Don’t Mess With Momma Bear!

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    This past weekend, I have seen a side of Mom Cliques that even I wasn’t prepared to accept.  Never, in a million years did I expect that their catty and petty ways would ever be directed at any of my children.  Unfortunately, I was wrong.

    As you all know, this past week I was very sick with the flu and pneumonia.  Saturday morning was the first day that I ventured out to my 9 year old son’s basketball tournament championship.  It turned out to be a wonderful morning since they took first place and we got to witness a beautiful awards ceremony.

    That same afternoon, my son’s were invited to the birthday party of another one of the boys on the basketball team.  Since I was still recuperating from being sick, my Father in Law offered to take the boys to the party.  I was very grateful to him and was happy that the boys would have that quality time to spend with their grandfather.

    Later on that evening, I was notified by another parent that an incident had taken place at the party that involved my 9 year old son.  Apparently, what happened was that all the boys were putting money in the arcade games at the party venue.  One of the arcade games involved shooting balls into basketball hoops.  My son took a shot with the ball that another boy had paid for so the other boy pushed my son.  We will refer to that boy and his mother as Boy A and Mom A.  After Boy A pushed my son, my son pushed him back causing him to fall into Boy B.

    The first thing that happened is that Boy B’s mother, Mom B, walked up to my son, put her finger in his face and threatened him by saying, “Touch my son again…”  I consider that a threat because what was she going to do if my son touched him again, give him flowers?  Obviously she was menacing towards my son and I find that completely unacceptable.  She actually told my son this not once but twice.

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    As all of the mothers were sitting together, Mom A proceeded to start gossiping about me stating “Look at that his mother is not even here.”  At no time did she ask anyone who my son had attended the party with and my Father in Law did not witness what was happening because he was in a different area of the venue with my younger son.  She then went on to say that, “This is why I don’t speak to his mother because she thinks that he does no wrong.”  Mind you, my son was standing right there as they carried on and gossiped about our family in front of him…

    Let me backtrack a little to the one and only other experience or run-in that I have ever had with Mom A.  Her son called my son an Fu**ing Motherfu**er last year and lied to the Principal that my son had cursed at him.  That evening, when I called her to discuss the incident, she admitted that her son had confessed what he had said.  I asked her what she thought about a third grader using that kind of language and her response was, “Boys will be boys.”  I find it ironic that she didn’t prescribe to the whole “Boys will be boys” theory on Saturday when her son shoved my son.

    So, no, I don’t think that my son does no wrong.  However, I know that he doesn’t use the kind of language that her son does and yes, I have taught him to hit back when someone puts their hands on him.  I’m sure some might not agree with that but I live in New York City and I am not going to have my sons bullied or victimized by other kids who have hand problems.  My sons know that they are not allowed to put their hands on anyone else but that they are to protect themselves when someone hits them.

    Fast forward to the present, I confronted both mothers via phone calls last night.  I did not have Mom B’s number so I called her husband who is my son’s assistant coach.  I told him that it was unacceptable that his wife threatened my son and did not, at any time, look for his grandfather to have a conversation with him about what had occurred.  One of my points to him was that we don’t have to be friends but we do have to conduct ourselves like adults, especially in front of the children.

    I left a message on Mom A’s phone telling her that I heard she had some comments to make about me and my family and that I wanted to give her an opportunity to explain herself before I “Flew off the handle.”  She called me back a couple of hours later and was immediately on the defensive because she had gotten caught engaging in bad behavior.  Her response was that her son was upset because my son was wasting his money at the arcade machines.  I asked her why she felt the need to gossip about me when she doesn’t know me and we are not friends.  Her only defense was to bring up the cursing incident that took place last year and say that my son has “hand problems.”

    This was just a ridiculous defense to me.  I asked her, “If my son has hand problems, then why is it that you have never come to me to complain about it?”  I also asked her why she didn’t look for his grandfather instead of getting together with Mom B to accost him without his guardian.  She responded that she thought he was at the party alone and that she felt she didn’t have to look for anyone.  That’s exactly the crux of it, these two mothers took complete advantage of the fact that they thought my son was at this event alone to pounce on him without worrying about his father and I being there to protect him.

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    That was just the last straw for me and I told her that she is a gossip with too much free time on her hands who needs to take up some kind of a hobby.  This comment apparently hit a nerve because she asked me to repeat it, which I did and it just made her irate.  I felt like I was witnessing the complete unraveling of a rat caught in the trap.  She then started screaming into the phone for me to keep my son away from her son to which I replied that I told my son that very same thing last year after the cursing incident.  Additionally, she proceeded to rattle off about how she doesn’t have too much free time on her hands and if I only knew all the things she does and blah, blah, blah.  While I was speaking, she hung up the phone on me.

    Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this 4o-something-year-old woman who gossips about people behind their back at kids’ parties and gangs up on little kids with other gossiping moms from the mom clique at school hung up the phone on me like a 15 year old.  As far as Mom B, I only spoke to her husband and she never called me to discuss the issue.  It seems her tough guy ways only apply to threatening 9 year old boys at birthday parties but not to calling that boy’s mother to defend her actions.

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    At the end of the day, I am completely disgusted.  I am disgusted that these women orchestrated this attack on my child deliberately.  I’m disgusted that they are in the Parent’s Guild, Mom A is Captain of the Cheerleaders, Mom B is also involved in school activities and that they both think that this type of behavior is okay.  It’s important that they both understand that, under no circumstances will they ever have another opportunity to commit such a heinous act on either one of my children ever again.  You see, Momma Bear is on the alert and on the attack.  Nobody, and I mean nobody, messes with my kids!

Let’s discuss:  Do you have “Mom Cliques” in your child’s school?  How would you have reacted to this situation as a parent?

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