One of my favorite Bluey episodes is “Camping” from Season 1, which features Bluey meeting a friend her age, Jean-Luc, while camping with her family. They only interact throughout the entire show during this one camping trip (with a sweet little nod to their future at the end), and it’s so endearing to think about all of the friends we make as little kids — and adults! — who are only in our lives for a brief season.
The ones you spend an entire night dancing with during Spring Break and never see again. The kid you only see at the playground after Wednesday night soccer and never outside of those monkey bars.
But apparently not all parents feel the same way, prompting one mom to go on an epic TikTok rant against people who aren’t into the whole “let my kid play with your kid” thing.
In a video that has racked up over 100k views and thousands of comments, New England mom Allie Hagerty (@thealliehagerty on TikTok) shares a story about her 2.5-year-old daughter, Charlotte, trying to make friends on the beach. Because Charlotte is an only child, Allie and her husband have been working with Charlotte on how to “put herself out there,” especially in public settings like a beach. She explains that if another child ever approaches them, she always “shepherds” the kids toward playing together.
Then she shares what happened when her daughter approached another family.
Allie says she was in the water near another mom when she saw Charlotte go up to the woman’s two daughters. When she asked how old the girls were, she felt like the mom gave off a weird, closed-off vibe before answering. Allie tried again, sharing Charlotte’s age, but the mom still didn’t really engage.
Heartbreakingly, Allie says she watched her daughter walk up to the two girls (who were 1 and 3, so right around Charlotte’s age), introduce herself, and ask for their names — only for the girls’ dad to give them a strange look, like this wasn’t a totally normal interaction to have.
And Allie was pissed.
Look, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this couple just wanted some family alone time. Maybe they’re trying to foster a bond between their daughters. Maybe they’ve had bad experiences with other people’s kids leeching onto them while on vacation and feeling responsible for them. But… you should say hi to a 2.5-year-old and encourage your kids to make friends.
In the comments, plenty of people agreed.
“I’m an introvert but I can be nice to a child. Geez,” one wrote.
“That is extremely weird. Especially at the beach. The beach is literally the BEST place to make a friend,” another said.
“No, no, but seriously — this type of parenting impairs their own children’s socialization skills,” someone else added.
Later in the video, Allie shares that her mom used to force her to go introduce herself to other kids on vacation — “I’m your mother, not your friend,” she recalls her mom saying — and I don’t love that vibe. I think it’s OK to not want to make new friends every single day. I think it’s OK to have a healthy mix of interacting with new people and then spending time on your own.
But when people talk about wanting a “village,” this is part of it. You can’t have a village if you can’t be a village. And yes, being able to interact with strangers (especially a toddler) on the beach is part of the village.
You don’t have to invite them to dinner or give up all your toys or put your kids in an uncomfortable position for someone else, but you can play for 20 minutes. You can make small talk with another parent. You can just smile and watch from afar as your kids safely build sand castles with another friend their age, then wave and never see them again.
Some commenters argued that they don’t want to make small talk, that they hate when other kids approach theirs. The type of comments you’d expect from people who wear AirPods in the grocery store and roll their eyes when the person sitting next to them on a plane says, “Are you traveling for work or fun?”
If that’s you, I really need you to remember what a society is — and then you’ve got to join in and act like you’re part of it.
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