My sister recently blogged about how she has made the decision not to have children. She has been trying for several years and there has been no luck.
It's kind of too bad. She would have been a much better mother than one of the women in Target today. I was looking for my last present for the bf and as usual, I was strolling around enjoying the sparkling cleanliness and well-appointed designs of the whole store because it was my day off and I didn't want to do all that much besides give myself some retail therapy.
I went past one woman who very politely refused to get her son a Transformers t shirt. "I think that's a little too big for you Ethan." Yeah, she was right. The kid was maybe 8 and it was in the Men's section of the store. No problem there. She was a nice mom for treating her son so kindly. A while later, I ran into them down the snack aisle and she was joking with her kids. The daughter really, REALLY wanted something called Hello Kitty chews. Now to me that sounds completely dreadful, but the mother took her daughter's request in stride. I went down the next aisle because I needed raisins and because the mom was very funny with her kids and I didn't want to seem like I was eavesdropping when I was laughing out loud. For about the sixty-seventh time in as many seconds, the daughter said, "I want some Hello Kitty chews. You said we were getting Hello Kitty chews." To this the mother replied in a sing-song voice "We haven't gotten there yet. Don't get your panties in a bunch."
There was no more out of the little girl.
Sure it was a little off color for a seven year old girl to hear that, but it was rather nice to see kids generally well-behaved. It may have been impolite for the girl to badger her mother so much, but she was really just holding the mother to her word. She'll probably grow up to be a lawyer or an investigative journalist.
Two more aisles over, a mother was letting her daughters choose their lunchables. Suddenly, I thought to myself that Hello Kitty chews didn't sound so dreadful after all. When the girls quarrelled because the older one got the younger one's choice out along with her own, the mother said "Shut up!" She then proceeded to call her daughters ungrateful and throw the lunchables into the cart and said to them, "I'm going to e-mail Santa that you guys suck."
That is completely verbatim what she said. It wasn't quiet either. I'm quite sure Hello Kitty fan and her mom heard them two aisles over. Now I stood there blankly, a few cartlengths away trying to pick out cheese, but bewildered by this inhumane woman. I was so mad that I felt I should say something to the mother. Had I been my sister, I probably would have said something such as:
"Excuse me, but I'm sure you realize I couldn't help but overhear you. I think what you said to these children was inappropriate, quite rude, and in no small way is related to their caustic behavior to each other. Maybe someone should e-mail Santa about you."
Thinking about it now makes me mad that I didn't pay enough attention in science class that I could build a time machine. I am thankful that I have a blog where I can share this with the rest of the world. Perhaps the next time I see any adult mistreating children in this way, I will say something, anything.
Happy Holidays.
And yes, I completely forgot the raisins.
3 comments:
I dunno. It's cruel enough to lie to kids and tell them there's a magic man at the North Pole, a belief that'll have to be shattered eventually, and to use that lie as a tool of power to ensure conformity or obedience is lazy and reprehensible.
But are you sure she was in fact using it in that way, and wasn't just being tongue-in-cheek about it? Some people do relate to their kids in a wry, sarcastic way, though seven is probably too young to pick up on that.
Of course, I guess you could argue that that right there's what makes it cruel: even if it's intended humorously and not cruelly, no consideration was given to whether the joke would have its intended effect or would instead actually be traumatic.
At any rate, it's better to know where you stand with your parents than to live in a fog of middle-class insincerity, and if the relationship truly is at a shut-up-you-annoy-me level, and if the parent truly is vile and unworthy of respect, it's better to find that out early than to linger in the vain hope of ever having an intelligent, respectful relationship with them.
Sorry to be dismal, but 'tis the season.
Cbutterb,
No, the mother wasn't being humorous. It was very threatening. I guess I didn't convey that enough in the anecdote. I just really thought that the whole Santa thing really pissed me off. I almost said "Oh, by the way little girls, Santa doesn't exist. It's your parents overextending their credit cards that make Christmas possible."
I understand. And I forget to point out that you're right, Target rocks.
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