When Parents Need Spanking

Pure Vanity | 6/29/02

[pabianice]

This afternoon I went to a local theater to see a movie. The theater -- in an up-scale Boston suburb -- was perhaps half full. For a Saturday afternoon the ticket price was $ 6.00.

Among the viewers was a couple with a toddler. The toddler screamed and shouted and fussed the entire time. It became impossible to hear the dialog (quite a feat in a Dolby Stereo theater). Finally, the couple decide that the kid needed some exercise, so they went down front and released the kid in the front of the theater where he continued to scream while running back and forth. This went on for over half an hour until patrons got so angry that they started yelling at the parents. Finally, mercifully, the parents and their kid left.

Now, I realize that it's hard to get out when you have a toddler. But bring it to a crowded theater showing a movie with complex dialog and let the kid ruin the movie for 800 other people?

Where does selfishness like this come from? And how is it stopped?

[Xenalyte]

Good question, and if we can figure out the answer, we can make a mint off parental-help books.

[Coleus]

Only $6.00? We pay $9.00 here in scurvey Jersey. And the people are just as if not more rude.

[nevergore]

Stand up and yell "how many people want these parent's and their child to leave?"

I think once several people hear this they'll speak up and the offenders will leave.....

If they don't, walk out to the front and get the manager. Also, demand a refund for the cost of the movie...

NeverGore

[Paul Atreides]

I still wonder why people bring their little darlings to events like weddings, anniversaries when the children are obviously too young and too bored with the events.

Then again, there are the tots who scream throughout the sermon in church because they know it will get the parent(s) to take them out.

[Irene Adler]

Unfortunately I see more and more parents who don't appear to care at all how much their kids bother other people, but hit the ceiling whenever the kids bother THEM. My sister was that way with her kid; I never could understand it, but I suspect narcissism on the part of such parents (my sister is a definite narcissist).

[Betty Jane]

Exactly the right reaction. If the people ignore the first polite shhh's, it's time to stand up and say something. You paid for the money and those people were stealing it from you by their rudeness.

I went to a matinee on Tuesday. I was standing on line at the candy counter which was very long. The theatre had two counter people, and the customers were in one line. Each time a cashier finished the next person in line would go to get served.

Four different groups of people at different times walked up to the counter thinking they were next. Nobody said anything to any of them at first. But I was already tired of waiting. The first two were groups of kids 10-12, a polite that's the end of the line and they went back there. The next a mom and two kids 8 & 10 or so. They ran to the front. Mom called them back, and the older boy whines "no, this line is shorter." So I explain that we have been waiting and the end is back there. The last group was a mom with three 14 year old or so boys. She marches right to the front. I'm getting a little tired of this and say, "The end of the line is back there." She who just arrived tells me, who has been on this line for 20 minutes, "No. There are two lines and we're next." Well I was the next one in line and asked her if she thought everybody else standing in this line was sooooo stupid that they would wait if there was a line with only one person on it. She looked at the glaring group and went to the end of the line grumbling, but she went.

After I was served, someone else jumped the line and not one of those ninnies who had waited said a word. This is a huge problem. Not many people will even stand up for themselves let alone principals.

[CIB-173RDABN]

I agree. Further, I could never see the point in making children a part of a wedding ceremony. Perhaps the parents think it is cute, I find it distracting.

...or maybe they are planing on selling the video of the wedding to American Funniest Video...

[holyscroller]

I would IMMEDIATELY complain to the manager and have him tell the parents either quiet the kid or leave. My husband, on the other hand, would have handled it himself if it were one of our kids. Our kids learned quite young, that if they screamed for no reason, we'd give them a reason. They soon decided it wasn't worth it.

[Paul Atreides]

From what I have seen, either the kids are scared to death being the center of attention as ring-bearer/flower girl, or they just don't want to be there or understand what is going on. I know, from what my sister-in-law went through planning her wedding, that weddings are hectic enough. Why would anyone compound the grief by putting in a child who is too young?

[gracie1]

I rarely saw the inside of movie theater for years for the simple reason there was no way my bundle of energey called a son could sit thru a movie. Kids movies were a maybe. But never to a movie aimed at adults. That was why God gave us VCR's and babysitters.

But somepeople just don't get it. A good response would be standing up and yelling TAKE YOUR BRAT AND LEAVE!

[Paul Atreides]

Some people think there kids are God's gift to the world and can do no wrong. Once, I was with a friend, waiting to be seated at a restaurant, and a couple had three kids with them. Two of them were in the floor and in the entry of the restaurant. People had to walk around or over them. The mother just stood there and said in a timid voice "________, get up." Do you think the kid listened to her? Nope. The kid just stayed there, in the way. I don't know what the father was doing at the time.

[cgbg]

The patrons should have marched en masse to the front of the theatre, surrounded the mother and child and escorted them out of the theatre.

That would have been a scene that "mom" would never have forgotten!

[Paul Atreides]

If the kid had come close to me, I would have told him that there was a monster waiting for him under his bed. Let the parents deal with that for the rest of the night.

[Socially Dangerous Element]

I still wonder why people bring their little darlings to events like weddings, anniversaries when the children are obviously too young and too bored with the events.

Having been childless, I surely know how you feel.

However, since having children, it has been my goal to include all of my family in every family event possible. It has become part of the culture. I attended a wedding where children were not welcome and it seemed funereal. To each his own I guess. Left up to me, I would promote an atmosphere of family everywhere possible throughout American culture, which includes children. As a parent, noone knows more than I do how inconvenient children can be at times. It's about taking the bad with the good and changing the paradigm of our culture. I think it's worth it in the end. But on some days I can sure see how some folks would disagree.

[justanotherfreeper]

Reminds me of something that happened in a theatre several years ago. I went with some friends to see an action flick, can't remember which one but the audience was mostly teenage boys. Some idiot mother brought a child far too young, as the kid started sobbing and screaming in fright during a "shoot out" scene. Some teen boy in the back started chanting "KILL THE EVIL BRAT, KILL THE EVIL BRAT" and every male under 25 in the theatre joined in (my girlfriends and I were laughing so hard we couldn't breath!) The mom got the message and took the kid out, at which point the audience burst into applause as they walked up the aisle.

If you are attending a movie with a lack of smart mouthed teenage boys, I would get the usher, they are paid to deal with these problems.

[Paul Atreides]

I have nothing whatsoever against children, although I have none of my own. However, there are just some occasions at which children of a certain age do not belong. Also, once that child is old enough to be taken to such an occasion, the parent should see to it that the child behaves with decorum and respect.

[john in missouri]

A good response would be standing up and yelling TAKE YOUR BRAT AND LEAVE!

B-b-b-b-b-b-but... you might hurt someone's feelings...

[goodieD]

Children have to be taught they are not equal with adults. One of the problems today is that kids are being taught they should be treated like little adults, allowed everything. Well they aren't little adults, they are children, subject to different rules of behaviour. If you don't teach them early on that they don't get to do everything they want to do, they will be in for a big shock when they grow up.