Writer's Workshop: Are Manners Old School?

Writer's Workshop!

Today I chose the prompt Name a pet peeve you have about how other parents raise their kids...Go on, stir the pot.

So here we go.

Last week, we took a family trip to the mall. The mall has an Old Navy, and I needed some new shirts. We also decided to stop and have some lunch at Panda Express because we just don't have meals out too often anymore.

After we did our shopping and had lunch, David wanted to check out the Suncoast movie store. There happens to be a play area just outside the door of the store, so I said I'd sit and let the kids play while he went in and did his browsing, because I'm pretty sure 20 minutes of staring at movies wouldn't be of much interest to a child, let alone 3 children.

I took the kids to the play area and got their shoes off. Ethan volunteered to stay close to Grayson as he toddled in and out of a door on a play house, and crawled in and out of a tunnel. Claire, never one to go to far from my line of vision, played on a ball or in a car just 6 feet in front of me. As they were playing, I saw Claire bump into a little girl and say, "Oh, I sorry" and I heard Ethan gently telling Grayson, "Hold on Grayson, we have to be nice and wait our turn" when another little boy about Grayson's age took a turn crawling through the tunnel. It warmed my heart a little to hear my small ones being polite.

Then, they came. A mom and her two children, a boy and a girl, probably no older than 7 and 9. The mom went and sat down. She scanned the area and decided she didn't want to be there. She shouted, "Come on (child's name) let's go to Toys R Us." The little girl immediately stomped her feet and loudly whined and yelled that she did not want to go to Toys R Us. She wanted to play. She and the mother argued back and forth loudly for a bit, then the mom gave up and sat down. The girl looked at her brother and victoriously yelled, "Come on, let's play!"

Now, if you've seen the play places in the mall, you'd know that they are mainly filled with toddlers who need a quick break from the stroller and mom's shopping. These are small children. The mom who brought her kids in, took out her cell phone. Her kids started running, playing Tag. The mom dialed her cell phone. The kids ran. The mom got on her cell phone and started loudly relaying to the person on the other end about the "f***ing idiot who got my f***ing order wrong at McDonald's." That's when her daughter, the oldest of the two, slammed right in to a little boy who could have been no older than two. The little boy was launched about two feet and landed on his stomach. The little girl looked at him and said, "Get out of my way stupid!" The mom kept yammering into her cell phone, expletive here, expletive there, laugh, laugh laugh....The boy's mother came and scooped her child up and went over to the mother and asked for an apology from the child. The cell phone mama waved her away and continued her yammering.

At this point, I'd pretty much had my fill, and it couldn't have been better timing because David came back and I got everyone their shoes and we got the hell outta there.

So, here's my pet peeve with some other parents. Manners are not old school. Is it really so hard to teach your kids some please, thank you, excuse me, may I, I'm sorry? Is it so hard to get off of your cell phone to deal with your child's rude behavior. Once, when Ethan was about 4, we were at a mall in Arizona. Ethan got upset with a little boy, who looked about 3, who got in front of him for a slide and pushed him down. David and I stopped all conversation and went over to Ethan. We helped the child up and looked at Ethan and made him apologize to the little boy, and then to the boy's father when he came over to see if his little one was OK. We then left the play area. The next time we went to the play area, Ethan was kind and polite.

Manners...Good for everyone.