*This write-up and random smackdown happened years ago, but with nuts carrying guns into public places every other week, who’s to say it can’t happen again? *
It was the slap heard around the world. Well, around the Web, anyway. Whose jaws didn’t clank to the floor when they learned about 61-year-old Roger Stephens, the man who repeatedly slapped a two-year-old—the defenseless child of a complete the stranger! –in a Georgia Wal-Mart after curtly warning the child’s mother, Sonya Mathews, “If you don’t shut that baby up, I will shut her up for you.”
He slapped the girl, “four or five times across the face” according to police reports and then told the woman, “See, I told you I would shut her up.”
Not since Me, Myself & Irene has such an absurd scenario been imagined (or carried out). There are many who felt that Stephens was as wrongas two left feet (and possibly insane) and deserving of his own severe slapping at least, and others who felt a twisted sense of vindication, since he’d finally carried out what many have felt tempted to do when publicly confronted with an unruly child.
I can tell you this writer would have certainly caught a case of the crazies if some random jackass had the nerve to step to me in that manner. I don’t even want to detail in print what would happen if Stephens or any individual put a finger to my three kids. But I understand the annoyance at parents who seem to have no interest in teaching their little darlings how to behave in public. Though one
survey indicated some 90 percent of parents spank their toddlers. (Even Kate Gosselin whacks her kids now and again.)
What Stephens did is not a social condition limited to Gwinnett County Georgia, obviously. And I’m not insinuating that the toddler in question even qualifies as unruly. I mean, we are talking Wal-Mart here. Who hasn’t dodged the brother and sister as they run squealing through the store aisles. Or sat in a quiet place fighting to concentrate on your crossword puzzle because the obnoxious preteen behind you is gabbing loudly on her cell phone, or gritting your teeth as you endure that chatty preschooler fifteenth question in a row while their parent offers nothing but an indulgent smile as if to say, “Isn’t he just precious?”
And the last time I checked, two-year-olds do have occasional, unexplained fits of crying. But there is a major difference between young children who are still learning how to act and children old enough to know better. But much of the behavior is the fault of mothers and fathers who fail to understand that the word ‘parent’ is both a noun and a verb.
No one expects perfect behavior from adults or children, but what is required amounts to consistently displaying traits like courtesy, restraint, and respect for themselves and other people.
As the mother of three reasonably-behaved children (okay, one’s an infant, but she’s still pretty good for her age), I know from experience that kids need parents, not another set of peers. Teach them to clean up after themselves and help their younger siblings dress in the morning. Explain the virtues of honesty and empathy, while you show approval for the good things they do and discipline fairly when they fall short of the ideal.
Because if these lessons aren’t taught, these now-adorable children grow into arrogant, impulsive adults who have no qualms about being rude, intolerant of others and sometimes, physically striking out to exact the results they feel entitled to achieve.
Usually, we just avoid these people and call them “jerks”, but in other cases, they earn a new moniker “criminals.” And if anyone doesn’t believe it can happen to their little angels, they’re mistaken. Just ask Roger Stephens.
