Parenting guilt of another kind?

The kind where you’re torn between feeling compelled to stand up for your child when she is being unceremoniously snubbed by a friend and miserable when you corner that friend into submission, probably even making her feel sad and alone in the process.

I have nothing to say in my defense aside the fact that all I had in mind was this inane urge to protect my child from feeling alone herself. I didn’t want her to sit there and feel helpless despite her attempt to convince her friend that her point of view was far more reasonable and the way she acted in a certain situation was right.

But that still doesn’t make what I did any right, does it? I am a horrible person :(. I feel so miserable because the friend in question is a very very sweet child otherwise. She is Namnam’s first friend in Dubai and a lovely person at heart. Its just that sometimes she tends to get a bit rude and argumentative with Namnam which bothers me. Especially when I see it happening in front of me.

I know that I should ideally be telling my child to stand up to herself in situations like this. And I do tell her more often than not. In fact we had a long chat yesterday after a similar friction with the said friend on her way back from school. I asked her whether she felt that her friend was curt and rude to which she said yes she had felt so. And I firmly asked her why she didn’t respond to her in the same rude manner. She said she didn’t want to be rude to her or anybody simply because she didn’t like being rude. She had rather ignore that person or stop talking to her than engage in an unpleasant argument. Fair enough, I thought.

Anyway, I understood her point well, but I also tried to make her understand that if she didn’t approve of anyone being mean to her then she had to be bold enough to speak up and tell them that she did not appreciate being talked to in such a manner.

So today, when a situation presented itself where the friend questioned a certain action of Namnam that occurred in school the previous day. I was happy to see my daughter standing her ground and explain why she acted the way she did.

She believed what she did was right, and in my eyes, as I listened to their conversation, she was every bit right too. But this friend of hers kept arguing otherwise. I would have probably let them sort it by themselves. And should have.

But the parenting guilt, somehow, crept in because I was unable to stand up for her yesterday which made me all the more aggressive this morning and go all out to shield my child from getting hurt again.

Unfortunately that gave way to another guilt of hurting another child. I know I wasn’t rude, per se. But I was curt enough to make her face droop. And that really made my heart go out for her.

Here I was trying to prove to my child that she could rely on me, only to end up setting a wrong example.

Parenting, sometimes, throws such awkward situations at you! Sigh!