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They live better than we do, the little stinkers.
I’d like kids a lot more if they’d get a freakin’ job!
I told this story on a Ricochet FB post.
On one of my trips to Urgent Care with one of the kids, the doc looked at me over his glasses and said, “Back so soon, Mrs Yenny? ”
I was in no mood, having just received one of the scarier calls in my life. Son #2 had taken a header off his bike, stood up and surveyed the damage to his torso and promptly feinted. Someone dragged him out of the street and waited with him. He was ready to call 911 when son#2 came to and provided my phone number.
I snapped at the doctor, “Every time you doctors open your mouths you say kids should be spending more time outdoors. News flash, this is what happens outdoors. Make up your (really bad word)ing mind.”
Parenting isn’t for wimps, but it would be a lot easier if the other adults in society were at least on our side.
Annefy,
That’s my favorite story of the day. Condolences for the scare, but good on your for raising a proper rowdy boy (and giving the doctor a little bit to think about !)
I wouldn’t just confine it to Progressive elements either. Even confessional Christians have congregations that drive families with kids away. No matter how many times the elders remind them of Mark 10:13-15 — or the passages in Matthew or Luke — some older folks seem to think absolute quiet is their right…at all times.
It’s our church, not a crypt.
About a year before my Dad passed from Parkinson’s, I took him out to Home Depot mostly to get him out of the house and to a place that wasn’t a Dr’s office. We shopped a bit then went to McDonald’s for lunch. Again, mostly for the change. There were a dozen kids playing and screaming and having a great time. I asked Dad if he wanted to move to a quieter area. He said no, he just wanted to listen to the kids play. He really liked little kids. He didn’t see many of them in the retirement community where he lived.
I was in the frozen foods section at Walmart yesterday. As I was pondering which frozen vegetables to buy, two little boys were gleefully racing each other up and down the aisle — over and over and over again. Running, squealing with delight. Two little boys just enjoying being little boys. It put a big smile on my face!
That sounds terrible. I want to move as far away from that as possible. A log cabin in the woods with the worlds fastest internet.
I like the post and all the comments.
When I take my dad someplace or just for a drive he always asks, “Where are the people?!”
I’m afraid that’s only the beginning of the war on kids. In addition we have Common Core, “anti-bullying” legislation, legalized drugs that are going to ruin a lot of young lives and a whole lot of other lefty abominations.
We are blessed to have a priest who is one of 10 children. He had the large crying room converted to a confessional, and a small room in the back converted into a crying room. The vestibule is large, and parents take their kids there when they get squirmy (the kids not the parents). There is kid chatter and crying all over the place, and you can tell that it is music to father’s ears.
And when the parents do get squirmy?
Yep I am not saying kids need to get the same amount spent per head has adults do. But when you spend 6 or 7 times more per adult and two or three times more per head on Teenagers there is something wrong with how you are budgeting your priorities in church.
No wonder’s why many churches have a hard time keeping adults that grew up in church. Kids might not be able to articulate it even as adults but they knew as kids subconsciously when an organization and people do not think they are important.
I personally love it when I drive home and see kids playing in the street. My 5o or 60 unit neighborhood must have an average of at least one kid per house if not more.
Mike Rapkoch:
Our Latin Mass is well-attended by large families. It’s a pleasure to attend Mass w/ 25-40 kids who are quiet as mice during the rite…then turn into absolute hellions, chasing each other, roughhousing, at the reception afterward!
I couldn’t agree more, Jeffrey! As someone who valued vicarious experiences as a kid, I loved watching siblings and friends raise a little physical Cain-and- holy-Abel.
I was a feral child raised by wolves in the 60s and early 70s. Home was the place where I ate dinner, did my homework, and slept. All other times I was out roaming on my bike with my friends. We played ball in the street, we played army, we did all the idyllic childhood outdoor things. Now I can walk my dog two miles through my neighborhood on a summer evening and not see a single kid outside playing.
This is for Annefy:
Way back when, when I was about seven, we lived in a new “subdivision,” and all of us boomer kids in the neighborhood played kickball in the street all late afternoon, until dark. Sometime in July I had acquired two skinned knees. My knees were really a mess. The doctor said they looked like hamburg. The messes even had gravel in them. My poor mother. Anyway, the doctor fixed them up and piled the bandages up high on them. My mother told me I could sit on the chaise lounge on the patio out back, as long as I didn’t move from there. My mother and the doctor were really firm about this: I was not to move from this chair.
For hours and hours I sat there being really good (or was it several seconds?). Then I heard my friends playing kickball. I was good for a really really long time (or was it several seconds?). Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I jumped up and ran–nervously, of course–to join my friends in kickball. And all I remember after that is the curb I tripped over.
Great point. Do kids even get skinned knees anymore? They were epidemic in our day.
When I was a kid I was allowed to roam free, and yet my mother is way over-protective when she babysits my sisters’ kids.
Example: So I was at my parents’ house one day, and mom happened to be babysitting my niece. My niece and I were playing in the yard, running around, yadda yadda yadda. My niece tripped and fell at one point and cut her lip a bit. Not a problem. She didn’t even really notice. Then my mom looked out the window and saw the little bit of blood on the lip. Mom ran outside in hysteria over the “injury”, which scared my niece who then started to cry “because of the cut”.
It was really weird, because mom never would have reacted that way when I was a kid.
(It also illustrated to me how kids alter their behaviour due to the reactions of the adults around them.)
Nothing gets a person into a church better than the knowledge that they are valued there, and nothing gets them to leave faster than the impression that the church sees them as surplus to requirements.
@Misthiocracy: I’ve had that experience a couple of times – watching my kid take a header and then immediately looking at me (or the closest adult) for a reaction.
I had an interesting experience when son #1 feinted in church one morning. He was sitting with his class in front; I was joining him and his brother on a field trip that morning and was sitting in back.
I heard a kid go down, peaked down the aisle and didn’t recognize the shirt color, so remained in my seat. Quite a few minutes later a mom came to the back and told me it was my kid. I found an adult to help, got him outside to the fresh air and waited for the ambulance. EMTs arrived, I explained the situation and off to the hospital (… again)
I ran into the EMT later in the emergency room; he hadn’t realized it was my kid who passed out. He thought I was a bystander. He actually approached a nurse (who happened to be a friend) with concern due to my lack of panic.
She explained that as a mother of 4 this wasn’t my first rodeo.
Let’s not forget little kids and toddlers who commit felonies.