What’s Wrong with Kids Today

Tempest Rose 59 Comments

I live two blocks away from a bunch of fields and sports-areas. Football, cheerleading, track, softball, baseball, soccer, hockey. There’s a designated field or area for each sport. It’s nice and all, in that it’s a kid-friendly neighborhood, but it’s also highly annoying.

A few weeks ago Holden and I decided to walk down and watch a baseball game. Holden loves baseball so I thought it’d be good for him. I was wrong.

The kids playing couldn’t have been older than ten. But balls were flying over the fence like crazy — I was slightly afraid for my child’s life.

One of them accidentally slid right into another one. The sliding one look frazzled and slightly embarrassed as he slowly regained his balance and stood up; the slid-into one turned fucking red and stormed off.

His parents just happened to be standing right in front of me. The mom went off to see if he was okay, and when she returned she proudly announced that her baby boy said “he’s lucky I didn’t fucking hit him!” Then they continued to talk about how awesome their kid was and how horrible the other one was, and how they kind of wanted to hit him themselves. All because the other kid accidentally slid into theirs. Acci-fucking-dentally.

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A few days ago I was driving down the road right next to that baseball field and there were cars everywhere, parked where they shouldn’t be, and kids scattered all over the road. I went slowly, as I always do because there are killer bumps on that road anyway, and the kids would not move. I literally had to come to a complete stop for at least a minute before anyone acknowledged me or moved out of my way.

Several parents were standing off to the side, and mostly all of them stared me down with evil glares for making their kids move. How dare I drive down a popular street on my way home. How dare I request that your children stop playing in the middle of the fucking road so they don’t get killed.

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I remember this one time at a small local fair, Holden (and I) really wanted to go down this huge blow-up slide. It was one of those super steep, scary kind that have a slope of about a million and only little tiny pieces of plastic in the design of a ladder for you to hoist yourself up. He was 2-years-old and afraid to climb himself so I had to carry him and grasp onto those little plastic pieces with my fingertips.

Once we got to the top I realized a little girl, probably about six-years-old, had been following rather close. I realized this because as Holden and I were about to sit down she shoved us out of the way and went down the slide first. Her mother was standing at the bottom and cheering her on.

We went down and decided to go up again. This time the same little girl tried to shove past us on the way up — which could have easily resulted in us all falling to our deaths. (Okay, not really because everything is all blown-up and bouncy, but still.) I stuck my arm out with all the force I could muster, and she tried to push past it still. So I literally held her back and told her to please stop fucking around because my son could get seriously hurt and she was being a little brat.

Her mom saw the commotion and yelled for her daughter to behave, but gave me evil eyes once I got to the bottom.

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These aren’t the only stories about asshole kids I have. I have hundreds. And my son is only three-years-old. Technically, he’s three-years and three-months. Two-and-a-half-months. Whatever.

He’s been alive for 1176 days. He’s only been walking for approximately 720 days. We don’t leave the house for probably at least half of every year because it’s too hot or too cold, so we’ve been walking outside and around other human beings for roughly 360 days. That’s not even a full year, and I have hundreds of stories about asshole kids, all from the time he started walking. I’m sure I have thousands since before then. I didn’t even realize I’ve been in contact with thousands of other kids until this very moment.

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And we wonder what’s wrong with the world today. Kids are what’s wrong with the world, and parents are what’s wrong with kids.

What are you people doing? Is it more important to fuck your kid up than to teach them proper manners?

Parenting is not a universal thing. Every kid is different and every parent is different. But, there are some things that are pretty much common knowledge. Let me refresh your memory:

  • Say please and thank you and you’re welcome.

That’s really not hard at all. I know we shouldn’t compare children, but my kid is still a toddler and says those things. Your eleven-year-old should at least know he’s supposed to say them.

  • Don’t shove.

My kid sometimes shoves his friend. And, usually after his friend shoves him back, harder, I reprimand him. We have a nice long talk about not shoving and he gets put in time-out for a minute and threatened with leaving if he can’t be nice. Sometimes shit happens, but I do not stand on the sidelines and just let it.

  • Don’t play in the fucking street.

There are cars that drive down streets, and they will run you over and you will die. Jesus.

  • Be kind.

Sometimes people make mistakes, or accidents, or what-have-you. You don’t have to lose your temper over every little thing — sometimes it’s nice to let that person know it’s okay; give them a little pick-me-up. It’s usually embarrassing enough to fuck up, don’t make it worse on them.

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Can we all agree on those rules? Are they that fucking difficult? Of course there are more, but maybe we should focus on the simple shit first so as not to makes their poor little brains explode. And by that I mean the parents.

[All cartoons were made by me via Stripgenerator]

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What do you think are common sense things people should teach their kids? Do you have any asshole kid horror stories? Let me know!

 

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59 thoughts on “What’s Wrong with Kids Today”

  4. Oh man I posted a rant a few weeks ago that was so similar to this topic. I am passionate about this one and my post explains how I feel. Hope you don’t mind me posting a link to it:

    http://justplainolvic.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/just-a-little-rant-to-test-the-waters/

    Here is what I think should be common sense (courtesy):
    1. Respect (teachers, police officers, etc,.)
    2. Manners (please, thank you, opening doors, etc,.)
    3. Sense of responsibility
    4. No entitlement. Success = hard work
    5. Ethics/honesty

    Probably a very incomplete list, but I just woke up so that is the best I can do right now! Great post!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Of course I don’t mind! I am ALL about shameless self-promotion for my blogging buddies. Some new person came on here, told me the person in my last sexism post was a psychopath, and then linked to their GoFundMe page. THAT I am not cool with, but you are free to link to whatever you want=]

      And I completely agree! Your list seems more for older kids and mine was geared towards the youngins — maybe I’ll make an older list, too. I’m going to check yours out now!

      (p.s. I just woke up, too, and my one eye won’t even open. haha)

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  6. Wow. Your encounters are horrific. I have to say, it is really rare that we have encountered those kind of behaviors. Maybe it’s because we don’t live near a sports field and because we kind of stay away from other people. Such is country life.

    But there is something new to us this year. Emilia has a classmate who keeps saying semi-rude things to her, such as, “Your shoes are really old,” or “You sure can’t run fast.” We told her the other girl probably wants to be friends with her and doesn’t know how, but frankly, I don’t know. Maybe she’s just not a nice kid.

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  7. This might piss off parents, but I’d add to the list to tell parents that not everyone thinks their child is fucking adorable. “Oh look, he pulled everything off your bookshelf! Isn’t that cuuuuute?” Lol

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  9. I was/am a pretty liberal parent about most things, but not proper behavior. A child’s right to do what he wants to do ends with someone’s else’s need for safety, respect, kindness and common courtesy.

    I spend the first week of every school year teaching my students my class rules – which I enforce without fail:

    1. Treat others with kindness and respect

    2. Accept only your best from yourself

    I teach high school, and most of my students look at me like I’m speaking a foreign language when I tell them the rules …

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      • Children live up to what we expect of them, and nothing more.

        Lower standards are not the secret to a successful life.

        If your students know you care about them – and I’m sure they will – they will usually try to earn your respect.

        But yeah, you’re in for the ride of your life!

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  11. Oh how much I loved reading this!!! You are so right! Gosh I have heaps of stories to tell and might do that one day in a blog as well! The parents are the problem. Unfortunately their idiot kids will one day turn into idiot parents and have more idiot kids…

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  13. I live near an elementary school. Saturday mornings, the soccer fields out back are jammed with kids, parents, and coaches. The adjacent parking lots are jammed with cars. A little distance away, there’s another field with a baseball diamond, some practice soccer nets, and a lot of open space. When I walked by yesterday, four little boys, maybe 9 or 10 years old, were playing a pickup soccer game. No adults in sight, though I could hear all the hubbub on the other side of the trees. They were directing each other, coaching each other, working out boundaries. I would have stopped to watch a while if I hadn’t known that the presence of an adult, an audience, would have screwed things up for the kids. When I was a kid, we kids got to spend hours on our own, having adventures, working things out. We knew where to find an adult, but they weren’t supervising our every minute. From what I see around me, kids can bring out the worst in parents, and parents can bring out the worst in kids. Seeing those four boys playing together gave me hope.

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    • I agree — everyone looks at me like I’m crazy for giving my son some space but I think it’s the best thing for him. BUT you bet your ass I’ll put him in line if he acts like the kids mentioned in this post.

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  14. See, I’m one of those assholes that will call out other people’s children when they are in my sphere of influence. I consider them in my “sphere of influence” essentially when they do anything physical that affects me or my children (words only don’t count – easy enough to teach my kids to walk away) or there is a safety issue. When that happens, I speak to them like one of my own children – “We don’t climb utility poles – it’s not safe.” “We don’t hit – it’s not nice. Apologize to her.” Or if they run into my by accident. Or if they need help – “Hey, buddy! You’re okay. Where’s your mom? Let’s find her.”

    Occasionally I get a mom who appears taken aback, but I have yet to have anyone get in my face. My husband says it’s because I’m intimidating, which would explain a lot of how people react to me, even as I don’t understand it – I’m female, 5’6″ and pretty petite, so who knows?

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  15. I absolutely loved reading this! My kids aren’t so small anymore but I can still relate. I’ve had so many kids shove past me as their parents watched and then acted like I was in the wrong for being in their darling’s way. I believe kids should be kids but omg teach them some manners because someday they won’t be kids anymore and those type things tend to come in handy. I actually just read an article today talking about Millennial’s having a hard time become independent adults because their parents were overly involved. I love my kids dearly but I know they aren’t perfect and they aren’t the best at everything they do and I don’t believe them when they tell me the teacher lost their homework or just doesn’t like them. To be fair, my youngest son did have one teacher that really didn’t like him but he was kind of a punk that year. Anyway, I like your blog and shenanigans is one of my favorite words to use, it sums up many things quite nicely.
    Penne

    Liked by 1 person

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  19. Working in the food service industry, I’ll add one children rant that is really more for parents: little kids are f—ing messy, show a little courtesy by either training them early or cleaning up after them. Yes, I recognize that babies and toddlers have less motor control and less attention span than adults, and that a little more mess is unavoidable. The key word here is little. There is absolutely no reason, for example, that your precious angel’s grilled cheese sandwich should be turned into 487 tiny, sticky shreds and scattered in a four foot radius on the floor before you leave the restaurant, or that her used disposable diaper should be left behind in a Ziploc baggie on your seat because you were too nervous or lazy to locate a trash can. (This has happened, I really wish I was kidding you!) You wouldn’t allow your personal, private space to remain this sort of environmental disaster, so why do people feel it is acceptable to inflict these sorts of messes on other people in a public, shared space? I’m not asking parents to completely clean their tables, just to keep their messes in line with the usual messes of other tables, and to watch what their children are doing when they are out in public. (Or alternatively, since most food service employees are fairly mercenary, tip extra. Tips are how waitstaff are paid to provide service for you. If you want us to provide service and to also be your freelance maid service, then pay us to do both! However, I’m aware if you have a young child, particularly if she is your first, you probably have less money for going out, not more… so just don’t be that table creating an industrial-strength mess, and its a moot point!)

    Liked by 1 person

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    • I completely agree! I was a waitress for about 10 years and I’ve experienced everything you have. Now when I go out I made sure to stack the plates and cups all nice to make it as easy as possible for my server.

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