Today I wrote a blog post about kiddies running amok in cafes and restaurants and the parents who ignore their behaviour and allow others to deal with it.
Then I deleted that post without publishing.
Not because I think that respect for others is not important (I think it is very important) and not because I think it could go unsaid (sadly I think more needs to be said about treating others with respect, too many seem to have forgotten the rights of others to peaceful enjoyment).
No, I didn’t post my opinion because I suspected it would be a troll magnet, and I just don’t have the energy to deal with them.
Because that exact message of “respect for others” seems to be lost on so many people. We are all so caught up in how we have the right to be included and be able to do anything, (and I applaud both of these rights!) that sometimes people forget that others also have that right. And that we actually don’t have the right to cause distress, harm, or nuisance to others, just because we want to.
I’ve lived in houses where someone in the street plays their music up as loud as they can, ’til all hours of the night, every night… and the neighbours are too scared to do anything (sometimes even too scared to call the cops) because the police don’t live there and they have to, and the trolls will make life unbearable for anyone and everyone they think is restricting their enjoyment. Bugger the rest of us, it’s their right.
Yes, it’s called bullying, and you can probably recall similar trolls you’ve had the misfortune to meet.
Then you get the parents who take their kids out somewhere, and the kids run amok, throwing things, screaming, running into people or around them, and the parents blithely continue their own conversation, ignoring their little angels’ behaviour. And woe betide if you question this attitude!!! How dare you? And if you’re the shop owner who asks them to leave? Discrimination! (Turns out I did have to write about it after all).
Isn’t this bullying too? Yes, it’s quite subtle, because to speak out against a child behaving badly is apparently wrong these days. And the parent is obviously not at fault, you are, because who doesn’t like children? That’s evil.
And now I probably will attract trolls, who will tell me I’m a horrible person because I’m asking for the right to also have quiet enjoyment of the world.
I’ll ask the question here: are there more trolls (or sociopaths, or persons with anti social personality disorder) in the world these days, or is it just that with social media we get to meet more of them?
Falling Thought Leaves 