9d • Whiteness
CiW Letters to Chamieka: Stranger Danger 🤦
Everybody, let’s talk about it: 🧵
I saw something at the trampoline park on Wednesday and I still don’t know if I handled it right.
I wasn’t even entirely sure if the woman with them was the mom or the nanny. She was Black, the kids looked white? or maybe not related to her by blood at all, and something about how she was dressed made me lean toward nanny, but I couldn’t say for certain. She just seemed more like a helper. She just didn’t give me the impression that she was their mom. Maybe it was the way she was dressed, maybe it was how she carried herself, I don’t know. I just assumed she was probably there to take care of them. I actually kept looking around for another adult who looked like they belonged with the kids, but nobody came over.
The kids were dressed really nicely, too, so I assumed they probably came from a pretty well-off family. I wondered if maybe she was just having a bad day at work, but then I thought, if someone is paying you to watch their children, shouldn’t you at least be watching them?
She was on her phone the entire time, completely checked out from the two kids with her. The only real interaction I saw was when the little boy dropped some of his snack and she snapped, “Stop, stop,” at him. No comfort, no help, just irritation, then straight back to her phone. That’s what broke my heart the most. I kept thinking about how I would never leave my kids with somebody who acted like that, and how somebody needed to tell her that wasn’t okay.
I kept thinking, if those were my children, somebody would absolutely say something to me if I was sitting there ignoring them. I probably would have felt differently if she had looked more engaged with them. I don’t know. She just seemed so detached.
The little girl eventually started playing with my child, so I tried to ask her if she was okay. She just looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. I tried again, and she still didn’t really respond. I couldn’t tell if she didn’t understand what I was saying, if she didn’t speak much English, or if she just didn’t want to talk to me. I remember thinking that if something was wrong, surely she would tell me. The fact that she seemed much more interested in playing with my child than going back over to the woman made me feel even more uncomfortable.
I wanted to say something in the moment. I really did. But I froze. I stood there running through what I’d even say to a stranger about how she’s treating children that might not even be hers, and by the time I worked up the nerve, they were already packing up to leave. Part of me wondered if I should have just gone over there and asked her directly what was going on. I wasn’t trying to cause a scene. I just wanted an explanation. I mean, we’re all adults, and if you’re going to bring children into a public place, you should be paying attention to them.
I also thought about calling the police. I figured they could at least come out and see what was going on and decide if it was something to be concerned about. And then I second-guessed myself immediately. Was that an overreaction? She wasn’t hitting him. She wasn’t putting him in danger. She was just cold and distracted and short with him. Is that enough to call anyone, or does that make me the person who escalates something that didn’t need escalating?
I kept thinking that if those were my children, I would want somebody to say something rather than just stand there and watch. At the same time, I didn’t know these people. I didn’t know if she was their nanny, their relative, their mother, or what their situation was. I just knew what I saw for the short amount of time I was there, and it made me uncomfortable.
I considered blurring the children’s faces and posting her in our local moms groups but I haven’t yet. I feel like I failed those kids. I know I shouldn’t have frozen like Chamieka has taught us but I felt stuck in that moment. I just watched, felt uneasy, and went home still thinking about it.
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CiW Letters to Chamieka: Stranger Danger 🤦
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