Business in the front, party in the back.

Maybe I am getting old. All right, I am getting old. I took my kids to Chuck E Cheese for lunch today and realized that I am apparently one of the more conservative parents. Hell, I always prided myself as being one of the cool ones. I don’t know about buying beer for the high school party or taking my son to a brothel on his 16th birthday but certainly not a fuddy-duddy.
Firstly, I am surprised, nay shocked at the fashions imposed upon kids by their parents. Look, I know we all dress our kids how we want, not them, and for good reason. At first, they don’t know any better and later….well, they still don’t know any better. We all see the parents who give their kid the ridiculously out of style hairdo, these days it’s the mullet. For those who don’t know what it is a mullet is long in the back and short in the front. Depending on where you are from it’s called “Camaro hair”, “Hockey hair”, “Tennessee top hat”, “Kentucky waterfall” and my personal favorite, “The Missouri Compromise”. I had a mullet once, so did most of my friends. This was a long time ago when we thought they looked good. Now we know better. Imposing this on a kid who doesn’t know any better is cruel and unusual. My mom still has that picture of me from 1969 with the sweater vest, plaid pants and bowl haircut on her mantle. I cringe every time I pass it.
Another thing is jewelry. How much jewelry does a 2 year old need to wear? I saw a 3 or 4 year old boy with a huge diamond earring (more on this below), a gold chain that I could lock my bike up with and a shirt with a bikini-clad mock prostitute washing a car. I won’t get into the 10 year old girl with the thong showing. There was an infant girl, 6 or 8 months old, wearing 3, yes I said 3 gold chains on the outside of her little party dress. What the hell is that? Do children need to boost their self worth with flashy status symbols? I guess they do, the question is why.
As far as the little boys with earrings, I now see why my dad was so pissed at me when I came home with an earring at 15. It must have looked absolutely ridiculous. A 2 year old with an earring? Come on! What if your 10 year old wanted a tattoo? Should they get it? How many high school age kids get them now? A lot, that’s how many. I thought it was illegal to tattoo a kid under 18. In 20 years it will apparently be so accepted that people will take their 5 year old to a tattoo parlor to get a some “tribal” tattoo on their arm because they think it looks cool.
And don’t get me started with these kids and their crazy Rock and Roll music…….