American Madness

So, as I have mentioned in the previous 2 postings I have been at a conference. My conference was on the Disney compound, I was not looking forward to this at all. I envisioned overly tired, overly hot kids, frustrated parents, and an endless streaming of Disney tunes. Well, needless to say I was not let down.
Spending time here without a child makes you think that there are a lot of people out there who really need some lessons in parenting. When your kid is standing next to a total stranger who is quietly reading a book while waiting for a bus and the kid starts to pound his fist on the drainpipe between the two of them just to see how much noise this pipe can produce telling him to stop is a good first step. When your kid doesn’t stop I am pretty sure the next step in the parenting manual is not to walk away from the kid and ignore him while he continues to pound on the pipe and irritate the stranger.
When your kid is taking a pay phone and repeatedly bashing it against itself, and your saying “Come and sit down Nick” doesn’t seem to be affective, maybe it is time to switch up your strategy rather then sit there looking pissed but doing nothing. Another two left out of the parenting handbook: When you see your child drop candy on the floor, pick it up and throw it out, otherwise it will end up in the kids mouth (just watched that happen with a handful of Tic-Tacs, apparently daddy kicking them to the side didn’t discourage the kid from eating them anyway… Stupid 3 year old, why doesn’t he listen when Dad says “don’t put any of that in your mouth? Oh right he’s 3). Also, don’t reward bad behavior, you’d think that was obvious, but apparently not. For those without child Disney is an excellent form of birth control.
Sometimes the parents are not to be faulted, kids will throw temper tantrums from time to time, it happens and usually there is nothing that can be done about them. I am not blaming any parent for a crying or screaming child (well except those parents who grab their kid’s arm with such force it is surprising the arm is still attached to the body, let alone still in the socket). It is the behavior issues that these parents seem unwilling to control because they would much rather sit on their overly abundant ass then deal with their child. Spend a few days here with these kids and you will not feel the need to have one of your own anytime soon.
Plus if I have to hear Wendy, Michael, John and Peter sing one more song I think I might go on a psychotic rampage faster then if I was hopped up on Fairy Dust.

This entry was posted by Matt Cipriano on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at and is filed under American Madness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.