Breeder Hall of Shame: Not-So-Smiling Pizza

Image Via Urban Baby Blog

Recently a FIPS tipster slash baller was exiting her go-to Park Slope pizza joint when some shit went down between her and a breeder dad over his parenting skills and her accidental bumping of a door against his child. It ended with a call to the police. 

Here's her account: 

"Today, I was exiting Smiling Pizza while listening to soft music on a pair of headphones.  Only a part of the door is transparent (from maybe three feet above the ground), so I didn't see a little boy (maybe two and a half feet) tall, whose father let him play directly in front of the door for some reason.  I bumped into him gently when I opened the door.  He was fine, but I took off my headphones, stopped to apologize, made sure he was OK and proceeded down the street, putting my headphones back on.

After a moment, his father, perhaps realizing his own negligence, followed me down the street, threatening to smash my phone (claiming that was the reason I had bumped into his son). He repeatedly and continuously shouted that he hoped I would be hit by traffic,  etc.  (yes, all in front of his son).  I just can't stand it.  First of all, his claim that bumped into his son because I was on my phone made no sense (it was even in my pocket at the time).  I stopped to point out that his son was in fact much shorter than the transparent section of the door, and of course he did nothing but to continue to shout that he hoped I would be injured in traffic.

I just can't stand the misogyny of it.  I called the local police precinct, which of course, seemed rash to me -- but is it really OK for a man to follow and threaten a woman in any way at all, just because he had an incompetent moment as a father?  Naturally, there was nothing the police could do, but what is wrong with some park slope parents?"

Man, this guy sounds like a real douchehole.

I do realize we are only hearing one side of the story, but I feel sorry for this little boy who has to hang out with and listen to the inane bullshit of his asshat father all day long. I hope he at least got a pepperoni slice out of the whole deal. 

As for you, FIPS tipster, you got the brunt of what some of us call "breeder fury." I don't think the man was being misogynistic, but rather just a garden-variety asshole. His attitude probably had less to do with the fact that you are a woman, and more with his having just spent 10 straight hours with a drooly 2 year-old, which had likely made him tired and cranky. No, this doesn't give him a right to unleash daddy-wrath on you, but I would probably scream at strangers too if I had to take care of a wobbly toddler for an extended period of time.

This whole situation got me thinking about my childhood. When I was young, my mother felt free to discipline other people's children and I fully expected the same from any random adult in public. I distinctly remember getting a stern "talking to" by multiple adults during my childhood, everywhere from the grocery store to the mall. Also, spankings in private school were par for the course. 

What say you Breeders? Would you get pissed if someone else disciplined your kid for being annoying as hell? 

And Ballers, what's your pet peeve with Park Slope parenting? Let's get a real shit storm of comments going here! 

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[ParkSlopeJoe]

Check out the article in last week's "New Yorker" about how spoiled US kids have become -- and nowhere is this more apparent than in Park Slope. (interesting article by the way). I grew up in Park Slope as part of the first wave of gentrification decades ago and then it was a great neighborhood of professionals, artists, musicians, people with a wonderful sense of community and communitarian attitudes. Then there was a wave of young yuppies who stayed and bred and now -- well now I walk the streets and encounter that sort of super-entitled and obnoxious people I might have once thought to find in Scarsdale or perhaps any suburban haunt. I was a child here and when we played we went to the park (the more working class kids played stickball in the street). There's a park here people! Now super-entitled and spoiled children (and I refer here to the parents) let their offspring speed down the streets on scooters -- dangerous for me, a strong man, if one crashed into me, but imagine if you were an elderly person --, roll over your feet with their strollers (a tired trope, but it's a very tiring thing to have happen), and treat a common space as a child's playground. -- Park Slope parents: read the New Yorker article, treat your kids as the French treat theirs (learn to say "non") and they'll grow up to be healthy, responsible adults.