No Actual Cheerleaders Were Harmed In The Creation Of This Post

There's always that one child in the class. This one happens to be in Girl-Child's dance class. She's the child that doesn't actually take part in what is expected. She spends most of the hour spinning, doing combat maneuvers across the floor on her belly, drawing pictures in her hot breath on the mirror. Whatever. She's not my child and It's not my money being so obviously wasted. The problem is that it can be somewhat distracting to the other girls when the teacher has to redirect her; and to her credit she's pretty well trained at keeping the other girls on task while corralling the disinterested dancer. And MY daughter is bored? At the end of the class they get to do free dance with props (wands, tiara, hoola hoop, pom-pom) for the duration of one song. This time it was pom-poms. And this child is walking around whacking the other girls in the face with it. And it was fun for her, only. And she was no ametuer. She would wait until the teacher's back was turned and then BAM! Her mother's response? "She plays battle at home with her dad". Seriously. That's it. Not, "I'm sorry" or "I apologize", or "I'm so sorry". Just an excuse. If that were my child, not only would I be apologizing profusely to the other parents and children, but I would be removing said child from the classroom and taking this very perfect opportunity to teach her that you don't hit. Lord knows I shouldn't be talking about anyone's parenting skills because we all have our shortcomings. And sometimes kids are just gonna do what they're gonna do regardless of how many gold stars you have on your lapel; but this just screamed DIRECT CORRELATION! And this lack of ownership from the mother unleashed a rather unexpected, yet humorous reaction from the other parents: politeness. When one mother of a victim noticed her own little Suzy* throw up her arms in defense of the onslaught of purple and white making a beeline for her face, she says "Suzy* is just kinda funny about people touching her" [and she couldn't have said it in a nicer voice and I was stunned]. A father [who heretofore had been bragging in great detail about the vacation they'll be taking and the type of flooring they'll be laying down and "do you know we have some money? It's made out of money from the money trees in a little unknown country called Money, so it's very rare money, you know" - making me want to throw up in Girl-Child's dance bag] pipes up and says "oh, yeah. We play battle at home too." [Oh gosh! Ain't that precious? They play battle. He understands]. Me? I KNOCKED ON THE WINDOW TO GET GIRL-CHILD'S ATTENTION AND SAID IN A CLEAR VOICE, WITH PERFECT ENUNCIATION "JUST GET AWAY FROM HER!". Politeness can go suck it. That's my baby. And the mother who had reacted politely? Laughed. Let's face it. She wished she'd done the same.

*fake names to protect the very innocent survivors of the pom-pom onslaught.