Thanks for Acting Like a Jerk...No, Seriously. Thank You.

'I wish that mean lady would just move to Alaska!", I barely heard my 9 year old daughter say as her tear streaked face ran across the street and into our house.

I was completely caught off guard, so I did what any good parent does in that situation, I laughed. It wasn't right, but I was so utterly blind sided by this comment that I couldn't help but laugh.

I thought, "Did our daughter really just say that?" My 9 year old who loves all living things. Who befriends lonely kids on the playground just so they aren't lonely anymore. Who has captured a gecko in our backyard and read books to it for 90 minutes. That kindhearted little lady just mustered up the meanest thing she could think of..."I wish that mean lady would just move to Alaska."

I haven't the heart to tell her that in Alaska you get an annual $1000 profit check from oil investments. Or that it has 70 potentially active volcanoes. Or that caribou outnumber humans. Or even that Alaska looks like this on any given day:

My daughter would LOVE to move to Alaska, but that is neither here nor there.

What brought on this reaction was a terse conversation I had just engaged in with a neighbor. Now for a little background, I am a pretty laid back, easy-going person. I am not a confrontational guy. I once didn't tell my dentist that he had forgotten to give me Novocain because I didn't want him to feel bad for forgetting.  However, above all that I am an advocate for my family and my children.

The long and short of this slightly luke warm exchange was that our neighbor did not care for our Nerf ball going into her yard. It had rolled into her front yard 3 times in an hour and that evidently was too much. And just so we are clear, it slowly rolled into her yard. It never hit anything but pavement and grass. The whole neighborhood knows about this neighbor and avoids her yard like the Outbreak monkey.

OK. This is NOT the Outbreak monkey. I got distracted
Googling monkeys and this is what you get.

Anyways, words were exchanged.

Get your ball out of my yard.
Sorry, we aren't trying.
Well, it hit my husband's expensive truck. (that's a lie)
No, it most certainly did not.
Just stay away from our yard.
We've never been introduced, nice to meet you by the way.
I don't want to know you or your family. I don't care about you.
Well, we will be more careful, if you promise to slow down when you drive down the street.
I always stop! (that's another lie)
The speed limit is 22.
No it's 30. (that's another lie)
The posted limit says 22.

In her defense, maybe she thought children playing
need to keep in under 22 mph.

And...so it goes on for 5 minutes.

It ends and I turn to my daughter who was standing 2 feet away. She bursts out crying immediately.  I knelt down and hugged her.  At first, I thought it was something I did. I thought my little girl might have been scared of me.  Or scared for me, that seems to be her modus operandi. But in-between the sobs she says something I wasn't expecting.

"She said doesn't (sob) want to know us (sob) and she doesn't care (sob) about us."

Then she banishes our neighbor from the continental U.S. and runs home for mommy and her blankie.

That's when I understood. That's when I got it. She has never had to deal with this. She has never had an adult be verbally uncaring toward her.  She has never heard an adult say, "I don't care about you." She has never had an adult act like a jerk toward her. It was out of the blue and it stung.

Our children are no doubt sheltered from this negativity. We try our best to surround our kids with love and family and caring people. In other words, we have put a "No Jerks Allowed" bubble around our kids.

I think we all try to protect our children from bad things. And this is just one more bad thing we try to protect our kids from.

Of course we explained to her that there are just people like that in the world.

Why?
There just are.
Why would God put someone like that in the world?
Why do you think?
I don't know. I want her to move to Alaska. (crosses her arms in a huff)

We all took a moment to breathe and eat dinner.

Now, we are not a perfect family by any means but we do try to spin things positively as much as possible. We try to focus on our choices and what we can control. And that's when all of these great things started happening.

Our neighbor acting like a jerk did SO many great and positive things for our family.

1. We grew closer.  The extra time talking, sharing and problem solving brought us together as a family. We understood each other better. Through adversity, we grew stronger as a family.

2. Appreciating who we have in our life.  Our kids have now seen an indifferent and uncaring person. Their whole life they have been showered with love. Finally seeing the other side of this coin has made them appreciate our family, friends, teachers & neighbors who matter the most.

3. Learning about people like this in a controlled environment.  I am SO glad this happened when I was around and when our family could discuss.  This was the perfect situation for this to happen. I was there. I could help deal with the adult. Our family could talk about the situation in a positive way. Our daughter was uncomfortable and hurt, but I was right there for her.

4. Opening our kids eyes to the real world. If only a brief glimpse. I'm glad our kids got to see what the real world can be like. Hopefully, it won't be a shock when it happens again because it most certainly will happen again.  And hopefully, they will know how to deal with it better.

5. Sometimes, people show us who we don't want to be.  There are plenty of examples of people who show us who we want to be. But truth be told, there are also those individuals who show us who we don't want to be. We have all met them and now our kids have met them.

6. Our kids saw me disagree with another person, BUT it didn't end in a war.  Too many times disagreements between adults escalate into shouting, name calling and sometimes physical altercations. We were both heated but we never lost control.

7. Our kids saw that I am an advocate for them.  I do it everyday. I am one of their biggest supporters and protectors but our kids don't always see it.  They most definitely saw that I am there to protect them. Papa Bear and such.

8. Empathy. We don't know what is going on with our neighbor. She may just be like that. Or she may not be happy. She may have bigger issues. She may have family issues. She may have had a bad day at work. She may have lived a tough life. We don't know. She shouldn't say the things she said, but there may be more to the story.

9. We all worked on creative problem solving.  The easy solution is to stay away people who act like jerks. In this situation, we thought a different approach might be better. We brainstormed other ideas to ensure the safety of our kids, physically and emotionally.

10. Kill 'em with kindness. We discussed lots of solutions. Ultimately, we decided to kill 'em with kindness. We don't talk bad about our neighbor. We say prayers for her. If she was ever in trouble, we most definitely would help her. No doubt about that.

11. Lastly, our daughter decided to write our neighbor a letter.

Our daughter never ceases to amaze me.

So a sincere thank you to our neighbor for acting like a jerk. Our family is better because of it.

jj