Mama Bear

Don’t mess with Mama Bear.

While my eldest is of the smaller persuasion, he is made up of plenty of moxie and sass to compensate.  But even all the gumption in the world couldn’t stop a gang of hardcore first graders from trying to get their fight on with my boy.

As few days prior to the incident, my eldest told me that Meanie #1 and Meanie #2 had been making fun of his name and pushing him around.  In my typical diplomatic manner, I told him to stand up for himself and calmly advise the playground supervisor without whining.  Apparently this was only good advice in theory because the harassment continued unbeknownst to me.  Since my eldest was obviously too cool to be walked into school by mom in the mornings and insisted on a certified drop off, I hadn’t seen the spectacle with my own eyes…until one particular January morning. 

Picture it, January 2009: 

I walked my eldest into school the old-fashioned way to reclaim the 3 jackets hiding in Lost and Found.  Before heading back to my car, something inside me told me to sneak a peek on my boy just to make sure things were copasetic.  I spotted him off in the distance being circled by a hoodlum posse of gigantic first graders.  As I got closer I could hear them taunting him and I witnessed things beginning to get physical.  I immediately looked around for a person of playground authority because I was feeling so hot-blooded that I was honestly afraid of what I might do to one or all of these vultures.  There was no one.  I took a deep breath, I had to go in.  “Hey!” I shouted in my most frightening tone, “What do you think you’re doing?”  I was met with a bunch of “Uh, well, we were just joking” lines of bull and I cut the tallest one off, “Yeah, no.  You are done with this.  This is NEVER happening again”, and then I pierced through them with my dagger stare of death.  They were scared as hell from my devil horns and fire in my eyes that they got the hell outta Dodge right quick.  I must have been delusional to think my eldest would appreciate being rescued from that motley crew, instead I heard, “Moooooommmmm!  Ugh, great!” complete with an eye roll and a heavy sigh.  Whatever kid, at least you lived to see another day.

Perhaps popular wisdom would say that I should have allowed him to handle the situation himself but this had been going on for days and the fact of the matter was, he wasn’t handling it.  Big Daddy P was of the mind that our eldest needed to push them back and scream in their face.  I think a methodical combination of both of our solutions could have solve the problem without parental involvement but our kids walk a fine line between standing up for themselves and winding up in the principal’s office.  How does a good kid stand up for themselves when his plea to the playground supervisor goes unnoticed? 

It’s easy as a protective Mommy Friend to hate on these little hooligans and secretly blame their parents for their aggressive behavior; I mean somebody has to be responsible, right?  It just so happens in this case that the ringleader of the first grade gang happened to have the nicest parents ever, so then what?

In the end, I couldn’t help it.  It’s my job as a Mommy Friend to make sure my kid is safe and happy.  If I’ve gotta take out a couple naughty kids along the way, I’m prepared to do that.

So my eldest is a bit of an angel which makes him an easy target for big bad bullies.  As for what the future holds my other son, Little BooBoo, I am aware enough to realize that he may well be on the receiving end of another Mommy Friend’s rage once he reaches school-age.  And that Mama Bear will surely blame me for his offensive behavior, I can only hope that Mama Bear is a Mommy Friend, fingers crossed.