Gratifying - but also concerning

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The other day I was at a social event with many other families. It was outdoors and at the start it was raining, so most people had come with raincoats etc. but then in the course of the afternoon the weather brightened up. Children were playing in the garden but of course it was a bit muddy. At one point I was chatting to another woman who was the mother of a daughter of a similar age to Little One. As we chatted, she was complaining about her daughter’s behaviour, and just then said daughter appeared carrying her extremely muddy coat. Saying brusquely ‘Look after this’ she basically flung it in the general direction of her mother so that it fell on the ground. Her mother said ‘Can you pick that up please?’ but the daughter just ran off without a backward glance. ‘It’s the rudeness I can’t stand’ said the mother. ‘The rudeness! Does it ever get any better?' About five minutes later - sadly after we had each moved on to talk to other people - Little One came up to me with her coat - still clean - and handing it over asked ‘Please can you look after this Mum? Thank you!’ If only she had done that a few minutes sooner I would love to have seen the other woman’s face. I wanted to tell her it was her job to make sure her child’s behaviour did get better, but it’s not socially acceptable to say that sort of thing of course! But if parents don’t teach their children acceptable behaviour, who do they think is going to do it? All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2021.