Commanding Miracles

It's like the parents are the peasantry.
And their kids are mighty warlords who eat the flesh of others.
Why else would one be so afraid of the other?
I do bask in my cynicism from time to time, sure, but try this out:
I'm in Starbucks.
I'm sitting in this cultural trend when I hear a commotion, stage left. I look.
There's a little girl - she's maybe four.
And she's on the floor, sitting in the entrance of the building.
Right in front of the security beacon things ('He took a french press, get him!').
She's saying in her kid-pissy voice (you know how they get), "No! I'm not ready to go yet!"
Guess she wanted another grande vanilla chai latte (I can't make the little hat over the 'e').
Which I can understand; I can never have just one either.
And the mother is hunched down to the kid's level, and she's reasoning with her.
"But it's time to go," and these sorts of witticisms.
So, now there are two people blocking the doorway.
One who is socially permitted to be irrational, and another who must be a dental assistant.
Ouch. Below the belt.
Apologies to any dental assistants who are reading this.
And are able to keep up.
I see scenes like this and I wish that all mothers were like my mother.
The kid weighs 35 pounds.
Why are you holding up traffic?
If this was me when I was four, my mother would have leaned real close to me and said, ever so softly, "You get up off of that floor, now."
She didn't need to shout.
She sure as fuck didn't reason.
She didn't negotiate.
And if she said that in her tone, it was psychologically equivalent to taking a switchblade and lightly grazing it over my cheek.
Parents are such gutless turds these days.