Here's the story. We were having dinner at Dairy Queen on their fenced in patio, when two little boys, twins about 4 or 5, burst out of the door. They proceeded to leave the fenced in area and run around like chickens with their heads cut off. Their mother soon followed and was calmly telling them to come back. They answered her with a "NO" and proceeded to climb over the fence, onto a table occupied by two women having a conversation, child free. The mother responded by calmly asking them to stop doing that and come to her.
Does anyone else see a problem with this situation? I was so appalled, I briefly considered beating my own children so they didn't get any ideas that this type of behavior was acceptable. Apparently, this mother thought young children have a right to misbehave, not listen and tell their mother "NO". Where was her urgency to control the situation? Why was she not upset? Has society become so lackadaisical that we can't have control over our children and bad parenting is acceptable? This was not a case of children just being children. This was a case of bad parenting. When do you ask a child to listen to you? You don't and you shouldn't have to. You are the parent, you are the authoritarian, you are the boss, and you make the rules.
To make this story worse, the mother just shrugged. Really?!? You allowed your children to disrupt 5 different groups of people, allowed them to be rewarded with an ice cream treat, allowed them to put themselves in danger by running by a busy street when they left the gated area and all you do is shrug?
Because of this situation, I think I am now in favor of strangers disciplining children when their parents have obviously failed miserably. We've heard people talk about "white people not beating their kids" and now I know why.
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