Anyway most of the humour in the strip is because I recognise and empathise with the situations or they are poking fun at social issues - like a sequence last year where they took banned books to the extreme ....
Yesterday's strip is actually quite disturbing and not at all funny. But it is a message that definitely needs to get "out there" and be recognised.
http://www.unshelved.com/archive.aspx?strip=20080728
19 comments:
Absolutely spot on. Some parents think they are looking after their kids and completely fail. When it is pointed out to them, they completely fail to get it. There ought to be some kind of test for potential parents and this guy just failed!
I think I've had this conversation in the last couple of days.... But yet, those of us that keep our kids in check (there's me and 2-3 others) face the likelihood of getting into trouble because restricting them is dangerous to their self esteem. So hurt or dead but with a healthy self esteem is our goal here?? WTF?? People seriously need a wake up call and/or a headectomy...
{shaking my head} And the worst part is that people won't get it, even pointed out like this...
I'm guilty of reading my email and letting the kids do whatever at home, but not out in public. In public I'm one of those hovering parents who doesn't let them get more than 10 feet away from me... but it is definately exactly what seems to be going on...
I think this is definitely important to get this message out regarding libraries. So many adults, especially older adults still consider a public library "safe" like it was when they were young. When I was working in a public library, every day we would deal with parents who had told kids "I'll meet you at the library after school" (kindergarten kids!) Or - you go play in the library while I go shopping.
And these are the exact same parents that would be screaming for blood if something *did* happen to their child!
When will parents and grandparents get it through their heads that libraries are not "safer" than any other public area. They are not "magical sanctuaries".
Oh boy am I glad that I dont have kids any more. This world is definitely becoming scarry.
I well remember going into a shop when my oldest was a couple of weeks old and leaving the pram outside. Comeing out of the shop and walking home and then remembering that I'd forgooen something???????? Whoops no pram. She was still where I left her. That was 1967. Today? Heaven knows what would have happened. I dont envy you with children.
We have a rule in our house that the kids have had drilled into them - "If you can't see me, I can't see you." I hate taking them to our library because they have a big "Castle" in the middle of the kids area - just TRY to keep track of three kids going in three different directions with a castle in the middle... UGH!!! Usually, I plan library trips so it's just Andrew and Emily with me. Much more relaxing!!!
Oh, and I still can't look at anything I might be interested in reading. It's the kids area or nothing there...
My kids have been drilled on the "I must be able to see you at all times" rule too. But Nathan is old enough and independent enough that he 'forgets' to follow it and it irks me. I have chewed him out repeatedly for hiding in clothes racks at the store.
My big one used to hide in the racks, too, until I really lost him one day, and it was all I could do to not kill him when I did finally find him - right there the whole time. My little one, on the other hand, won't let me get out of site anywhere, even when we're out walking the trail with the dog - he gets a rock in his shoe, one of us has to stay within sight while he fishes it out. But he's also still afraid of the dark somewhat. I try to give him a gentle nudge every now and then, try to help him get over it. His brother, of course, makes fun of him - it's not funny.
I remember when Katie was little she would wander off in department stores. I never lost her, but I got tired of trying to make the point that she HAD to stay with us. One day, my sister and I watched her wander off in her own little world and we moved just out of her sightline but where we could still see her and get to her quickly. It took her about 5 minutes to come out of her own little world and realize that she was alone. It was horribly hard to watch her little face crumple up in distress but it did the trick. She never again wandered off out of my sight.
And in tune with my rant - here's today's strip. And yeah it sooo resonates with everyone I know who has worked or is working in a public library - especially the last panel.
http://www.unshelved.com/archive.aspx?strip=20080729
Karen, do you live far enough away from the city to see the stars? There is a meteor shower every year in August, called (I think) the Leonids. If you could get the little one out, without big brother, to watch the 'shooting stars', you might be able to have a good conversation with him about how beautiful the stars are and if it was not for darkness, we could never see them. Try to find positive things about the darkness that he can think about rather than scary things.
Yeah, it's usually dark enough! I'll have to try that! Though he had no interest whatsoever in the eclipse - but that might've been because it was kind of cold out. I just wish, since he's 11, that he'd grow out of some of it; some days he has, some days he hasn't. Maybe if he and his brother spent less time killing monsters on WoW, he would - but he also has a terrific imagination, and I don't want to dampen that at all....
Man, you're not kidding - but that last bit is in any service industry. #1 reason why I hated working retail when I was in school - you don't like my answer, even though it's 100% the truth, so you talk to my manager, who's going to tell you the exact same thing in a different way. Did the message coming from higher up make you feel better about being an asshole?? People kill me....
What is worse is when your Manager publicly berates you for "upsetting the parent".
Which is SO helpful to "educate" said parent.
What is it with the fact that we can just roll over everyone who works in any form of the service industry, because we think they are our slaves?
I *only* get annoyed at retail salespeople when they work on cashes and talk to someone for five minutes longer after the customer has already paid and packed up. At my shopping centre you have a lot of people who know cashiers and will hold them up for ages...
And I'm really trying not to be rude about them either.
Oh I get rude about that :) I can't stand it when I have an hour only to take a lunch break and I get caught in a queue for 20 or 30 minutes because the cashier is chatting to a customer about their mutual friends or kids etc etc ..... ie non-work related.
Drives me batty!
I had a manager at the jewelry store who yelled at our whole department one night for not selling anything to a couple of punks who wandered around the store for a couple of hours. They came back the next night, with uzis, and smashed through the glass cases and stole what they wanted - 1 got shot outside the store but managed to escape. I tried to tell her they were casing the place, but she wasn't having any of it. Hope she's managing some crappy fast food place now.... I wasn't there that night - I had class, though one of the girls had called me to see if I could work for her....
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