Oh! Colombo 

In general, parents, mostly mothers bring along their offspring to cafes and restaurants. The majority of children are well behaved and if they do start misbehaving the parent reprimands the child and the misbehaviour comes to a halt. Then come the children from hell whose behaviour is totally unacceptable and the parents neither flinch, check or reprimand the child. Such misbehaviour can be quite irksome to the other clientele in the establishment who have come to relax, read a book whilst eating or drinking a beverage. 

Recently, to an Eatery arrived four women with two young children, both boys, who when entering the premises were making a huge racket. The expectation was that the adoring mothers would quieten them down and quiet would return. This did not happen. The four women placed their order and continued with their animated conversation and did not seem to give a hoot about what the two children were doing or how loud they were disrupting the entire restaurant. They were throwing sugar sachets around in addition to swallowing a couple of sachets which would have contributed to their hyperactivity. A few others who had come in to spend a peaceful afternoon in the Eatery realized that the mothers could not care less about how their children behaved settled their bills and took off to some other place to work in peace. The looks of annoyance on the faces of the other patrons did not faze the beloved mothers. It was quite a disgusting sight to witness and even worse to think that the parents did not care. 

Out of curiosity I accessed a Child Psychology website to learn what leads children to behave so badly. The explanation I found was "these children are not just ill-mannered, they are whiny, selfish, arrogant, rude, defiant and violent. Most of them are also miserable, as are their parents. Such disgraceful behaviour in young children predicts serious problems later in life. As adolescents they are more likely to drop out of school, use drugs, engage in delinquency and be clinically depressed". 

When I read newspaper articles about road rage, commuter rage and office rage it seemed apparent to me that many out-of-control children are growing up to be out-of-control adults. 

Quite frightening, isn’t it? I sincerely hope that such types of parents and children are few, since in the context of this world such turmoil is very alarming.