...a post-modern classic...

As I sit in Starbucks writing this, a cherubic yet ironically demonic white-blond three year old is shrieking at the table next to mine. Her parents and grandmother stare dazedly and make no move to discipline her. They offer bribes of butterfly cookies and sips of Americano espresso (by the way, good job that: give the already hyperactive maniac a registered dietary stimulant).

It leads me to wonder when parents became such pushovers, when they stopped knowing how to handle their children. It also, amusingly, makes me question why it is so politically incorrect for well-meaning strangers to step in with a friendly "shut up kid", or at the very least a gentle yet firm "nice people don't do this in public".

Walking around malls or stores with my friend Natalee and coming upon similar situations, we reminisce about how this kind of thing would not go ignored in our respective home communities (the close-knit neighbourhood in Tehran where my entire family lived within 3 blocks of one another, and Natalee's quaint hometown in Jamaica). In both of these communities, minor acquaintances would have had no qualms in grabbing us when we misbehaved and whopping us on the backside before taking us by the wrist and delivering us to our parents, where they would inevitably stay for tea.

That sort of behaviour by community members was always anticipated, and I think appreciated. Maybe there is something to that idea of a village raising the child. I feel those kids can only benefit from having multiple influences and caregivers, and where one person might hesitate to enforce discipline, another more lacking in patience will have no such hesitation. It's a win-win situation.

And if that doesn't work, I'm always in favour of bringing back more of that good ol'fashioned ass-whopping.