2 posts tagged “kids”

Currently I'm sat in a Starbucks in the suburbs of London, trying my best to get some work done.

However, it's getting rather difficult to concentrate when there are numerous screeching children surrounding me. I'm by no means saying that women with children should stay home. I'm not saying that they should stay out of Starbucks.

What I am saying, is that I'm pretty sure that when I was 3, if I were shrieking at the top of my lungs, my mom wouldn't simply be cooing, "Cate, shhhh. Please don't scream like that, darling," at me each time I opened my mouth to release a sound that can only be compared to the noise mating foxes make.

May I also just point out real quick that I paid attention to how many women with strollers walked by the window where I was sitting for a half hour. Do you want to know how many I saw? 37. Most of these women actually came into Starbucks. But I digress.

Obviously, I'm not a parent.

I don't know what it's like to raise a child, or to discipline a child. The only point of reference I have is how my mom raised me, and I can tell you, if I were screaming or throwing a tantrum anywhere in public, I would have been dragged to the car and taken home immediately.

I can hear all the mothers shouting that "since I'm so fucking smart" maybe I should give them some advice on how I would get a screaming child to stop, and to be honest, I don't have the answer. (Aside from things that will end up with you going to prison, or your children being taken away from you...)

All I do know, is that cooing and and asking a child to please stop screaming in the same tone you'd ask someone to please pass the popcorn in the movie theaters is pointless. Obviously, it's not working, as still this child is screaming.

An hour ago there was another mum just letting her 2-year-old-ish- daughter stand directly in front of the door of Starbucks and hang on the door handle. Fortunately for Mumsy, the only people coming in this shop at the moment are other mothers who just stand outside the shop making "OMG HOW CUTE ARE YOU!?!" faces at the kid blocking the doorway.

Again, I'm pretty sure my mom would have made me sit in my chair quietly. Maybe I would be coloring. Maybe I would be looking at a picture book. Perhaps eating boogers. All I know is that I wouldn't have been dangling from the door handle of a busy coffee house. All it would take would be for one person to not be looking below eye level, push the door open, and the kid would be on it's ass, and potentially smack it's head on the tile floor. SAFE, NON?

Was there some amazing parental movement in the '80s where parents actually believed it was okay to raise their voice at their children so that they wouldn't act like assholes in public? Did Sesame Street and Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood send us subliminal messages like:

"You will fear your parents authority"

or

"You will not scream like a wild banshee in public"

 Did Fraggle Rock teach us to shudder in fear at the idea of a time-out?

Maybe I was just a better behaved kid than the ones in this Starbucks. Maybe it was easier for my parents to threaten me with 'GOING BACK TO THE CAR RIGHT THIS INSTANT IF YOU DON'T BEHAVE' because I actually feared them and the authority they had over me.

But what does it say if every child of the 2-5 age range that comes in this shop clearly has no regard for it's parent's discipline?

(Currently, the screaming child is screeching "BOW BOW BOW bow bow BOW BOW BAH BAB BAH BAH BAH EYA YAYAAAAAAAAA" in a voice so shrill I'm pretty sure it would turn all the teenagers within a 5 miles of this cafe to mist. The mother's reaction? "Matt. Please. Shhhhh. Shhh...Please don't scream." Did I mention she was using a voice more suitable for the Hail Mary?)

Sure, there's a chance that you can check back in on me in 10 years or so if I decide have kids, and maybe I'll be the asshole mom who lets my kid tear around a coffee shop and scream bloody murder because:

a) I have a latte and The Guardian and get to play adult for a half hour, to hell with the studying University students' peace and quiet, THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE.

b) I have a latte and The Guardian and am so happy to be out of the house and around adults that I don't even hear my kid screaming.

...but I doubt it.

So, this morning Iain and I did our usual routine of commuting to London in the sickly, sneezing, coughing, phlegm-splosion that is the London Underground. Going up the escalator at Tottenham Court Road station, we were chatting away about getting drinks with some folks we know (and don't really like).

Iain: "Oh. Here's the thing...Bitch Face might be there."

Me: "I'm not going if that cunt's going to be there."

Iain: "Yeah. Good point."

Then the man on the escalator in front of me turns around and looks at me with the, "GOOD HEAVENS!" face people do when they're too polite to tell you that you have a dirty mouth and are going straight to h-e-double hockey sticks.

Iain and I snickered to ourselves and said our goodbyes.

Moments later I'm briskly walking up a set of stairs thinking to myself about all the emails that need to be written and how it was probably rude of me to say "cunt" in pubic before 10am (update: yes I'm aware it says "pubic" instead of "public". Precious little typo that's staying in.), and I trip UP the stairs, like all the cool people do. I tripped up, and had to do a sort of swinging manouver on the railing to prevent myself from eating it, of course, all the while yelling FUCKING HELL just in case no one heard me use the C bomb 10 seconds prior.

Right, I thought. I'm an adult I need to get my shit together and stop fucking yelling things like the F word and the C word out in front of the British people. Sure they use the F and the C words better than any other types of people I've met, but that's usually when they're drunk. And it's still only 9:06. They won't be drinking for at least 54 more minutes.

So, I get to work and we have a sweet little intern helping us out. Not sure how old he is, but I reckon he still had his soul.You know? He had that youthful, excited grin in his eyes that said, "Spreadsheets? I'd love to do those for you. I heart Excel!"

Somewhere between me calling Liz Jones a "complete fucking idiot" and asking something about why she hasn't "been assassinated yet" (I KID!) I remembered the little kiddo was in the corner, painting one of our fashion editors toenails and I figured I should probably keep my mouth shut...

So, when Kiddo decided to come over and talk the gal in the desk next to me (Hi Laura!) I realized what I had on screen.

BOOBS. I photoshopping up a collage of boob shaped products (as you do, at work), and therefore had a screen with a giant pair of boob cushions blown up so that they covered my entire monitor. I quickly minimized it, only to find another photo of boobs behind it...and behind that was my web browser, which apparently had 6 fucking tabs open, all with BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS.

I frantically minimized each one, knowing that Kiddo probably thought I was the editor of a porn site by now, and then realized that it didn't really matter that my monitor had plushie tits all over it, because I had a vagina with a pirate hat sitting on my desk the entire time.

What you can't see in this photo is that I also have a pin that says, "Billowing Pissflaps" stuck on my divider. Or the board game Nookii that's under my desk...

I think it's safe to say that I'm not ready for kids yet.