The preface of this blog can be found by reading the following articles or having knowledge on the situation. Park Slope parents are banning ice cream vendors and Mr. Softee from their neighborhood to avoid confrontation and temperamental breakdowns with their children.
Summer is one of the seasons that has the most promise no matter what age you are. For adults there is the beach, day drinking, tans, long warm days; and for kids there is the no school, the beach, the park, swimming and . . . the ice cream man. It does not matter where you are, the trancelike music of Mr. Softee can be heard from any room of the house and you immediately find yourself [and millions of kids] running out the door like the rats to the Pied Piper (I am excluded from this being as I am lactose intolerant L). Kids like ice cream and nothing says summer and youthful bliss than the ice cream truck.
Yet, like everything good in life there is always someone trying to take it away. Park Slope parents, I am talking to YOU! The parental residents of Park Slope, Brooklyn got so fed up with their temper tantrums from their churns that they decided it is easier to sign a petition banning all ice cream vendors (and joy) from their neighborhood rather than to tell their child ‘no’.
What is that about? Instead of disciplining your child and instilling some humility and, I don’t know, RULES, it is easier to sign a petition and infringe on someone’s livelihood and constitutional right to make a dolla? (I get so fired up about constitutional infringement that I start to speak in colloquialisms.) It really is upsetting how people are more comfortable crushing dreams of small business owners rather than teaching their child a valuable lesson that you can’t get everything you want when you want it. The quam the parent’s have is that they do not want to go to a park to have a nice day with their child (BRAT) and have it be ‘ruined’ by the sight of an ice cream cart that will immediately send their child into tears if they cannot have one. Now to me, this scenario shows a bigger problem. Why can your child not be told ‘no’?
This just goes to show you that anyone can have a child, but not everyone can be a parent! Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Being a parent means you have to play both good cop and bad cop, you fill your child up with confidence but also humility, morals and lessons. Anyone who is older than the age of ten can tell you, life is not about always getting what you want. In reality, you seldom get what you ‘want’ but you realize what you can do without and what you have is sometimes better. But these little brats aren’t being taught any lesson other than the fact that their parents are certifiable and that it is better to destroy small business and remove a ‘problem’ rather than to solve it.
If this is how the new generation of parenting is going to be, then I am really fearing for my hypothetical children’s future. What happened to the good old days where people stood up for what they believed in to get more rights and give future generations brighter hope? Is our society so far gone that we replaced social causes (like found in the beat generation and those who fought to end segregation) with just selfishness to make our lives easier because we can’t tell our children ‘no’?
I had an amazing childhood. I was given everything I needed, I did chores to get certain toys, I did my homework after school, I received good grades; I was in no way spoiled but I did not go without. Yet every now and then my parent’s would tell me I could not have something, and sure, I would overreact and put on a show I am sure, because that’s what kids do! But that does not mean you need to run and buy your child every toy or every ice cream cone or burn down the business they come from. Life and parenting are a balancing act. You cannot always say yes and you cannot always say no, but you certainly cannot go around banning businesses from areas just because your child is ill tempered. What will happen when they grow up and go away to college with the social graces of some royal who feels entitled to everything?
Please, think of the small business and our economy. It is more than ‘small business Saturday’, lets keep it local, help the little guy, and fight for our freedoms as Americans. Lets fight for our childhood selves that (even lactose intolerant) would get giddy over the Mister Softee music.
