Muhahaha… crotch apples… i like that one… I would have told the kid, if he was snotty to me, to piss off. If it was a polite tone then i would have politely told him to piss off…
I’m pretty sure it’s been established that this entire exchange was situational.
Once upon a time some breeder REALLY loved you. One would hope. Though if not, much of your attitude is easily explained. I hope they did, though.
Why did the featherlou cross the road?
To piss off the rugrat guard! 
So, a doper doesn’t like the preachy attitude of some people in this thread - an attitude that was clear to me as well, “situational” or not - and you have the nerve to suggest that they were unloved as a child? Huh. Or could it be that some people just don’t like kids nor the implication that they are somehow our responsibility as adults? Nah, we must all have had terrible upbringings.
Fuck you and your righteous finger-wagging.
Yet another person without kids who wonders why in the hell an elementary school kid who is supposed to be looking out for other elementary school kids thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to chastise an adult for crossing a street.
I also don’t think about ‘setting a good example’ for the random sprog of breeders because, quite frankly, I don’t have any and it doesn’t occur to me that I should shoulder such responsibility for someone else’s kids.
I’m an adult, and I cross the street when I deem it safe for me to do so. For five years, I was at an urban university located near an elementary school that had crossing guards, and I don’t think I ever paid any heed to what those crossing guards were doing at all. I crossed the street with the ‘WALK’ signal, not when a waist-high told me to cross it. Had one of them said something snotty to me, I’m quite sure I’d have replied that the sprog in question shouldn’t talk to strangers.
It is not up to adults to obey children.
Parents really need to stop their kids from doing this. I remember once I was at local carnival with my boyfriend and his youngest brother, who was 7 or so. Fresh from his DARE provided lecture, Lil’bro decides to dash over to the big Lucky-smoking carnie guy running the tilt-a-whirl and say, “Ewwww! Smoking is disgusting! It makes you smell bad!”
Mr. Carnie is not exactly as polite as blessedwolf. He takes a menacing step forward, says, “What the fuck did you just say?” and moves like he’s going to flick his cigarette at Lil’bro. My boyfriend (who was, fortunately, built like Paul Bunyan) gets between the kid and the guy, and after some choice words, the incident ended without any harm.
I see these kids all the time, being rude and know-it-all to random strangers, and I wish parents would teach children that not everyone will respond with an indulgent smile or even a dirty look, and that this behavior is not okay. There are a lot of people out there who don’t give a shit about other people’s kids, and some of them are absolute assholes.
Well, I’m not an absolute asshole.
Actually, I was suggesting that he was loved as a child - trying to make the point that this:
…shouldn’t exactly be an insult. I expressed the notion that they MIGHT not have, but that I genuinely hoped they did. It occured to me that the Doper in question might have had a truly horrible childhood, so I wanted to defuse that possible bomb. I really do hope that everyone who has participated in this thread (and everyone else, obviously) had some breeder who REALLY loved them at some point in their childhoods.
Well, since I’m a breeder myself, I’ve had at least three of the former. Of the latter…there’s been finger-wagging, but only the other party could give a judgement on whether or not it was “righteous.” No complaints, though.
Actually i was loved as a child. I was loved enough that my parents bothered to teach me proper manners and respect for my elders.
As to the kid, I don’t care for being ordered about by Adults, much less some little yuppie spawn whose left nut hasn’t dropped. If I was there he’d have gotten the patented Deagan Look of Doom. I would have then bent way down very slowly to his level, letting my leather jacket creak as much as possible and growl at the pretentious little shit-smear. “Mind yer manners you little turd.” And proceeded across the street. If I was feeling evil i might blow cigar smoke in his face too.
No way in hell am I waiting around so I can be escorted across the street among a herd of small children. Fortunately, I don’t live or work anywhere near an elementary school.
The crossing guard is there to protect children, not adults.
It’s as valid to me.
I do not recognise the authority of the kiddiwink crossing guard over me.
That’s what I said earlier; he charts in the same position in my consciousness as any another random child in a newsagent, demanding sweeties.
Completely and utterly under the radar.
Of course it’d be different if I knew the child - I’d humour him and wait for him to tell me I could cross the road; I might go mad and buy him the sweeties.
I believe that children are the future; teach them well and let them lead the way - just don’t expect me to be doing any following until they grow up.
<fast forward two weeks, same time of day; featherlou attempts another crossing>
-kid- “You really should wait for the crossing guard.”
-featherlou- “I know what I’m doin’!”
-sports car- "VRRRR-RRROOOMMM! <zooms through the crossing nearly severing featherlou’s piggies in the process>
-featherlou- <jumping backward onto the curb> PANT PANT GASP WHEEE-EEZE (heat beating like a tribal drum)
-kid- “Told ya!”
You’ve driven in Calgary, GrizzRich?!?
See, this would never happen, because I’m an experienced Calgary pedestrian, and I expect the sports car to come zooming through the crosswalk with me in it.
Perhaps, like my own Mother, you don’t realize you do this, so I offer this as a free service. The following is what I consider “righteous” finger-wagging:
Correct. It is the parents’ job to teach them everything.
I would prefer to set no example at all to some stranger’s child.
Actually it does, but not in the way you think it does.
Nope, nothing righteous about calling another poster that takes issue with your attitude “ignorant.”
Again, we have no responsibility whatsoever to put across any sort of lesson whatsoever to some stranger’s child.
See how this parental preachiness can come across as pretty damn annoying to people who have no desire to be around kids?
We’re not here to set examples, provide lessons, give guidance, show support, or any other damn thing to someone else’s kids. Just because that is how you have chosen to live your life gives you no right to preach to others about how they should behave around your damn childsphere. Dig?
Are you an idiot, Dooku et al, or just willfully obtuse? Is it really that much to ask that an adult behave in a civilized manner around children as part of functioning in society? Because, you know, kids ARE part of society whether you like it or not, and if you can’t handle that, then you’re the socially retarded one.
I don’t expect you to worship, praise, teach, guide, or support my child (unless you’re his teacher), and I seriously doubt that any thinking parent does. At a minimum, I would expect you to act no differently around my child than you do around me as a stranger.
Featherlou, if you’re wound up enough by this little episode to start a Pit thread, then you’ve got bigger problems than you realize. Or does simply saying “I’m an adult, and you don’t have to feel responsible for me” to a kid terrify you?
Finally, the sophomoric references to children as “crotch apples” other terribly clever sobriquets are just stupid. Nobody gives a shit (except, maybe, your parents) whether you have kids. Nobody’s putting a gun to your head and making you procreate. When this type of thread surfaces, a lot of the chimer-inners’ responses distill to “I’M A REBEL, BABY, AN ICONOCLAST! SOCIETY SAYS TO LOVE KIDS BUT I HATE THEM! I’M A RENEGADE WHO DOESN’T PLAY BY THE RULES!” Come the fuck on. Sell your cooler-than-thou somewhere else.
Ah so by simply disliking children we MUST be a posturing rebel. Please. Kids are lound, obnoxious, annoying, helpless, smelly, sticky, and most of the time, boring to talk to. Generally I treat children kindly, as I feel that’s the best example i can set, when I bother to care to set one. I have NO reservations, however, at repremanding an obnoxious little upstart like the one in the OP.
No, I think you’re a posturing rebel (the general you, not the specific you) for calling them crotchdroppings or whatever braindead term on a public board and suggesting that they should be bitchslapped. Also, I believe that there’s a word for anyone dumb enough to dislike any group of people as a whole. Hmm, what’s that word again?
I think that the best example a lot of us can give a little child who talks in a snotty (and presumptuous) manner to an adult is to tell them that they are not entitled to do that. Not to “play along” and not to cater to them. Not to indulge them. Screw that. Kids need to learn that they can’t go around being snotty to strangers—adult strangers.
I’d never dream of being rude or mean to a kid. I like kids. But it grates on me when I am told that I must cater to their little self-involved delusions or snottiness.
If I were in featherlou’s positition, I would have crossed the damn street whenever I felt it was safe to do so (just like she did). If I happened to be there when a group of kids were being escorted across, I’d go with them. But barring that, if the light is green and there’s no sign of cars, dammit, I’m goin’.
This kid was snotty. I do not think it is wise to indulge snotty behavior and treat it as if it is valid. Snots need to be told that they are snots. That’s a no-brainer in my book.
So what’s wrong with telling the kid, “I’m an adult, you don’t need to tell me when to cross.” It doesn’t take a lot of guts to say that calmly to a kid, and it’s certainly much more adult than freaking out over it-- and yes, starting a fucking PIT THREAD about it qualifies as freaking out in my book.
Apparently you’re the willfully obtuse idiot for missing my point entirely, and for actually helping to make it with yet another “strongly worded lesson” for the guy who doesn’t like kids.
My point is that regardless of whether I choose to behave in a civilized manner around children or not is up to me. I can handle it just fine. What I can’t handle is people like you constantly reminding me to do so with your little “what kind of a lesson is that” and “a fine example you set” commentary.
Then I guess you missed the relevant sections I quoted where Hamadryad did just that - berided everyone for not setting the proper example nor imparting the proper lesson.