I was inside a Taps food outlet one afternoon and right away, I saw that almost all the tables were occupied. Not only that, at least on five of these sat families and couples with little kids. After making sure I wasn’t intruding (as a children’s party might have already been in progress), I hurriedly placed my order and then proceeded to the end of the vast room.
Now, if one has ever been inside a kindergarten class, you’d already have an idea of the amount of energy brimming inside. All I can say is with the former, I truly admire the teachers who take on all these little firecrackers on a day to day. The atmosphere inside the restaurant was exactly that. While the kids were almost in full volume at whatever children these days were concerned about, the elders were amazingly cool about it. Still, you wouldn’t believe the ruckus that could come out of four-year old kids. Even as they sat on different tables, I felt like drowning in virtual waves of varying decibels.
Then I wondered, surely, kinder classes aren’t really all like this, is it? It merely must be that the parents in the room are just being the Millennials and Gen Z types that they are, cool and caring amid the storms brewing in front of them. A case in point, while a young one shouts directly at her mom for taking away her tablet, the young mother shushes her ever so coolly and distracts her with a treat. The young dad merely smiles.
Totally unheard of with dads and moms from the boomers and the X men generations. Years ago, I once saw an X mom drop her groceries at the counter with no fanfare at all and hastily leave her child behind when it started to roll on the floor, having a tantrum. That stopped the baby cold, as it ran after her departing figure. However, in the case of boomers, just ask around. Tantrums were almost non-existent in the day. A glare from a parent might yet be the least of one’s troubles for bratty kids during our time.
The thing is, there is no right or wrong in all these; just charge everything merely to the changing times. For old men who now appear almost like time travelers in this modern era, I’m sure they just cannot help but wonder, what the hell is going on here?
As I finally rode the 5:00 bus for home, a similar scene slowly unfolds as graders and other students begin to board along the route. It’s as though everyone is talking all at once, you just have to lean on the window and try to busy yourself with the idea that every passing image outside is one step closer to home and a little quiet. Once you get there, you realize there’s still the street dogs yelping crazily to worry about, but that’s for another time.
