Sunday my family, friends and I went to lilac hedge farm. It was my first time there. They had a bouncy house that day and it was deflated because it was the end of the day. My son ran down and went on it (4 years old) I was standing right there with him and this woman, come to find out was the general manager, said "If you don't get him off right now I will physically remove him myself". I was caught off guard and asked if it was ok if I walked on it to get him, so I did. I said to her "If you ever say you're going to put your hands on my son again there will be a problem". I think any mother out there, if some stranger says they are going to "physically" remove your child with no warning before that would feel the same. She proceeded to say I could leave the property, which I was completely fine with. I walked over to my husband and our other friends to tell them what happened and this "general manager", while following me, proceeded to lie and say she warned me before she said that. Warning or not, who would say they're going to put their hands on a child. My word against hers, I get that , but she never did warn me. Then my friend went over to her and asked her to give him a break and she said "It's not about him it's about what she said". Well if it was about what I said and not my son I would never have said anything to her in the first place. Also if she had handled it like a professional general manager I also would not have said anything to her. After escorting us to the exit, which is a little extreme, she's the one who threatened my son, I asked to talk to the owner without her present. I told him exactly what happened and he didn't care at all that his general manager just threatened to put her hands on a four year old. When my husband proceeded to tell him that my son has some special needs and it's hard to communicate with him he couldn't have cared less what we were saying. I get it, you want to stick up for your employees, but to look at us like we were the problem, when she is the reason this all started, is not right. If she had approached me and asked me like a professional " Hey he's not supposed to be on that, do you mind going to get him" not " If you don't get him off right now I will physically remove him myself". And before anyone says he shouldn't have been on it, while I was talking to the owner about 5 other kids were doing the same thing my 4 year old was just doing. When I brought that to his attention he did nothing and I didn't see the general manager go down and threaten the other parents of those children. Oh ya and I forgot, she said the "f" word in front of all of our young children. Honestly I hate to even write a post like this because it's hard to find places to bring three young kids especially my 4 year old and before this mess I said all day what a great place it was. But if you want the general manager to threaten your child I suggest not supporting a business like this because unfortunately my family and I will never be back.
I did talk to the owner again since this incident and all I wanted was for him to acknowledge how his employee acted was wrong. Instead, after I recalled the incident he started with, "We reviewed your bar tab, looked at our videos to watch you throughout the day with your kids and we spoke to the Rutland PD". I don't know if he was trying to intimidate me into thinking I was the cause of this mess but I had two charges on my credit card in the almost 4 hours I was there (group of 6 adults) and my kids are around me at all times no matter where I am. Maybe if as an owner he could have taken some sort of responsibility for this we wouldn't be here but it's completely wrong and needs to be addressed. read more