I just returned from a shopping trip at a local department store. I noticed a young – VERY young – girl with a pink shirt in hand go to the self-checkout aisle and start pushing on the screen. I knew this youngster would not be paying for her selection, but her mother was nowhere in sight. She continued to push at the screen until her baby sister approached her, and then the two wandered off behind a display and out of my sight. I brought this event to the attention of the customer service rep who was helping me, and she became very concerned and asked where they were. “They were right there,” I pointed, “but they walked off that way. I just don’t know where there mother is.” “They just announced a lost child,” the rep said. “Really?” I asked, then added, “I think I’d shoot myself if I allowed my kids to run around a store without me.” Right about that time, the shirt girl reappeared and began pushing at the screen again. “There she is!” I said, “and there’s her little sister with her.” The CSR went to the girls and asked where their mother was, and I saw shirt girl point off somewhere. “Then you two need to hold hands and go be with your mother. Go on…go on!” The two girls walked away and the CSR followed them and asked the mother to keep her children with her. As I left, the mother looked at me as if she was angry. Why? Because I’m not comfortable with her children getting carried off by some pervert?
I’ve noticed a gradual loosening of parental control over children over the years. I used to go to PTA meetings but stopped. I quit going not because I was unconcerned about my children’s school, or because I was nonchalant about their future, but because the noise from all of the children playing and carrying on (and the parents talking at the same time as the speaker, by the way) frustrated me to no end. I even saw one child with a toy that his parents had brought for him to play with during the meeting – a toy gun that made noise! I decided it was best for to stop attending before I slapped someone and got sent to jail.
I’ve noticed an increase in rudeness in general, but the lack of parental control truly astounds me. I’ve seen kids careening around stores in grocery carts, banging into the aisles and nearly running over customers, laughing uproariously. I never saw those parents. I wish I had. I would have loved to express my dismay at almost becoming in-store roadkill.
Do parents not care about their children anymore? Are they TRYING to get rid of them? Do they not care about their physical safety, or their future social skills? These kids that today are allowed to eat food in the store as they shop learn that it’s okay to take things without paying for them. Then the parents are upset because their pwecious widdle baby-wabies are prosecuted for shoplifting. Alternatively, their kids-come-grownups have little idea of how to behave in public because Mommy and Daddy were so busy either trying to be their friends or ignoring them that they were never taught social norms. Why don’t they have friends? Why can’t they be successful? Freud had it right – go and look at the mother. Or lack thereof.
Please parents, keep your children with you in the stores! Teach them (and yourselves) to respect others by keeping your mouth shut when the speaker is speaking. By respecting others you provide a role model for your kids. When shopping, don’t allow anyone in your party to open any package until it is paid for. Be responsible. Teach them to be responsible.
Then the perverts will have a harder time getting to your kids.
Then you may be asked back to places you visit.
Then prices in stores may go down because the shrinkage will be less.
Then we may be able to feel more confident about our future, because we can be more confident in our future adults.