Pendragons Princess

Even though I see scores of examples of bad parenting at the mall where I work, it is always good to see security doing their job to keep free-range kids under control. For example, this past weekend there was one security officer reuniting a free-range kid with his mother, who was eating her lunch in the food court. The officer proceeded to talk to the mother, who appeared disinterested at first, while her approximately four year old son took a chair at her table. She did not seem to care that her child was running around loose in the mall while she sat eating. If she did say anything to the security officer, it was either very quietly, or it was in Spanish, with a “No speak English” type of response.

Second case of bad parenting on that exact same day, but a few hours later:

A group of little kids, from three to five years old, were busy leaning over the fountain in the mall where the water gathered into a pond. Practically all malls have one of these, but it looked like the kids were trying to reach into the water to grab for the pennies that people threw in there over time. The security officer comes around again and has them getting out of the fountain’s pond. Are there any parents around? Of course not. Chances are, they probably told the kids to get lost so they could get some shopping done. Or more accurately, get the kids out of their hair for awhile for some peace and quiet, something they would never have in their own house with children hanging around. In fact, that is pretty much the only reason people go to the mall with their kids on weekends in Tucson - to get rid of them in one part of the mall, so the parents could disappear for several hours, then later pick up the brats to drag them back home. Why should it matter that everyone else has to contend with grommets racing through, screaming, screeching, knocking over store property and people. Like my business’ owner once said. “The mall is not a good place for children to be.” It really isn’t. Yet those people with children continue to be as thick headed as they can possibly be. My husband claims that as soon as people make babies, their brains go completely dead. They really do lose their minds. Obviously they cannot handle having children around them, and their actions in public prove it. I think they should just wear a t-shirt with two words on the front: “It works!” A his and hers matching set of shirts. But really, I am so the last person on the planet to care if another person’s reproductive organs work or not.