Judgement, with a side of peas MY CHILD COLUMNIST KYLIE KADEN’S NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS CHANGED AFTER A TRIP TO THE SUPERMARKET.
I
was feeling brave; with a new-year’s resolution to ‘stress-less’ fresh in my mind, I set off for groceries with my boys. It started out positively, making it fun by promising to buy treats for our movie afternoon. And besides master-three’s exuberant voice and inner-need to touch everything he sees (despite constant reminders to ‘just look’) things were going as well as expected. As I pondered which bag of frozen peas to purchase, boys in tow, one with biro stripes up his legs due to becoming a zebra that morning, I heard a stranger, in a completely flabbergasted tone, bellow “Can’t you do something about your children handling the merchandise? Have you no control?” I closed the freezer door, turned around and realised the fellow customer was talking
to me. Now I’m the first to admit my children have often been off-the-rails in public and at times deserved a stern word. I have no real objection to the concept. But to chastise me over a child running his pinky along the edge of the fridge, really? It’s not as if he was sinking thumbs into eyefilets, hurling oranges at his brother or directly impacting the man or his property. My son was chattering along, grabbing the odd bag of cheese for a look. To the stranger’s surprise, I politely said, “What do you suggest I do?’ Press the ‘obey’ button? Is that the one to the left or right of the mute?” He lurched back, with spit bubbles at the corner of his lip and said “You could supervise them for a start”.
february 2015 | mychild
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