So I stumbled across a comment thread on Facebook that began with a status update from the airport which went something like "Too many wild children in this airport! Parents, it's your job to control your kids!" And then there were a string of comments mostly along the lines of "my Mom would NEVER have let me..." and "when I was a kid I knew better than to..."At first blush this seemed reasonable. I mean, my daughter has thrown some wild fits out in public and I don't remember ever throwing wild fits out in public. Ipso facto, our parents were better disciplinarians.
And then I thought a little more and un-ipso-ed that facto. My daughter is 6 and is at an age where I can nip a tantrum in the bud in a public place. When she was two or three or even four, it was a little trickier. Like a bolt out of the blue it hits me: all of us, every last damn one of us has acted like a miserable little cuss in public and made one or both of our parents' life hell. But the good lord that I don't believe in has arranged it so that our rotten behavior happens in our own personal prehistory.
If you don't believe me, call your mother. I bet she has at least one story about you acting like a total toddler asshole in the grocery store or a restaurant. Probably more.
