It was really very like the time I smoked a cigar

[ailbhe]

Yesterday in the playground...

Well, yesterday I was having a truly terrible day. I was tired, Emer was tired, Linnea was tired and cranky. So when Maria called and invited us to the park I was delighted. I got us all fully and properly dressed - at something tedious in the afternoon - and we went.

(Our street has been extended now and run into the new housing development in which the new playground has been built; this is convenient for access and irritating because of the extra traffic on the roads. At some point I will become agitated enough to agitate for proper pedestrian crossings on Beresford Road in particular. Grr.)

In the playground, Linnea and Louis went that way and Emer and Phoebe went that way and all was shrieking, running around almost hitting people with sticks, etc. Then another family arrived and played too. A boy climbed the climbing frame and got his trousers caught on it, ending up hanging from it shouting for help - that was fine, his mother helped him. His slightly smaller sister climbed up to the top of it and was just wondering whether to go over the top or come back down when her mother scolded her anxiously and guided her feet down. After that, she played in the baby section (where teenagers were climbing on the roofs of the climbing frame, must try that some day).

Maria and I remarked to each other that we were watching gender socialisation in action. It was, well, remarkable.

I was sufficiently irritated by it that instead of sticking to the zip-slide as I usually do, I also climbed the climbing frame and put all the kids in the roundabout and span it so fast I felt queasy.

Emer loved it. I didn't.

But I don't like feeling told what to do. I don't like the idea that little girls this and little boys that, when no-one has a control-group raised in a gender-neutral bubble to compare with. I really hate it when it means a competent girl climber isn't allowed to go where a less competent boy climber was encouraged to go.

Grr, bah.

Also, the little girl's shoes were too small; she took them off later and wiggled her toes at me. Her feet were longer than the outsides of her shoes.

Metaphor.

Comments

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

Now you mention it, Kate & Holls were the only girls on the climbing frame yesterday. Kate can go to the top & Holls can go up 1 & a bit ropes as her arms & legs aren't long enough yet to get up to the second bit.

I whizzed Holls & myself very fast on the roundabout & felt very sick. No idea why I put myself through that.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

You are such a good writer. That last bit about the shoes!

[ailbhe]

Her toes unfurled and waved at me, shouting "HALLO I R METAFOR NOW." I was *so angry*.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

I figure you're a much more kind and diplomatic person than I, for I would've found her mother and told her where she could find charity shoes for her daughter so as to not cripple her like we were living in nineteenth century China. And I wouldn't have done it kindly.

[ailbhe]

Her toes did uncurl, so she can't have been wearing shoes too small for very long - it takes a while to straighten out toes which are normally in shoes or socks which are too small.

I wonder what you'd have done the day Linnea's shoes made her feet bleed and I didn't notice.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

I think it would've depended on if I'd just watched you pull her off of a climbing frame for no apparent reason. Truly, it's all context. In the context you gave, seeing that little girl take off shoes like that would've made me angry.

I'm guessing Linnea's shoes rubbed some tender skin raw, or gave her bloody blisters?

[ailbhe]

I was very angry, but got a good enough look at the girl's feet to see that they were perfectly ok - she really did wiggle her toes at me.

Linnea's shoes chafed her anklebones until they bled. There were no blisters. The shop where they'd been fitted gave me a complete refund and a voucher. And a heartfelt apology. They still remember it, too - the fitter came over to talk to me when I was in getting shoes for Emer!

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

Ahh new shoes, in that case I would've offered you my first aid kit. I know the pain of new shoes that don't give, and rub in bad ways, and I know that can happen over the course of a couple of hours.

In any case, I'd ask, but I still think in too-small's case, I'd have been less charitable than I would've been in Linnea's case. Maybe not. Maybe I'm just unkind.

[velcro-kitten.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, I remember as a medium sized child, having a pair of shoes that I loved so much I insisted on wearing them til I was two sizes bigger - it drove my mum up the wall and I had to hide them in the end, so that she wouldn't confiscate them (fortunately they were clogs, so not too crippling) so....

[ailbhe]

That struck me as a distinct possibility, yeah.

Also, a few years ago, I saw a child in town in plastic high-heels, toes purple with cold; both her siblings had sensible shoes on and it was obvious her mother had said something along the lines of "Wear what you like then, but don't come running to me with frostbite in both feet."

[cabbagemedley.livejournal.com]

When I was six or seven, I distinctly remember telling my mum a big fat lie about a pair of shoes being comfortable in the shop, just because I wanted them so badly. She spotted me hobbling and the truth came out. :( I still feel guilty, absurdly enough - we didn't have the money for shoes that I couldn't actually wear.