Rampant stupidity is driving me MAD!!!

[Elita1]

I see it on the road when I drive.
I see it in restaurants and stores.
It seems I cannot escape!

And now of all places on the playground.

Now, I don't know if it's today's society, or a matter of culture or age or class, all I know is, it is getting to be a pretty common sight.
I take my toddler to the playground, a part of our daily routine. Naturally there's lots of kids around, playing and running around.
A bunch of 10-11 yr olds are swinging on swings(which usually is fine) but there's several intentionally running IN BETWEEN the swinging swings, over and over again, until one of them gets hit and goes flying. A hilarious game to them but I'm finding it rather dumb, not to mention a bit dangerous.
A couple of 15-yr old girls are also there, and climb on the swings SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR INFANTS and proceed to stand on them and swing to their hearts content, ignoring the large letters printed saying WARNING: FOR INFANTS ONLY--MISUSE OF EQUIPMENT MAY RESULT IN SERIOUS INJURIES.
They don't stop to think that the next baby that's placed in these little swings could suffer an accident. Oh, no. They're busy talking about 'nsync tickets they can't get and why that fat girl thinks she can get Tyler Martin's attention and other girl-type chatter.

But the last straw was when two boys decide to have a gravel fight and start picking up the playground gravel and hurling it at eachother, missing entirely, and showering everyone around them with rocks.
My kid and I get pelted with gravel and I lost it.
I yelled at them at the top of my lungs(because they were shouting) to stop throwing gravel because they can hurt other people.
The kids look at me like I'm insane(no surprise) and walk off to jump on the infant teeter-totter(Also ignoring the warning labels on it) and proceed to use it as hard and as fast as they can.

Now, am I completely nuts for thinking this should NOT be normal behavior???
I swear it was like nobody cared. None of the other mothers in the park said a word, so now I'm wondering if I was out of line, or if stupidity is just becoming more widespread than I imagined.
What do you guys think?
Has anyone else seen this kind of thing?

 

[woodly6]

Stupid people have stupid kids!

 

[Elita1]

Yes, but are there THAT MANY WALKING AROUND FREE???:Q

 

[frizzlefry]

No I get annoyed with stupidity pretty often and it's actually really common these days. Like when you're wakling in a store pushing your cart behind someone and all of a sudden they stop dead in the middle of the aisle and it's like "What? Yo udon't see me walking right behind you?"
Are people that dense and just in their own world to realize what they are doing?

No you weren't wrong to blow up. I constantly judge parents on the behaviour of their children. Especially when they're out of control. What I think is lacking these days is discipline. A little whack on the butt will get them inline (don't start a flame war on this subject matter, just MHO). There are alot of stupid drivers like you mentioned as well. I hardly go out these days because honestly, there are too many ignorant people out there who have no consideration and do not realize what goes on around them.

I say cheers to you for letting them know they were wrong. If I was there, I would've sought out their parents and rip them a new one!

 

[PG]

<<Yes, but are there THAT MANY WALKING AROUND FREE??? >>

Unfortunately, yes.

 

[FrontlineWarrior]

kids do dumb things. they experiment, sometimes it blows up in their face. they learn from it. that's what playing is all about. playing within the rules at such a young age might be more of a bad thing than a good thing. you don't want your child to be a slave of the MAN all his/her life do you?

 

[snakesnfrogs]

<< But the last straw was when two boys decide to have a gravel fight and start picking up the playground gravel and hurling it at eachother, missing entirely, and showering everyone around them with rocks.
My kid and I get pelted with gravel and I lost it.
I yelled at them at the top of my lungs(because they were shouting) to stop throwing gravel because they can hurt other people >>




Just imagine if the kids' parents had said something to you about &quot;it's not your place to discipline my children&quot;---we actually had a similar situation with one of the kids that lives across the street from us. I said something to her, and her dad heard me and starts yelling at me about disciplining his kid. I don't think I've ever come closer to attacking someone in my life. I told the idiot that somebody obviously needed to discipline his kid, because he sure as hell wasn't doing it and that if his kid wasn't going to act properly, then she is no longer welcome at our house. And what's worse, they have another kid on the way.

 

[pulpp]

kids will be kids, and sometimes they are bratty and like Dirf said, they might actually learn something from it as for stupid drivers and such, well, we all have our bad days, and we all act stupid at one time or another its just that you dont see ourselves acting stupid when we do it

 

[Elita1]

Dirf and Pulpp:

I know exactly what you both mean.
Kids will be kids, they often do silly things for fun, etc.
That is fine with me.

But when they are deliberately doing something that THEY KNOW hurts others, it is time to intervene

Better yet, parents, teach your kids what kind of behavior is appropriate at each place.
FOR GOD'S SAKE IT'S COMMON SENSE!

as for the driving and other public places, the same thing applies. If you are reading while driving, I don't care HOW important the document is, it is STUPID and you're going to kill yourself or someone else.

THAT is what I mean.

 

[kranky]

Good for you, Elita, for speaking up. The rest of the adults there should also do so when they see kids acting inappropriately. I don't really fault the kids (at least that age) for acting stupidly, but I really think the adults there have some responsibility to speak up. Maybe you broke the ice and the others will help support you. Perhaps you can speak to them to help rally them.

Your example of the girls on the infant swings is a good one. If the kids were told that they could weaken the equipment to the point where an infant could get hurt, they would probably quit. I just don't think kids that age are thinking about those possibilities.

 

[Viperoni]

<< If you are reading while driving, >>



you shouldn't be driving.
Simple.

 

[Elita1]

Snakesnfrogs--a strikingly similar thing happened with our neighbors.

One neighbor caught the other's kid throwing rocks at her window. She told him to stop it, and the kid runs home screaming to his mother who then came out and ripped the other neighbor a new one with some colorful language.
It's sad, really.

Kranky--thanks


Viperoni--you'd think it was simple, no? Yet tons of people go and do it anyway.

 

[urameatball]

Poor Elita1...

you're just too intelligent.

 

[Elita1]

urameatball--far from it. I just seem blessed with a bit more common sense than some

 

[kvelouria]

Elita, sometimes I think being one of the more intelligent people on the planet is more of a curse than a blessing. I mean, we're the ones who have to deal with all the morons. If we were stupid, we could live life in ignorant bliss, totally oblivious to how dumb we were.

Sometimes I wish I was as stupid as everyone else.

- KVD

 

[yasha]

I've seen less of this kind of thing when I lived in Iowa City, IA but that was Iowa!

I had to tuffin back up when I moved to the Detroit area. It's a whole nother story in and around Detroit.

 

[CinderElmo]

Common sense is something they should teach in schools IMO but they are too busy teaching about stuff like &quot;I have two mommies&quot; and sensitivity training. We are going to always have dumb kids until they get back to basics.

As for drivers -- in Denver we get the worst drivers from California AND Texas - both trying to &quot;out-stupid&quot; the other. Passing on shoulders, using exit ramps as accelation lanes to slingshot themselves further up the traffic jam, a refusal to let anyone in front of them, high speed driving on ice, finding the earliest opportunity to cut across the open space when two highways merge, blocking of emergency vehicles, and the obligatory finger can all be found just about every time you venture out on the highways. Thanks to lack of common sense no one hardly thinks twice about this stuff. Children are in the back seats of these idiots' cars (or worse are standing on the front seat looking over the dashboard while the mother blows second hand smoke in the kid's face and driving well over the speed limit) and that's where they learn about common sense.

 

[isildur]

When the government eventually wises up and starts putting contraceptive drugs into the water supply and distributes &quot;birth-pills&quot; on the basis of scoring on physical/mental testing and psychological evalution we'll all be better off.

...of course, most of us probably would never have been born, but hey...

 

[isildur]

There are fields, Neo, vast fields, were stupid people no longer live; they are herded.

 

[Linflas]

The sad truth is that back in the pre &quot;It Takes a Village&quot; days the whole neighborhood participated in the socialization of children. When I was a kid none of the neighbors would hesitate to correct childrens behavior and knew they could count on backing from the parents if it came to that. As a kid the worst thing that could happen was not that a neighbor would catch me but rather they would tell my parents because it then became you have &quot;embarassed us in front of the neighbors&quot;. Some of the parents in my neighborhood have basketball hoops out in the street in violation of both county ordinances and home owners association rules. I would have no problem with this except that unlike when I was a kid and played in the street these kids will not move when a car approaches. We knew that we needed to clear the streets when a car came and did not glare and dare the driver to hit us. If we had done that our parents would have hauled us into the house for a good &quot;talking to&quot;. Today you don't dare say anything to someones little darling for fear of hurting their precious self esteem which in many cases could use a few good bruises.

 

[AaronP]

I saw one of the funniest thing's I've ever seen today. A lady with about a 35,000 dollar lexus had a CLINTON/GORE 96 bumper sticker.

First off, why in the hell would you put a bumper sticker on a nice car, bumper stickers are reserved for junkers.

Secondly, if Clinton/Gore would have their way, that lady would be paying 50% taxes, a luxory tax on her car (which she probably paid), and do everything they could to take her riches away from her and make our country into the USSR where everybody was lower middle class.

 

[GL]

There was this Acura Integra driver who didn't want to let me merge into the one lane open on the highway this morning thanks to construction. I signalled, waved, and just forced my way in or I'd have gone into the construction work. He got pissed, decided to change into the lane I came from (thinking he'd cut me off) and proceeded to drive through the construction. Farkin idiot!

 

[kami]

Well I did this type of crap all the time when I was a kid. Not early teens but i'm talking like 9-11 or around there. Yeah it's stupid, but they're kids. Hell, I turned out fine and I'm not stupid. It certainly wasn't my mother either (she didn't know about it! ). I'd be worried if kids didn't have a little stupid fun every once in a while.

 

[Elledan]

Instincts still prevail, but since our 'intelligence' interferes with those instincts, warnings are often ignored. The result is the behaviour you described.

Only very few people are not like this. Often when a person gets older, s/he learns to control those emotions and desires, which leads to a more rational behaviour. Other people learn to control their emotions much earlier in life, but those are extremely rare.

It all comes down to self-control and rational thought.

 

[isildur]

There was this Acura Integra driver who didn't want to let me merge into the one lane open on the highway this morning thanks to construction. I signalled, waved, and just forced my way in or I'd have gone into the construction work. He got pissed, decided to change into the lane I came from (thinking he'd cut me off) and proceeded to drive through the construction. Farkin idiot!


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