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“It takes a village to raise a child,” Hillary Clinton so
wisely put it. I take that as a go ahead to discipline your child in public
places, and you can be damned sure I’m going to do it if you are nowhere to be
found. Who took the parent out of parenting? Despite the fact that you may be
able to fit as many Doritos in your kid as in your Louis Vuitton Speedy handbag, your
child is not an accessory. You can’t just plop them down and expect them to sit
still, take care of themselves, be quiet, not be kidnapped, etc. All of the
above are learned behaviors, and generally the type that are learned FROM
someone else (ideally a PARENT).
I
accompanied my mum to her company lobster cookout last week and bore witness to
quite a disturbing scene. “New Guy,” as I’ve been trying to get her to refer to
him (he’s one of those sort of small barrel-framed, slick haired,
you-can-tell-he’s-douchey-from-at-least-4-feet-away kind of dudes), was there
with his wife and little girl. His little girl was adorable, probably a little
over a year old. She was walking, but you could tell it was still new by the
way she led with her head and would occasionally topple over. This cookout was
on the company lawn, which was a nice field with a big pond. Unattended babies
and open water are not a winning combination. New Guy didn’t seem to make this
connection. He and his wife would let their little girl just wander off and not
pay any attention. They would stare at their plates of food while their baby
girl meandered treacherously close to that pond. She could have drowned. I was
horrified. I am not a parent. And I don’t babysit. If I am paying more
attention to your child than you are, we have a serious problem.
Luckily,
this little girl would notice that her parents were ignoring her and after a
while, she’d keep wandering back to her parents and then yell at them. She
didn’t have words yet, but I’m sure if she did, she would have been shouting
“HELLO! Why in God’s name aren’t you watching me?! I am a BABY. It’s your job
to give a shit! Pay attention!” I sometimes wonder if that’s what a lot of
crying babies are trying to say. Have you ever noticed those women in the mall
who are just wandering around with their screaming child in the baby carrier
with their ears turned off as if they were just holding a lunch sac? It makes
me want to smack them. “I’m sorry, but do you not hear that your baby is
screaming bloody murder? Maybe you should acknowledge it?” Can you imagine if
you treated an adult that way? Your boss? Of course, your boss wouldn’t scream
at you because adults actually have the faculty to use words. “Jane I need you
to do such and such.” Jane ignores boss just like she ignores her baby. Jane
gets fired. It’s unacceptable. Jane wouldn’t dream of treating her boss that
way so why does she ignore her child?
Back when I
was a child, children’s needs came first. That is not to say we were coddled.
If we were screaming and rude in a public place, my mom would haul us out. And
if that meant mom didn’t get to do what mom wanted or needed to do, she’d be
rife with rage and we’d be punished. It seems nowadays the moms stay and do
what they want and instead punish the rest of us by forcing us to listen to
their rude and badly behaved, poorly disciplined child. This is not the child’s
fault either. Children aren’t like dogs and cats, which have instincts allowing
them to survive in the wild. One of my
favorite child negligence examples was while I was working in the Natick Mall.
In the mornings, I would watch new moms leave their children in strollers at
the top of the stairs and then run up and down the stairs for exercise while no
one attended their children. It’s a wonder none of them were kidnapped.
My great
aunt Fern was known to say things to errant children along the lines of “Go get
some razor blades and play in traffic.” Or “Go tell your mother she wants you.”
I have adopted some of these phrases, and others. I have stopped and scolded
children considering stealing rocks out of store displays with the threat of
being hauled off to prison and told some middle school age boys how incredibly
inappropriate it was for them to be running around in a shoe store. To the
negligent parents, I see the fear of God in your kid’s eyes when I speak to
them in my low volume, predatory tone. And you may think I’m out of line, and I
really couldn’t give two shits. Do you know why? Because your kids are going to
grow up and be full-fledged members of society, at that point too old to scold.
And at that point, I am going to have to deal with them even more than I have
to deal with them now. And I REALLY hope they don’t turn out like you.
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