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It’s been a week, I can complain again

Our senior pastor, right before Thanksgiving, asked the congregation to fast – not from food, but from complaining. Since I had left by the time he said that (had to go feed Baby Boy), technically, I was off the hook. But I gave it a try, anyway, and it was much harder than I thought it would be.

My biggest complaint that I dared not voice was about bad parents. When I say bad parents, I mean the parents out there who willfully disregard rules because they either don’t want to be inconvenienced or because their child is above rules – they are “special.”

Last Wednesday, two such incidents occured.

My grandmother and I went to the mall (Alderwood, for those of you in area), and took the kids to the big toys play area. Obviously, Baby Boy was too little, but the Munchkin loves the slides.

At this particular play area, there is a height restriction of 42 inches, meaning that if you are taller than 42 inches, you cannot play on the toys. I have seen this rule enforced exactly once, and it wasn’t this time. The last time I let the Munchkin play on the toys, my mother was watching her, and was nearly run over by a couple of boys who were easily 10 or older. They were with their grandmother, who had a who bunch of kids with her, some who were small enough to play on the toys, but then she didn’t restrict the older ones from not playing.

This time around, I saw two kids (brother and sister) measure themselves against the sign, and the younger one (the girl) was more than a full head taller than the height limit mark. They then went on in to play, and I had several run-ins with the girl, who was monopolizing certain toys to the point where smaller children (like the Munchkin) could not get on them without getting run over. I don’t know where they left their parent or guardian (rules clearly indicate that a child cannot be left unattended in the play area), or I would have said something. It is too bad that lazy parents can end up spoiling the play time of younger kids simply because they are unwilling to say “no”.

Wednesday night, my sister baby-sat the kids (the Munchkin was asleep, so all she had to do was watch the baby) and the Webmaster and I, along with Friend and Doc, went to go see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We had all read the book (except the Webmaster), and enjoyed the movie – although due to the length of the book, several subplots were completely cut out.

However, the movie is rated PG-13, and rightfully so. My favorite film critic (and talk-show host) Michael Medved (who gave the movie three stars out of four) said that no child under eight should see this movie, and that the best rule of thumb was to only let a kid see the movie if they had read the book. Considering the book is over 400 pages long, that will weed out many kids that are too young for the violence in the movie.

There were young kids at the 9 pm showing that we were at. There was a very little girl in our row – Friend, who had a better view of her than I did, estimated her to be about 4 years old.

I have talked about this before, when we saw Revenge of the Sith with the Webmaster’s coworkers. It just galls me to no end that these parents can’t possibly take the time to find a baby-sitter, so they would rather just pay for the underage child to go to the movie than be inconvenienced. It makes me mad, and I feel badly for the kids.

I’m going to have to start a crusade. Let’s all keep our eyes peeled. The rule is: a bad parent is one who puts their needs or desires ahead of the welfare of their child. Leave me comments when you see something.

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