Goin' military

Every now and then I have the urge to go military on some parents. Just stand in front of them and yell, like the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket.

It happened the other day at a local supermarket.

A father with his two young daughters – both under the age of five – were hanging out in the toy/magazine aisle and appeared to be picking up toys and books and playing with them.

As I browsed through the magazines, I overheard his desperate pleas to move them all along.

“Please put that down darling,” he’d whisper.

“Come on, it’s time to go,” he’d plead, barely audible, then (bizarrely, I thought) under his breath would mutter “Oh, I hate the supermarket” and “Daddy is going to go insane if we don’t go soon.”

The girls were not being brats, but they were simply not responding to his feeble attempts to get them to do what he wanted.

It was a good three or four minutes (I was busy browsing Shop Til You Drop) of this that almost prompted me to go military on him. But I did it in my head instead -“for god sake man, grow some balls and tell those kids what for!” I imagined yelling.

I know parenting is hard. Really hard. And Ari is nowhere near the Perfect Child (if, indeed he/she exists). But yeesh, who on earth is in charge here? Some days I wonder...