So who is in the wrong here? ..part 2.

This may affect lots of people, parents and grandparents, who are looking after and entertaining young kids in the school holidays.

This happened to me a week or so ago, I think I was right, someone I spoke to said I shouldn't have made an issue of it.
What do you think?

So I took 2 young kids to the park, there are swings in the play area. As we walked into the area I noticed there were only a couple of swings for older kids, a woman was perched on one obviously keeping it occupied till her kid decided to play on it.
There were lots of children in the park (it was a nice day) we walked round with our two, the older one playing on other stuff, the younger one just wanting a turn on the swings.
I went and stood behind a couple of children waiting for a turn on the swings. One child soon got off, the next kid took his turn.
The woman who had been sat on the swing earlier (about 20 minutes or so) her child was still hogging the swing....This is a public park, meant for ALL kids to take turns.
So after a few minutes I said politely to the woman (who was engrossed in her phone completely ignoring her kid)  "Your daughter has had a long time on the swing, dont you think it's time someone else had a turn now?"  Well she didn't, and it turned into something of a row.....though obviously I was very retrained (she less so)

But should I have kept my mouth shut? would you??

She was in the wrong and she knew it which was why she got angry over such a small issue.
Nutshell: she had no real answer for you so she got annoyed.

eddie wrote:She was in the wrong and she knew it which was why she got angry over such a small issue.
Nutshell: she had no real answer for you so she got annoyed.

Thank you Eddie....the voice of reason, would you have spoken out in that situation?

It irritates me when people dont play fair, especially where kids are concerned.
Afterwards I thought to myself I should have said she was showing her daughter a good example of how not to share with other children.

Some how this is how I picture the events at the park that day  

Think she even looks a tad like you Syl  with the long dark hair in the dress. No idea what the actress name is though




Whislt I watched on the sidelines

phildidge wrote:Some how this is how I picture the events at the park that day  

Think she even looks a tad like you Syl  with the long dark hair in the dress. No idea what the actress name is though




Whislt I watched on the sidelines

Very funny.

Actually one bloke, a little boys dad, did watch from the sidelines, and it was his son who had been waiting even longer than my charge that rightly got on the swing. So in effect I argued for his kids benefit really.....but typical male, he just looked the other way and pretended he didn't see or hear anything.

Syl wrote:

phildidge wrote:Some how this is how I picture the events at the park that day  

Think she even looks a tad like you Syl  with the long dark hair in the dress. No idea what the actress name is though




Whislt I watched on the sidelines

Very funny.

Actually one bloke, a little boys dad, did watch from the sidelines, and it was his son who had been waiting even longer than my charge that rightly got on the swing. So in effect I argued for his kids benefit really.....but typical male, he just looked the other way and pretended he didn't see or hear anything.

Syl wrote:This may affect lots of people, parents and grandparents, who are looking after and entertaining young kids in the school holidays.

This happened to me a week or so ago, I think I was right, someone I spoke to said I shouldn't have made an issue of it.
What do you think?

So I took 2 young kids to the park, there are swings in the play area. As we walked into the area I noticed there were only a couple of swings for older kids, a woman was perched  on one obviously keeping it occupied till her kid decided to play on it.
There were lots of children in the park (it was a nice day) we walked round with our two, the older one playing on other stuff, the younger one just wanting a turn on the swings.
I went and stood behind a couple of children waiting for a turn on the swings. One child soon got off, the next kid took his turn.
The woman who had been sat on the swing earlier (about 20 minutes or so) her child was still hogging the swing....This is a public park, meant for ALL kids to take turns.
So after a few minutes I said politely to the woman (who was engrossed in her phone completely ignoring her kid)  "Your daughter has had a long time on the swing, dont you think it's time someone else had a turn now?"  Well she didn't, and it turned into something of a row.....though obviously I was very retrained (she less so)

But should I have kept my mouth shut? would you??

no i would not have kept my mouth shut (i'm not capable of it)

after noticing the mother hogging the swing for her kid i would probably have ignored the mother and just said to the kid ''ok, you've had a long turn now, can you let someone else have a go''. i've done that in parks when mine were younger. if the parent makes an issue (which they never did) i'd tell them i'm only doing what you should have done but didn't

i remember taking my youngest to a theme park when he was younger. he was diagnosed with autism and was only about 4-5 and simply could not understand the concept of waiting his turn. he would go down the water slide, get out of the water and march back up the steps, past all the waiting kids, to have another go. i had to chase him time after time and bring him back down to wait till it was his go. he didn't like it but tough

phildidge wrote:Some how this is how I picture the events at the park that day  

Think she even looks a tad like you Syl  with the long dark hair in the dress. No idea what the actress name is though

mwah hahahaha excellent

go on syl, get her, pull her hair out

gelico wrote:

Syl wrote:This may affect lots of people, parents and grandparents, who are looking after and entertaining young kids in the school holidays.

This happened to me a week or so ago, I think I was right, someone I spoke to said I shouldn't have made an issue of it.
What do you think?

So I took 2 young kids to the park, there are swings in the play area. As we walked into the area I noticed there were only a couple of swings for older kids, a woman was perched  on one obviously keeping it occupied till her kid decided to play on it.
There were lots of children in the park (it was a nice day) we walked round with our two, the older one playing on other stuff, the younger one just wanting a turn on the swings.
I went and stood behind a couple of children waiting for a turn on the swings. One child soon got off, the next kid took his turn.
The woman who had been sat on the swing earlier (about 20 minutes or so) her child was still hogging the swing....This is a public park, meant for ALL kids to take turns.
So after a few minutes I said politely to the woman (who was engrossed in her phone completely ignoring her kid)  "Your daughter has had a long time on the swing, dont you think it's time someone else had a turn now?"  Well she didn't, and it turned into something of a row.....though obviously I was very retrained (she less so)

But should I have kept my mouth shut? would you??

no i would not have kept my mouth shut (i'm not capable of it)

after noticing the mother hogging the swing for her kid i would probably have ignored the mother and just said to the kid ''ok, you've had a long turn now, can you let someone else have a go''.  i've  done that in parks when mine were younger.  if the parent makes an issue (which they  never did) i'd tell them i'm only doing what you should have done but didn't

i remember taking my youngest to a theme park when he was younger.  he was diagnosed with autism and was only about 4-5 and simply could not understand the concept of waiting his turn.  he would go down the water slide, get out of the water and march back up the steps, past all the waiting kids, to have another go.  i had to chase him time after time and bring him back down to wait till it was his go.  he didn't like it but tough

Your way may have worked out better, but somehow I think this woman would have had a lot to say no matter what had been said.

She  kept repeating that her girl would stay on the swing till she wanted to get off it herself, she had such a sense of entitlement about her, it was her little girl who then asked to get off the swing herself...and the mother kept saying to her 'stay on it for longer if you want'.
Basically she was just a crap mother who wanted to concentrate on her phone in peace.

The way you acted with your own son is the right way to teach children how to share, unfortunately not every mum is as fair as you are. x

Syl wrote:

eddie wrote:She was in the wrong and she knew it which was why she got angry over such a small issue.
Nutshell: she had no real answer for you so she got annoyed.

Thank you Eddie....the voice of reason, would you have spoken out in that situation?

It irritates me when people dont play fair, especially where kids are concerned.
Afterwards I thought to myself I should have said she was showing her daughter a good example of how not to share with other children.

Hell yes I’d have spoken out! I’d have also asked her why she was getting so angry.
That normally stumps angry people.

You had every right to speak up, and you were polite from the sound of it. She had no right to be angry; fair is fair.

Syl wrote:

gelico wrote:


no i would not have kept my mouth shut (i'm not capable of it)

after noticing the mother hogging the swing for her kid i would probably have ignored the mother and just said to the kid ''ok, you've had a long turn now, can you let someone else have a go''.  i've  done that in parks when mine were younger.  if the parent makes an issue (which they  never did) i'd tell them i'm only doing what you should have done but didn't

i remember taking my youngest to a theme park when he was younger.  he was diagnosed with autism and was only about 4-5 and simply could not understand the concept of waiting his turn.  he would go down the water slide, get out of the water and march back up the steps, past all the waiting kids, to have another go.  i had to chase him time after time and bring him back down to wait till it was his go.  he didn't like it but tough

Your way may have worked out better, but somehow I think this woman would have had a lot to say no matter what had been said.

She  kept repeating that her girl would stay on the swing till she wanted to get off it herself, she had such a sense of entitlement about her, it was her little girl who then asked to get off the swing herself...and the mother kept saying to her 'stay on it for longer if you want'.
Basically she was just a crap mother who wanted to concentrate on her phone in peace.

The way you acted with your own son is the right way to teach children how to share, unfortunately not every mum is as fair as you are. x

thanks syl

i might add that the situation only occurred no more than 3-4 times in all the times i took my kids to the park and i would always say it nicely with a smile. i would also smile at the mum and just say is that ok? with a smile on my face, by which time their kid had got off anyways. i kind of think that if you make it clear to the other person that you assume they're fine with it then they find it difficult not to be, even if they might feel like saying something, they didn't

there's always arseholes though and your woman sounds just the type. she would probably have reacted just the same to me and my niceness and i probably wouldn't get into a confrontation for too long in front of the kids as my mouth has a bad habit of running away with me when i come up against arseholes. with some people you just know it's a waste of time and energy to try and reason

i would make it clear both to her, her child and my own child that this was not acceptable civilised behaviour

gelico wrote:

Syl wrote:

Your way may have worked out better, but somehow I think this woman would have had a lot to say no matter what had been said.

She  kept repeating that her girl would stay on the swing till she wanted to get off it herself, she had such a sense of entitlement about her, it was her little girl who then asked to get off the swing herself...and the mother kept saying to her 'stay on it for longer if you want'.
Basically she was just a crap mother who wanted to concentrate on her phone in peace.

The way you acted with your own son is the right way to teach children how to share, unfortunately not every mum is as fair as you are. x

thanks syl

i might add that the situation only occurred no more than 3-4 times in all the times i took my kids to the park and i would always say it nicely with a smile.  i would also smile at the mum and just say is that ok? with a smile on my face, by which time their kid had got off anyways.  i kind of think that if you make it clear to the other person that you assume they're fine with it then they find it difficult not to be, even if they might feel like saying something, they didn't

there's always arseholes though and your woman sounds just the type.  she would probably have reacted just the same to me and my niceness and i probably wouldn't get into a confrontation for too long in front of the kids as my mouth has a bad habit of running away with me when i come up against arseholes.  with some people you just know it's a waste of time and energy to try and reason

i would make it clear both to her, her child and my own child that this was not acceptable civilised behaviour

I dont think it happens a lot Gels, most kids soon want to move on and play on other things in a park, and most  mums like to see fair play for their own and other kids.
I think the way you would have handled it is spot on....I made the mistake of thinking she would be reasonable.

When she started arguing (pretty loudly too in front of the kids) I just said.....OK, if you think it's fair your little girl has hogged the swing for so long that's that......I left it there, and the kid then asked to get off  herself.

I have seen notices in some parks requesting children to move off the swings etc after 10 minutes if other children are waiting. Pity this park didn't have that..

You were in the right Syl. I would've been less restrained and asked the kid to get off, if mum said no I would've ended up in a row with her. No kid should hog the swing, unfair to other kids.

Good job, Syl.  I wish Democrats weren't such timid snowflakes.  But that's another point.

I agree with you, of course.  It's the classic: should I say something, or should I bite my tongue?  I think life tells us that confrontation cleanses.  Of course you are exposing yourself, but right is right.

One of the things I like about you is your forthrightness and strength.  Here again, you vindicate my faith in you.

Syl wrote:This may affect lots of people, parents and grandparents, who are looking after and entertaining young kids in the school holidays.

This happened to me a week or so ago, I think I was right, someone I spoke to said I shouldn't have made an issue of it.
What do you think?

So I took 2 young kids to the park, there are swings in the play area. As we walked into the area I noticed there were only a couple of swings for older kids, a woman was perched  on one obviously keeping it occupied till her kid decided to play on it.
There were lots of children in the park (it was a nice day) we walked round with our two, the older one playing on other stuff, the younger one just wanting a turn on the swings.
I went and stood behind a couple of children waiting for a turn on the swings. One child soon got off, the next kid took his turn.
The woman who had been sat on the swing earlier (about 20 minutes or so) her child was still hogging the swing....This is a public park, meant for ALL kids to take turns.
So after a few minutes I said politely to the woman (who was engrossed in her phone completely ignoring her kid)  "Your daughter has had a long time on the swing, dont you think it's time someone else had a turn now?"  Well she didn't, and it turned into something of a row.....though obviously I was very retrained (she less so)

But should I have kept my mouth shut? would you??

You were in the right, but as a man I would never say something like that to a woman. I doubt most women from around here would either. They might make smart assed comments and roll their eyes, but such a direct confrontation isn't usually done here.

Thanks Mags, Quill and Maddog, I'm glad other people agree.
I just like fair play, even when it's something as simple as giving and taking on a play park,  sometimes, if it's not given, you have to speak out.