Reply to Bringing your own toys to the playground-what's the etiquette?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Op here.  Bottom line (for me) is that I slug it out with my 18 month old all day, every day. Tbere is a lot of boundary setting and testing of said boundaries.  Our playground is a safe and fun place where he can run and I can relax a little bit as well.  It's not like I can sit around and text, and I'm still on him a little (use the stairs, don't walk up the slide!), but overall we mutually love playground time. I was annoyed because the pair brought an off-limits object to a place that is normally a place where I don't have to say "no" as frequently, and all of a sudden I have to go back into high toddler vigilance mode. [/quote]

OP, NP here. I hear this! My kids have been on all sides of this interaction at different ages. My spouse (who SAH, and so is in this position a lot) talks this way too, like the vigilance is so constant that he really values the few places he can let his guard down. Here's the thing from my perspective though--I think he can be overvigilant, and I think you were in this case. This is one I would have put at least partly on the other dad.  I don't think he needed to leave the toy home, but I do think he should have managed his kid with more skill, and understood that bringing a coveted toy along with a jealous toddler to a play area would create situations he couldn't ignore his way out of. It's nice that he wants to go to a public area and play with his kid like nobody else was there, but he has to deal with the fact that it's a public place and others ARE there.  He has to manage his kid's age-appropriate unreasonableness everywhere he goes, just like I have to manage mine's. What neither of us have to do is manage the OTHER's kid.  He shirked his duty to interact with you to mitigate the situation, and you took on too much responsibility for his parenting and came to resent him for a decision you made.

I can see wanting to manage your own kid when someone else isn't managing theirs, to avoid social conflict with the other parent, but understand that that was your choice to make.  I can't think of a time I ever took on the full burden of both of our parenting by being the only vigilant parent and letting the total stranger family have free rein over the public space while my kid is the only one with limits. esp with those age differences when it's so easily managed because the attention spans and distractibility are so different.  My kids at 18mo would just have wanted a brief interaction and then be happy to go on to the next thing (as heavily redirected by me). What drove my kids mad at that age was restrictions on their behavior of the type you were imposing.  Jealousy and not wanting to share is more what drives 3yos mad.  It's on that other dad that he didn't know/remember that "babies" like an 18mo can be managed much more easily by working with the other parent to redirect the younger kid than by ignoring them. Doesn't exactly make him wrong and you right, but it does make him a crappy citizen of the playground :)[/quote]

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