Seriously? Am I the Bitch Here?

I'm struggling with how to handle something that happens a lot with Ess. Actually, I've had it up to and five feet above my eyebrows with this. I would like some other opinions because apparently I am handling these situations POORLY with a capital P and that rhymes with B and that stands for Bitch. I'm a little raw, but I'll try to be diplomatic.

Here is the latest story. Ess was playing inappropriately on a slide at the playground. I asked her to stop. She threw a fit at the bottom of the slide. I made eye contact and told her that if she needed a kiss or a hug, she had only to come and ask me in her nice voice. Then, I ignored her and went on with my conversation with a friend.

About two minutes later, as she continued to tantrum, super playground mommy came running to her side from a picnic table birthday party going on about fifty feet away. She picked her up and gave her a hug as I walked towards them. I'll just state that I have no objection to this point. Ess is a fantastically intelligent and fairly manipulative child. Her tantrums, if you don't know her, do sound like someone has squashed her favorite puppy while severing one of her limbs. I would never ignore one of my children if they were actually injured, but I can see how a stranger might think she was truly hurt.

I called out, "she's fine, I'm her mother, she's fine thank you." She ignored me (okay, maybe didn't hear me?), took my daughter by the hand and started leading her away from the playground towards the birthday party, whispering something to her. I broke into a little jog and call out "excuse me, excuse me, she's fine, she's with me."
She stood up a little and said "oh, I'm just taking her over to give her a cookie."
"No. No, thank you," I said. I admit this might have been (okay, probably was) a tad sarcastic and I might have had my 'you're-the-dumbest-most-unbelievably-obtuse-person-I-have-ever-had-the-misfortune-to-share-airspace-with-in-my-life' look on my face. I try not to use that look. I know I can be dumb too.

She raised her eyebrows, got all attitudious (new word, I'm mad) with me, lifted up her hands in a sarcastic, sorry I touched your child kind of gesture, and then sauntered off shaking her head.

Wait. SHE SHAKES HER HEAD? AT ME? Like I am the one who has behaved unacceptably?

Stop the presses. Who takes a strange three-year-old child by the hand and starts leading them away from a playground to give them a cookie? Are you kidding me? She didn't stop to ask Ess where her mom was or if she was there with someone, she didn't have time.

AND SHE? SHAKES HER HEAD? AT ME? Am I missing something here? Because this incident is not unique. I can't tell you how often similar things happen to me. I feel defeated. I feel like the very act of my laying claim to my daughter offends some people.

Why does this happen with Ess? It has NEVER, not even once, ever, happened with Gee. No one has ever approached him. When he cries in any situation, people look around for the screaming kid's mom. When he tantrums, I get sympathetic looks. After two years of experience as a transracial family and countless discussions, Matt and I concluded that it is because she's black. It is racism and good old fashion white guilt.

So yeah, I said it out loud and I'll say it again. She's BLACK and the white-guilt in my not-so-diverse, middle class neighborhood appears to be an excuse for outrageous behavior. Did that woman think she'd found herself a poor little disadvantaged child to hand a cookie? Or did she realize exactly what the situation was and assume that Ess was not treated well in my family because she's obviously adopted? Either way these are pretty big assumptions.

I have tried so hard to handle these situations delicately. I have been beyond nice, my face flushed red with embarrassment. I'm done trying because I feel like it doesn't matter. People are confrontational with me when I am soft-spoken and understanding. It's not about me, it's about them. It's their issue. I'm tired of feeling bad for days about how I handle myself.

She's my daughter, dammit. I'm allowed to get irritated when some stranger picks her up and then takes her hand and starts leading her away or hands her candy from their pocket, or pulls her into their lap and cuddles her. It's not all right. It's not acceptable with other children and it's not acceptable with her because she looks different from the children around her.

Do you know what Matt does when we run into this? [Brace yourself, he's obnoxious and conservative as hell.] He whispers in my ear, "Get an Obama sign." At first, I cringed. But you know what, he's right. Seriously, lady, put a sign in your yard to show how wonderfully politically correct and open to diversity you are. Dump your white-guilt on someone who's put himself in the public eye. My daughter doesn't need it. She's beautiful and brilliant and she's growing up in an intelligent, outspoken, loving family that is going to talk openly and often about these multi-faceted and sometimes discouraging issues. In fact, someday in the not too distant future, we're going to discuss people like you and how fake you are and how easy it is to see through you to the discomfort with Ess' skin color that you hide beneath your show of kindness.

To be fair, I told this story to a friend and she disagreed with my analysis. She didn't think it had so much to do with Ess' skin color. She said that I am very strict with my children and that given the prevalent views on parenting in the neighborhood where I live, I have to expect that people won't like the way I parent. She thinks that people are reacting to Ess and being negative with me because they don't think it is acceptable to let her cry the way I do.

It shook me at first. I am strict with my kids, no question, but I am consistent and loving. After a lot of thought, while I accept this as an alternate reason for people's behavior, I reject it as an excuse. There is room for parents to differ on how to deal with temper tantrums. How can they possibly know the child (my child) or the situation. Also, I'm skeptical if this can be the full explanation because no one interferes when Gee cries.

Ess is a clever girl and she is well aware of the effect her sobbing tantrums have on other adults. We are still dealing with some post-institutionalized behaviors. She is constantly testing the boundaries of her world to make sure that I am still mom no matter who else is around. She wants me to be in charge and she disregulates horribly when she feels that this structure is disrupted. We couldn't function in public if she thought she could get away with things by throwing a heart-breaking sounding tantrum. She would own me.

In fact, in general, I am using a parenting technique called 'high structure, high nurture' that is recommended by professionals for children that have been institutionalized. I am very strict with my rules in public, she needs that. But we have different times specifically set aside for softness, cuddles and loving at home. How could another person, seeing Ess for the first time on the playground, know all of this? How could they know what works for our family? Why would they judge me without all of the background (and if they do, why oh why oh why do I care)?

I do acknowledge that any other mom on the playground would not have that background. But, that is exactly why I think it's so important not to interfere with another parent's parenting. There's no way to know the full situation. I know my parenting is working for all of my kids, but especially for my daughter. In fact, it is tailored to my daughter's special needs. What I don't understand is why some mothers think it's their way or I'm a terrible parent whose preferences for my children don't matter.

I would love your thoughts. Let's have a discussion because good lord do I need one. I know there are other adoptive moms reading this and other transracial families. I'd guess there are some parents with special needs kids also reading. Do you have these experiences? Do people react to you negatively as the parent? Is it race or parenting choices? Both? For anyone else, do you read these situations differently? Do you think it's my demeanor? Do you feel sympathetic to the cookie woman? Am I out in left field for thinking that her actions were totally unacceptable (the cookie part, not checking on the child)?

I have never once felt like I handled one of these interactions with another parent well. How would you handle it?