Rotten Kids or Rotten Parents?

I wasn't really sure if I should do a post on this but after reading Tiffany's post on a nasty kid and even nastier mother, and hearing about the same kind of thing from Lisa, I have decided to write this. If it steps on toes I am sorry but I really am sick of this.

As you know Pixar's new movie Wall-e is out. And if you are a long time reader you know how much my sweet boy Shawn loves himself a good movie.

So here is the situation.

I know Wall-e is out. Shawn knows Wall-e is out. I am willing to wait until it has been out for a month or so. Shawn is not!

Shawn has yet to master the art of delayed gratification.

So, what do Shawn and I do today when he gets home from Partners and Pals. (That is his summer camp that he goes to that is run by the ARC, a truly wonderful organization.)

Yes, I'm sure you have guessed that Shawn and I went to see, Wall-e.

I knew that there would be a LOT of kids there. And as much as I generally like kids, I don't like kids who have parents who think that their little Jessica or Frankie, can do NO wrong.
Sorry but those kind of kids (and parents) send me through the roof.

I decide to go to the Fairchild Cinema instead of Carmike, probably more through force of habit than anything. We pull into the parking lot. I see, oh, not too many cars. The only problem is that there seem to be a much higher concentration of vans, than I am comfortable with.

Now let there be NO misunderstanding. I love vans. I have a van. I love my van. So no, I do not have a problem with vans. What I have a problem with is what those vans so often contain.

Noisy, obnoxious, overly pampered little darlings, with parents who are NO help, because after all ,they are the creators of these little monsters, whose only objective in life is to make it hard for Susan to enjoy her movie.

Please don't be offended if you have younger children. Well unless you are one of those parents who prefers to look the other way, or even to look right at your kid creating all kinds of nastiness and think to yourself, "Oh how nice little Travis has found something to entertain himself with.

I am fairly sure that none of you fit that description, and you probably feel the same as I do. After all, it is the children of the good parents who are usually the victims of the evil little spawn of the horrible, vile, completely irresponsible, should have been sterilized at birth, BAD PARENTS!

All right enough ranting (well for now at least, it may be a short break though).

So here are me and Shawn. We go in. We plunk down our thirteen dollars. ( Well I do the plunking, Shawn is flat broke) I am actually even able to withstand the temptation of the popcorn that starts to scream my name the second I put one foot on the premises. (Ha, Popcorn, you are truly a worthy adversary, but today, I am Stronger!!!)

We are there for the 4:30 showing of Wall-e. I am actually tempted to ask, first when I buy our tickets and then when we turn them over to the ticket taker (now that would be a mind numbing job. I hope it at least pays well.) If, IF, there have been many children's tickets sold.
I decide that I should keep my mouth shut and give things a chance. After all these are young kids working here, that probably really only notice the Hot Guys or the Hot Girls that come into the theater, and not the mother with four kids trailing behind her with one demanding popcorn another screaming his head off for no good reason and the others wailing about needing to go to the bathroom.

Am I sounding angry and bitter? I hope not too much. Because I have raised five little dears of my own. And they had their share of acting out in public. The only difference was that I wouldn't put up with it and would even turn around and leave if it got too bad.

Sidetrack :

One day I was going to Shopko and this younger looking woman with probably three or four kids were just extracting themselves from their van. Immediately, one brother clobbered another brother, while at the same time the little girl starting demanding that she better get a treat. This youngish looking Mother told them (I heard all this because I was one parking space down) to get back in the van. They started screaming. I started thinking, yeah right, empty threats. But guess what? They were not empty threats after all. She demanded that they get in the van and get themselves buckled in. I was SO IMPRESSED! How impressed was I?

I was so impressed that as soon as she had gotten her last child shoved in the van and managed to shut the door without getting any one's hand cut off, I went over to her and told her how impressed I was to see a parent actually follow through with a threat. I told her that in my opinion she deserved a mother of the year award. She was so overwhelmed with that kind of support, that I really think it suddenly helped her to be not as stressed as she had been.

All right back to today's' story.

Shawn and I head into Theater number one on the right side. I do a quick scan to see which good seats are available. We seat ourselves and prepare our nerves to put up with the boring commercials that Fairchild plays over and over and over and over. While this is going on, several groups of mothers and kids start filing into the theater. And I do mean several. Calm down I tell myself. This doesn't necessarily mean anything bad. Everyone is seated.

There is so much noise that I can barely hear myself swear.

This isn't looking very promising. Of course it is still the super boring commercials, it will no doubt quiet down when things get rolling.

The lights go down. The noise continues. The coming attractions start. It's maybe not as loud but there is still enough chatter that it's not looking good. I try to be patient. I tell myself that this is quite often how it is during the previews and that once the movie starts it will be much quieter.

Oh, one little thing I forgot to mention.

Sitting in our row about three seats down is a mother and probably a grandmother and a little boy I would peg at maybe 5 or 6. A cute little boy. A nicely dressed little boy. A little boy who has apparently never been taught how to behave in a theater while watching a movie. He is talking in a pretty loud voice and momma and gramma seem to either not notice, or more likely, to not care.

A few minute into the movie. Cute little boy, three seats down, still talking. I turn and glare at the mother. No response. A few minutes more of, "OH LOOK MOM THERE IS WALL-E. IS HE GOING TO BLOW UP EVERYTHING? IS HE GOING TO BE IN A SPACESHIP??" I decide to try to nip it in the bud. I face them and as loud as I can I throw a nice resounding SHHHHHHH! at them. Mom throws me a surprised and somewhat indignant look.

Surprised? Surprised? How on earth could she be surprised that there might actually be someone else in that room besides her and her child.

She seems to get the hint and whispers something to him. He lowers his voice a tiny bit and I notice her looking in my direction. What does she want? A retraction? Sorry lady but not on MY watch!

Okay, I think I have come to the part in this little tale where my appraisal of the Movie Wall-e might be helpful.

This is not a movie for children. There is very little dialogue for the first half. There are large parts where the viewer needs to understand what is happening in the dialogue-less film and anyone under probably 10 could have a hard time. It is very slow moving. It is quite nuanced. And at times it even is a little bit boring. And that is from an adults point of view. I don't know many children under ten who would know how to enjoy a non-dialogue, heavily nuanced, slow moving, and somewhat boring movie.

To demonstrate what an inappropriate movie for younger kids it is, I would like to point out that after the first ten minutes (And that is being generous) none of the kids in that theater were watching the movie. They were needing to be taken to the bathroom every few minutes. They were crawling around on the floor. They were bumping into other peoples seats. They were basically doing anything they could do to avoid watching that stupid Movie. So please do yourself a favor. Don't take your young children to this movie. If you really want to do the movie thing, go for another round of Kung Fu Panda. Now THAT is a MOVIE!

All right back to my misery. The little boy next to us is still talking. This is usually the point where I lean over and say, in a very annoyed voice, "Could you please keep him quiet." I had to do this in the latest Indiana Jones movie. Fortunately, that time, there was only one kid in the whole theater. And I think the parents were a little embarrassed because several other people murmured agreement when I said that to them.

No such luck this time. There were kids every where. And, you would have thought, not a parent in sight. They were there of course. They just didn't feel the need to teach their children manners. There was a large group right behind us. They had started out quiet, but their disruptiveness soon seemed to know no bounds. There was something big and heavy that this little girl (Her age? My guess probably three) kept dragging and slamming against the floor behind my seat. I don't know what on earth it was.

Do they have those booster seats there at Fairchild?

I realized at this point that there was nothing I could do about the noise because it was coming from everywhere. I think the idiot parents were trying to unresponsibility each other. This is the point where I would get up and leave and get my money back. But there was a BIG dilemma.

My BIG DILEMMA:

If you will remember I had Shawn with me.

Shawn was really happy to be there watching the movie. Shawn would have been very unhappy if I was to suddenly tell him that we were leaving, and would come back another time. Plus ,I reasoned, unless we went to the late night showing of it, I would still have to put up with the same crap all over again. We were by then 25 minutes into the film, and I had to face the fact that the best course of action would be to put up with the misery. So that's what I did. I suffered through till the end. I tried my hardest to ignore the parents ignoring their kids behaviour. I made it through intact.

If any one ever questions how much I love my Shawn, I will have them read this post.

Oh one other thing. Shawn seemed to like it, but he hardly laughed at all. I think it just goes against his code to not love every Pixar Movie that he sees.

I realize this has been a long and not very fun post. If you are still with me, thank you, and please promise to NOT see this movie with a child under 10. Or if you are really intent please no younger than eight.

One word of advice. If you do take a younger child, be sure and bring some Benadryl!