Pardon Me

I am just obsessed with this flickr account.  

ill-mannered post

I am subscribed to various groups that I don’t enjoy being subscribed to, but do need the occasional bits of useful information that happen to get posted. Recently a “discussion” about manners has broken out on one. I decided to torture myself and read it. I do not always treat myself very well.

This is a large group which meets in person regularly. I very rarely attend. The flurry of messages started because somebody posted a complaint about the general behavior of many of the children at a recent lunch. Behavior such as yelling, sitting on top of tables, making huge messes with no attempt at cleaning, and purposefully spilling water were listed. I was not there. I do not know what happened THIS time. I do know that part of the reason that I rarely attend such things is because I am anti-social, and part of the reason is because the behavior of many of the members and their children is totally unpleasant for me to be around. This leaves me inclined to believe the original poster’s overall impression of the level of manners on display. Other aspects of the original complaint did rub me the wrong way, not that anybody argued with her on those points.

The responses started.

Boys will be boys. Kids enjoying being kids. I am blessed by a special needs child who is loving and full of energy. Every child is different and not all are calm and quiet as apparently you are lucky enough to have. We work so hard and it is nice to spend time talking to adult friends and that distracts us from watching the kids, but we all know what that is like and should be understanding. We all have bad days sometimes so we should be supportive when the kids are having bad days. Well I know, having four kids, I can’t always keep an eye on all of them at once. If you think a child is behaving in an inappropriate or unsafe manner you should say something, we should all look out for each other. Sorry if I am not as perfect of a mother as you. Yes they are a bit excited and enthusiastic but they are overall so much better behaved than other kids I see.

On and on and fucking on.

The whole thing irritates the shit out of me. I can’t attend events which should be interesting and educational because they let their kids be so fucking noisy and distracting that it drowns out the point of being there. I can’t set foot in a restaurant during certain times. I am rarely able to stand taking my daughter to those kid oriented places. We order books online rather than making use of the library because that is cheaper than paying the attorney fees when I finally snap from the noise and rudeness and running around, not to mention the scribbled on books in the library.