The Average Blogger : Bah. They'll Probably Wind Up Prom Dates

We went to a bounce house yesterday -- I don't know if you are familiar with these places. They are usually in large industrial parks and are basically rooms about the size of school gyms that have 5 or 6 giant inflatable moonbounces in them.

It is funny to reflect on how my kid operates. I remember being an only child and showing up at places like this, or the pool, or the park, and just hating that I was the only solo player there. It took great gobs of effort for me to find someone else who would talk to me, proceed to playing together, and hopefully wind up with one friend for the day.

The YP is not like this, I don't think. He seems to view it as a great big land of opportunity to convert the uninformed to Star Wars-icism. He is never intimidated by fording his way through a crowd of strangers, and he always comes out the other side with at least two converts to his cause. I have NO idea how he does this.

So it was no surprise that we showed up at this place yesterday and he was very excited and immediately took off running and found two other kids to chase around. Then I noticed that he was sort of circling around two girls who were alternately ignoring him and sort of inviting him to chase them.

At about that moment, NYAB pokes me and says, "Who is that woman? We know her." I had no idea. No recognition whatsoever. But she was looking at us the same way. And she was one of those types that I see around and sort of wonder if that isn't the kind of image NYAB wishes I would present to the world -- instead of jeans and a USC sweatshirt, I should be wearing khakis and muted sage sweaters with the names of exotic lodges and resorts on them, you know? With a perfectly age-appropriate ash blonde ponytail and nice glasses and oh, yeah, did I mention thin? Sigh.

So we spend a few minutes trying to figure it out, but she doesn't come over and I decide I'd feel odd going over to her with her clique of two other moms and be all, "Uhm, hi. Who are you??"

Then the YP took a rough skid on the chin and we called him over to look at it. He was fine and wandered off. At that point, the woman came over and said, "OH! You're the YP's parents! I was at your Halloween party!" Ohhhh.

And it turns out she is the mother of the bossy little brat that Thomas hit. That incident did not come up in our discussion with her, we just talked about other bounce houses in the area and the dearth of imagination we all have when it comes to finding ways for the kids to blow off steam when nobody wants to go outside. Eventually one of her other kids wanted something, and off she went.

Armed with this new info, I watched the YP more carefully and it seemed to me he was operating in peaks and troughs with Bossy Girl. He never went out of his way to be aroundher, but occasionally they'd cross paths and she'd ignore him. He would go find something else to do and she would howl for him to come back. I am pleased to report he largely ignored the howling. Occasionally he would go over, and it was clear she was telling him to chase her. He'd go a few steps, and then as soon as she wasn't looking he'd change course and go do something else. I rather got the impression that he really wanted to play with Bossy Girl's friend, but the friend was of course loyal to BG. The more their paths crossed, though, the more deflated the YP seemed. Eventually we called him over and asked if he wanted to go get lunch and he perked up immediately. "Yes! WITHOUT BOSSY GIRL."

And that was pretty much the course of the rest of the day.
"Did you have fun?"
"Yes, except for the Bossy Girl parts. Why was she there?"
"Well, maybe she needed some exercise too."
"I wish she would have left me alone. I tried to avoid her but she kept calling my name."

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the classroom. I remember when I was the YP's age, I had a similar distaste for this type of person. We called it acting Big. My friend Kirsten and I would have endless discussions about, "Oh, that Deanna. I don't know why she thinks she's in charge. I told her yesterday she should quit Acting Big or nobody would play with her. She told me I should wear shoes with laces, not straps." "Pfft. Deanna. She thinks she's so big. Maybe she'd be nicer if she'd quit eating all the paste." I wonder if Bossy Girl eats paste?

The literature out there is interesting. I see a lot of articles on how it's ok for girls to be bossy because they grow up to be assertive bosses. I wonder about this, because I am pretty sure that in today's schools any boy trying to be bossy would be labeled a bully and shipped off to Ritalin camp.

Furthermore, I have been on both sides of the Assertive/Bossy boss fence. There is a huge difference here. A person who instructs an employee: "When you go on the interview, you will ask this question, and this one and this one. And make sure to take a pencil and notepad and use them to write down what gets said, and then make sure you come back and type up your notes into a coherent story," is bossy. It is not being a good boss. The best bosses are not bossy. The best bosses serve as guardrails and sounding boards, not as martinets. They answer questions and issue requests. They don't stomp their feet and issue demands.

But then, I suppose any behavior is acceptable as long as you are allowed to get away with it. I wonder how long Bossy Girl will manage to pull it off.