I am not a mother.

Which is, in short, why I will not yell at your kids for you. Yes, I will ask them to be quiet, but I won’t scream at them for being noisy or for having late books or for any of the other hundreds of things kids do that annoy their parents. YOU had the child, YOU need to deal with it.

Just yesterday a woman complained that I was letting her kids run riot. I said it wasn’t in my job description to shout at children, but if I saw them doing anything dangerous I’d step in. She bitched me out for not having enough Rules and Laws and Shouting at Small Children. She said she granted me special permission to yell at her kids. I refused.

Basic reason is this: I. Could. Lose. My. Job. Yes, I could. Let’s say instead of saying “Could you guys watch the volume please?” I said “Hey you little bastards, shut the hell up or get the hell out!”, or even “Shut up or get out”. It takes one child saying “The Lady in the Library was mean to me today” and I’m out. Seriously. Take this woman I was just talking about, SHE might WANT me to yell at her kids, but if I do and someone overhears and complains? Again, gone.

It’s driving me mental and it IS getting worse: parents are expecting anyone around to discipline their kids. It seems like Mum and Dad don’t want to be tha Bad Guys so they let other people do it. Charming. I don’t plan on having kids because I would be a dreadful mother, and since I spend a lot of hours a day making sure kids don’t run out the doors, climb shelves or beat each other senseless while Mum or Dad looks the other way, I feel like I’ve had enough kids to last me a lifetime anyways.