I will get back to you in two and a half years, I have my first on its way. I will probably have to eat my words. But I just spent the weekend with my sister and her family and was absolutely amazed by how cute and sweet her kids are. Which is probably why the screaming kid annoyed me so much, he stood out in contrast. I told my wife we are going to need to take lessons from my sister and her husband about how to raise kids. Both kids are bright outgoing and active in sports and to my knowledge never went through the “terrible twos”.
I don’t go out too much (too poor to shop or eat out), but I remember last year around Christmas being in a Gabriel Brothers store with a kid screaming at the top of her lungs.
Gabe’s sort of has slow checkout, and they were in the checkout. The mom was looking pretty guilty, and didn’t really want to get out of line - I guess I can’t blame her.
Seems like she didn’t factor in checkout time in her “how long can my kid stand to be in this store?” time calculation. The time she stopped shopping should have been the time she was out the door.
It’s uncanny what you don’t see when you don’t live with them, isn’t it?
I would bet my life that they have gone stark raving nuts publicly at least once, if not more often than that. It’s all but guaranteed, and it has little to do with bad parenting.
Anyway, in answer to the question, anybody got a watch?
See my last post. Especially the part where I said I will probably have to eat my words…
A few days ago, on the bus, a one-year-old (maybe?) was sitting in her stroller and screeching at the top of her lungs while her mother tried to soothe her; everyone just sighed, looked to the bus ceiling, and rustled their newspapers.
About a year or so ago, my mum and I were breakfasting on our back porch, early in the morning, when we heard a crash in the street nearby–then a child’s scream, high-pitched, and then helpless sobbing. There really is something about that instinct you get: when the baby was crying on the bus, I just grumbled and flipped the page in my book. When the little girl screamed in the car, my mum and I were up and running before we knew what was going on.
(It turned out that the little girl and her mother were driving along when a man came out from the intersection between the street and the alleyway and blindsided them–just barely. Everybody was okay; I can’t even remember if the car was towed.)
Running around like wild things with no parents in sight? How long ago was Saturday?
Screaming at the top of their lungs - just under three weeks ago, accompanied by the mother repeatedly yelling at her “I’m NOT picking you up!!” Seriously, this was repeated at least two dozen times in the ten minutes I was in the store. What upset me was not the wailing child herself, but finally rounding a corner and seeing the kid. She couldn’t have been more than two and a half. I wanted to smack her mother.
Yeah, askeptic, you probably will. All normal children act up. My 4-yo has thrown tantrums just like any other kid. And of course they’ve done it in public; that’s part of parenthood too. If your sister tells you otherwise, she’s either lying or has forgotten. The best kids in the world will throw fits at times.
The mere existence of a screaming child does not a bad parent make. All kids do it. What the parent does with the screaming child is the question, and when you’re in an airport/mall/library/public place, with a tired or nervous child, it isn’t always possible to make the screams disappear.
I have a friend who has a lovely little girl of about 8. Sweet child, and when she was little my friend blithely thought, “oh, I’m a good parent!” Then she had the next two, who are also very nice little guys, but of course a whole 'nother ball of wax; difficult, moody, each prone to his own variety of meltdown. Friend realized that her first was just a very easy kid. Although I’m quite sure that she had tantrums!
There are some little girls living in my apartment complex who seem to enjoy getting together for shrieking contests. They’ll be running around, playing, and shrieking, as though they’re seeing who can scream louder. It’s happy shrieks, at least, but damn is it annoying. Their last get-together was last week.
It’s been a while but the one I really rember is…I was on a very long bus trip and he was across the aisle having a fit. Welll after a bit I figured out his mom was sitting behind me…with what apparently her new boyfriend.
The kid (about three) was obviously terrified but she was more interested in chating up this guy then taking care of her child. So I said something. She said “Don’t tell me how to raise my child”. What I should have said is “Well somebody has to”.
And yeah I can tell you, because he is not you property, he’s a human and we other humans have to look out for him if you don’t. That and I and the rest of the bus have a right to live though a bus trip without beating ourselve to death.
Every evening. I work in a restaurant. Every evening, someone brings his or her bawling brats in, and every evening, I have to put up with their shrieks. Sometimes, they run around like crazy while their parents lumber after them. sighs and counts down the days till his vacation starts
I just had an idea;
When that happens, when a kid in line starts screaming, why not let the parent go to the head of the line and get out of there asap.
Problem solved.
I am sooo smart!
I have two (now grown) daughters. I remember well seeing them and their little friends sitting on benches and facing each other screaming at the top f their lungs. Some kind of bonding ritual, I assumed. Or a dominance thing. Like boys punching each other.
Can’t remember. It’s something I register when it happens, but not important enough for me to retain as a memory.
Sunday morning. I was at a restaurant, eating lunch, and they set up a table for about 10 next to me. Two parents and probably eight kids of varying ages. They were all fine for the most part, but one young girl, probably three years old, was running around the restaurant until she tripped and hit her head on the table, and screamed for quite a while.
I don’t blame her at all, and felt bad for her. 
But the best way to avoid having your children get hurt by running around and tripping into table edges? Don’t let your kids run around in the restaurant, parents.
I’m a public librarian. At least once a week. During the summer, sometimes every day. You don’t even know.
My shop shares a wall with a barber shop. Several times a week I hear blood curdling, relentless screaming that lasts as long as it takes to cut the hair of a squiming toddler. It amazes me. I think to myself that if my child were that terrified of haircuts I’d skip it. Even more often I find myself wondering how it’s possible for someone that little to have sustained that level of screaming so long without passing out.
Antigen you don’t live in Parkville, do you? A pair of screaming girls (who inspired screaming in other neighborhood girls) moved from our complex to a complex in Parkville about a year ago.
Wow. Often enough that I have the impression of it being almost daily. It probably isn’t that bad, but it *is *a few times a week.
I’m stunned that you have only seen it twice in years. In almost any restaurant I go to there seems to be a screaming child.
I just asked my coworkers to see if I was overstating it and they confirmed that it happens at least a few times a week. (They also pointed out that I always point it out.)
As for running: Last time I was in Borders (I think a few weeks ago) a child came running around the book case and ran right into me. I’m a big man - she bounced right off and landed on her butt. And began screaming. Thank god I wasn’t recovering from an operation.
I volunteer in my local library and I see it every now and then. The last occurrence was quite funny because of the reaction of the other patrons. Two rather ghetto people walk in with an infant and get settled into the computer area; half an hour later, baby starts crying. They ignore it for five minutes, but the people in the computer area do not. After about two minutes of the baby crying, they get comments along the line of “shut that thing up” and “why don’t you take the baby out of this area?” The female of the ghetto couple replies “It’s just a baaaaaaaaaaby, it’s gonna cry,” and, of course, gets the response of “We don’t have to listen to it; take it the hell out of here already!” from one of the more persistent computer users. The ghetto lady then spends the next three minutes picking her stuff up and dramatically flouncing out of the computer area.
I find from experience that good vs. bad behavior in children tends to vary by region and population. I used to live close enough to Boca Raton that I’d end up shopping there instead of in the city I lived in. Any time I went into a store, the mall, or a restaurant, there was at least one child behaving badly. Running, screaming, throwing a fit, and using an unreasonably loud outdoor voice indoors was pretty common. Then again, so was finding all the areas of a store (especially ladies’ clothing) ransacked like there was a riot going on. The adults in the area could not bother with behaving like respectable human beings, and thus were not concerned with raising their kids to be respectful of others. I now live in the Orlando area, and I find that the attitudes toward raising kids are different, but very stratified between areas and ethnic groups, but overall, the kids up here are better behaved than the ones in Boca Raton. The shops are cleaner too.
The last time I heard a child screaming or running around in an inappropriate manner was about two weeks ago. I work in a car dealership, and there are lots of parents who think it’s totally fine to bring your kid to a store with nothing fun to do or interesting to look at (well, except for those expensive showroom cars that cost $50,000+); they’ll be in here for hours, and the kids often get bored and start screaming/crying/running around after about half an hour. I am now relatively impervious to children screaming and bad background music while in stores.
Couple of days ago. I’m picking up my son, and I hear some screaming on the way in from the parking lot. Can’t tell where it’s coming from.
I’m standing in the doorway, waiting, and clearly hear the screaming again. From across the hall. I can now discern phrases like “HELP ME”, and “NOOOOOOOO”.
I asked my son what was up, and he said “Oh, it’s just that little girl across the way.”
After further questioning, this kid seems to be going through the Terrible 10’s. Constant screaming, night and day.
Is loudest before school and at bedtime.
July 4, when we went to see Transformers. Bad movie to take a young child to. To the mother’s credit, she did take him outside, so we didn’t have to listen to it for all that long. I felt kinda sorry for the poor kid to be honest–taking him out was probably more of a mercy for him/her than for the rest of us (the movie was loud enough that the screaming was more like background noise).