I'm probably showing my non-American upbringing here, but I've got to ask: if the school is within walking distance, why are the parents involved at all? Shouldn't the children be walking themselves to school and back, starting at about age 5? If there's an actual issue with some of them dawdling or getting distracted, they can travel in packs and make better time.
Are you kidding me?
I live in a VERY safe suburb in the U.S. state of Missouri, and these days, kids don't even wait at the bus stop 20 meters from their front door without a parent present. It's quite odd.
Okay. This blows my mind. My parents had me walk to school at 5.
That said, I wait with my kids at the bus stop because it is a busy street and my youngest is 4... I was thinking I could just start watching from the porch, then window, then just send them out the door next year. I must be insane or an awful parent or something...
Yes. You likely hate your children. You monster.
LOL,
I have a business on a dock over water. Way to often the parents are yelling at their kids, get away from the water, get back here, do you want to go sit in the car, and other things I get tired of hearing. One day I had a young mother as a customer, her 5 or 6 year old boy went down the dock looking over the edge into the water, mom watched him but made no comment. I said I'm impressed that you let your kid explore without yelling at him about the water. She said ya, I'm from Colorado, we're a bit more laid back about the kids.
I related to her how often parents act crazy when there kidsget near the dock edge. We both had a laugh. I've never lost one yet.
https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1r6u9a/man_gets_arrested_for_trying_to_pick_up_his_own/That's a story I know about. Arrested? Really?
At my son's school some parents line up an HOUR before school let's out. If it's cold or hot outside the engines idle-idle-idle. If I have to pick my son up after school for some reason (very rare for us) Either I can come very early and idle-idle-idle (nope not doing that) or wait until the end of the pickup-time window otherwise traffic is a mess.
Our whole town operates a bit like this. Set off for work at 7:30 and you can be at work in no time. Wait ten minutes more and traffic is miserable.
Parents can be such a mess. Such odd relationships with self-responsibility in some cases. That snowflake effect often discussed here.
I rode my daily driver motorcycle (cheapo transport, long gone now) to an event. A parent came over to me and gave me a tongue lashing for riding it there b/c he couldn't keep his son from wanting to climb all over the motorcycle. "
I said: "hey, I'll hold the motorcycle so it doesn't fall over and he can sit on it if you want."
The father's reply was "are you crazy??? You shouldn't have brought that thing here in the first place."
I told him it was time to work on his son's discipline. He didn't like that. ;)
The older I get, the more picky I get about people. ;)