How do I explain to my kids that they need to be polite when they constantly see rudeness from others? I was standing at the supermarket the other day with Dolly. We’d stopped for a couple of things and were waiting on line to use the self-checkout. There was a lady in front of us who had her son, about 10, with her. Right in front of them, using one of the machines, was another lady who had a toddler with her. The little girl must have been about a year old and was sitting in the seat of the cart which was facing us; the cart was just behind the mom.
While the mom was ringing up her groceries the lady in front of me was chatting with the little girl. She was just saying little cutsie things to the girl, trying to make her smile. Suddenly, the little girl fumbled with her pacifier and almost dropped it. It was stuck between her leg and the edge of the leg hole where she was sitting. The lady in front of me politely said to the girl’s mom, “Oops, she’s about to drop her binky.” Now, if you were the mom, what would you do? I know I’d look for the pacifier, catch it before it fell, and thank the lady who warned me. That’s what this mom did, right? Nope, not even close.
The little girl’s mom looked up, got a seriously angry look on her face, grabbed the end of the cart with her daughter in it and yanked it to where it was now sitting in front of her, away from those of us standing behind her. She didn’t thank the woman who warned her about the soon-to-be-falling pacifier, just threw out an angry look and went back to ringing up her groceries with her back to us. What the fuck? The lady in front of me turned around to see if I’d seen what had happened and all I could do was stand there staring at her. Most people don’t surprise me anymore but that rude bitch really caught me off guard.
The lady in front of me asked me if it was just her, or had she done something wrong. I told her it wasn’t her, she’d done nothing wrong, and the mom’s response was uncalled for. Then the lady look down at her son and told him not to grow up that way and not to ever be as rude as the mom. Dolly wasn’t really paying attention to the lady in front of me but she had seen what happened and said to me, “Mom, that lady was weely wude.” I just agreed. Then she asked me why and all I could say was that maybe the mom was having a bad day.
The lady in front of me and I exchanged pleasantries as we got up to the checkout machines; I rang out and Dolly and I headed to the car. That’s where we got into another discussion about rudeness. Dolly’s issue was why other people are allowed to be rude when I was constantly telling her and her brothers that rudeness is unacceptable. I told her that sometimes people are rude on purpose, sometimes they don’t mean to be, but it’s not nice either way.
All she wanted to do was argue with me. Her brothers are rude to her sometimes; some of the kids in her class are rude; people we see in stores are rude. Correct, but that doesn’t make it right. I tried to explain, over and over, that being rude is not the way to treat people. “But the lady in the sto-uh was weely wude.” I know she was but that doesn’t make it right. Grrr….
I’m just glad the boys weren’t there with us because I may have jumped out of the car once the rudeness conversation started. All three of them coming at me about all the rude people they know would have been too much for me to handle. Granted, I’m not always polite, but when my kids are around I try really hard to be. If I can’t be polite, for whatever the reason, I apologize to my kids afterward and explain the circumstances, always following it with “but I was still wrong” so they get the hint. I try to teach them that when someone is rude to them, they can smile and say something like, "Thanks for your input," or "Thanks for sharing," or they can just wish the person a nice day and walk away. Sometimes they do it, sometimes not. It depends on whether or not they remember what to say and do.
I feel bad for that mom’s toddler, thoug, because if her mom is always like that, the little girl will turn out to be one snotty little brat. I ran into that about seven years ago in a store. I was shopping with a friend and Ty and Zach were very small. I was walking along, pushing my cart, when a little girl almost T-boned me in the middle of an aisle. She must have been about six or seven. She stopped just before she hit me, looked me dead in the eye and said, “Move!!” Are you fucking kidding me? I just looked at her as I very slowly kept walking. Her mom looked at me, too and gave me a “Fuck you, bitch” look when she realized I wasn’t going to take any crap from her little shit. My friend and I just stared at each other as I, VERY loudly said, “Gee, at least we know where the little brat gets it from.” Her mom was not happy at that but I didn’t give a shit.
So the little girl from the supermarket could very well turn out like the girl from years ago and that’s sad. That’s the type of kid people are referring to when they say kids have no respect for authority these days. They’re right too, but if you ask the kids’ parents they’d say there is nothing wrong with their kids. All I can say to that is, "Okay, if you say so." So I’ll just keep arguing with my kids over the benefits of being polite even amidst all the rudeness they encounter every day, and I’ll hope they make the right choices as they get older. It’s the best I can do.
Until next time…peace to all.
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