Rose and Miriam stood in the woodchips next to the swings and waited their turn. They weren’t crowding the kids already on the swings. They weren’t pestering anybody, but it was obvious to anyone trained in playground etiquette that they wanted a turn. How this is usually handled in the north end Seattle parks that I frequent:

The parent monitoring their own children says to your children, “We just got on, so it will be a few minutes” or to their own children “There are people waiting honey. Two more minutes.” And then there is a relatively smooth transition.

This time nothing happened. The woman pushing her three sons on the swings was Chinese. (At least all of them looked Chinese, and she was speaking in Chinese to them.) My kids waited a long time. She never acknowledged their presence, never made the slightest motion to move her kids on to another activity. Even though I guessed she wasn’t trying to be rude, that she was probably culturally appropriate for her culture, I was getting offended and pissed off. I also wasn’t doing much about it because David was dragging me to the fish slide and the bouncy seal and. . . I was about to intervene--
“When do you think it will be possible for these girls to have a turn?”--when her sons decided to move to the fish slide.

She didn’t go with them, which brought up another etiquette problem. Her kids kept cutting in line and climbing up the slide the wrong way. This is not atypical behavior, but with kids this age, there is usually a parent in eye contact range, fixing that behavior.

I had no compunction with fixing it myself. When little red shirted boy jumped in front of David, I told him about the line and moved him to the back.

The playgrounds of Paris were hard this way. I’m sure we stepped on some toes. I know we hated fighting for our turn on the carousel. As much as I give lip service to cultural diversity, living it is hard work.

P.S. Later the same red shirted boy was very patient waiting for David, and I thanked him.

P.P.S. At one point the big teeter-totter had Indian, Black American, White American, and Russian children on it. Everyone was so kind and polite to each other. They made sure it didn’t go too fast for the little ones. They made sure everyone got a chance to stand in the middle. All the parents hovered around and nodded approvingly.