there is a report on the news right this very minute, disrupting me from my meme, saying that children are not doing well in school because they are not getting enough sleep.
*pause*
well NO SHIT. they're running around the video store at nine, ten, eleven o'clock at night! they're there with mommy and daddy, who are renting them dora the explorer and barney! i am not kidding you. there is one little girl, this absolutely beautiful little blonde girl, very sweet and polite and well-behaved and all the things you don't expect children to be today, who comes in with her mom and stepfather every sunday night, and if they show up before eleven, d and i look at each other in shock. honestly. she doesn't seem to be tired, running around close to midnight, and i have to wonder what time she goes to bed because they usually buy her a kinderegg or soursucker or something. she's clearly old enough to be in school, altho' she's really tiny and probably much more mature than her age, and i can't understand what the hell her mom is doing running her around at that time of night.
that's the most extreme case, as they're often one of the last customers in the store before midnight, but there are countless toddlers and preschoolers and kids my niece's age who are out and about far after they ought to be at home in bed. and it PISSES ME OFF. i know my nieces are at home in bed by nine. i know i was in bed (or at least laying on the couch in my pajamas) at nine when i was a kid - and i was the kid in the class who stayed up the absolute latest. i know my girls have to do their homework right after school on gym nights because they leave at eight, go home, have a snack, and go to bed. what the hell is wrong with the people dragging their two-year-olds and five-year-olds and nine-year-olds around at ten o'clock at night because they've decided they need a game to play or a movie to watch? if you can't resign yourself to being at home and putting the kids to bed for the next ten or twelve years, DON'T FUCKING BREED.
sorry, i know, i'm getting old and crotchety. but the fact that someone has only just now noticed this because kids aren't getting high enough test scores (at ages when i'm pretty sure we had never had such a thing as a test, btw, but that's another story) is retarded. i've been watching it for the five years i've worked at a video store. what rock is everyone else living under?