Move over Doctor Spock

Now just to be fair from the outset, no I don't have any children beyond my "fur" babies. However, I was a professional nanny for nearly two years. So I do have some experience related to the topic herein. (If you're curious the ages of the children ranged from 18 months up to over 12 years) I very rarely had to use any kind of negative reinforcement in my behavior shaping, but it never required more than a stern talking to or timeouts, or on a few occasions the withdrawal of favorite items and/or privileges. That's not to say they were angels all the time, but only that when called on bad behavior, they would "usually" respond quickly with manners.

Our story opens at a nearby "family" restaurant, where da wife, some friends, and I had settled down to a leisurely dinner. The next table over had a mother, her two children (ages roughly 2+ and probably 12 or so) and another woman's child (also 2 or so) (The child, not the mom!) [We found out the third child was someone else's near the end of the meal, when his mother came to pick him up.] Normally I try not to watch people parent their children, mostly because I know that I get fairly critical. (I know... it's easy to be critical when you're not the parent.) But tonight it was an overheard comment (by overheard I mean the entire restaurant overheard the woman shout it) that I could almost not believe...

In a very loud voice the woman said, "Don't make me get up and hit you!" No. Really. This was exclaimed at the 2 year old that had been cruising along one of the table rows (a row completely unoccupied, but probably still not a good idea with wait staff bustling about) drink in hand. The child had wandered off that far due to the mom furiously texting (I assume texting) on her cell phone, and she was completely oblivious to her children, or the child in her care. The 12 year old was helping to watch the third child during this debacle, but was not having much luck controlling her sister. The little one managed to make it back to the table before her mom was forced to "get up and hit" her. If it had just been that one thing, I think it would have been bad enough. Indeed, that was going to be just the source of this entry alone, unfortunately it did not end there.

As their dinner ended the third child's mother came and picked him up. He went good naturedly and was happy to see his mom. The mother of the other two managed to stop messaging on her phone long enough to talk to her friend for a minute before diving back into her other "conversation".

Several minutes later, the little girl (still being ignored by mom and sister by the way) continued acting up, and racing off around the table. When mom finally realized what was going on, she threatened the girl again. This time she said, "I'm going to take you home and beat you!" Now, I've heard parents saying this in a joking manner (ok SOME families are like that, and it's understood that it's a joke. BUT not with kids that young....) but this woman was serious. The elder sister jumped in to help out, possibly to keep from becoming the next target. The elder sisters efforts were met with resistance, and some yelling from the little one, which of course only angered mom further. Mom then says, "Why do you insist on making me get LOUD WITH YOU?!" and then, "Take her outside. Now, take her outside NOW." Both girls left, and it was about 15 minutes later that the mom paid the bill and finally went outside to take her kids home, possibly for a beating. Now, this restaurant isn't in the best part of town, nor in the worst, but I would NEVER leave my kids (at those ages anyway) outside where I couldn't see them at all. (I would consider it if I could watch them through the window, and assuming they wanted to be out front.)

I was sad for the girls to see the mom (obviously still a bit angry) heading out, hoping for their sake that she did not really have an intention of hitting them. It seems to me that if she had merely paid attention to her kids, and taken an active involvement that the little girl would not have acted out so much.

But no, I don't have kids, what do I know, right? Well I know that I've never had to lay a hand (aside from a VERY light tap to emphasize that the stove was HOT!) on a kid. Yes, some of them may have had to sit for 15 minutes watching an egg timer in a chair because of bad behavior. There was also a removal of TV for 1 week for one of the older kids, and there was even once a time I had one of "my" kids write me a short letter about why what they did was wrong, and who it might hurt if they did it again. But NEVER, EVER did I hit, or even threaten to hit, any of "my" kids.

If this had been an isolated incident, I could have maybe written it off. But I've seen this, or things like it, far too often. I know everyone can't be awesome parents, but I expect more than that. Maybe we should have people get licenses to become parents. I mean we make people get licenses to handle major things like driving, marriage, guns, and more. Of course my driver's test wasn't that hard, and looking at the other drivers in this area... licensing doesn't seem to help THAT problem....

I don't mean this to come off like I think all parents are bad. I don't believe that. I've seen plenty of parents that I thought were doing an excellent job, and even a moderate number doing an adequate job, but it never seems to be enough. So to those of you raising well behaved kids - kudos. To those of you raising the hellions of tomorrow - it's not too late to make a change.
Good luck,
-Dogfather