I woke up today thinking about a scene from a novel that one of the members in my writers group is workshopping with us. He has this chapter where his character just cleans up his new house in the most natural and comforting way. So, I hopped out of bed and started cleaning and cooking and then cleaning some more. My house is spotless (well, not really, but close enough). I could dare to say it was almost a boring day, except the kid that cursed my daughter in the park later tonight.
Oh, yes, kids these days are such angels. I used to love working with children; I think it was one of my favorite jobs from the many I had, and sometimes I find myself smiling and winking at them in the park. Today, as I stood there watching this kid calling my daughter: “Bambino di merda!”, I glanced at his mother that burst into laughter and then, after seeing the contradictory look on my face, just slapped her kid over his mouth.
My anger switched from the child to his mother. This scene reminded me of a little boy I had in my English class, back when I used to teach at preschool. He was adorable and an excellent learner, but when it came to manners, you wished you could kill him. On a particular morning, he thought it would be very funny if he would call me names; you know, those nice pet names like: “Bitch” or “ Cunt” and in the end he just resumed to “Fuck you!”. I remember my brain imploding and then spitting out images with the little boy tortured and slammed into the walls. But my body did nothing. I chose to ignore him and all the other children in my class followed my example.
After refusing to let him participate to anymore of my classes, his parents came at the preschool the next day, barking at me. I calmly explained the situation and they denied the fact that their kid knew those words or, even worse, use them. After talking to his mother for twenty minutes, his father, a rather large man, overly accessorized with gold chains, came to me and said: “My kid is fucking perfect and he doesn’t talk the way you are suggesting he does; so just give up bitch and let him learn.You fucking teachers, you think you know it all, but in fact you are all assholes, full of shit.” And so I smiled, excused myself politely, not before saying, that indeed it was my fault but in any case their child won’t be in my class anymore.
So, as I was saying before, children are such angels, but parents are such pieces of shit sometimes.
