12.06.2006

We Encourage Diversity!

We Encourage Diversity!

I wonder if anyone at last night's Iron Gate parent ed meeting witnessed my face going completely WTF.

I had little enough patience for their "respect your child and get on your child's level" chat after a day in which my main parenting concern was preventing Leelo from seriously injuring his sisters and himself (aww, the boy's first drop-and-bolt into oncoming traffic!), but really lost control of any facade when another parent made a blatantly and most likely ignorantly hostile statement about another, new mom (A.), who wasn't present.

The issue is that A.'s son doesn't speak English yet, so A. has been staying with him in his brand new all-freeplay class and talking to him the entire time in both English and a language which is Not English (which language, it doesn't matter). I am guessing that, like so many other parents of first-born two-year-old children, A. is doing her best to help him transition to a new environment, and away from her.

I have always thought that what we say to our own children is our own business, even if other people are nearby. But apparently the ignorantly hostile mom doesn't agree, to the extent that she was comfortable telling a group of parents (including other families whose primary language is not English) that she "felt very uncomfortable around A. and thinks she should translate what she is saying to her son."

I told the ignorantly hostile mom that if she wanted to know what A. was saying, she could ask her. But the rest of the class didn't say anything, except G.--also a non-primarily-English-speaking mom--who apologized to the class for not speaking in English to her son around them! GAAAAAH!

If the offending mom had been two years old we would have told her that there was a nicer way to express her feelings. I am worried that the class is not being very welcoming to A.'s family. I have written to both G. (to tell her that her apology was not necessary) and to the teacher to express my concerns, do-gooder liberal fuckface muckracker that I am.

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