You know...many times I stick up for parents and play devil's advocate when
you're only seeing a 'snapshot' of their lives. Like at the grocery store
when a parent is disciplining for something and it just looks awful because
we might not have seen what happened right before or half an hour before or
the day before or whatever...it's taken out of context. i'm not talking
hitting them or anything like that. i'm talking frustrated parent.

But your story sounds like parents being oblivious to other people around
them. i HATE that! unfortunately, it's not the childrens' fault and people
end up not liking them for being regular kids in a situation that they
either shouldn't be, or their parents should be more aware. Another
unfortunate thing is that those kids, when they become adults, have the same
entitled attitude. Yuck.

Now, if their lives go anything like mine do, and they're aware enough to
notice it...they'll probably be put in a similar situation and maybe they'll
see how it feels and learn from it. I'm guessing if that happens though,
that they'll be put out rather than enlightened.

I gotta give you credit. I wouldn't have had the guts to do anything about
it...well, maybe not in the fashion you did and I'm surprised that the
people around you didn't stand up and applaud you.

--
Lori Greenberg
http://www.beadnerd.com

ebay auctions:
http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...origre enberg

"Kathy N-V" wrote in message
.com...
I know that most of you think that I love children, but that hasn't always
been the case. A little over twenty years ago, I was told I was a child
hating B*tch, and I happily agreed with the accusers.

Years ago, at the Wang Center, we were seeing the Boston Ballet perform
"Swan
Lake." We were in the "cheap seats," second balcony and all that, but they
still weren't inexpensive by any stretch of the imagination. I had bought
tickets for a friend's birthday, and we were really looking forward to the
show.

Just before the show began, we heard a little noise, just enough to make
us
turn around and look. A family with two small daughters, decked out for
the
ballet. We thought it was kind of odd, since this wasn't "The
Nutcracker,"
where you expect children, nor was it an afternoon performance. This
being
pre-Bob (and of course pre-DD), I really didn't think anything of it.

Until the plinking started. The parents had provided the children with
snacks
to keep them quiet during the performance. (I had always subscribed to
the
notion that any child who needs bribes to behave during a performance is
too
young to be there - but I digress) Apparently the snack bags had a
quantity
of M&M candies with peanuts, which if dropped, one by one, make an amazing
echoing plinking noise as they drop down the steep steps of the second
balcony, just before they fall down on the occupants of the first balcony.

I started out politely, asking the parents to control their children. But
the parents had suddenly developed some sort of memory problem, and were
staring at the children as if they hadn't seen the little darlings before.
The little girls giggled, and the moment my back was turned, the plinking
resumed.

By now, we were hearing grumbling drifting up from the first balcony,
where I
presume some audience members were treated to the sensation of M&Ms
dropping
on their heads. An usher tried to discreetly speak to the parents, with
exactly zero success. The rest of us in the second balcony got to hear a
lecture on how it was entirely appropriate for children to be allowed to
enjoy a cultural experience, and how mean spirited the rest of the world
was
for "hating children."

I don't hate children, although there were two kids right there I would
have
happily strangled, along with their parents. These tickets, a birthday
present for my friend, had made a significant dent in my budget. Even my
friend was starting to get annoyed, and she teaches seriously emotionally
disturbed children all day long - nothing ruffles this woman.

Finally, I reached my breaking point. Giving the parents the "wild eyed
look
of death," I snatched the half empty bags of M&Ms from each child and
stuffed
them in my purse. The father made a token protest that I was stealing,
but
he stopped dead when he saw the look on my face and the faces of the other
theatregoers around him.

Alas, the family fled at intermission. We enjoyed the second half of the
show in blissful peace. The only fly in the ointment is that I just know
that family probably still recounts how horrible those child hating people
were when they were only trying to expose their children to a cultural
treasure. And enough time has passed that these children have grown up and
(dear god) had children of their own.

I can only hope that I soured that lovely family on going to the ballet.

Kathy N-V