Posted on 10/16/2011 4:29:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
This past week I saw a sad sight. No, it wasn’t Eric Holder trying to convince us that he’s now a terror exposing hero instead of the perpetrator of a deadly Mexican gunrunning op that had its sights set on ultimately getting our Second Amendment rights revoked—though that was pretty sad, as that dog wag had all the subtleties of a Chaz Bono rumba.
What eclipsed that miserable moment (sorta) and caused me grief this week was watching a young mom at Starbucks ignoring her beautiful, little one-year-old girl while said moron giggled and texted for 30 plus minutes.
Yep, with her head buried in the phone, nose two inches off the cancer screen, mommy dearest didn’t have a clue what her kid was doing as she crawled around on a high traffic, grime-laden cement floor between the feet of strangers who held 16- ounce cups of 180 degree liquid above the kid’s tender flesh as they high stepped over her.
Hey, parents, here’s a freebie from Dr. Doug: Why not put the cell phone and gadgets down for awhile when your babies are around and pay attention to them, all right, jackass? There’ll be plenty of time later in life to ignore them—like in college, when they pierce their nipples and become whiny liberal drips, but now, when they are very young, is not the time.
FYI to Y-O-U, mom … dad: You’ve got one shot at raising that baby, and if you want to make certain your spawn doesn’t:
1. Recite hate poems about you at Barnes & Noble’s open mic night regarding how they’d like to stab you in your sleep for ignoring them for the last sixteen years.
2. Show up high as a kite at a NYC Flea Party Rally, bitching and moaning about hard work and shouting up Che Guevara’s weltanschauung as they roast a fatty …
… then you might wanna give junior some TLC while he’s a T-O-T. You dig?
As I watched this neglect go down at Starbucks, I kept thinking that this daft dame could have cooed and cuddled with her little bambina and had 1,800 seconds of parental bliss that lovely morning.
The Starbucks I visited was on beautiful Miami Beach. Mom could have pointed out to baby the seagulls, the palm trees, the gorgeous skies, the warm sun, the six-foot three-inch trannie with a five o’clock shadow, the rats rummaging through the trash eating discarded ham and cheese paninis, and the ubiquitous metrosexuals with over-tweaked eyebrows who use seven words to order their special cup of Joe. It could’ve been both a bonding and educational familial exchange in one warm whack. But no. The bird had to text.
Here’s a challenge for the parental units: If you think I’m full of crap in regard to the ramifications of blowing your kids off as you obsess with texts and/or social media then let’s do an experiment: For the next 13 years abandon the developmental stages of that genetic concoction of yours, and we’ll see how they turn out as you snub them for Twitter. Are you ready? Okay. On your mark. Get set. Go, Slingblade!
Oh and by the way, conservatives and evangelicals … you, too, can be dilatory dillweeds as this sin knows no party or religious affiliation. I know stacks of family values blowhards out there yapping about the importance of family who haven’t talked to their own family in the last few weeks. Hey, dork, save your house first … then talk to us about ours. I know way too many ministers who strode forth to save the world and lost their kids in the process. Didn’t the apostle Paul say something to the effect that if you can’t govern your own house then you need to shut the hell up?
And finally, if my exhortation to selfless and sacrificial love for your kids versus your gadgets has failed to convince you to change your behavior toward your toddlers, perhaps a selfish plea will. Soon, parents, in the not too distant future, you will return to the dependent state from whence you came, and I’m a guessin’ that the child you ignored while he or she was in diapers will more than likely return the favor when you are sporting Depends.
I don’t understand texting.
Why not just call the person and talk?
If they aren’t there leave a Voicemail.
I see people texting constantly while I’m on the subway, and it’s depressing. I know I sound like an old fogey, but I have to wonder, what did these people do before texting? What is it they’re texting that’s so incredibly important?
It just seems like such a time-waster. I text one or two friends occassionally, and the exchanges last one or two messages each. But then, the participants in my exchanges both have jobs.
Eh, consider me old enough to not ‘get’ texting.
But this was kinda stupid. How does the author know that the parent consistantly ignores her daughter? He doesn’t. What he know is that for that one brief period of time at that Starbucks, the mother was texting.
And then proceeds to condemn her for actions that he simply believes that she might be doing.
This is a ‘when will you stop beating your wife?’ kinda article.
I disagree. If you read more carefully the texting was simply observed as a symptom of a larger problem, one which leads to the “occupy” phenomenon soon coming to a city near you. You sound a bit defensive on this issue, perhaps...
For goodness sake there were more child-wholesome places the mom could have taken the toddler (like maybe on the beach?) if it were some life or death matter that she had to be pecking at the phone about.
I have, too, and it started **decades** before PCs and texting.
A Christian's **most** important mission field is his **own** children. His next most important mission field is the children of his congregation. This is true whether or not he is the minister or just a lowly congregant.
Yet...How many Christians and their ministers send their children into to the godless and socialist funded government schools? How many spouses of ministers support, uphold, establish, and promote godless indoctrination of children by working in these godless pits of depravity?
Gee! If the minister and his wife use the godless indoctrination centers and sweet little Mrs. Minister works there ( Don't you know? She loves cats and kids.), the godless indoctrination centers can't be that bad.
What kind of person would put a 1 year old (is he guessing the age?) on the floor of a commercial establishment? No one but an idiot!
Just like other tools it can be good or bad.
If my wife is running to the store and I remember stuff we need, a text is great; especially if there are three or more items.
When I arrive back home on a flight during a busy part of her day (dinner time with running kids around), a short text like: “at the airport - home in an hour” is helpful for her. If she’s happy, I’m happy.
...If that baby had been stepped on.....scalded .....or abducted....the mom would have sued Starbucks.
She ignored the child in a public place while it crawled on a probably dirty floor among strangers walking about who had to hopefully avoid stepping on her while trying not to spill hot coffee on same. I think that’s enough said.
I despise texting, but I text my oldest because he’s broke, and it only uses a third of a minute in charges. It takes forever to text for me. But it’s just as rude to ignore an actual body next to you while you yak away on the cell phone.
My little vice is my iPad. However, the young’ns get a turn with it every day for some school work. So they’re not completely ignored by mom. LOL!
And that’s all we know. That for the 30 minutes in Starbucks on that particular day, the daughter was ignored.
As for all the rest of her life, we don’t know. And I’m not going to accept the a total stranger’s assumptions on the parenting abilities of the mother without more proof.
Would you accept that sort of practice against you and your children?
Also, how many of us can say that we’ve never, EVER ignored a kid at any time? Even the best slip up once and a while.
Had this been about someone the author knew... I’d think differently. But this was a random stranger the guy saw once at a Starbucks.
It’s dumb and stupid
Exactly
Auggh, we cannot have Christians contaminating the World!
Did you not read my post?
I don’t ‘get’ texting at all. A phone call is usually faster than texting... and if the person isn’t there, you will know it.
It’s only been in the last year that I’ve even seen any use at all for texting. And that’s only to pass information that’s difficult to copy from a voicemail. Things like mailing addresses, for example.
I tried texting a few years ago when I got my phone, but I never got a hang of it, so I gave it up. Now I text my son occasionally if I have a important message to give him and he does not answer his phone. I use a site that lets you text for free
A couple years ago at my school, I had a problematic student, a boy of about 14 who would not do any work whatsoever. No reading, no writing, no manners, practically feral. I told his mom she needed to come and sit with him. She came in, looking as childish and defiant as he was, and probably all of 29 years old, and texted the whole time. Utterly ignored her kid. Didn’t help him, didn’t encourage him, nothing. I was so disgusted...
We are not talking about evidence in a court of law. I don’t think the author was attempting to put the mother away. But I think that if the mother ignored the child in the circumstance that I mentioned, then she would probably ignore the child in more child-friendly surroundings. Probably but possibly not. Maybe there was an emergency. Maybe it was the first and last time that she ever texted. But it was certainly enough to use an example to illustrate a phenomenon.
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