Parenting 101
I saved four children from almost certain death this weekend. Twice.
Saturday morning I went down to the weight room at our apartment complex. I opened the door (which, by the way, is locked and you need to know a four-digit access code to get in) and foud four children, all under the age of 7, including one that couldn’t have been more than 4, playing around on the weight machines. Not an adult in sight. At first, this was merely annoying. You know, screaming contests. Making the lat machine squeak. Running on the treadmill until they almost fell off.
Then the lat machine got stuck. The genius kids, without adult supervision, decided they would try fixing it by pulling down the weights with their hands. This would have resulted in about 80 pounds falling straight on their hands and breaking them, if not amputating them off at the wrists.
So I stopped them and fixed the lat machine before they became handicapped. Once they left, I left for the blissful silence of the other gym.
Ah, peace.
On my way back to the apartment, I walked by the pool outside the weight room. Naturally, the pool isn’t open yet - in fact, there is a fence around it and the gate is padlocked. But for aesthetic purposes, they’ve left the pool uncovered for the winter. And who had discovered the pool but my four little friends? They had climbed over the fence (nearly falling headfirst on the concrete deck on the other side of said fence) and I found them running around the edge of the deep end of the pool, "testing" the water with their hands.
Again, not one of these children is over the age of 7.
I scolded them with my best Scary Adult scold, explaining to them they weren’t allowed in the pool area. And then, once they left, I marched straight to the rental office with the intent of alerting the rental agents so our complex wasn’t faced with a lawsuit when the maintenance man had to fish a few bodies out of the pool. I knocked on the office door and addressed the more authoritative-looking agent lady.
Me: "Excuse me. I just wanted to let you know there are a bunch of little kids playing around the far pool."
Agent lady: "Oh, they’re my kids. They’re over there."
Me: (I turn around to see them ripping through the lounge area of the resident center, glass vases and lamps clattering precariously in the whiplash).
Agent lady: "They know not to go near the pool."
Me: "Oh, I saw them inside the fence playing in the water."
Agent lady: "Oh, they know not to play around the pool."
Me: "… Okay. Okay. Well, good thing they’re inside now. Well, I just wanted to let someone know just in case."
I am not a confrontational person (can’t you tell?), but this made me really mad. Yeah, I’m not trying to tell you how to raise your kids. Yeah, it’s a bummer when you have to work on Saturday and you can’t find a sitter (or the father of your four children). Yeah, I get a children-friendly work environment. But then you sit your kids down with about 17 coloring books at the desk next to you. You bring them a board game (without dice and other small objects!) and put it on the floor in the next room. You at least keep them in the same building as you. And no, you do not believe them when your four-year old says "I no play in da pool, Mommy" unless you make him wear a helmet, floaties, a life vest, flippers, and carry a whistle.
So I’m thinking about being a real stickler and telling the upper management.
Seriously. What an idiot.
