I am glad my kids are grown

Last night, around 8 p.m. I went to Target to pick up a prescription and to look around, not to buy anything in particular except for a shower curtain liner and some batteries. Instead of a relaxing bit of shopping, my ears were abused with the sounds of kids screaming bloody murder at every turn.

I don't know if it is because I live in Yuppieville, USA or if this is a trend that spreads across social classes, but it seems as if parents treat their children like little adults, or worse...pets. They also let their kids be the ones in charge, and what the parent says seems to matter very little. I can't tell you how many times I have been in a store or restaurant in recent years and a mother is trying to reason with a little three or four-year-old kid. "Now, mommy doesn't appreciate you screaming like that, you are disturbing all these nice people who have come to shop." This is what I heard a mother saying to her little girl yesterday, and obviously the child couldn't give two shits about disturbing other people as long as she had her mom's undivided attention that she was getting by screaming her lungs out.

Another thing that bugs me is, why the hell are these kids being dragged through a big store at a time of day when they should be getting their baths and getting their jammies on and ready for bed? I have been in restaurants like Chili's at 8 p.m. on a weekday and have found families there eating with their young children who should have eaten hours earlier and should have been tucked in bed hearing a bedtime story instead of shoveling deep fried shrimp into their faces and drinking caffeinated beverages! What is wrong with people?

I am very glad that my kids are all grown up because it was hard enough raising kids in the "collect-them-all" 1980s and the "Barney" bullshit of the 1990s! Now with the kids as the boss, and rules for proper behavior becoming more and more slack, I am glad that I am done with all that.