The Stupid Tax

I hereby decree the first ever, to be followed by many, STUPID TAX.

This is a tax that all WCPS members can blight upon someone, when that someone has gone above and beyond their duty in the realm of hopeless stupidity, mindless inconsideration, or flaming rudeness.

Case in point: Last night Hub and I took a rare evening to attend a speaking engagement together. We paid to hear this speaker, as did every other person in the gymnasium. Gymnasiums are not the best acoustical space for a speaking engagement, large and echoish with many hard surfaces to reverberate sound off of.

We are seated in anticipation when in comes a woman with her toddler. WARNING:if you are a parent with a toddler who thinks the mere existence of your fabulous child entitles you to inflict it upon an unsuspecting populace, you are about to be insulted. But that is what this dim witted, socially challenged, twit of a lady did. She set her toddler down and it had a blast. It ran around, it shoved chairs across the hardwood floor, it threw coins around. It screeched and shrieked and whined and made it utterly IMPOSSIBLE to hear the speaker.

Several people turned around in their chairs and glared at this woman, who I can only assume was medicated out of her mind of Happy Mommy Pills, because she was too stupid to read the mood of the crowd. And after 40 minutes of this brain dead parenting, the mood of the crowd was not good!

Be clear. NO blame is being placed on the child. Children do what children do. But STAY HOME or get a babysitter because I do not want to tolerate YOUR child when I am out at a social situation that is NOT meant for children to begin with! Just because you have a baby you are NOT granted the right to lose all sense of social obligation or propriety. When my child was small and she started howling in a restaurant, one of us removed her and sat in the car with her while the other dined. We will NOT inflict OUR screaming kid upon a room full of dinners, she is OUR problem and we will sit with her yowling self in our own car, but no one else should have their dinner ruined because of us and our kid!

Unfortunately, dummy mommy was on some other wavelength in which the world adores her and the fruit of her womb. WRONG! She was rude to the speaker and utterly ignorant of the social convention of considering others. To this woman I award the first ever STUPID TAX.   She was a royal pain!

Oh Uno...now you really are being brave.  I have never had a child. Your story brought to mind a moment in my past at having to deal with such a woman. I was running a small store that sold a few toys. This woman was well know in the town as being a bit thick upstairs. She allowed her little darling to do whatever it wanted, wherever she went. Often stock would get pulled off store shelves and left on the floor. She would throw things. Yes, everyone loves a darling child who hurls things at you for no real reason, then scream at the top of their lungs again for no real reason. This woman would just look blankly at you. She had the attitude that everyone should love children. Everyone.

Well since I sold a small selection of toys in my tiny store, knew the day would come this woman would tow her darling in. So she did. The child poke this and proded that. Screamed when mom said she couldn't have something as it was better to wait and go buy it in town where it would be cheaper. Quietly I stood, watched and smiled. There was this container of loose balloons which I sold I think 5 for .25 cents [it was in the 80s.] Little darling reaches in, grabs a fistful of balloons and crams them into her mouth. The mother reachs down, pulls them out of her child's mouth and proceeds to stuff the balloons back into the container. Then she gathers her now screaming child and proceeds to leave.

"Excuse me. But before you go, that will be $ for the container of balloons."

She looks at me as if I lost my mind. Tells me that she isn't buying anything. I correct her by saying she sure did. While I'm sure her darling's spit is like wonderful to her, it isn't to the other customers who may have wanted to buy a balloon. Worse is since she stuffed them back into the container, it meant all the balloons were exposed to the germs that came out of her child's mouth. So $, please...plus tax  

You should have seen the glare. I was outrageous to ask that she pay. After all, the child is only a baby and doesn't know any better. "I will never shop here again!" states she.
"Promise?!" my reply.
She walked put. Screaming child in tow. She kept her promise and never returned.
It was a small price to pay  

I am not brave.

I have been the mother of the screaming child and there are plenty of times my heart goes out to the mother because I have been in that exact same situation. In bank line ups, at the grocery store, in a waiting room at a doctor or dentist, you can't help those situations for the most part. And for the most part all of us know that in certain settings we all have to tough it out. Usually the mother is no more pleased with the situation than anyone else. We've all been there!

HOWEVER...there are times and places that are simply not appropriate for small, noisy, active children. Period. WHen your customer said the child was just a child and didn't know better, she was absolutely right. But she is the ADULT and she bloody well DOES know better and it is her duty and obligation to prevent the mindless actions of a small child from endangering itself or others! That is your job as the adult, the one we expect to have more sense than the toddler you are with!

There is a lady very much like you describe here in town. How her children survived their childhood is a mystery, it certainly wasn't because she was on the lookout for threats or stupid activity. In public, her eyes never even set upon her little darlings. It was the task of every other adult around to run interference. They say it takes a village to raise a child, yes, when mom is a moron.

As a mom to 6 adorable monsters (lol), UNO I totally agree with you. I have had to take my children to different places and do my best to keep them inline. If I find they are just in one of those moods, if at all possible (meaning I do not HAVE to be there) I will take them out. I find it very inconsiderate to allow my children to totally disrupt others. I am so lucky now to have older children to take with me or leave them all at home! We also have a couple moms in our area who are oblivious to the dangers and disruptions their children are involved in daily!!

I am not saying I have never had my children cause a scene somewhere, but that as a parent, I feel it is my responsibility to see to it that my children behave in public better then what they behave at home!!

To end this. I have two quotes from a dear old friend who I will smilingly say to someone who is allowing their children to be little hellions in public:

1. "I've heard a good spanking helps...... Especially when they are second in line" and point to the kids. The parents look at you funny until it sinks in you mean they need the spanking! Lol
2. For the really hard headed ones. "I have a good dog leash to put your little beast on it you want to borrow it. My dog obeys me so doesn't need it now!"

Bravo, Smoky!

I need to add something, I feel a bit embarrassed.

There are good kids and there are impossible kids. I had an impossible kid. She was pure hell on wheels and continues to be to this day. We parents of those impossible kids, we have received more than our share of withering looks from other parents as our kids are flipping out over absolutely nothing. Well, not nothing. It could be the tag in their shirt is itching them and they cannot CANNOT tolerate this and it sends them into spasms of anger. Or there is too much light, noise, people, stimulation that makes them go ballistic.

So some kids are easy peasey, and some are punishment for something horrible you did in a former life and now you are paying!

We mothers of these hard kids bend over backwards and TRY OUR BEST to keep these kids reined in and under control. Plus we have learned the situations where our kids simply cannot cope and we do not take them there! We have learned to edit our lives for the peace of ourselves, others and our children. A public speaking engagement is NEVER where we would take one of these impossible, high need, over-reactive, rage prone children!

The mother who wins my Stupid Tax did not have such a difficult child. Her kid seemed perfectly normal. It was the mother who wasn't firing on all rockets.

I barely tolerate the fruit of my loins on a good day. I certainly would never expect people outside of my family to tolerate them on a bad day.

And my kids are GOOD. I have high expectations that they must live up to.

I always laugh at Hubby. Before we leave the vehicle to go into a public place he asks the kids if they need a "whoopin now or later?" The kids almost always say later if we deserve it except my 4 year old who looks at his dad and says "dad, are you kidding? I don't need a whoopin ever cause you love me lots!" He's got his daddy figured. Only ever had to have a "Walk and talk" which is another favourite once!! Walk and talk = walk out if the building to the vehicle and hand talks to bum, walk back into building once the fussing is done! Lol.

uno....I am really surprised that someone that was helping with putting on the event you went to, did not go up to the woman and quietly tell her to leave.

If she wanted to come back, she could not bring her child back. Somebody really fell down on the job there. Children, no matter good they are,

should "not" be allowed in those situations. Bet you didn't really get much out of what the speaker had to say.

I have no kids therefore I can judge you ALL!

Schipperkesue wrote:I have no kids therefore I can judge you ALL!

Someone has to. Might as well be you.

We were graced with such a child at our wedding! My eldest cousin saw fit to ignore the babysitting provided for those who insisted on bringing their children and turn her MONSTER loose ..... after an extended period of disruption one of our ushers very kindly went and told "Mother of the year" to remove her brat from the adult area. I love kids and look forward to the day I have grand kids, my children were never allowed to behave like that and in the unusual circumstance that they did have a little person melt down moment I removed them ASAP!