How do you feel about “other people’s kids”?
I’m not talking about the children in your neighborhood or the kids who come over to play, or the kids I teach, for that matter.
I’m talking about the random kids you encounter in public. You know who they are. They are the unattended, lightly parented, and poor-mannered kids who make life just a little bit harder. They run through aisles of stores, darting in front of your cart, or between you and the end cap full of sauce jars. They roll around on Heelys like they’re on their own personal roller coaster. They stand up on their restaurant booth and look over at you while you eat. Yep. You know them. You know them well.
If you’re a parent who gives your children boundaries, there is nothing that gives you more pride than to silently say, “My child wouldn’t act that way. Ever.” Or, maybe you don’t say it so silently. Maybe you say it in a stage whisper to another parent standing near you, if you’re the passive-aggressive type. My wife and I can communicate this with a look. Usually, it’s me looking at her because I have a lower tolerance for it. That’s partly because I hold kids to a set of rules all the time as an elementary school teacher. I think there are simple, universal rules for public behavior, and why some people choose not to follow them is beyond me. I’m not alone, either.
Take my former colleague, Brian Braiker, a former editor at Newsweek and Rolling Stone. His piece “Other People’s Children” for Time Out New York, really nails my feelings about this issue.
Of course, there’s a book about it, too, which I didn’t know about until I started researching this post. Fittingly, it is titled, “I Hate Other People’s Kids” by Adrianne Frost. Just the abstract alone makes me want to read it, IF I wanted to read a book about something I can’t stand.
To complete the publishing trifecta, there’s even a YouTube video, “I Hate Other People’s Asshole Children” by billyblackattacks (NSFW).
This is just a rant by someone who says he hates all kids in general. This is not exactly the point of “other people’s” kids, but the video does mention an encounter with a mom who didn’t like that her disrespectful child was told to shut up.
These are just the tip of the mountain of feelings most parents have about the children we see every day who could use some simple parenting. Because those of us who teach our children how to behave in public do it because we want to raise good citizens. We know they are a reflection on us and our parenting methods. We know that there are other parents lurking, ready to give each other a look and classify our kids as “other people’s children.”
