Today in toronto it was the ElSanta [name_m]Claus[/name_m] Parade. It’s much like the thanksgiving parade but more christmas related. It still ends with the arrival of [name_f]Santa[/name_f].
My whole family goes every year. This year there we 75 of us on the subway.
In these 75 there were 40 kids that could walk, 6 infants that couldn’t, 8 teenagers, and 21 adults including 4 pregnant women.
We employ a buddy system wig older cousins buddied with younger cousins and yet we manage to get everyone on and off the train, up the stairs, on and off the second train and to our area to sit in a calm, methodical and efficient manner. I was looking at the others in the car with us with two or three kids and they are letting the kids run around the train, scream and holler, hit each other and just generally cause trouble.
I wonder how these kids are being taught manners. I’m so worries for the future.
[name_f]Do[/name_f] any of you notice this?
Please don’t take this as being hillier then thou, there are days when my kids are acting out in public but I always remove them from the situation and then deal with it then join them.
I’m mostly just ranting
I know what you mean. I notice it the most in restaurants. Parents (not all, but some) let their kids yell, stand up in their seats, run around, and generally treat the restaurant like a big playground. It’s nonexistent discipline and, what’s more, incredibly rude to the other people in the restaurant trying to have a nice meal. Not to mention dangerous for both the kids and the waiters and waitresses working the floor. What if a waitress is carrying a tray of steaming hot food, trips over a little one, and drops the food all over the kid? I’ve seen this almost happen twice. It goes all over me.
Once we were in a restaurant and there was a toddler in a high chair at another table. He was bashing his cutlery on the high chair and making a racket. His family didn’t do anything. Then a person from another table very politely asked if they could stop the child from making the noise because there was a person with a hearing problem on their table. The grandfather of the baby looked like he was going to punch out the guy who asked the child to stop. Everyone in the restaurant was really horrified because the grandfather totally overreacted. It’s just an example of parents letting their children do whatever they want and everyone else be damned. I really think that if you’re in a public place like a restaurant, subway, etc, and your child is going nuts, you need to stop them or else leave.
More issue today. I went with [name_f]Matilda[/name_f]'s class on a field trip. The kids got into the subway train and [name_f]Matilda[/name_f] sat down quietly while a lot of the rest were antsy to get running around and screaming. In fact a good majority of th kids were screaming.
I was recently on a bus that was stuck in traffic (a 10-minute journey to the shopping centre took nearly half an hour!) and there was a woman with an infant and a maybe-3-year-old who was running around up front, bouncing from one side of the bus to the other, screaming and carrying on. The mother just looked faintly amused. Then as we pulled up to the shopping centre, the mother noticed that the bus driver was giving them dirty looks and she said–no joke–“You can tell her off if you want.” (Um, isn’t that YOUR job?) So the bus driver did and the little girl had a cry, and was then comforted by mum.
There are times when I witness bad behavior from children and think, “I’m probably just irritated because I don’t have children–I don’t know what it’s like” but that was certainly NOT one of them. I can’t imagine tolerating behavior like that, let alone telling the bus driver to administer discipline! The little boy I take care of is two and knows better than to get up and wander around on a bus. It’s one thing to be annoyed by a child who’s acting out whose parents are attempting to handle the situation–quite another to be annoyed and find the parents aren’t doing anything at all.
@northernlights - Totally agree. Kids have tantrums. We all know that. And when parents are dealing with an upset child in public, I think we can all cut them a little slack. But it’s the parents who let their kids run wild and do nothing that’s ridiculous. That bus story is awful. I can’t believe she made the bus driver discipline her child for her.
Oh, I can believe it. I’ve read about this…parents are on duty 24\7 and its emotionally and physically exhausting, so sometimes they’re just willing to let someone else do their job briefly. I’m sure I’ve done this…let an aunty remove my child from mischief or some such situation.
While I don’t have little ones, I catch public transport virtually everyday, and I notice it all the time. Kids who are able to stand up on their seats to look out the window, little kids who squeal the whole 25 minute train ride into the city, and one of the worst was these two kids who were actively telling a complete stranger all their details, where they live etc. That was pretty scary! They were sitting across from an old man, while their mum stood above them, and they were happily just telling him all these private details. Poor mum was trying to stop them.
I know plenty of parents within my family and friends that do nothing when their children misbehave - even at other people’s houses. My godmother has two children, eight and two, and they run an absolute muck to the point where my dad has had to tell them off on visits, so my auntie just packs them up and leaves. She had children later in life and now it seems she has this attitude like, ‘Oh, well, what can you do?’ towards parenting because she has become lazy.
At the same time, my parents were never oppose to punishing us for misbehaving in the company of others, but we knew the expectations before we went anywhere. My dad never had any qualms about telling other people off either, when I was little, he would tell teenagers and adults - even while we were shopping to stop swearing in front of me.
It’s funny that you wrote this thread though. My mum and I were talking about this just yesterday. We went out with some family for my mum’s birthday the other day, my cousin has a step-son and a biological son with his wife, and anyway they came along. So it’s hard to explain what they’re like unless you’ve met them; but my cousin hasn’t grown up, its as simple as that, he drinks to much and his wife is incredibly unstable. Frankly, I was disappointed when they got pregnant, I hate the thought of them bringing a second child into their problems. Anyway, little [name_m]Lincoln[/name_m] was born two years ago and the child has no, and I mean NO boundaries! She holds him all the time, he isn’t expected to sit properly at the dinner table, they don’t keep him clean. In this past week, he has covered every surface of their house in Windex, put $300 worth of keys in the microwave and covered the walls in ajax, talcum powder and god knows what else! But he never gets told no, he never gets boundaries and it truly makes me uncomfortable. I find it difficult to be around him, as much as I love him, he’s just about to turn two and so adorable. I just can’t understand it…
It just seems like so many people want society, be it TV, the public etc. to raise their children for them. And the kids I’ve mentioned are lovely; but they’ll struggle in the real world when at home there are no consequences and nothing is ever their fault. I don’t know if these parents know the massive disservice they are doing to their kids.