Sunday, July 16, 2006

Be The Adult Here. A Rant Re-run.

I've probably posted about this before. People just simply don't know how to behave in public any more, and they're raising their kids to be rude, too. Are we as a people really just this stupid? Are we too busy to teach our kids to behave properly in public? Do some people honestly not KNOW how decent, intelligent, thoughtful people behave in public?

Someone needs to reach over and smack that smug mother and grab the candy from her fat offspring and tell them both to either sit quietly till it's over, or leave. And if candy is necessary to 'convince' the kid to be quiet, the kid is a brat and the parent is schmutz.

If they leave, they should leave absolutely as silently as is physically possible.

A children's production might not be the most fascinating thing in the world, especially after your own kids' part is over, but listen, adults-of-the-world:

Every child on that stage deserves an audience. Suck it up. You can live one night without watching tv, for the sake of a child. Can't you? You can, can't you? Can't you?

Whenever I see hordes of families leaving an auditorium, usually VERY noisily, after their own personal kid has performed, I want to heave a brick at them. I understand the reasoning and I've wanted to do the same thing, believe me, but I didn't. Yes, I had a younger child who needed to be put to bed. My kids knew how to behave in public no matter how tired they got. Yes, I was tired, myself. I'd been in the school building since seven thirty that morning and it was now almost nine. I was an adult. I understood how it sometimes was. I believed that everybody's child was worth a little discomfort and inconvenience on my part.

You're nursing? So was I. You're hungry? I hadn't had a bite since before I left the house that morning. Your kids are getting antsy? Teach them to behave properly in public. You've worked hard all day, dammit, and you deserve a little time to kick back and relax? No, you don't; not until your responsibilities as a parent are finished for the night. You don't even KNOW these other kids, #$%^&*()**, why the _)(*&++=++8*** should you have to give up your well-earned leisure to listen to some strange kid warble off-key. . . . oh, shut up. There is no argument that isn't selfish so don't even try to justify self-absorbed behavior with any kind of rationalization because there is none that is viable. It all boils down to your personal desires.

How could people be so amazingly insensitive to the feelings of the children still on stage? Is a televised football game or reality show, or a cold beer, or a Lazy-Boy recliner, really that much more important than a little child's feelings? For shame, if that is true.

Sometimes the last performance had an audience of maybe ten bored parents. How do you suppose those kids felt?

If your kids are in choir, or band, or orchestra, or drama, or getting an award, get there a few minutes before the thing starts and plan to stay till the end, however late that may be. Remind your other kids about good public behavior, and give them a really graphic reminder about what will happen if they choose not to use their good public behavior. Don't bluff, either. Do it.

Then sit back and try to enjoy the show. All of it. Shut up and behave yourself, too.

This is your child, and these are your child's friends. This is the future. In twenty years, one of those little singing children will be removing your appendix; get to know them now. :)

Some of them will be running your nursing home, too. Don't be a stranger while you've still got your mind.

It would serve you right if they got up in the middle of your funeral and left because a really good re-run of CSI was on in ten minutes. How respectful would that be?

About as respectful as you getting up and leaving in the middle of a child's song, that's how respectful.