Unattended children will be ____________.
Once again Ben and I were in a restaurant, and a pack of feral children were running wild. The parents—as usual—were completely oblivious. I can now easily understand how children go missing. With such insouciant parents, children in public places are low hanging fruit for predators.
If I had behaved the way I've seen children behaving in restaurants (and a multitude of other public places) I would've been immediately removed to the car and probably wouldn't be able to sit for a week after arriving home. My (and Ben's) parents (as did most families once upon a time) had a zero-tolerance policy in regards to behaving in public, and it was a good thing. But somewhere along the line parents gave up being authority figures and became more concerned with being friends with their offspring.
Becoming friends with your parents is something that may or may not happen after you're an adult; prior to that it shouldn't even be part of the parenting equation.
Kids running wild in a restaurant drive me crazy. I stop them and tell them to sit down with their parents. I've never had a parent challenge me but I'm sure that day is coming.
We have had that problem here in LaLa land too. Last year my Glenn yelled at some brats, they were running wild and screaming, to shut up and go sit down. The brain dead parents suddenly came to life and stormed over to our booth and started screaming at us. Glenn said, "If you can't 'train' your kids then take them to Chuck e Cheese." The father told Glenn he was going to kill him. Now I exploded. I yelled, "Go get your gun asshole. One of us isn't leaving this place alive." We have not returned to this place. The waiter never came over to try and stop the madness.