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I had planned on writing about something totally different, but sitting at the 30th McDonald’s I’ve been to in the last month, I noticed a few things.  After reading the Confessions of a Comment Addict, I realized a little more personal touch might be good for a change.  The main reason I end up at McDonald’s so often is that they have free WIFI via AT&T, and I can’t justify spending $4 on a cup of coffee at Starbucks.  Another great thing about McDonald’s is that almost all of them have some sort of tube playground.  Since I end up toting my 3 year old stepson with me most of the time since I work from home, and he isn’t in preschool yet, having playground to keep him entertained is critical to my ability to get work done. That’s the main reason I end up here, but tonight is different.  Tonight I’m at McDonald’s because I’m stuck in Austin while Leah is doing a photo shoot (I’ll post the photos when I get them back, you can check out some of Leah’s other work on Model Mayhem) and the photographer finds that escorts are distracting for the shoot.  No biggie…

On to the lessons:

1)  The first thing I’ve learned is that kids understand other kids so much better than parents do.  I’m totally new to being around kids.  I don’t have any younger siblings (my brother is 8 years older than me), and I didn’t really interact with my cousins growing up.  When I married Leah, I also got the responsibility of an adorable baby boy.  As I watch JJ interact with the other kids at the playground, I realize they understand each other so well.  What seems like mindless running into walls and crazy screaming all has interpretable meaning to each of them.  It is really a beautiful thing and very funny to watch.  If you have time one day, spend a little time watching kids just enjoying the simple things in life.

2) The second thing I’ve learned is that most parents these days are more worried about what is convenient to them instead of what will teach their children to become responsible and productive members of society when they grow up.  I recall a father sitting on the other side of the playground with his nose burred so deeply in a book that I couldn’t even see his face.  His 5 year old son was climbing all over the outside of the playground (which there are signs everywhere saying not to let kids do that) and encouraging and teaching JJ to do the same.  It was like Final Destination for me… I could see JJ falling from on top of the wall and breaking his arm or busting his head.  Dad couldn’t be bothered protect his son and to keep his son from teaching others.  I know it’s normal to climb on the outside; I did it when I was a kid too.  That doesn’t make it right.  As parents we are responsible for both our kids and the things our kids do.

3) I’ve learned that technology still isn’t the norm.  Maybe it’s just the time of day I’m there or the fact that I’m using my computer at McDonald’s instead of Starbucks, but I have people come talk to me all the time about my computer.  This evening I overheard a family talking about not knowing where a movie theater was here in Austin.  I’m from Dallas and don’t know the area well, so I did what I could to help; I offered to look it up for them on my computer.  They were just blown away that there was so much information so quickly accessible on the internet.  The guy was 40, and he and his wife had five kids ranging from 2 to 19.  He said that his kids lived on the net, but he didn’t know anything about it.  He had this really regretful tone saying that he wished he had learned more about computers when he was younger and that hindsight is 20/20.  I feel bad for the guy.  He’ll never know the huge social network or the amazing amount of information that can be found because he believes it is too late to learn!  I guess it’s easy for me to say just start learning because I’ve grown up with computers, but seriously, that’s what he should do.  Just because you’re not a kid doesn’t mean it’s too late to become internet savvy.  There are hundreds of sites and resources that give tutorials on how to do just about anything on a computer.  I wish I could change that guy’s attitude.

4) Screaming children get whatever they want.  I mean it.  I don’t know when parents lost their guts, but I see parents give into temper tantrums 95% of the time.  This is ridiculous.  If I threw a tantrum like some of these kids do, I wouldn’t have even seen the doors at McDonald’s for a month and probably gotten my butt spanked.  I see parents worry about their kids being their friend or being happy, and it’s going to turn their kids into spoiled brats with no sense of responsibility or consequences.  Our job as parents is first to teach our kids what they need to know for life and second to be a friend.  When you get to school, crying your eyes out or screaming isn’t going to get you a better grade.  When you start working, tantrums certainly won’t get you a raise or make someone buy from you or make your boss change his or her mind.  I’m no expert, but I think too many parents reinforce throwing a fit gets their kids what they want.  It is tragic.

5) The final thing I have noticed is that there is plenty of opportunity to help other people if you’re willing to look for it.  Sometimes it’s helping people with information like in the case I mentioned above.  Sometimes it is helping people who are short on money get one more burger.  A guy saw me working and asked if he could have forty cents, so he could buy a burger.  I’m not fond of giving money to people, but what was he going to do with forty cents other than buy a burger.  After I thought about it for a few minutes (yes, I am really that slow), I realized that guy probably wasn’t going to get enough food to eat from that one burger he could buy with forty cents.  On my way out I ask if he and his friend (who I later found out was his brother) had gotten enough to eat.  Turns out they fallen on some hard times and were on the street. For some reason I just don’t like giving money to people, but I will buy people food (Leah likes to carry a couple of little snack baggies around in the car with us just in case we come across someone in need).  Those brothers were so amazingly thankful for getting a little extra food, and it hardly cost me anything.  There are always people you can help.  If you get the chance, do it!

My props today go to the people who do the right thing, even when it isn’t what is most convenient to them!  I would love to hear about your opinions on the parenting or helping others in comments!  Also if you liked this post please feel free to retweet it!

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