We went and saw How To Train Your Dragon on the weekend and was surprised at how good it was (considering it was from Dreamworks). It’s your basic outsider kid makes good against impossible odds, but with dragons. And for some reason kids have American accents which morph into Scottish ones when they grow up. I digress. In one part of the movie, the big burly Viking King, didactically named Stoick, was speaking to his best friend and Dragon Slayer trainer, about his wispy son not being “Viking” enough:
Stoick: If he fights, he’ll get killed! I can’t save him!
Gobber: No you can’t protect him but you can prepare him.
Various Father/Son issues were brought up and resolved within the 90+ minutes and we all left the theatre with a smile on our faces. Seriously, it was a good movie.
After the movie I had to make my way to the loo (Yay movie sized pop!) where I found a woman blocking the door to the men’s room. Standing in the doorway, her foot was propping open the door while she was looking/not looking into the can, loudly demanding status updates on her son’s “business” (from where she was at the door, everyone in the hall could see in and by the reflection of the mirrors, were getting an eyeful of urinal action). By the time I got behind her she was instructing him how to wash his hands. I either had to confront her, or pee on her.
“Excuse me,” I say, pushing the door open and pushing past her.
“Of course,” she says, keeping the door open. I turn and scowl.
She sees the scowl and shuts the door.
Come on lady, did you not learn ANYTHING from the movie you just saw? If you’re that worried about your son being in a washroom by himself take him into the ladies. Or you could teach him well enough not to talk to strangers, and maybe some proper public washroom etiquette/safety tips and TRUST him enough to do the right thing on his own. That way I don’t have to show the entire lobby my pee stance.
5 thoughts on “Teach Your Children Well”
Love the movie, hate overprotective parents
Wren, I once demanded my money back from the theatre after seeing the 2005 remake of Amityville Horror. The screaming throughout the movie wasn’t because the audience reacting to the horror (or Ryan Reynolds performance beard), no it was a 2yr old child who didn’t really want to be there. Who brings a 2yr old to a horror movie?
God, I have seen the WORST behaviour by parents in movie theatres. It’s like they check their good sense at the door. Assuming they had any to begin with…
I don’t think she was over-protective – if she was she would certainly have brought the kid into her own gender specific loo and watched them hover or something. No she was teaching the kid how to go to the bathroom in public. At my expense. Which I like to call “Child as Battering Ram Parenting”.
Not that I want to defend overprotective or crazy parents, ’cause fuck them, but as the parent of an eight year old who still needs to be reminded to wash his hands, she may not have been worried about his safety as much as his hygiene. If my son saw a Tootsie Roll on the floor of the stall there’s a good chance he’d pick it up and eat it. And he’s one of the smart kids!
Plus, a crowded public bathroom can be an overwhelming and confusing thing for a kid to deal with.
Again, it sounds like this lady was rude and/or overprotective, but I just thought I’d give you a different point of view. Something tells me married American suburban dads are a minority here on deadrobot.com
I now look forward to postbear telling my I should euthanize my sprog.