illusionofjoy | ...the kids are rude because the adults are rude which is why...

joi_division had me pick her up from work today. Since it was raining heavily, I suggested we go out to eat. The rain, I reasoned, would keep everyone else in allowing us to have a meal in relative peace. I was right on one count: the rain did keep everyone in - in the particular restaurant we chose to dine at, that is.

We arrived and seated ourselves on the opposite side of the dining room from a large crowd of middle school kids. These kids were being quite rowdy, enough so that the sole waitress working the floor warned them to keep it down. When they started up again, she kicked them out of the restaurant. From there, they congregated outside of the front entryway, blocking entrance and egress until a manager from the back went out and told them that he would call the police if they didn't disperse.

These children were acting in ways I could have never fathomed acting at that age. They were screaming at each other, horsing about and one of them was playing with a lighter! Joi and I were glad to see them kicked out. On the outside, they stood and acted like they were the wronged party, while trying to give off a sick air of machismo. One of them lit up a cigarette (which must have been stolen from a parent or an older sibling) and started acting as if he were tough shit for smoking. Pathetic.

I pondered what caused children to misbehave like that and think they could get away with it. Not twenty minutes after those kids had been shooed away, a large group of very young children and adults entered the restaurant. The momentary peace Joi and I had enjoyed was once again shattered as we realised that we were suddenly surrounded by a bunch of sports parents and an entire little-league team.

This in of itself wouldn't have been so bad, except that the adults, combined with these very small children were acting just as disruptive as the middle-schoolers who had been shooed out. The small children were screaming and carrying on to the complete ignorance of the adults were engaged in not so much a conversation, but a shouting match with each other. Much like the middle-schoolers, this group lacked any social graces or perception that they were possibly disturbing others around them.

It was clear to me: the small children of the sports parents were going to become the ousted middle-schoolers. Society is definitely in decline.