Cranky Mommy

Recently we’ve been going to a new playground at the local elementary school. It’s brand spanking new and pretty nice, and just a few blocks away. But it does have it’s drawbacks. Some are the type you’d want your kids to play with and some are the kind you wouldn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole. Not to say that there is inherently anything wrong with the Hampden neighborhood kids that my son might play with… at this young age they aren’t all that different. It’s some of the parents.
There’s been so much gentrification in the our neighborhood that frequently you will see on the playground the progressive, semi-hippie, or upwardly mobile yuppie types parents and their kids. Like the gentrification or not, the kids and their parents are generally pretty nice. And you will see those born and bred in Hamdpen that are genuinely good parents, and their kids. And THEN you see what we call the Hampden “Stroller Girls”.
The typical stroller girl gets pregnant at a very early age, because all of her friends are doing it. 14 isn’t too young. She likes to walk down “The Avenue” (36th Street, the main drag) pushing her stroller showing as much skin the weather will allow, with the lowest cut short-shorts (or tight jeans with something written on the butt), bottle in one hand, cigarette in the other (I think the Stroller Girl thinks it looks sexy). She likes to hang out on the corner to flirt with the guys or show off her new baby. The typical “Stroller Girl” never talks to her child, she always hollers as if the child is deaf or 40 feet away. They carry a very hard look on their faces that makes them look prematurely old.
So…
This past weekend we went to the playground at the elementary. There were just a few kids and parents there. Two kids on the playground, I couldn’t figure out who they belonged to. The one boy who looked to be 5 and didn’t hardly a thing like the other who looked barely 3. The two boys hardly acknowledged each other, playing independently. I asked the other parents on the playground if the kids were theirs, and they said no. I asked the 3-year-old where his mom was and I couldn’t get an answer that I could understand, it was too garbled. The 5-year-old ignored me.
Finally the playground had emptied out and it was only my son on the playground and these two kids and NO parents. I looked across the street to see if there was a parent sitting on their front porch watching them from a distance but I didn’t see anyone. I was beginning to think I was going to have to call the police. Finally their mother pushes her stroller up to the playground. The 3-year-old ran up to her saying “Mommy Mommy” and the 6 year old kept playing. She looked in a bad mood and yelled at the 6-year-old for, of all things, walking up the slide. She had a infant girl in her stroller. She couldn’t have been much more than 20, with three kids.
Soon she was joined by her friend and her little girl. The friend had the letters “Be Be” across the butt of her tight jeans. Her daughter, who looked to be 8, was dressed a little like a Bratz doll, and her bra strap hung down her shoulder from under her tank shirt.
I sat on the bench in awe of this woman leaving her very young kids unattended. Perhaps she was watching them from a stoop somewhere I didn’t see, but I doubt it. I was tempted to open my big mouth and give her a tongue-lashing but for once I kept my foot out of my mouth. Which was totally smart. These women scare me. They are tough girls and don’t like outsiders telling them what to do.
I know some nice kids that will go to this school, but I I have no doubts that THIS mom and the other “Stroller Girls” will send children there. And that is reason #1, #2 and perhaps reason #3 my child will not be going to school here, at our zoned elementary.

This really is pretty anticlimatic at this point, but I will announce it anyway - we have come to the decision to stay in our house. After a good bit of deliberation about the fact that we really like our neighbors and the (mostly) quietness of our street, and that we can nearly walk to everything, and that due to some of my volunteer work, my son has a guaranteed spot at a nearby charter school.
This of course means we will have to go through the process of finding a contractor for an addition and half bath, to work with that we like at a price that we like. (That could take another 20 years, knowing indecisive me).
So, we will put up with this tight space for another year or so and add on. However I really can’t feel sorry for myself…
…because I just read this woman’s story. She and her husband have 10 children, including four brand new quadruplets, and a set of three-year-old of triplets… when the babies come home they will have a total 11 people living in a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles (The oldest daughter got out of there… lucky her)!
I’d hate to be pent up on a rainy day with 9 kids. Good thing it doesn’t rain a lot in Los Angeles.

I found a new way to feel superior, and waste time at the same time. I go to the Yahoo Answers “Pregnancy and Parenting”.
Sometimes I just read and cringe. Or giggle. Questions like,

if u have ur period on time every month u r not pregnant ??!!?

or

any buetiful names for gals am expecting , help?

or

my son is drinking soy milk !do you think that’s the reason that’s why his fart smell very bad?

or

my six months baby fell from a sofa?

My god, these people are procreating!!!! Not all of them are that bad, but a lot of them are.
Sometimes I answer questions. Not that I am a big parenting genius, but really it doesn’t take much to have something to offer. And although I misspell words sometimes, reading this stuff, I feel like Shakespeare.
If this is the future, we just might be doomed.

To the idiots who drove their cars and S.U.V.s up the WALKING path at Linkwood Park:
A-duh, It’s a WALKING path.
And, when someone tells you nicely You will get a ticket for parking IN the park, that really means:
Get your EXTREMELY lazy butt back in your vehicle, drive it back down the WALKING path, then walk up the path like everyone else. And try not to run over any toddlers on your way out.

No offense to you people in Arkansas, but what’s in the water over there? This woman is nuts.

Check the last line of the article:

Richardson said her due date is June 25. She plans to make her next parachute jump in August.

I think her surgeon forgot to tighten a few screws.