"Tell Me The Secret Or I Won't Like You"

My experience with children is exceedingly limited. I'm an only child and I have no children of my own. My only experience with children is mostly with the children of customers, most of whom are very nice, well behaved young people and one or two who are utterly bratty. Like adults, its the worst ones that remain in your mind long after the nice, well behaved ones have left.

Take for example young, Jordan. Six years old and already a terror given to doing what he pleases, when he pleases and who treats adults as his momentary playthings. His mom is one of those soft-spoken parents who never disciplines him and tries to reason with him on any subject. Thus Jordan runs amok while mom has no control over him.

Lately he's been trying to crawl behind the front counter. He thinks this is highly amusing and, since he regards the store as a playground and the employees and people who are waiting all day just for him, he will crawl past large, heavy boxes and other work-related things without any thought for the person behind the counter. I've put a stop to this by saying "Oi! Back the way you came from, Chokey!" Eventually his mom caught on and, when he started complaining that he ought to be able to crawl behind the counter, tried rationalization with him "Now, Jordan, Paul's working back there. Perhaps when you're older you can get an application and get a job here and then you can be behind the counter, too." Then she apologized to me about her son's behaviour to which I replied "You must apologize to people a good deal." This pithy comment was, naturally, lost entirely on her.

Now Jordan has taken to crawling in front of the counter and springing up all sudden like. He's all giggly and filled with the fun and high jinks of the moment. Me, I couldn't care less. Disappointed in not startling me into a coronary, or at the very least, acting like I was simply thrilled to see him, Jordan wanted to know how it was I knew he was crawling in front of the counter. "Well," I replied, continuing about my task. "I'm an adult and you're a child. Children aren't smarter than adults, no matter what you may think. I don't have to pay much attention to know what you're up to. Besides, you made more noise than a herd of elephants." Jordan was not satisfied with this answer and the logical conclusion was that I had some secret way of knowing what he was doing and he demanded to know the secret or "I won't like you." He looked very grave when he said and clearly he intended not to like me. "Let me get this straight. If I tell you this secret you'll like me and if I don't tell you you won't like me. There's no secret but all the same, if you don't like me I won't lose any sleep over it." He insisted I tell him the secret "because I told you to." I replied: "Children don't tell adults what to do. Adults tell children what to do. Go away." He ran away but he'd frequently return to insist I tell him the secret or he wouldn't like me or because he told me to tell him. I just ignored him.

By the time his mom had purchased her things and come round to collect him, Jordan was working himself into a fine temper. She turned to me and said "Is there some communication issue here?" WTF? "Your son seems to think I have some secret and that I should do what he says simply because he says to. Is that a commuincation issue?" Jordan, after the rationalization process did not work, was lead screaming from the store. I guess he won't like me now.

I would never have behaved like this with an adult or in a public place with my parents. If I had I would have been in serious trouble once my parents and I got into the car and probably worse when I got home. I remember being introduced by my father to a man and calling the gentleman by his first name. I didn't know any better but I was still mortified when my father gently corrected me about the etiquette concerning children and their relationship to adults. Now we're all equal, whether we're six or sixty. I still would never consider calling anyone in their seventies or eighties anything other than "Mr." or "Mrs." unless I was told by them otherwise. It's a sign of respect and civility, something which seems to have gone right out the window these days, hastened by the Jordans of this world.