The Walmart Incident

Did you ever feel like you were in a cartoon?
Today I was at Walmart in the checkout line. (Thats not the punch line.) Next to me was another family checking out. This is not the PC way of describing them, but they were ghetto, south-side, baggy pants, corn rows, gold caps and all.

There was an guy checking out, a younger woman taking stuff out of that cart and then behind the cart was a the younger woman's beau, daddy, partner in one of the motorized carts. In the front of the motorized cart was a toddler approximately 18 months to 2 years old.

The strapping young man who thought it was cool to ride in a motorized cart was cooing to the toddler. "Say heeeelll yeahhh!" "Say heeelllyeeeaaahhh!" The toddler is engaged in the man's speak. He laughs and giggles. The man says, "heelllyeaahhh!" again and finally the toddler repeats him saying in a squeaky voice, "heeeyaahhhh!" This went on and on. Finally the baby's mama came by and she heard and laughed and said something in ghetto-speak. The man laughed and said, "hellyeah" again. And then the toddler just kept chanting it.

Bad, bad, bad!

What poor role models. This kid has no chance to know what normal is. Thats not the way to teach respect and boundaries. Good thing I had no children with me, especially Jacob. He would have picked up on that right away and I would have had to knock the guy off his block.

I may not be a perfect parent, but I do try to be a living example.