From Defective Yeti:
I was surfing Flickr and stumbled upon this photo. Naturally, I immediately emailed it to everyone I knew.
It seemed to elicit two distinct responses. Some immediately boarded the lollercoaster; others said they could hardly look at the photo, it made them so sad. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that parents were largely of the first opinion, and folks without kids of the second.
Hmmm. I’m a parent, and I think I agree. Even though I thought, “Poor things,” I laughed. Why? Is it because I am inherently evil? Well, there’s that. But it’s also that the kids aren’t really being hurt — they’re just protesting something normal, the way Ben suddenly doesn’t “like” hamburgers anymore, or will refuse to wear a perfectly good shirt and will instead insist on one that is faded and too small (particularly if we are going somewhere important). It’s one of those things that you start to know when you are a parent, that the kid is fine. I don’t want to downplay the indignities that all children suffer — even I know that sniffing Maya’s butt in public to check her diaper isn’t exactly the epitome of tact and taste — but let’s face it, it works both ways. When I was about 7 years old, I was sitting in the back of our pickup while my mom was talking to a public official, and I thought it was pretty funny to rip off her carefully tied bandana to reveal her flyaway hair underneath. Fast forward 12 years and my parents came to my (preppy, private) university in matching camo jackets and a dead deer in the camper. That time I put my gerbil on my mom’s arm while she was fixing someone’s hair at her in-home salon? Let’s just say what goes around, comes around.
The reality is that we try to keep a straight face sometimes, and sometimes it’s pretty damn hard, so when it’s someone else’s child and they aren’t present to be hurt — well, what can I say? I laughed.
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