As I walked up to the school to pick the younger kids up the other day, I passed a mom pushing a stroller, and holding the leash of a medium sized dog. She was walking this dog right past the "No dogs" sign, and all the while laughing with her friend about getting yelled at by the principal for parking in the fire lane. I left to go pick up E.J. at his school... it was around 4pm, and as I drove past the driveway that says "No entrance between 3:30 and 5:30PM" I watched a car pull right in. I went the way I was directed and pulled into the line of cars waiting for their sons. Another car pulled right past the line and pulled over ahead of it, to get their own child. Stopping at the store later on, I watched a young (20 something?) guy in a pickup truck pull into a 'cars with babies' spot, and hop out, no car seat visible in his truck.
When you're raising kids, it's so hard to teach them all the rules of society, all the 'rights and wrongs'. It makes it so much harder when every day they see people blatantly ignoring the rules. The other day, Pipo saw a "no littering" sign, and asked if the police would really make you pay a fine. I told him they would if they saw him littering, but that even if no one was watching you shouldn't litter. He said "yeah, because I wouldn't want to pay a fine." I stopped and thought about this for a minute. Then I started a discussion with all the kids on why we shouldn't litter... and why we follow rules. We don't follow these rules because we don't want to pay the fine... we follow them because it's the right thing to do. It's not so much that the littering is illegal, it's just plain wrong.
It's so frustrating to try and teach our kids these lessons every day, and every day they see adults just ignoring the signs, ignoring the rules. This parenting stuff... it's an uphill battle.
5 comments:
I can relate to the lack of attention paid to signs at schools. For years we would have to ask the mailman, water delivery guy, and plenty of parents to please not block or park in the handicap parking spaces without a permit. It's so frustating and they are teaching their kids to do the same thing.
Becky
Yep. That's a pet peeve of mine too. I hate when someone parks in the place you just passed because it's designated for someone or they have food where it's not allowed when you just told your kids that they couldn't. Okay, but I have to be honest--I let the kids sneak candy into the theater because we always buy a large popcorn and soda and it kills me that they want 3.50 for the same box of candy that's .88 at Walmart.
Great post and oh so true. I really want my kids to follow the rules because their heart knows that is right.
I love your new blog photo. I guess I haven't been here in a while :)
JUST found your site and I SO agree with this post.
I just wrote out a long comment, but deleted it. Stepping away from the Soap box...
But yeah, I hear you. I empathize. And at times, I want to wring some people's necks. But that's a whole nother "parental lesson" now, isn't it? :D
I work in a building that also has a gym. One day (and he actually did it several times just not this extreme) one guy couldn't find a place to park, so he parked slantways across 2 Handicapped Parking Spaces. He just strutted right into the building. I SO wanted to call the police, but I didn't. Because they WILL come and issue a citation. I was just amazed!
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