As many of you know, I blog from the library. It's an interesting study in human behaviour, as I watch others in the library as well.

Quite often, parents will bring their children to the library with them. They will sit the children next to them as they get on the computer, and surf for hours, expecting total silence from their child who is sitting in front of a computer they are entirely incapable of using. While it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect such silence for a 15 minute email session, this isn't usually the practice of these parents. The children begin to get restless with nothing to do, and the parents utter threats to the children, exasperated that their children are not the perfect little automatons they thought they'd be getting.

My oldest two children head to the library with me as well, but they head up to the children's section and read. If there is a problem, they come to me, and if we must leave the library, I wrap things up and go. The kids are more important than my surfing.

I have to wonder how many of the tales we hear about out of control kids aren't simply kids on the tail end of a marathon session of being dragged around by mommy and daddy from place to place, and not being allowed to speak, play, or do anything but sit in silent compliance. Maybe, just maybe, when they hit the grocery store, they've just been pushed too far.