Thursday, September 24, 2009

Out of Control

This week, there were the floods in Georgia (the farmer in this NY Times article is a friend and has more damage than he even realized in the interview) and the orange dust storms in Sydney, and probably some other unusual weather elsewhere on the globe that I don't know about, all of which could make a human being feel kind of out of control and vulnerable. It could provoke a need to take control in other ways.

I was thinking about this last night at Gillen's baseball game. As usual at these games (and at our local wally world - at least when I used to go there) there were several parents seriously wielding control over their kids. It sounded like this - "What are you doing out there! Wake up."; "Ah, you're not sick, drink some water."; "Hope you have a good game 'cause this is going to be the last one you get to play!" This is all said with patronizing, screechy voices.

There are other, loving, trusting parents in the stands. And there is the joy and thrill on my kids' faces when they make the hit or cheer on their team mates. I try to focus on that and keep my glaring down to a minimum.

Wouldn't it be cool if these frustrated parents were given control over the refreshment stand at the first sign of needing to control their kids? The more artistic ones could paint murals about global warming or kids rights in the parking lot. Or, there is always toilet patrol.

I have to write about this here so that I won't lose control myself when witnessing this the next game.

3 comments:

Sarah said...

Ugh. I feel the same way after going to parks or even to family gatherings. At a park one day with my sister, we watched a family reunion that was so horrid that we left the park early. Just pure nasty parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles. Poor kids.

Unschoolers Rock the Campground said...

This is how I feel almost every time I go to Walmart!

I love the fact that my kids notice it, too. They have come up to me at playgrounds and asked to leave because people were being mean to their kids. AT A PLAYGROUND... hello?
Drue recently asked if we could leave a store so she could go home and hug Declan. When I asked why it was because someone had just been mean to a boy his age and it made her upset!

Maybe all the kids who are growing up like ours will spread it more...

Frogcreek said...

I hate being around people like this. My heart aches for the kids and I have to bite my tongue hard. But I try to think about how these parents were treated as kids and try to make sense of their actions that way. It helps a teeny bit.