1st grader vs. grown man.
- Thread starter Vince524
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Ah, okay. I didn't see a video the first time around but was going on the photos and the father's statement:
"Zea didn't just flash the flag at that hatemonger, and bail. They went toe to toe, for several minutes, while he bellowed all of his fire and brimstone right in her face," Bowling wrote on Facebook. "Grown man vs first grader. She told me afterward that she did feel scared. The one thing the people of #comfest2015 never let her feel though? Alone."
The link is below, if anyone else missed it earlier in the thread. They still shouldn't put a little kid in the middle of it. But although the man was a bit uncomfortably loud and the little girl just looked confused to me, I did not see the big altercation the father presented it as above.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/...zea_n_7702856.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063
"Zea didn't just flash the flag at that hatemonger, and bail. They went toe to toe, for several minutes, while he bellowed all of his fire and brimstone right in her face," Bowling wrote on Facebook. "Grown man vs first grader. She told me afterward that she did feel scared. The one thing the people of #comfest2015 never let her feel though? Alone."
The link is below, if anyone else missed it earlier in the thread. They still shouldn't put a little kid in the middle of it. But although the man was a bit uncomfortably loud and the little girl just looked confused to me, I did not see the big altercation the father presented it as above.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/...zea_n_7702856.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063
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I saw a fool yelling at a child and a child too flabbergasted to react so she waved her flag at him.
Oh, and I saw HuffPo trying to generate clicks with nonsense.
Oh, and I saw HuffPo trying to generate clicks with nonsense.
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Agreed. I mean, what does it consist of? Sitting a kid down and telling them that sometimes mommies want to marry mommies, daddies want to marry daddies, and other times daddies want to marry mommies. That's easy! I know my 7 year old niece gets it, and she is completely normal for her age if a bit hyper. Love simply isn't a hard concept for most 7 year olds.
I'm just going to throw into the mix that this may not be the first time Zea has had this type of experience. You don't have to be at Pride to have some preacher screaming fire and brimstone at you. Sometimes you can just be walking down the street with your spouse and child or sitting at a cafe or otherwise just living your life. You don't see it much in Boston anymore, but I've seen some ugly words and actions toward gay friends, sometimes when their kids were with them, sometimes because their kids were with them.
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The way the father describes it, it sounds like the guy was verbally abusing a child, and if his description were accurate, I'd be almost as upset at him as the preacher.
However, what the video shows is really no different from the street corner preachers you can see in any busy downtown area, except he has a microphone. He was a fair distance from the child. There were plenty of supportive adults nearby.
I don't know that I would have filmed it, but with my son, under the same circumstances, I would probably have stood by and waited to see his reaction. I would bet on his courage over the preacher's.
I don't think it's a parent's job to jump between their children and everything they'll see in their lives. Protect them from actual danger, sure, but the girl wasn't in danger. She wasn't showing any outward signs of distress. The father was close enough to intervene in a moment if things took a bad turn. It's not his job to keep her from seeing the hate in the world. It's his job to see that she can handle it well. She seems to have done so. Even the fact that she said later she was scared isn't a condemnation. Kids are scared of lots of things. A little fear isn't always a bad thing. She's learned that she can stand up to loud, scary men who want her to do what they say. Great lesson.
However, what the video shows is really no different from the street corner preachers you can see in any busy downtown area, except he has a microphone. He was a fair distance from the child. There were plenty of supportive adults nearby.
I don't know that I would have filmed it, but with my son, under the same circumstances, I would probably have stood by and waited to see his reaction. I would bet on his courage over the preacher's.
I don't think it's a parent's job to jump between their children and everything they'll see in their lives. Protect them from actual danger, sure, but the girl wasn't in danger. She wasn't showing any outward signs of distress. The father was close enough to intervene in a moment if things took a bad turn. It's not his job to keep her from seeing the hate in the world. It's his job to see that she can handle it well. She seems to have done so. Even the fact that she said later she was scared isn't a condemnation. Kids are scared of lots of things. A little fear isn't always a bad thing. She's learned that she can stand up to loud, scary men who want her to do what they say. Great lesson.
As a kid whose mother believed it was her job to jump between her children and everything challenging or frightening in the world, I agree. I reached adulthood with no self-confidence and a lot of anxiety because I was not exposed to the more challenging aspects of life and guided through them. My full-sibling was the same way.
My half-siblings, on the other hand, are parented as you described and they are extremely well-balanced and confident children.
This incident was non-news, just a bit of cluelessness and weakness on both adult men's sides. It was no different than dysfunctional fighting parents who only think of themselves and use a small child as a tug-of-war rope in their issues, incorrectly attributing adult beliefs and abilities onto the child while all the child actually gets out of it is perhaps an upset stomach or nightmares.
Hyperbole aside, it was likely nothing more to her than a confusing unpleasant event she was made to endure. I hope he doesn't make a habit out of it, ugh. She did not "stand up for" herself, let alone "her beliefs," in the video. A seven year old should never be expected to "take on" a strange grown man who is ranting at her. That would just be abuse, not a learning experience. If anyone's interested, here's a bit about children's developmental stages:
http://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development?page=2
She would be on the border of pre-operational and concrete mental development, in no way able to meaningfully understand all this. Of course she could understand having a basic question that a first grader might ask answered but that is not nearly the same thing as understanding what this preacher was yelling at her or whatever her father has tried to make her "position" into.
Hyperbole aside, it was likely nothing more to her than a confusing unpleasant event she was made to endure. I hope he doesn't make a habit out of it, ugh. She did not "stand up for" herself, let alone "her beliefs," in the video. A seven year old should never be expected to "take on" a strange grown man who is ranting at her. That would just be abuse, not a learning experience. If anyone's interested, here's a bit about children's developmental stages:
http://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development?page=2
She would be on the border of pre-operational and concrete mental development, in no way able to meaningfully understand all this. Of course she could understand having a basic question that a first grader might ask answered but that is not nearly the same thing as understanding what this preacher was yelling at her or whatever her father has tried to make her "position" into.
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