Spoon-fed

Just Ask Me

By IVY JACOBS

Times Co-Editor

While in a local restaurant recently, the following incident transpired:

MAN: What do you want to eat?

20-SOMETHING KID: (Staring into a phone screen without looking up) Yeah, you do it.

MAN: I don’t know what you are in the mood for.

20-SOMETHING KID: Do it. I said I’m busy.

WOMAN: Just tell your father what you want.

20-SOMETHING KID: Are you people stupid or something? Just order for me.

If I had done that to my parents, the world would have stopped and gone in slow motion as I received the consequences for my rude actions, not to one parent but both.

I don’t know what would have happened to me as an adult, but I know there would have been consequences of some type.

What happened next floored me.

As an adult with my parents, I would have paid for my meal if I had been short on money for the entire bill. This person did not do any of that but remained with his nose on the phone.

If I were the same age, I would have paid the bill for everyone to eat. At that age, I should have been employed and treated my parents to dinner for everything they did for me as a child. That used to be a high point, a big deal of growing up. I did not do it out of guilt but because I loved them and wanted to return the favor.

While waiting for the food, he didn’t speak or interact with anyone. He just stood there holding the phone.

When the food came, that kid went off on his parents and the people at the restaurant, a so-called real “Karen.”

“I don’t want this,” he growled at his elder parents. “I don’t even like chicky nuggets. You think I am a kid, or what?”

I thought, ‘Yes, you are a kid—a brat, as a matter of fact.’

I wanted to assault that “child” as the tantrum continued, but I kept those thoughts quiet as he questioned his parent’s mental capacities and demanded the restaurant make what he wanted to eat.

What made it worse was that he demanded the parents pay for the new order.

I was seething inside. I could have shoved that food order down his throat or up another region on his body and left him standing there. The parents didn’t; they sheepishly paid for the new order and quietly sat down.

I felt embarrassed for them. Honestly, what could they do? The time to correct that type of behavior was 15 years ago.

The realization that you raised a monster and set this rude and disrespectful brat into the world has to be tough.

It is a different world than 50 years ago.

I know what would have happened back then.

The “man-child” would not have gotten away with that.

I don’t support physical violence on children, but some kids need a ‘swat’ to get their attention. There are other ways to show discipline that can be just as impactful.

My parents would have at least walked out, leaving me to stand there with the bill to pay. There might not have been a car in the parking lot to go home! You can learn a lot walking home five miles in the rain.

This is what our society is becoming.

Some incredible young people are growing up right now, but they are outnumbered by “disrespectful spoon-fed brats” who think they are entitled and everything should be handed to them even if they are in the wrong. They believe they have a right to “blast” others for what they perceive as bad, yet they do not accept having their behavior “checked at the door.”

According to the dictionary, Spoon-fed means having food inserted into one’s mouth to their detriment, like a spoiled child.

I did not insert myself into this family drama; it is not my place to do so.

Yet, I watched a small scene of what is going on in this world, and this movie sucks.

We have lost the ability to respect others, and that is sad.