Child rearing (and why I choose not to rear them myself)

OK, I’ve had a couple days to think about it, y’all, and I have found some things to gripe about regarding the whole trip to the Baltimore Aquarium.

The problem? Kids, or more specifically, taking kids to public places like this and parents doing things that I just don’t get.

Don’t get me wrong, I was glad to get out and away for a morning. I also love kids, and I don’t discourage people taking kids anywhere as a general rule…just specifics, like R-rated movies, etc.

However, I have a few questions since I’m childless and may be ignorant to such things. Maybe my “child-full” readers can enlighten me on this? I don’t know…

• When your kid gets away from you (and we’re talking mobile toddlers to tweens here), is it really necessary to yell their NAMES fifty times in a 10-second time span? I know you’re trying to get their attention, and everything, but isn’t that just opening your kid up to being abducted? I’ve read that many times a kid will go up to a stranger just because a stranger calls them by name. No wonder…the cynical side of me thinks it’s logical. The quasi-nurturing side of me would be more like “Just get the kid back by any means necessary,” and the smart-ass side of me wants to say, “Why don’t you also yell out your social security number, credit card numbers and banking information so we can also cover identity theft?” That way, every possible illegal appropriation of items/persons/personal information is just tackled in one fell swoop. (It frightens me that I think this kind of crap up too, so don’t think it’s just you.)


• When you’re at a food court, is it OK to just let your kid sniff their food (when a slice of pizza requires you to take a second mortgage out on your house) and proclaim “This smells bad! I don’t wanna eat it! I’m not hungry!” And we’re talking get the face in the place, put the tip of their nose in the pizza and INHALE! It’s cheese pizza, not airplane glue! Come on! Then, they want to eat what YOU have instead. No. Sorry, but NO. I earned these cheese fries, dammit, and I’m gonna eat ‘em.


• When you’re in a gift shop, is it OK to let your kid just stomp his/her foot when you won’t buy them every toy in the store, or what? I mean, if they stomp their foot once, why not just lug them over your shoulder like a 25-lb. bag of dog food and…I don’t know…LEAVE? I know I threw a few fits in my time and that’s pretty much what happened to me. I stopped throwing fits after a while too…that’s “aversion therapy” at work.

I guess kids and public places can lead to conundrums such as this, and as I said, I’m not immune to your frustration. I’ve helped many friends corral their kids, and I am an aunt to three children and have had to lug them out of stores/movie theaters/church/other public venues when they’re kicking, screaming and saying they hate me. I know how hard it is, and kids can be incredibly fast when they want to be – puts NASCAR to shame.

However, I get angry at parents who just let their kids run rampant. Not the kids…the kids don’t necessarily know better. The parents do. I remember once I was at a Barnes and Noble in Iowa, and a 3 year old kid, for NO REASON WHATSOEVER, came up and kicked me in the leg. It HURT! I looked down at the “little angel” and he said, PROUDLY, “I kicked you!”

I said, “I know, and it hurt. That was mean.”

The mother overhead me having this meaningful dialogue with her son and rushed over, asking the obvious. “Oh, my God. Did ke KICK you?”
(Not exactly the most alert of mothers…)

I said, “Yes, he did, and it hurt.”

But I am forever grateful to his sister even if her response was not “politically correct”…

“Don’t worry, ma’am…Mom and Dad will beat him when we get home!”

Kids indeed say the darndest things.

Childless and still not regretting that part of it,
Sudiegirl