I am a parent of two boys
so often I do those things that I hated other people for doing
like walking slowly with a big stupid smile on my face as my toddler runs around the airport

long before I was a parent I worked with kids in an afterschool program in colorado

as part of my job I would go with the the school bus to pick the kids up at the local elementary school

it was my job to keep them in line

usually the most quiet child would be rewarded for being quiet
being quiet is easier for some than for others
so I tried not to just reward children for their nature
but also reward them for their effort
it worked pretty well
then one day I thought that it would be fun to switch it up
I decided that the kid who was the most loud would get off the bus first
while the person who was least loud would be last
this was proposed
the kids agreed
the bus driver allowed it

IT WAS INSANE!
boys and girls screaming at the top of their lungs as loud as they could
high pitches that could nearly shatter glass
along with the masses of basic screams

children turned red from the expenditure
while other children turned red and cried
it was painful
my ears were ringing
but there was no stopping it
there was no way to try and put the genie back in the bottle
I tried consoling the kids who were crying
I glance at the bus drive who had always liked me
but may have known that I was a little different in my methods shooker her head and smiled

we arrived
the children were released in the order of both effort and nature
maybe after the kids who were trama tized to tears

but that was a school bus
with no one on the bus but the kids

we are always trying to share with kids things that existed in our time

balsa wood airplanes at the five and dime
or battle ship with graph paper instead of the metal version of the sixties, the plastic version of the seventies, or electronic version of the eighties

songs like that did not really make sense in my time
so much of the seventies was parents trying to raise their kids on the ideas of the fifties
it almost worked because we were all watching Happy Days
but the times were different

the times are different now
if you want the kids to sing
they have a song that they would all want to sing
but please… not in public at the expense of others

I bet the bus driver would have stopped the bus
okay… wrong washington