In complete disbelief

My neighbour is someone I owe this angst filled post to. B, let's call her that, is the kind of woman and mother I hope I will never be. Infact, I am terribly sure I won't be anything like her so I needn't worry. I have known the family for little more than a year when we moved in to our new home and given that we have young children, we all hang out together in their lawn or ours while the kids play together often. So we sometimes offer them chai and snacks when they comeover and we have had a few meals together. My conversations with her have gone little beyond rantings about food, how busy she is, daycare etc. She and I come from vastly different backgrounds but I admire that she works hard, and that is something I admire anyway. She has, on many occasions, given me absolutely uncalled for advice on my cooking coz I guess in her mind, she is a much better cook. I have gracefully smiled and politely said things like we must understand different people like different things and the like when I should've smacked her every time with the sunday newspaper. I don't like her parenting choices on many different levels but that is something I make a mental note of to myself and sometimes tell the husband about the odd thing. The elder kid eats only processed food, the younger one was formula fed from day one, she has told me that pumping is bad for the mother's health (when she knows I did that), the elder kid of five years is terribly behaved and they just give him empty threats, just a lot of things that are just wrong for me coz they aren't choices I agree with but i would NEVER tell another mother what to do with her child as that is not my business.



Unless it is made my business.Let me explain. A couple of days ago, the kids were playing together in the backyard and I busy working on a presentation when the husband, B and the kids all came in and starting playing inside. I heard the commotion and even though I wouldn't be able to work now, I was happy that the kids were having a great time. The husband said that I wd have to be excused as I was working. After a while I heard the elder kid going back and forth from the bathroom right next to my study and came out as he and his mother were talking loudly and that was disturbing me. I heard the mom ask him why he was taking so long. Then I came out and made some tea for everyone and the husband served some snacks that he had made (yes, he is a great cook) and she started doling out advice to him as well!! Anyway, we were all sitting around and chit-chatting when I noticed that the 5 year old had snapped and broken a bell from a beautiful Gurjari cluster of bells I have, that I have carted all the way from India, was constantly opening the refrigerator and opening the kitchen drawers and taking out my spoons and ladles. I was now getting a bit upset and asked him what he was looking for, just so that the parents would notice and say something. To which all they did was ask him not to do it. That's all!! They didn't offer to fix the bell! They didn't ash him to step back. Basically they didn't ask him to BEHAVE. Then after they left, guess what I found he had done? He had smudged my lipstick all over the bathroom wall!!! I was so shocked that I just sat still wondering what kind of behavior this was and why kids do such a thing. Z, the he, asked me to be cool and we decided to just talk to them very nicely about it.



This was troubling me so much that I called my mom to talk about it coz I was extremely upset about his behavior. That a five year old who has been taught manners knows better.