I don't remember whether I posted this before, but there was an NYT piece months ago about how sometimes kids just grow up to be bad people. I can't find the article itself but here's an NPR interview about it.
I don't know why I even bother wading into this topic, but I can't help myself. I don't give parents whose kids are screaming around me dirty looks because I'm judging them as parents; I give them dirty looks because I want that kid to stfu. I have to stand there too, and your screaming kid is no joy for me to listen to. I don't care what a good person he is the rest of the time. I care that he's giving me a headache at that moment.
Having said that, I understand that kids scream and sometimes there is nothing you can do about it. All I ask is that you try. And some parents do. I understand that everyone has to stand in line to return stuff, and sometimes you have to bring the kid, and sometimes the kid screams. Got it.
Now please understand that when your kid screams, my head starts to hurt.
If you try to get the kid to calm down, but you can't, fine. If you don't even try because you don't think it's your problem, you're wrong.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
oh, trust me, i wanted him to zip it just as much as you would have as a person standing in line. i could not get out of there fast enough. i chose letting him scream his head off rather than letting him do what he wanted because i would have never accomplished the task i was trying to do. that said, i didn't just ignore what he was doing and did my best to address it. but then again as my sitter told me this past week, "there's no reasoning with a 2 year old." I try to remind myself of this because it is mind numbing trying to reason with this sweet little guy sometimes, as it was today, and i left the store feeling like a total failure of a parent. and yeah, we had a talk about what he did and when he tried to repeat the behavior a minute or two later when i wasn't in the middle of processing a return, he was disciplined appropriately. anyway, at least from my point of view, my own kid screaming and behaving that way in public drives me bonkers and is embarrassing, doesn't mean it doesn't drive me mad at home, it's just so much worse in public where your every move is potentially scrutinized. anyway, sorry for the rant on both comments, but yes, i agree with what you're saying. oh, and in case you misunderstood what i was saying, i love when people tell me how sweet and wonderful my kids are because that's how i feel about them even when they're awful, but it doesn't mean they can get away with crazy behavior and i won't try to stop it, hope that makes sense.
Post a Comment