An Open Letter to the Two Women at the 12:45 p.m. showing of Speed Racer today in Pullman Square:

Yes, I corrected your children in public today.

Why? Because either 1) you didn’t see/hear what they were doing, or 2) your laissez-faire attitude was such that you didn’t care.

There seems to be a widespread misunderstanding of some public places as being suitable substitutes for daycare and/or hiring a babysitter: the library, Wal-Mart, restaurants, the park, the movie theater.

All of those are places where children can and should be; however, that does not absolve you of any responsibility towards their behavior. If your kids are at the park playing with other kids and they start acting like idiots, you stop them. This is how they learn. Where is the “line” between acceptable and idiotic behavior? It depends, but here are some clues:

Proper Park Etiquette

1) If there are only a few kids in the park and your kid wants to walk up the slide, that may be OK. Sure it’s not the way that you’re supposed to do it, but if they aren’t getting in anyone’s way, and the chances are small that they will hurt themselves, have at it.

2) However, if their sneakers are covered in mud, then no, you don’t let them climb up the slide. You may not care if your kid’s clothes gets all muddy, but other kids might. You may have heard the saying “Your right to swing your arm ends at my nose.” This is like that.

3) Similarly, if there is a line of kids waiting to go down the slide, your kid may not climb up the slide. Those are the rules, they are now part of a community, they need to learn how to co-exist.

You May Have Blocked Our Your Kid’s Noise, We Haven’t

Many parents develop the self-preservation technique of selective deafness when it comes to their children. If your kid is being a whiny brat, you may prefer to pretend that you cannot hear them. This is perfectly acceptable, as long as you are either in your own home or your car, or if there is no one else around. If your little girl is screaming like she’s trying out for the Jamie Lee Curtis role in a revival of Halloween, you are required to make her stop. If your little boy is attempting to stuck in “repeat” mode saying the same thing over and over and over again at the top of his voice because he’s unhappy about something, you are required to make him stop.

If your infant has woken from her nap just as your meal was arriving and starting crying and crying and crying and crying, you are required to put down your food, and do whatever you can to make her stop. This is true even if the meal is at McDonald’s. (Note: you do get some leeway if your child is too young to be able to communicate with words, we understand that sometimes babies cry even if they are not tired nor hungry nor in need of a diaper change. We understand that you might not be successful but you are still required to try.)

In Summary

Just because you are in a place where kids are prevalent doesn’t mean you can pretend that you are not a parent because the kids are occupied. Relax, have fun, but be aware of what is going on with your kid.

These are some very simple guidelines that I would assume that every parent would know, but clearly I’m wrong.

Today

We arrived at the movie theater about 12:50 p.m. for a 12:45 p.m. movie. We didn’t worry too much about it, because we knew there would be previews. When we arrived, we quickly spotted some open seats in the middle of the theater. There were not a whole lot of other people in the theater, but those who were had sat in the same general area, because those are the best seats. Clearly you knew this, because you had sat there yourself.

It wasn’t until we were sitting down that I realized that we were seated in front of several children, but I didn’t think much about it. We could have gone down two rows closer, but that would have been too close. We could have gone two rows back, but that was further than we wanted to go. We sat in open seats at a public theater.

The problem started almost immediately. The children were chattering during the previews, not about the previews, just in general. I let this go, because they are just previews, but I was already concerned. I heard you say “Shut up!” to them at one point. They ignored you, and you dropped it.

They continued to talk during the opening credits. You said nothing.

They continued to talk during the opening scene of the movie. I turned around, put my finger to my lips and said “Shhh” to them. They shushed. I smiled and said “Thank you.”

A few minutes later, another one of them started kicking my son’s seat. One of you stopped him, which I heard and appreciated.

A few minutes later, he started again. You ignored it, or just didn’t realize it. I turned around and said, “Please stop kicking the seat.”

At this point I saw that he was stretched full out on the seat and stretching his legs as far as he could in order to reach the seats in front (this theater provides plenty of leg room). It would have been very hard not to see him. You turned to him and said “Quit it.”

Less than 5 minutes later, one of the other children, the one sitting furthest from you, started to kick the seat next to me, and the one next to her started kicking mine.

This marked the end of my patience. I turned around and said, in a calm but firm voice: “Stop kicking the seats.”

Her eyes grew wide and she pulled back her legs.

The End. Or, you know, Not.

That could have ended the whole event, but instead, you chose to get defensive.

“Excuse me,” I heard you say, “Why did you sit in front of three kids anyway?”

This was about the stupidest thing you could have said. I sat there for the same reason you did: those are the best seats from which to watch the movie.

“It is the middle of the theater,” I replied, doing my best to refrain from giving you further analysis of your parenting skills.

“They aren’t even kicking your seat!” you added.

This was the stupidest thing you could have said. (Note that you have already dropped your initial attack, and have moved onto another one.)

A) You may have noticed that seats in movie theaters are connected. Kicking the one next to me is very nearly the same thing as kicking my seat. Furthermore, the one sitting behind me was also kicking my seat under the “Monkey see, monkey do” principle of children’s behavior: “She’s doing it, I’m going to do it too.” So you were either lying or just wrong, and I’m not sure which one would be worse, but neither one reflects well on you.

B) There’s no need for her to be kicking the seats. You know this, I know this. I’ve got the same right to sit wherever I want that you do, and you give up some of your right to ask however you want to when you leave the house. If she had been just talking too loudly perhaps you might have been able to make some case for “She’s just a little kid and doesn’t understand” (which, I would have replied, meant that perhaps you should have been sitting next to her instead of 3 seats away) but trying to redirect attention away from your misbehaving kid onto someone who just wants to watch the movie but can’t was pretty pathetic.

The children were, I’m guessing, around 4 years old, which is young, but old enough to understand “No” and “Stop” and comply.

I’m not sure if you noticed, but nether one kicked the seat once after I spoke to them. I did not yell at them, I did not use abusive or rude language to them, I simply told them to stop, and they did. You might ask why they were more likely to listen to a complete stranger than to her own mother (which I assume was one of you two).

An Idiot Parent’s Guide to Sitting with Little Kids at the Movies

Again, this should go without saying, but my encounter with you proves once again that common sense is increasingly less common.

Using “A” for “Adult” and “C” for “Child” let me draw an ASCII representation of how the 5 of you were sitting:

A A C C C

You may have noticed that my wife and I were were sitting in this formation next to our son:

A C A

This was not an accident. It means that we are able to better monitor and control our son’s behavior. You may have noticed that he was carrying a toy lightsaber (not one that glows in the dark or lights up). He extended the lighsaber at one point and raised it up, possibly partially obscuring the view of the person sitting behind him. I told him to put it down, and he did.

Later, he dropped it on the floor which made a loud noise, I told him to be more careful.

Later on, he did one or the other of them again (I don’t remember which, I think he dropped it again) so I took it away and told him that he’d get it back at the end of the movie.

He did not argue, talk back or throw a fit. He sat down and watched the movie. This may be because he is quite used to rules and consequences.

Before you think “Wow, this guy thinks he’s God’s gift to parenting” let me assure you that I am not, do not think I am, and would never pretend to be. But on the scale of terrible to great, I’m not bad.

There may be some people who think, “Great, man, you’re teaching your son to be a rules follower, a conformist. Just what the world needs.”

My response: he’s (almost) six. He’ll no doubt rebel as a teenager. My hope is that we have been balanced enough as parents that he doesn’t dye his mohawk purple, pierce his nose and belly button and run a chain between the two. Actually, I’m a lot more concerned about how he’ll treat people later on than I am how he’ll dress or look. Even more-so, I hope that he will learn to resist injustice and learn to go his own way when he’s older.

But he’s six now. He needs boundaries, and he likes them. He’s one of the happiest kids you’ll ever meet. He’s also not a nuisance to be around.

Aside: Boundaries Are Good

Some years ago I heard about a playground which was built without a fence. The well-intentioned parents/developers didn’t want to stifle the children’s creativity or freedom, so they built it without walls. And they should be congratulated for their efforts. Too many parents seem to want to put their kids in a bubble and leave them there (see Free Range Kids for some counter examples).

However, something unexpected happened.

The kids stayed in the center of the playground, not venturing out, and not playing on the equipment near the periphery of the playground.

Eventually they built a fence around the entire area, and the kids felt safe enough to venture out to all of the areas. The boundaries provided the security they needed to enjoy the freedom the parents wanted them to have in the first place.

Divide and Conquer

I know that it’s nice to be able to have some time with another adult. I don’t know if the two of you are friends or related or whatever. So it’s natural to want to sit together. But it’s a bad move. Why? Because you were too far away to notice or take action. I am willing to bet that had you been sitting

A C C C A

you would have had a better handle on their behavior, because you were closer to them, the kicking of the seats would have bothered you too.

“But we wanted to sit together!”

Sometimes being a grown-up isn’t fun. You have to make sacrifices, especially when you decide to become a parent. This model sacrifices your ability to sit together but allows the kids to sit together. Alternatively you could have gone:

C C A A C

which separates 1 child from the other 2 but lets 2 of them sit together and lets you sit together.

C A C A C

puts an adult between each child. I wouldn’t start out in this unless you’ve got good reason to believe there will be problems, but if problems occurred, this is how I would have separated them.

“What kind of hard-ass jerk are you?”

I’m actually a really nice person to be around, but I have expectations. Those expectations are more important to me than whether or nor you think I’m a nice person to be around. Quite frankly, I don’t much care what you think (if I did I wouldn’t risk sounding worse by writing this all up, or would have just apologized, offering some explanation for my behavior in hindsight).

I won’t apologize. They were wrong, but they are kids, their behavior was understandable. Yours, however, was kind of sad. What lesson did it teach them that you tried to defend their misbehavior by attempting to attack me?

We should have expectations of each other. If you’re a parent and you want a responsibility-free afternoon, hire a sitter. Don’t come to some public place and try to act like you don’t really have kids. It’s bad for them, it’s bad for others around them, and it’s bad for you.

I promise you that everyone would have enjoy the movie much more had you simply been able to stop them with a touch of your hand to the leg of whichever child was acting up rather than waiting for a stranger to get fed up with their behavior.