“Free Range” Parenting?

This is an old Zoltar Speaks! blog post.

Free-range parenting is the concept of raising children in the spirit of encouraging them to function independently and with limited parental supervision, in accordance of their age of development and with a reasonable acceptance of realistic personal risks.

I don’t have a real problem with this concept of raising children, it can inspire some children to become more responsible and self reliant if it is used in a manner that is conducive to the overall development of a child.  What I do have a problem with is lazy-ass parents that are simply using their own notion of Free-Range Parenting as an excuse not properly teach or discipline their children and expect the world around them to accomplish the task.

In the last four weeks alone I have been in restaurants, convenience stores, a movie theater, and one of our area malls and I’ve run across an absurd bastardized version of Free-Range Parenting where the parents are basically absolving themself of any responsibilities of being an actual parent (other than genetics) in a civil society and letting their hellion children run wild and free, do whatever they want, and disturb the peace of everyone in the vicinity.  I generally agree with the concept that “It takes a village to raise a child” but what I’m seeing is the implementation of “it’s the responsibility of others to raise and discipline my children” which is not the implied intent of the proverb.

I’ll go into a few of the recent instances.

1) I was sitting in the common area of a mall waiting for my wife to get done with her shopping and there was a little boy and girl probably around the age of 4 or 5 that were running in and out of the moving pedestrian traffic chasing each other causing quite a disruption in the traffic flow Mom was completely ignoring them (sitting on a bench directly across from me) texting on her phone and then IT happened, the little boy literally crashed into an unsuspecting elderly lady walking with a cane causing her to tumble over the child and fall to the ground.  The Free-Range Parent heard her child begin to cry, ran over, coddled her little boy and began to scold the elderly woman for not moving out of her child’s way and falling on him and “hurting” her innocent little free-ranging angel and what blew me away is people just stood there dumbfounded and said nothing and did nothing!  What the hell is wrong with people, that elderly woman needed some help and that brain dead mother needed a instantaneous lesson in parenting, respect and responsibility?

Well anyone who knows me very well knows that when something needs to be done or said I’m the one that will jump in head-first and do what needs to be done.

I walked over to help the elderly lady to her feet after making reasonably sure she thought she wasn’t really injured, it appeared that her cane and the little boy had helped control her fall.  All the while I was helping this lady, this bone-headed free-range parent was standing there holding her son verbally accosting the elderly lady.  After I was done helping the elderly lady I turned to focus on the little boy to find out if the little boy was okay, he had already stopped crying and appeared to be more scared than hurt, he might end up with a bruise or two but I bet they won’t be as bad or last as long as what will happen to the elderly lady.

After I made sure the little boy was ok to the best of my ability, I started telling the mother the facts about what had happened and her lack of attention to her children was an indirect cause of incident and that idiotic mother had the audacity to use free-range parenting as an excuse for her lack of responsibility and that was when I opened up the flood gates of reality, responsibility, and respect upon that idiot mother.  Long story cut short, when I was done with that mother she was balling and apologizing profusely to the elderly woman that was trying to walk away.  As I walked away with the elderly lady to walk her to her car I could see numerous people giving me a thumbs up.

2) I was in a restaurant having a lonely lunch because my wife had to work that day and there was this father standing by the bar with his two children one boy around 5-6 and the other little girl was 3-4, his wife had walked away I think to take care of their bill back at their table in the main dining room.  These parents were what I’d call modern day hippies, dressed similarly, talked similarly (think of flower girls from the 60’s and you’ll get the picture) and the children were absolutely wild!  The kids were running around between the tall bar tables crashing into the stools, one of which I was sitting at, and running back and forth between their parents. It’s not that the dad was not paying attention to the kids, he would tell them to stop it and then let them do what ever it was they were doing, he was just completely ineffective in his parenting skills and the children had absolutely no respect for him.

The kids both had plastic cups of water with a straw on the bar and at one point while the older boy was gallivanting around the place the little girl threw her cup on the floor because daddy was making her sit still, Daddy said don’t do that, handed her her brothers plastic cup of water and she threw that one on the floor too, so he let her down and she started running around with her brother.  Daddy just stood there and shrugged his shoulders like this is what kids do.  The boy came back and climbed up on the bar stools at the actual bar and was literally two footed hopping from one stool to the next across the 10 or so unused bar stools in front of the bar, Daddy would say don’t do that and then he just sat there and let the kid continue doing it; that was my last straw.  I stopped eating, got up, walked over to the boy jumping on the bar stools and said “Young man, do what your father told you to do” he completely ignored me, jumped again and very forcibly and loudly told him “get down NOW and never do that again”, he immediately complied and ran for protection from his Daddy.  I then walked over to the Dad and told him that if he ever wanted any respect from those children or wanted those children to respect any kind of authority in life he better start enforcing his words, NOW! “Say what you mean , mean what you say, and back it up with effective punishment.”  That little boy sat there silently after our little encounter, looking at me out of the corner of his eye once in a while.

As far as I was concerned, it was over, the children were sitting quietly.

Enter the one who wears the real pants in that family, Mom.

The kids immediately started whimpering about that mean old man. The pointing and whispering began immediately and then Mom walked over and said to me something to the effect of “they were Free-Range Parents and I should keep my nose out of their business, they’ll raise their children how ever they want”.  My reply was “Listen Lady, I’m a free-range asshole and either you discipline your damn children properly when they are in public or a responsible adult will. Now pull your head outta that dark place and be a responsible person that parents their children like a real adult”.  I think I quoted myself accurately.  They promptly left, Mom’s pompous nose was in the stratosphere walking out the door in front of the rest of the family and Dad was hanging his head in utter embarrassment holding his children’s hands and leading them out like a responsible parent would do. There may be a leadership change in-store for that family.

3) I had a date night with my wife and part of that was going to a movie like we used to rarely get to do years ago when the budget would render a few extra dollars. We were sitting in there chatting about 5 minutes before the previews started when three children came into the theater and immediately went down to those couple of rows of seats down at the bottom of the seating right in front of the screen.  They were jumping and running around like it was an outdoor playground and just generally having a really good time playing, it appeared there was no parent around at least no one had come in with them.  I didn’t think too much about them playing around down there all through the previews but when the movie was starting and they were still playing loudly someone had to do something, well I’m that guy.  I calmly walked down the stairs and up to the oldest of the three (probably around 10) and told them that if they didn’t sit down now and remain quietly sitting I would have them removed from the theater.  They immediately clammed up, sat down, and were perfect angels for the entire movie.  On our way out I made a special point of thanking each one of them for being good during the movie and one of the younger kids actually walked up and gave be a great big hug, there were smiles all around, it was a nice warm and fuzzy moment.

As far as I was concerned that was it, they had done good, followed instructions well and it was all over and done; I was wrong.

My wife and I were walking down that long hallway to the exit, of course we had to be in nearly the last theater in the place, and about half way down the hallway a guy came up from behind and started yelling at me because I had scolded their poor little free-range angels, Mom and the three kids were close behind.  I gestured for my wife to wander off and I allowed the parents to continue their spewing for just enough time for them to make complete fools of themself about their free-range parenting.  The kids had a look of disbelief at what their parents were doing.  When they had swallowed both of their own feet a couple of times I let loose on their bastardized free-range idiocy and by that time the theater manager had arrived – I saw him coming – and he had just arrived when I topped it off by asking the parents where they were while the kids were in the theater and the manager and everyone else heard them say that they had sent their three playful noisy little children (roughly 10 and under) into a different theater so they could watch their movie in peace and quiet.  After that bone-headed statement I stuck my nose in the guys face and said “I’m done with you fucking idiots” and asked the manager to take over who proceeded to kick them out of the theater and told them not to return, the theater has rules about unattended children and they broke those rules.

What’s my point of posting these incidents, I really don’t know, I guess I’m just really frustrated at what I’m seeing parents doing to their children in the name of “free range parenting” but it just bastardized version of “free range parenting” which can be called laziness!

Parents, do your damn job and teach your children!