Rules to Follow While in Public with Your Children

Dear Woman Who Brought ALL of Your 4 Kids to the Doctor’s Office:

I understand that finding someone to watch your kids can be hard. Heck, I only have one and it was hard back in the day to find someone to watch her. But I do have some tips for you on how to handle your children should you have to take them in public.

1. Never under any circumstances should you leave the 2 year old girl in charge of her two older brothers. Do you really think she holds any type of authority over them? Let’s just say they were throwing books all over the waiting room (which they were) and let’s say that the little tiny two year old told them to stop (which she did), they will not listen (which they didn’t).

2. Should you need to have your children come sit down next to you, you might want to get up and go get them. Yelling for them across the entire waiting room isn’t really what you want to do. And a word to the wise, making eye contact with other parents and feigning complete shock that the angels are not listening is wasted feigning. Save that for when you get called to the school for a parent/teacher conference.

3. I admire the fact that your brought your sister with you to stay with the kids in the waiting room while you took the baby back to see the doctor. You might want to tell her that it is kind of rude to be talking on her cell phone with her baby’s daddy ON SPEAKER PHONE to find out “exactly what he is so pissed off about” and just how long he plans on staying “pissed”. This was the pediatrician’s office and some parents look down on the language that was used around their children. (On a side note, you might want to tell your sister, that if she washed her child’s hair more than once a month, that the food that was caked in it would come out and help the child smell better.)

4. When you feed your baby and your 2 year old gold fish crackers and they drop them on the floor, I would suggest you pick them up. But if you are not going to pick them up, please do not let your children and your sister’s child grind them in to the carpet. That’s just rude.

I hope you find these tips helpful. They don’t apply only to doctor’s offices. No, they will apply to anywhere that you might find yourself.

Very Truly Yours,

Melissa