Culture shock

So, I "worked" from home yesterday (mostly, I cleaned my house. Hallelujah!). The kids were at playschool all day (total bliss). I had the pleasure of picking them up after school (picture it: two cute small people running into my arms, gleefully shouting, "Mama, Mama!").

As I am crouched down hugging girl child, the woman next to me leans over and says in a very snitty voice, "Has anyone said anything to you about boy child's behaviour today?"

(Picture smile dying on my face and confused look entering my eyes). "Uh, no."

"Well," she says with a little too much relish. "He was pushing other kids and not sharing and he pulled Eeisha's hair."

Okay, I am not discrediting the fact that my kid was misbehaving at school and that he hurt people, but, can we cut him a bit of slack? He's three! He's learning to socialize, and not always doing it in a good way.

My point is, who elected this nameless woman to come up to me to tell me this. She did not introduce herself (I finally had to ask her who she was), nor is she his teacher (the person who should have been telling me this and who, by the way, didn't, but that's another story).

"If he were my child I would want to know," she says to me with a mean little smile on her face. Apparently, her child is always an angel and never acts out.

And as a side note, she also tells me that boy child climbed up into the window well (the school is in the basement of a church), implying that it was his fault for doing so. The kicker being that (as I found out later) she as the parent on duty was the one who was supposed to be watching him!

Boy child is a very active, very curious kid. I think these are both good things. Apparently not so in playschool.

So here's me with the kids piled in the car, driving home, crying on the phone to their other mumi.

Her response t0 my blubbering is, "Love, don't get upset. You don't know the culture there."

What?! There's playschool culture? As though educating and socializing your kids isn't hard enough without having to deal with a bunch of judgmental mothers on top of it all.

I can't wait until real school starts.