Take a Chill Pill Dude!

I took Will to the park today. It's a pretty decent park and the parents generally watch their kids and obviously care about them. Generally.

Today, there was a couple in their early 30s there that just made me wish they were eating poisoned food. Not the "kill them" kind of poisoned food, just the "very sick" kind. Oh, don't act all shocked. Surely, once in your life you've wished someone a severe case of the runs.

I was first drawn to them because the father looked alot like my youngest brother, Paul. But as soon as they caught my attention it was like I couldn't stop listening to how they talked to their children. They had a girl about 6 and a boy around 3.

As far as I could tell, both children seamed well behaved, polite, and pretty normal. Only they were too quite. That "too quite" that constantly yelling at your children results in. I heard the father figure (and I use that term loosly) yell at the 3-year old for taking a sip from his mothers drink without asking first. Yeah, okay. I understand some people are picky about that. But I'm not talking a simple "don't do that" or "i've told you not to do that". He YELLED at his son, "You need to learn to show respect for others things, boy!" "What do you think you're doing," as he grabbed the drink away from his wife, splashing her and his son.

It never really stopped. The kids got yelled at for drinking with out asking, going to play without asking, getting dirt on their clothes, not eating their food, interupting their parents, not stopping when they were called. Everything. And it wasn't like the parents were even nice. The dad grabbed the son from a toy and almost knocked me down when he whipped around with out checking where he was going. Sure, he grumbled "sorry", but it sounded about as sincere as when my three year old says it.

It wasn't just the husband, although he was the worse, the wife was just as likeable and quite. The thing that bothered me as I left the park was the knowledge that people generally behave BETTER in public than they do at home. I'm left hoping they were just having a bad day. Surely, some things would be bad enough to excuse treating your child like that . . . you got deported . . . evicted with no where to go . . . the world ended.