Little Emperors

A couple of days ago I was walking along the Fulham Road with a friend. A school bus pulled up in front of us and a teacher sprang out, ahead of a seemingly unending stream of teenage boys and their baggage. The party blocked the pavement, forcing my friend and I to stand and wait until every child got off the bus, while the teacher barked out intructions: "Straighten that tie" "Tuck that shirt in" (all of which were completely ignored by the boys), but totally failed to say what I would have thought was obvious - "Hold on a second and let these ladies get past". Eventually the last boy jumped off, the teacher stood aside, the bus pulled away, and we were left in front of a pavement still blocked with a gaggle of boys and their sports-bags and had to walk in the road to get past. The teacher thanked us for our patience but it didn't seem to have occurred to him that it was the boys who should have shown some patience and stood by to let us pass.

Then on the tube last week. It was very crowded and a seat in front of me became vacant. I was about to sit down, when saw a woman holding onto a young child. The girl was about six and the woman looked tired, so I stepped back to let her take the seat, assuming she would sit with the child on her knee. But no. Children these days don't like to share seats. The woman thanked me, then plonked her daughter in the seat and remained standing herself. I was pissed off as I had no intention of giving up a seat to a perfectly fit and healthy child and recalled all those childhood years of giving up my seat to anyone older.

Are children today less sturdy, less capable of maintaining their balance when on public transport, less strong? Or is it that children today are less polite, more indulged by their doting parents and totally unrespecting of adults.

A hell of a lot of parents today seem terrified of their own children. They act as though desperate to make their children like them and this engenders a fear of telling their kids off, so they end up pleading and trying to reason with their errant offspring. This is creating a hostage to fortune and is based on the erroneous assumption that if you are always nice, your offspring will love you more.

But then what do I know?