, she wanted to “ride” these vehicle things for kids (before we left (not real vehicles obviously, they just go on them and pretend, no idea if there’s a name for them lol), she loves them. The few times we have been there, if they are all taken up (there’s 5), a line forms and kids take turns. Well I had noticed two other moms (obviously friends), with their kids had been there for about 10-15 minutes, so I “start” a line, keeping my distance. My daughter got a little fussy Bc she doesn’t understand waiting, but I held her and told her that we had to wait our turn. Honestly I kind of assumed they would make one of their kids take turns on one of the things. I feel like I’m very considerate with public spaces, and if I know there’s someone waiting and it’s been a few minutes, I take my daughter off whatever and tel her our time is up. Instead, they left, I’m assumjng bc my daughter kept fussing, and one of them very passive aggressively said “thanks for waiting patiently.” Huh?! |
Anonymous
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Yes, Parent should be cognizant that a popular toy might have a line and you should take turns.
I’m not sure why you thought the comment was passive aggressive if they were already leaving. |
Anonymous
I only think they left bc my daughter was fussing. I don’t think they would have ever left if they didn’t know other kids wanted to go on. |
Anonymous
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After a reasonable amount of time, I'd say something like, "Would you mind if we took a quick turn for a few minutes? It's almost her nap time, and I'd told her she could ride one more time before we left." Some people just respond better to direct communications than to quietly pointed ones.
But I'm unclear: if there were five of these vehicles, why couldn't your child have ridden one of the three not taken up by the kids of these two moms? Or did they have five kids between them? |
Anonymous
| How old were the other kids? If old enough (say 4+), they could have just not been paying attention because you *should* be at the point where you don't have to police their playground behavior by that age. If it's been a reasonable amount of time, I think it's perfectly fine to say to the children "could we have a turn next, please?" It's hard to tell if they were ignoring you (and being rude) or just not monitoring their children closely. Even well mannered children forget sometimes, and it could have just been one of those things. |
Anonymous
Why would they? If no one is waiting, why shouldn't they let their kids play as long as they like? Maybe they didn't notice you were waiting right away. Maybe they weren't being passive-aggressive. You said that YOU would take your kid off after a few minutes if another kid was waiting, but isn't that exactly what they did by leaving? |
Anonymous
I wasn’t there so I can’t say with certainly but I kindly say you may have been reading too much into that. |
Anonymous
| You were prob being loud in posture. It happens. |
Anonymous
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If it was a truly limited resource, like a swing, I would notice you waiting and say OK 10 more pushes and then it’s time to get off. If there’s an obvious line waiting, and it’s a common occurrence that a line is waiting, I would tell my child OK a few more and then it’s somebody else’s turn. If your child just happens to want wha my child has, then your child can wait till my child is done.
I will say this, your child is old enough to understand waiting. You say to them, someone else is using that. Let’s do something else. |
Anonymous
Well my daughter was fussing quite a bit and clearly she wasn’t being patient. I dunno, if I saw a toddler fussing and my kid had been hanging out there a while, I’d get them off ASAP...or acknowledge somewhat. Or at least tell them we’ll be off in a minute. We were standing there for a good five minutes with her fussing, the moms clearly knew I was there. Tbh I thought it was rude they couldn’t at least get two other kids to share one. Plus, it was obvious there were other kids waiting too (but from a distance). As soon as they left, another group of kids ran in. |
Anonymous
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Even if it wasn't your intent, you possibly came off as passive aggressive. You could have redirected your young daughter instead of allowing her to fuss in front of the older kids.
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Anonymous
| The stuff people complain about... she thanked you. Take it and go. Not sure why you perceive it as negative |
Anonymous
Honestly, when your kid is older you won't really notice other toddlers fussing at the park. I used to feel the same way about my beautiful toddler, but now all of the fussing toddlers blur together and I just want my kids to get their energy out. I would teach my kids to make room or move if you or your kid asked. But we can't always expect kids to follow passive social cues. |
Anonymous
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It sounds like you think you were speaking just to your toddler when you said "we have to wait our turn," and they interpreted it as that very annoying, and very common mommy talk where you're actually speaking to those around you.
In your situation, I might just go somewhere else. The little car or horsey will be unoccupied soon enough, and you don't need to stand around staring at it. OTOH, it's possible those two women were just (unts. |
Anonymous
+1. I bring a book and read on a bench unless my kindergartener asks for help. I put the effort in to teach her when she was younger, and she's good at waiting and taking turns 95% of the time now. It would be super helicopter-y to hover and correct her social interactions at this age. If she doesn't notice something like a toddler waiting, I'll point it out to her, but I also would have zero issue with the parent saying something as well. But she isn't really playing on toddler toys, so any kid that wants to be sharing space is old enough to figure things out for themselves. There's no way to know if the other parents were being passive aggressive or genuine, and there's no way to know if the kids were being jerks. Maybe both, in which case it's a parenting issue and there's not much you can do about it. But it's helpful to keep in mind the level of intervention parents of older kids are going to provide versus a young toddler's parents. |