Where are your parents?

I have a pet peeve. It's unattended children at the playground. Let me be more specific: it's unattended older children at a playground full of much younger and much smaller children.

Children at a playground tend to forget themselves. They're so busy having fun that they lose sight of things like fairness, manners, and the throngs of smaller munchkins surrounding them. They are unable to attend to anything that lies outside the realm of their world which, at a playground, is solely focused on having fun. Actually, I'm wrong. They see everything, but they have no compunction against running over anything that lies between them and the slide.

I understand. They're kids, I know. They're meant to have fun. Excitement supercedes consideration. Their minds haven't developed to that point of sophistication where they know when they're being brats. But their parents' have. So I ask: where are they?

Perhaps I'm being a fud. I'm a crotchety curmudgeon. Even so, I have four things to say to that young boy. 1) You are old enough to know how to wait your turn. 2) You do not push children half your size out of your way. 3) NO ONE pushes my daughter out of the way, especially when I am watching. 4) If your parents aren't there to tell you when you've crossed the line, I will. (Heaven help us, I really am turning into my grandmother.)

Now, I commend you for listening when I warned you to let the two children who were ahead of you to go down the slide first. You're not a bully - that's good - but it's time for you to start understanding that the world does not revolve around you.