immature parenting

So today I took the kids to the free Summer movies. If you've never gone before, let me explain the scenario to you a little bit. AMC opens up a couple of theatres on a Wednesday morning to show old releases. (Things you could see at the $2 theatre) And it's free. And when I say "free" I mean you don't have to pay for the movie ticket. Because of this, it draws hundreds of stay at home moms. Now most stay at home moms by nature are very thrifty. We pack back packs for the movies so as to avoid the long lines and even more outrageous prices they charge at the concession stands. But not at the Summer camp. I guess it's out of extreme gratefulness that they've opened up an otherwise empty theatre to show an old release all for the low cost of overcharged popcorn and your sanity for waiting in a line that extends out the door. And this is our Wednesday routine. So I was in the long line to buy my obligatory popcorn and this mother comes up to visit with her friend. She talks for a while, and then her friend finishes her obligatory purchase at the concession stand. Then she proceeds with her own candy order. Well, I just couldn't take it. So I tapped her on her shoulder and let her know where the line was and kindly pointed the direction she could go. She wasn't pleased needless to say, (maybe I wasn't so kind?)

Then we were coming home after the movies and we ran into a homemade barricade on our street. Two neighborhood boys found an empty six pack of beer bottles and decided to make a barricade out of the broken bottles. They were lined up on the street like little soldiers so that you would have no choice but to run them over. So I holler at the kids to clean up the mess, and then walk down to have a chat with the mother. Well after three tries at rousing her from a nap, or the computer, or phone, or whatever; she finally answers the door. I inform her of her son's mischief and she assures me that isn't her son's doing. I assured her it was and press her to go handle the situation. As I'm walking up to my house, I hear her screaming at the top of her lungs apparently outraged that when left alone for hours at a time, her five year old boy would get into that kind of trouble.

So I'm exhausted. I'm frustrated. And I'm annoyed. And that's my day in a nutshell. It just seems to me there was a theme for today. That theme was immature parenting. Now God knows that this is certainly NOT my area of expertise. But you can often pass a class without Acing it. I don't think it's a lot to ask: Please graduate from immature parenting class before entering the class of child rearing.