Kids Are Annoying

Today I wanted to applaud a parent.

She turned to her child, who had been talking non-stop for five solid minutes while her mother was filling out a library card for her and said—

“Sophia, you’re being annoying.  Stop.”

I could barely suppress my joy.

Because, you see, I have never heard a parent call their child annoying and yet all I see all day are children being annoying.

I get the sense that parents feel using the word “annoying” to describe children is the same as calling them “jerks” or “assholes.”  That it’s not appropriate.  Or, maybe it feels a little like bullying, to just come right out and say a kid is being annoying.  Or maybe they feel that kids are inherently annoying—that it’s just a part of growing up, and so why try to stop it?

But as someone on the outside looking in, I long to hear a parent just tell their kid that talking in a baby voice or hopping up and down for no reason or climbing the walls is not okay.  I don’t need to see anybody get hit or anything, just a well-placed, icy takedown will do.

And today I got it.

And it was glorious.