Okay, so that’s what I wanted to do as I lay in the sun and grinned like an idiot singing quietly in my head “Go mommy, go mommy.” I was so excited by this that I called my husband on the cell to tell him there were actual parents here. Yay for parents everywhere!
This one mom in particular said the
following, and I quote, “If you do that one more time, I’ll take your float
away.” He did it again, and she took the float. My heart swelled with pride. Then
the most horrific thing happened. He whined. He said he wouldn’t do it again
and she gave him back the float. Do you know, can you guess, what happened
next? He did it again. She threatened to take the float away if he did it “one
more time”. He did. She took. He whined. He got his float. This happened three
more times. Oh, won’t somebody please think of the children! The mommy I was so
proud of just ten minutes before crumbled and turned into a sticky pile of
chlorinated crumbs. She then threatened to take him out of the pool if he did
this blasted thing just “one more time”
and he did. But in the pool he stayed. I hate this style of parenting more than the parents who allow their rascally rugrats to run amuck; the kids who have no rules to go by, have no rules to break. It’s a black and white world for them and they’re annoying as hell. But the parents of the let’s-be-super-nice-to-Johnny-and-Sue-lest-they-become-unhappy mindset are creating kids far worse than the aforementioned rascals running amuck—they are creating spoiled brats. The rascals will eventually encounter someone who will tell them to do something and those kids will either do it or they won’t. The spoiled brats are the ones who will try to negotiate because, after all, everything is negotiable, and no one is seriously telling them to do anything.
As I slipped on my flip-flops,
walked through the gate and away from the pool, I heard mom say, “No splashing,
Kyle!” What do you think Kyle did then?
*Thanks, Joss.
