This Child

Kids, in general, are cute. I'm not saying "cute" pertaining to a child's looks alone. They are cute when they eat ice cream, they are cute when they ask the silliest questions, they are cute in their sunny disposition and they are cute when they sleep. However, I'm sometimes bewildered whenever I come across kids who are not cute. There is one child that rubs me in the wrong way. She's an adopted child of one of our sales ladies. Our sales lady brings her to work almost everyday because no one will look after her. She is a regular playmate of my baby brother, Waki.

There is nothing cute about this child. Now, before you say I'm being out of line and shit, let me explain why. First, she curses like a sailor. She keeps giving dirty looks to everyone, myself included. She talks back to me, to my mom, to her mom and to my dad. She will lie on the floor crying if you do not give her what she wants regardless of the place. She cries every time she wakes up, she cries if her mom did not attend to her needs fast enough, she yells at her mom like a freakin' diva, she throws garbage and spit out her food everywhere. Provoking Waki into a fight is her hobby and she hogs the remote. She is irritatingly spoiled rotten. Not cute at all.

It's very rare for me to be annoyed to a certain  kid because I'm generally good around them. Heck, I play yaya to my nieces, nephews and to my brother on a regular basis so I can't say my annoyance is borne out of inexperience with taking care of a child. Now, I did try everything I could to manage this child. And I failed every single time. My brother's yaya and our other sales ladies found this tiny three year old too much to handle on their own. My brother, who is Mr. Congeniality, lost his patience with her a long time ago. I would catch this child screaming expletives at my brother. She would attempt to bonk his head or kick him. Thankfully, Waki was trained to give due respect and patience to kids younger than him.He would just keep quiet about it or make sumbong to diva's mom.

There was a time when I had to spank her because when I asked her politely to throw her trash on the garbage can, she went on diva mode, threw a wet towel at me in defiance and she made "duro" at me. No, I'm not being overly dramatic. She looked like she wanted to slice me into pieces and then with all the conviction a three year old girl could muster, pointed at me and gave me the dirtiest look I've ever seen on a toddler. No screaming, no crying, she pointed at me like that in silence and it looked like the devil child was praying for my immediate death. I was both infuriated and creeped out, to be honest.

Can you imagine? I have never known any child who could make duro to an adult like that before.

I had t restrain myself from slapping her. I know, I know. You are not supposed to spank a child but let me tell you something, spend an hour with this child and you will know what I'm talking about.

Of course, I don't expect all kids to be angels every time. Playing the nanny for a long time showed me that kids have very unpredictable behaviours. However I expect some form of restrain on their part particualrly when they are spending their time in places other than  their own home.

It took a lot of work on my part to mold Waki into a sweet, polite and decent kid (biased much?) that he is today. Me and my mom get praises every time. But he did start out naughty. Not as naugthy as diva child here but naughty in his own little way. Back in the day, I did spank Waki, hard. It was the time when he went batshit on me and threw a matchbox car  right at my face. If it hadn't been for my glasses, he would've hit me squarely in the right eye/nose bridge.I was astounded at how accurate he can aim considering I was several feet away from him when it happened.

I hit him once on the butt and it was so hard, he still remembers it to this day.

Needless to say he never pulled any stupid stunts like that again. However, in the case of this diva, I don't get what her deal is. I tried all sorts of techniques to get her to behave and I failed miserably each time. It came to a point where I can't even stand being near her, is that so bad? My mom said it's because the child is used to being spanked hard every time she does something bad. No amount of reasonable talk could get her to stop acting out.