Culture Clash
Aug. 31st, 2005 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beetigerUsually people at the local playgrounds are civil, if vague to each other. The kids play, people come and go, they chat about the kids talking and walking and when they go to bed and things like that.
But yesterday I saw my first big fight between two moms. A stereotypical "soccer mom" type and her two boys were playing in the park with us, the usual, when a rambunctious clan of kids,all with long hair (boys and girls) some of which were really too old for that section of the park, came barreling in. The two moms nearby looked rather "not from around here": big bleached blond hair, tight T-shirts and shorts, a stereotypical "white trash" kind of look. The two and a half year old girl with them was topless.The first mom commented on it to me negatively, and I responded that sometimes we all wish we could get away with that, it this weather, but that I heard her on thinking it might not be appropriate.
They jumped around boisterously for a while, and then the large group of kids headed to the upper (big kids) section of the park. Rhys followed them, fascinated, even though we never go up there, and he jumped with them on the seesaws and climbed the way too big slide and was just enthralled. Turns out they were homeschooling families, and the kids were actually very sweet and careful with Rhys. But apparently, they'd "terrorrized" the two boys from the first family, and the mom had told them to "Get the hell away from my kids" and "Don't touch my boys".
Rhys chased them all around the tennis courts and the adult exercise bars too. The little girl nursed a lot, and never put her clothes back on, had lost the shirt somewhere earlier in the day. I liked them, even if I couldn't figure out whether they were fundamentalist homeschoolers or hippie ones. They were fun to talk to, though, and gentle. One of their shirts said "WISDOM" on it. (Rhys was wearing a Witchlet shirt.)
By the end of the afternoon, the older longhaired boys were growling playfully at the military-groomed ones, and the latter were mock screaming but not actually afraid anymore, while both sets of moms told them to get away from each other.
I'm not sure either of the families was really my style, but I found it really refreshing to see someone so different in style at our playground. We freaks are out there, somewhere.
But yesterday I saw my first big fight between two moms. A stereotypical "soccer mom" type and her two boys were playing in the park with us, the usual, when a rambunctious clan of kids,all with long hair (boys and girls) some of which were really too old for that section of the park, came barreling in. The two moms nearby looked rather "not from around here": big bleached blond hair, tight T-shirts and shorts, a stereotypical "white trash" kind of look. The two and a half year old girl with them was topless.The first mom commented on it to me negatively, and I responded that sometimes we all wish we could get away with that, it this weather, but that I heard her on thinking it might not be appropriate.
They jumped around boisterously for a while, and then the large group of kids headed to the upper (big kids) section of the park. Rhys followed them, fascinated, even though we never go up there, and he jumped with them on the seesaws and climbed the way too big slide and was just enthralled. Turns out they were homeschooling families, and the kids were actually very sweet and careful with Rhys. But apparently, they'd "terrorrized" the two boys from the first family, and the mom had told them to "Get the hell away from my kids" and "Don't touch my boys".
Rhys chased them all around the tennis courts and the adult exercise bars too. The little girl nursed a lot, and never put her clothes back on, had lost the shirt somewhere earlier in the day. I liked them, even if I couldn't figure out whether they were fundamentalist homeschoolers or hippie ones. They were fun to talk to, though, and gentle. One of their shirts said "WISDOM" on it. (Rhys was wearing a Witchlet shirt.)
By the end of the afternoon, the older longhaired boys were growling playfully at the military-groomed ones, and the latter were mock screaming but not actually afraid anymore, while both sets of moms told them to get away from each other.
I'm not sure either of the families was really my style, but I found it really refreshing to see someone so different in style at our playground. We freaks are out there, somewhere.
