Hunting Easter Eggs
Easter is over, to be followed by complaints in Spout Off and elsewhere about the behavior of the children and parents engaged in the Easter egg hunts.
I couldn’t go to every Easter egg hunt. Actually, I didn’t go to any — this year.
But there are two sides to every story.
The parent(s) of a child taught to say please and thank you, a nonaggressive kid who never snatched anything out of another kid’s hand in his or her life, stands in awe as the hunt progresses.
The parent sees a child about to be terribly disappointed and led away empty-handed and weeping. So the parent either takes the child by the hand and leads him or her to an egg, or even finds one and gives it to the child.
Yes it breaks the rules. Maybe the child would be better off disappointed, but with a lesson learned. What do you think?
posted by Joe Zelnik @ 9:17 AM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
Some communities try to curb aggressiveness on behalf of the children and grown-ups by having different hunts in areas by age group. Another solution is to have one's own hunt thereby eliminating the tendency to encourage bullying. This has worked in our family on several occasions. BTW what font are you writing in? the "l"s are quite unusual.
Competition is an inevitable part of life, and thank God for it. Peer pressure can be a good thing, too, you know. It is peer pressure that makes a basketball player want to be a better basketball player. And it makes a company CEO want to produce a better product. But not every person (big or little) has a competitive spirit, and thank God for that, too. Some kids play sports; others, like my own least-competitive child, just want to play the guitar. At an egg hunt, these Type B-to-Z personalities (anything but A) tend to be perfectly content with discovering a single egg (whether they find it on their own or with parental help) -- and then going to the treats table for a juice box. Sometimes, after the discovery of that first egg, they will get into the hunt on their own and zoom around looking for other hidden treasures -- but usually not. So the questionable behavior at this point becomes the parents' -- are Mom and Dad content with their child's contentment, which also means he doesn't go home as a recognized "winner"? Do they see him as the winner he really is, and enjoy his single discovery, and let it go at that? Can they accept their child how he is and for who he is or do they take matters into their own hands, join in the competition against little people a fraction of their height, and scrabble in the dirt for eggs? Whenever I encounter these types of parents -- whether it's at egg hunts, sporting events or college tours -- I always hope they are happy in the vicarious lives they are living through their children. And I always feel for the kids, who have been made into losers by their own parents -- no matter what the parents may think.
Do you have a cap on publishing comments? Many sent, none enabled.
How about a blog on starting up a blog of your own, do one can wipe out negative comments? I can also publish poems--with their context- so the McDonald's crew won't have to read them twice over. BTW, we don't need lessons in Chinese in public schools. We have the fab-ulous McDonald's crew!
I have deleted only two comments since this blog started, one for a racist comment, one for not being on subject. This anonymous comment is not really on subject, but I used it in order to clarify my deletion process, This is not Spout Off, folks.
Joe, you're the editor. After the nonsensical -- no, make that downright stupid -- contribution of "anonymous (April 11; 11:42 a.m.)," which sure sounded somewhat racist to me, we welcome your power to delete. Delete away!
Joe, the latest comment on Easter eggs needs deletion. It rots an innocent 4/11 comment as racist. I don't see any racism in Easter eggs, just as I didn't see that 11:42 comment printed when I was re-reading your entire blog after 12 noon. Three earlier versions of my question got lost off the screen accidentally, I guess. How did Anonymous 2:01 get it so quick and rush to throw egg yolk at me?
If blog readers send me four "versions" of their comment, I pick one. As for how someone can respond quickly, all I can assume is that they have nothing better to do than read my blog. That's it. Further comments on this blog will be limited to Easter egg hunts.
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