Honestly, some people need to learn that they don’t HAVE to bring their kids absolutely everywhere – especially when they have zero control over them!
Today a couple was at the courthouse with their children – a boy, aged about ten, and a 2 month old infant girl just cute as a button. She was a teensy little thing with a thatch of curly black hair and the biggest, brightest black eyes I’ve ever seen.
The boy was a train wreck: he was running and shouting and yelling all over the place. After about the fiftieth time both the clerk and I said to each other “Excuse me? What? I didn’t get that…” (because we’re speaking through perforated safety glass and his voice and stomping on the marble floor are just echoing all over the place), I went to my bag and retrieved a colouring book and a box of crayons. Up to now, it’s been 99.99% successful in quieting kids down – only two have declined and that was politely.
This kid!? Oh, hell no! He tensed up his body, balled up his fists and shouted “I don’t WANT to colour! I don’t WANT to colour!” and started working himself up into a tantrum. His parents? They just sat there with goofy “Well, whaddaya gonna do?” expressions. I couldn’t take it any more. I looked the brat in the eye and said sternly
“You cannot make that kind of noise in here! People are trying to pay attention and they can’t hear because you’re being rude and loud!” He then twisted up his face and began to bawl in the most exaggerated fashion (“AAAH! AAAH!!! AAAAH!!!”) while – I’m not kidding! – peeking surreptitiously at me to see if it was working!
I turned to the father and said “You need to control him. If you cannot control him, you need to remove him because he’s distracting everybody and the courthouse is not somewhere to make a mistake.”
He apologized profusely and left, taking his son with him, who kicked and screamed the whole way.
Honestly!
Note: yes, yes, well aware the kid might be autistic or have other such developmental issues to which I say (and yes, I’m qualified to speak on the matter) he’s not stupid – he can clearly learn but was never taught to control himself. If he honestly cannot learn, then the parents have no right to bring him into such an environment because it’s unfair to everybody, including the child.