Long Story Short ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No Children Allowed People. Reign in your children. Please. I had the a lovely, sunny, summery long weekend and it was joyous and beachy and I have a painful, itchy sunburn to prove it. The only damper placed on my lovely weekend was courtesy of the drunken, irresponsible breeders who let their children run rampant all over me and my belongings. PEOPLE! If you see me responsibly restraining my dog to keep her from bothering you, even after I've had 97 beers, please do the same with your children. Because the screaming? And the "Noodle" fight that is flinging sand all over me (and into my beer)? And the two year old that has wandered over to sit on my towel and chat with me? Yeah, that's not as much fun for me as it might appear. In fact I don't even think it is CUTE, which may come as a huge shock. I know, I know, your eleventeen children are all plump and cherubic but they are also ANNOYING. And LOUD. And having chosen not to pile myself up with kids yet I would like to enjoy, and possibly even revel, in my childlessness. Please allow me to do that. If I told you that my father, my boyfriend and I all spent several minutes yelling at stranger's children would you believe me? And "yelling" is not the word. More like chastising. Because HELLO! Drunken parents! See that two year old wandering into the water over there? Yeah, that can't be good. And the four boys standing a foot from me screaming and beating each other? Also not good. I think the non-reaction of these kids to being scolded by strangers spoke volumes. When I was a kid and a stranger spoke to me about my behavior I would run and hide and cry. These kids? I might as well have been talking to a wall. After an hour of us trying to get the many, many kids to stay near their parents (or at least off of our towels) one of the fathers yelled at the kids firmly and they scampered over to their part of the beach. And then he called over, "I warned you!" in a sing-song voice. Like, "Oh Ha ha ha, those kids, aren't they nutty and fun?" I think we all wanted to kill him. Fine, warn us about the noise, warn us that it's going to be crowded, whatever. But don't act like the bad behavior is something we should excuse because you "warned us." That was Sunday. Monday we had our landlord's children, as well as several additional strange kids of similar age, running as fast as they could around our deck. Notice I said OUR deck. The deck that they are forbidden from playing on. The deck that we pay $1400 a month to enjoy. The deck that runs right past our bedroom window where we were attempting to have enjoyable adult time. Where we were interrupted by the screaming, pounding of tiny feet, and of course the open window. I don't think we would have been nearly as upset about it if we had not also heard our landlord and his wife standing a few feet away, calmly talking with other adults. They were in viewing distance of the rules being broken and did nothing. I came very, very close to walking outside as I was - minimally clothed, hair askew - and utilizing my newly-aquired chastising skills. We didn't do it but it was FRUSTRATING. I do not understand why the rules regulating the behavior of dogs and dog owners get more and more rigid, while the rules regulating children and parents' behavior seems nonexistent. How are children not as annoying as dogs? Yes, dogs can bite but SO CAN CHILDREN. Dogs can bark but children can SCREAM and CRY and yell "Mommy" eight hundred times in a row. Yes, small kids grow up to be adults but they are not adults YET. That means that someone else is responsible for their behavior. I do not hate children. I love them and I plan to pile myself with one or two in a few years. Seriously the people I feel the worst for are the good parents - the parents who do the work of disciplining their kids. Having to deal with the careless parents and out of control kids must be a constant struggle. The out of control kids are a bad influence on their own, the lazy parents probably don't think they're doing anything wrong, and good parents get the same "oh crap" reaction from the childless when they bring their kids somewhere (restaurant, plane, BEACH) even though they are well-behaved. That's gotta suck. 11:43 a.m. - 2005-07-05 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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