Knowing When To Leave

You can't blame a baby, young child for behaving as such, but I'm telling you, I'd sure like to give the parents a steaming, hot cup of WHAT FOR!!!  Let me preface this by saying that I love babies (birth-2yrs).  Little fingers and toes.  Big, bright eyes.  Sweet little lips.  Goofy, gummy grins.  Love them!  When they act like the babies that they are, who can blame them?  When their parents act oblivious to the fact that Little Precious is making a spectacle of him/herself and causing a distraction and minor uproar, well, that chaps me just a bit. At such a young age, the child has no clue about situational manners or social etiquette.  I've about decided that a lot of parents don't either.

Case in point, at the first of the two funerals I attended this week, a young mother brought her toddler son with her. The child proceeded to babble and talk and make noise through the ENTIRE service.  The lady sitting next to mother and child was SO disturbed by the child's behavior that she turned herself sideways and away from them just so she could listen to what the preacher had to say.  The only attempts mother made to quiet her son was to offer him her cell phone and she did put him over her shoulder and thump his bottom...in more of a comforting gesture than a behavior correcting one.  She didn't move from her pew and he continued to make noise.  She looked in my direction, at one point...all I did was smile.  I'm pretty certain she knew that people were staring holes in her head...silently begging her to do the mature thing and take her child out of the room.  When the service ended, a group of us were standing outside of the funeral home and she blew past, with a rather scathing look for us...like we were the ones causing the disruption. 

I have been in her shoes...needing to be somewhere that's not necessarily kid friendly; not having anyone to keep the little one(s), so you bring them with you and you pray...for them to behave and for yourself to be calm, cool and collected.  I have been the one with the fussy infant or the nattering toddler.  I have been the one whispering instruction and correction intently into the ear of her very busy and bull headed preschooler.  I have also been the one to not think twice about removing said fussy infant, nattering toddler and/or busy, bull headed preschooler from the room. (A certain brown-eyed preschooler was known to beg aloud for mercy and one more chance, as I marched him out of the church sanctuary, on more than one occasion...any witnesses from my Village People?) 

Knowing when to leave really isn't about my child.  It's about me being the parent.  It's about having consideration and respect for those around me and for the situation.  Let me tell you something, people are MUCH kinder to you when you take care of your obligations and responsibilities, instead of sitting on your blessed assurance and ignoring them.

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