Bad Parenting
Speaking of the grocery store, it seems that I always end up shopping with the bad mothers and their misbehaving children. You know, the kids scream and run around the store, whining and crying about not getting every thing they want, while the mother says, “Don’t do that,” every five seconds. Maybe it’s not some bizarre coincidence that I find myself shopping at the same time as these people. Maybe it’s that there are so many bad mothers that I can’t help but run into several of them at the grocery store or any other public venue for that matter.
Last night, I was waiting in line to pay for my groceries. There was another woman behind me and a woman behind her with two children, Ashley and Kaiden. How do I know the children’s names? Well, after you spend twenty minutes in line with two of Satan’s minions, their names tend to get seared into your brain.
Kaiden insisted on weaseling his way around everyone’s cart to get up to the candy at the checkout. While kneeling at the display (which prevented anyone from moving their carts through the line), he proceeded to pick up every type of candy and scream, “Mommy, I want this!” Mommy’s reply was, “We already got your candy.” Sure enough, the entire front basket was full of discounted Halloween candy, along with various other sugar-filled snacks. “But MOMMY, I want this, too!” Mommy answered, “If you get that, then no candy from the machine on our way out.” Kaiden whined, “But I want the stickers from the machine!” This seemed reasonable to Mommy, so Kaiden dropped the candy in the basket and proceeded to grab and whine for every other kid-oriented item in the area.
Meanwhile, Ashley decided it would be fun to kick the wheels of the woman’s cart in front of her. Each kick caused the cart to inch closer and closer to the woman, until it finally started bumping her. Of course, Mommy had said multiple times, “Ashley, don’t do that,” but that didn’t stop Ashley. The woman took a step forward, pulling the cart away from the Ashley, but Ashley stepped forward as well and continued kicking the cart and bumping the woman. Again, Mommy said, “Ashley, you’re hurting the lady.” The lady’s response was, “Oh, that’s okay.”
WHAT?! That’s okay?! How is that okay? There are very few things that make me more enraged than witnessing bad parenting and this was one of the worst cases I’ve seen. I felt my pulse pounding in my temples. I wanted to scream at the mother, “What are you doing?! You are supposed to be the parent! For the love of God, do something before it’s too late!!” But I didn’t. It wasn’t that I was afraid to say it, or that I didn’t want to seem like the intolerant bad guy. It’s because confronting a mother like that is pointless.
“Kids will be kids,” people say. That’s true, but kids will only be bad kids if their parents teach them it’s acceptable to behave badly. Lee and I have recognized that these are the parents who refer to their kids as “ornery.” Don’t be fooled. This is just their candy-coated dismissive way of avoiding the proper term: brats.
Last night, I was waiting in line to pay for my groceries. There was another woman behind me and a woman behind her with two children, Ashley and Kaiden. How do I know the children’s names? Well, after you spend twenty minutes in line with two of Satan’s minions, their names tend to get seared into your brain.
Kaiden insisted on weaseling his way around everyone’s cart to get up to the candy at the checkout. While kneeling at the display (which prevented anyone from moving their carts through the line), he proceeded to pick up every type of candy and scream, “Mommy, I want this!” Mommy’s reply was, “We already got your candy.” Sure enough, the entire front basket was full of discounted Halloween candy, along with various other sugar-filled snacks. “But MOMMY, I want this, too!” Mommy answered, “If you get that, then no candy from the machine on our way out.” Kaiden whined, “But I want the stickers from the machine!” This seemed reasonable to Mommy, so Kaiden dropped the candy in the basket and proceeded to grab and whine for every other kid-oriented item in the area.
Meanwhile, Ashley decided it would be fun to kick the wheels of the woman’s cart in front of her. Each kick caused the cart to inch closer and closer to the woman, until it finally started bumping her. Of course, Mommy had said multiple times, “Ashley, don’t do that,” but that didn’t stop Ashley. The woman took a step forward, pulling the cart away from the Ashley, but Ashley stepped forward as well and continued kicking the cart and bumping the woman. Again, Mommy said, “Ashley, you’re hurting the lady.” The lady’s response was, “Oh, that’s okay.”
WHAT?! That’s okay?! How is that okay? There are very few things that make me more enraged than witnessing bad parenting and this was one of the worst cases I’ve seen. I felt my pulse pounding in my temples. I wanted to scream at the mother, “What are you doing?! You are supposed to be the parent! For the love of God, do something before it’s too late!!” But I didn’t. It wasn’t that I was afraid to say it, or that I didn’t want to seem like the intolerant bad guy. It’s because confronting a mother like that is pointless.
“Kids will be kids,” people say. That’s true, but kids will only be bad kids if their parents teach them it’s acceptable to behave badly. Lee and I have recognized that these are the parents who refer to their kids as “ornery.” Don’t be fooled. This is just their candy-coated dismissive way of avoiding the proper term: brats.
posted by Amanda at 12:41 PM
1 Comments:
From your description, it would certainly seem like this child was a brat. However, since I am VERY familiar with the complete circumstances of the situation you described, I can recognize that "brat" is only applicable to the young child's brother, who was the perpetrator of the deception that caused the aforementioned act of violence.
Post a Comment
<< Home