O-Mom Parenting Solution Number One: Don't Be That Girl (or Guy)

These women took the Easter sacrifice thing to a whole new level. They gave their freedom... for Easter candy.

Straight from The Salisbury Post...

Brawl erupts over Easter candy

Tuesday,  April 06, 2010 12:00 AM

Staff Report

Police aren't sure whether Walmart's prices were so good or if there was a shortage of chocolate rabbits. Whatever the reason, seven women ended up in a brawl in the Easter basket aisle Saturday evening. Candy eggs, rabbits and Peeps flew through the air in an unlikely Easter exchange.

Property damage, primarily to candy and Easter decorations, totaled nearly $800. Salisbury Police responded to the Walmart at 323 Arlington St. around 7 p.m. Saturday. The five officers separated the women into two groups — with each claiming the other group started the fight.

Unable to figure out who initiated the brawl, officers decided to charge all of those involved in the incident with public affray. Those charged, whose ages range from 17 to 24...

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I removed the names of the women involved because... well, even when it seems reasonable, I am not all that into shaming people. I do, sometimes, find sharing - for the good of the masses - simply irresistible.

Introducing O-Mom Parenting Solution Number One:

Don't Be That Girl (or Guy)

Don't Be That Girl (or Guy) Parenting Solutions began one hot summer afternoon a couple of years ago in a local ice cream shop, as my impressionable young children and I enjoyed our delicious frozen treats. People were coming and going while we chatted and shared the flavors we'd chosen, and I was a happy woman. Then, she walked in... smiling, full of life, and seemed very pleased with her tasty ice cream selection. I'm unclear about when we go from calling females "girls" to calling them "young women," but she seemed to be a perfectly friendly one of those. It is likely that the line gets drawn somewhere around the moment she got knocked up, but perhaps it wasn't until a few weeks after our encounter when the baby in her gigantic belly took it's first breath.

Normally a big ol' pregnant belly like that would leave me feeling warm and fuzzy, reminiscent of the treasured time, many years ago, when I created and incubated my charming, brown-chinned table-mates. My oh-how-I-love-pregnancy-and-natural-childbirth moment was profoundly distorted by the "Class of '06 Rules" t-shirt literally fighting its way across this girl/young woman's baby's residence. The signatures of her classmates, equally profoundly distorted, looked more like a human graffiti art project.

While I completely appreciate the with-child-and-needing-ice-cream thing, I didn't enjoy the reality check. It hit me that my son and daughter were still not old enough to keep from being blue-faced and brown-chinned at the ice cream shop, but they were no longer without the cognitive ability to assess that this girl/young woman was still in school... just like them. They could see that her little friends had signed her t-shirt. They could recall how, just a month before, their elementary school "peeps" left barely-legible streaks of Sharpie on the t-shirts all had been awarded for their reading prowess.

In truly O-Mom form, I said to the children, "If you are young enough to have your friends sign your t-shirt, then you're too young to get pregnant and have a belly like that. Kira, don't be that girl. Seth, don't date that girl... and make her that way."

In hindsight, I might have added a little something about the importance of preserving their high school memorabilia (a.k.a. the peer-autographed t-shirt) with the procurement of some high-quality maternity clothing, should this tragedy ever befall either of them.